💭 Microwave Weapons That Could Cause Havana Syndrome Exist, Experts Say
Russia and possibly China have developed technology capable of injuring brain and a US company made a prototype in 2004
Portable microwave weapons capable of causing the mysterious spate of “Havana Syndrome” brain injuries in US diplomats and spies have been developed by several countries in recent years, according to leading American experts in the field.
A US company also made the prototype of such a weapon for the marine corps in 2004. The weapon, codenamed Medusa, was intended to be small enough to fit in a car, and cause a “temporarily incapacitating effect” but “with a low probability of fatality or permanent injury”.
There is no evidence that the research was taken beyond the prototype phase, and a report on that stage has been removed from a US navy website. Scientists with knowledge of the project said that ethical considerations preventing human experimentation contributed to the project being shelved – but they said such consideration had not hindered US adversaries, including Russia, and possibly China.
“The state of that science has for the most part been, if not abandoned, pretty much left fallow in the United States – but it has not been fallow elsewhere,” said James Giordano, professor of neurology and ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Giordano, who is also senior fellow in biotechnology, biosecurity and ethics at the US Naval War College, was brought in as adviser by the government in late 2016 after about two dozen US diplomats began falling sick in Havana. He later took part in an assessment for US Special Forces Command on which countries were developing the technology and what they had achieved.
“It became clear that some of the work that was conducted in the former Soviet Union was taken up again by Russia and its satellite proxies,” Giordano said, adding that China had also developed directed energy devices to test the structure of various materials, with technology which could be adapted to weapons. A second major wave of brain injuries among US diplomats and intelligence officers took place in China in 2018.
Giordano is restricted from giving details on which country had developed what kind of device but he said the new weapons used microwave frequencies, able to disrupt brain function without any burning sensation.
“This was important – and rather frightening – to us, because it represented a state of advancement and sophistication of these types of instruments that heretofore had not been thought to be accomplished,” he said.
If a US adversary has succeeded in miniaturising the directed energy technology needed to inflict tissue damage from a distance, it makes such weapons a more plausible explanation for Havana Syndrome.
More than 130 US officials, from the state department, CIA and national security council (NSC), have suffered from symptoms, including dizziness, loss of balance, nausea and headaches, first identified in Cuba. The impact on some of the victims has been debilitating and long-lasting.
Some of the most recent incidents have involved NSC officials experiencing crippling symptoms in broad daylight in Washington. The state department, CIA and Pentagon have all launched investigations, but have yet to come to conclusions. A National Academy of Sciences report in December, found that the Havana Syndrome injuries were most likely caused by “directed pulsed radio frequency energy”.
Sceptics of the microwave weapon theory have pointed to decades of US efforts to build such a device during the cold war and since, without any confirmed success. They have also argued that a weapon capable of inflicting brain injury from a distance would be too unwieldy to use in urban areas.
However, James Lin, the leading US authority on the biological impact of microwave energy, said a large apparatus would not be needed to focus energy on a small area, heating it a minute amount and causing “a thermoelastic pressure wave” that travels through the brain, causing damage to soft tissue.
The pressure wave would initially be experienced by the target as sound. Many of the US diplomats, spies, soldiers and officials whose symptoms are being studied as part of the Havana Syndrome investigation reported hearing strange sounds at the onset of the attacks.
“You can certainly put together a system in a couple of big suitcases that will allow you to put it in a van or an SUV,” Lin, professor emeritus in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Illinois, said. “It’s not something that you need to have enormous amounts of space or equipment to do it.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on June 23, 2021
PRESS STATEMENT
NED PRICE, DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON
The United States is gravely concerned by reports that dozens of civilians were killed or injured during a bombing of a village market in northern Tigray on June 22. We strongly condemn this reprehensible act. There are also credible reports that security forces denied medical personnel access to the victims of this terrible attack. Denying victims urgently needed medical care is heinous and absolutely unacceptable. We urge the Ethiopian authorities to ensure full and unhindered medical access to the victims immediately. We also call for an urgent and independent investigation, as well as remedial action, to hold those responsible for this attack accountable. The United States again urges an immediate ceasefire in Tigray, unhindered humanitarian access, and protection for civilians.
💭 History repeats itself again and again: Even though you are kind to the wicked, they never learn to do what is right.
[Isaiah 26:10] “Though the wicked person is shown compassion, He does not learn righteousness; He deals unjustly in the land of uprightness, And does not perceive the majesty of the LORD.”
32 years ago, as part of Mengistu Haile Mariam’s strategy, the 1984 man-made famine was seen as an opportunity. Denial of humanitarian assistance and indiscriminate massacre and bombing was used to take advantage of the opportunity the famine created. A prominent example is the bombardment of the market town Hawzen, on the very day of June 22, 1988 on market day, killing more than 2,500 innocent Tigrayan civilians. By coincidence?
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on June 15, 2021
💭 Ethiopia: Hunger + Pandemic + Sex ‘Used as Weapons of War’ in #TigrayGenocide
FOR MONTHS humanitarian agencies have been warning that famine could spread in the Ethiopian region of Tigray if government forces and allied troops from neighboring Eritrea did not end a brutal campaign to subjugate the area. Now that emergency has arrived. U.N. agencies reported last week that more than 350,000 of Tigray’s 6 million people are living in famine conditions, and 2 million more are at risk. Some 140,000 of those facing starvation are children, according to UNICEF, which says 33,000 are at imminent risk of death.
This humanitarian catastrophe, which U.N. officials say could rival the epic Ethiopian famine of 1984 if not arrested, is a deliberate result of the military campaign waged in Tigray since late last year by the government of Abiy Ahmed and the allied Eritrean regime of Isaias Afwerki. According to U.S. and U.N. officials and press reporting, the forces of the two governments have burned farmers’ fields and stores and slaughtered or stolen livestock. They have also systematically blocked aid deliveries to the parts of Tigray not under government control. Eritrean forces, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator Mark Lowcock said last week, are “trying to deal with the Tigrayan population by starving them.” Food, he told the Reuters news agency, “is definitely being used as a weapon of war.”
Forced starvation of children is only the latest atrocity Ethiopian and Eritrean forces have resorted to in what, so far, has been a failed effort to crush the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which has controlled the region for decades and dominated Ethiopia’s government until Mr. Abiy came to power in 2018. The United Nations has also reported mass rapes of women, massacres of civilians, and ethnic cleansing. More than 2 million people have fled their homes, leaving their fields behind. Tigrayan men are being rounded up and summarily executed.
The United States and other Western governments have attempted in vain to stop this scorched-earth assault. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began publicly demanding the withdrawal of Eritrean and Ethiopian militia forces from Tigray soon after taking office; Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a confidant of President Biden, was sent to lobby the Ethiopian ruler. Last month, Mr. Blinken announced visa sanctions against Ethiopian and Eritrean officials involved in abuses or the blocking of food aid. The European Union and United States have suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
None of it has worked. Mr. Abiy promised in March that Eritrean troops would leave Tigray, but they are still there. So are Amhara militias from a neighboring Ethiopian region that have engaged in ethnic cleansing as well as blocking food. Journalists reporting on the atrocities have been arrested or expelled from the country. Meanwhile, China and Russia have blocked action by the U.N. Security Council, which — to its shame — has yet to publicly meet on the Tigrayan crisis.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is among those warning of another massive Ethiopian famine. “We cannot make the same mistake twice,” she said last week. “We cannot let Ethiopia starve.” Mr. Blinken pledged “further actions from the United States” if “those responsible” for the crisis did not “reverse course.” Though Ethiopia has been a valuable U.S. ally, the Biden administration now has no choice but to take that action.
No African issue has absorbed as much time in the early months of the Biden administration as has the ongoing—and avoidable—tragedy in Ethiopia’s Tigray province. President Biden was forceful and correct in calling for an end to the “large-scale human rights abuses” occurring in Tigray, including the widespread sexual violence and the need for Eritrean and Amhara forces to withdraw from the province. Now, the administration is stuck in the tough position of considering sanctions that would cut off funding to the country from the U.S., its allies, and the multilaterals, which could risk further delegitimizing and destabilizing an already fragile government.
Nonetheless, the decision to impose visa restrictions on Ethiopian and Eritrean officials who are responsible for the atrocities in Tigray is an appropriate action, and a watershed given Ethiopia’s long-standing role as a key regional ally. There is clearly scope for ratcheting up the sanctions if Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2019, does not deescalate the conflict and follow through on his commitments to senior American officials, including Senator Chris Coons and Special Envoy Jeffery Feltman.
A next step could be along the lines recently advocated during Congressional testimony by John Prendergast, the human rights activist and co-founder of the Sentry, in which he called for carefully targeted Magnitsky sanctions. Such sanctions would include asset freezes on Ethiopian and Eritrean officials and their national and international networks through which they perpetuate the conflict and benefit personally.
The principal dilemma for the Biden administration is how to mobilize pressure on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to induce him to end the conflict and the suffering without turning Ethiopia—the largest recipient of American development assistance in sub-Saharan Africa—into a pariah nation.
A PARIAH NATION?
In addition to the visa sanctions, the administration has shown a willingness to walk a diplomatic tightrope of pressuring the Ahmed government, reportedly imposing cuts in security and economic assistance and extending $350 million in food aid in hopes of fending off starvation in Tigray.
Perhaps the most difficult decision facing the administration is whether it should cancel a $500 million investment that the board of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (USDFC) approved in January that enabled the Vodafone Group Plc to win a new mobile-phone license issued by the Ethiopian government last month. It would be a mistake for the Biden administration to cancel this financing.
💭 “The chairman of the committee, Bob Menendez, said: “We believe in fact these are war crimes. We cannot turn blindly away when such things happen in the world.”
💭 „He said it also took great notice of comments by the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, “who has termed the conflict a ‘genocide’ against the Tigrayan people“.
US increases pressure on Ethiopia with sanctions imposed and congressional oversight
US President Joe Biden’s administration is conducting a review into possible war crimes committed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a senior official told Congress on Thursday.
“We have a fact-based review under way that is being conducted very quickly and the secretary of state will have the final determination,” Robert Godec, acting assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told the Senate foreign relations committee.
Washington takes “extremely seriously” comments by UN Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on “atrocities that may well amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity”, Mr Godec said.
He said it also took great notice of comments by the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, “who has termed the conflict a ‘genocide’ against the Tigrayan people”.
Fighting in the region is approaching its eighth month and the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate.
Ethiopian and Eritrean troops, along with allied militias, began an offensive in November against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
The fighting has displaced about two million people and left 5.2 million in urgent need, the UN says.
Human rights organisations such as Doctors without Borders and Amnesty International have documented cases of sexual violence, extrajudicial killings and massacres, as well as the use of starvation as a weapon.
“We are acutely aware of the need to determine whether the conduct meets the legal standard for atrocities or war crimes,” Mr Godec said.
The chairman of the committee, Bob Menendez, said: “We believe in fact these are war crimes. We cannot turn blindly away when such things happen in the world.”
Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Centre, said a war crimes conclusion by the US government would go a long way in increasing pressure on Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 24, 2021
The United States has announced visa restrictions on Ethiopian and Eritrean officials who are accused of fuelling the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Thousands of people are estimated to have died in the six month-long conflict there between national troops and the region’s Tigray and People’s Liberation Front, with tens of thousands more having fled to Sudan.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 6, 2021
Delegation members have met some of the refugees who have fled across the border to escape the conflict in neighbouring Tigray at Um Rakuba camp in Sudan’s Gadarif state.
🔥 Prepare For a Massive Refugee Wave and a Return of The Horrors Of ISIS as Ethiopia and Eritrea Will Likely Descend into Chaos as a Bloodbath Ensues for US/NATO Control in Africa
👉 The chance of US intervention into the Horn of Africa region is very high
🔥 As predicted, things worsens and the country descends into a brutal civil war between the Tigray, Amhara, Oromo and Somali groups. This naturally is used to justify “humanitarian intervention”, so NATO and friends get involved and raze Ethiopia and Eritrea. Thousands die, the current food/famine situation goes from bad to nightmare mode, and fighting continues for power and Ethiopia becomes a war zone between what could be the Republics of Tigray, Amhara, Afan, Ogaden, and Gambela.
🔥 Sudan and South Sudan, sensing the blood in the water and wanting to maintain water access on their ends due to Ethiopia’s position as the motherland of the Nile, get involved and start taking pieces for themselves.
🔥 Meanwhile, countless people have died of famine, the conditions are the worst in all of Africa, and people are begging to leave. The region, which is now a combination between rebel occupied or US/UN/NATO occupied, becomes the worst place on the planet, and then suddenly, people begin to migrate, encouraged by the US/UN/NATO.
🔥 The Ethiopian dam project is in the dustbin, parts of Ethiopia- possibly some of the above mentioned pseudorepublics -go to Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia, meanwhile Ethiopia gets the “Gaddhafi treatment” given to Libya back in 2012 as “rebels” take control, and just like in the days of ISIS, the liquidations of common people in horrible ways are back on camera. The world watches in horror, except instead of Arabs and Semites, its Hamites and Afro-Semitic peoples who are suffering. The world watches in horror.
🔥 Referring to the Nile drying up, remember that wars often do not help human or natural circumstances. In fact, there is a strong chance that even if the US does blow up the Horn of Africa, it will not stop the environmental factors other than to worsen them. In other words, Egypt will still starve- it is just that they will be joined by the sub-Saharan African neighbors.
💭 Prepare For A Massive Refugee Wave And A Return Of The Horrors Of ISIS as Ethiopia And Eritrea Will Likely Descend Into Chaos As A Bloodbath Ensues For US/NATO Control In Africa
Back in 2015, Walid Shoebat wrote about a massive food crisis coming to the Middle East, where the Nile would dry up and millions would suffer.
You can read the full piece here. It is particularly interesting in light of developments taking place in Tigray that I have written about, where Tigrayans are crying ‘genocide’ as the fighting between Tigray against Ethiopia and Eritrea intensifies as the world watches with a sympathetic eye towards Tigray.
You have heard this from me over and over at Shoebat.com. I am going to say it again- watch for Ethiopia to start appearing in the news like a floodgate. Forget about the Chauvin trial and Black Lives Matter when it happens, because if this happens- and there is a strong chance it will -it is going to be world-shaking.
Ethiopia’s basically been in the middle of a long, historic, and like with many African conflicts, a brutal war between the formerly dominant Tigray ethnic group (where the WHO director Tedros is from) and the eastern region of the country. Ethiopia, as I have explained, straddles the US/NATO and Soviet blocs of influence, and now that things are losing control there again, they are ripe for exploitation. It is not a surprise that Biden’s foreign policy wing, from what it seems, is shifting a huge chunk of their attention there.
Basically, the rebellious group (Tigray People’s Liberation front, or TPLF) seems to have baited Ethiopia’s current and inexperienced leader into overplaying his hand by acting overly aggressive against them. This makes it so they can claim persecution as part of a an attempt to regain power in their region after having had been ousted decades ago. It seems they have succeeded, as Ethiopia started the war with the public relations “high ground” following TPLF attacks on an Ethiopian military base along with rocket incursions into Eritrea (and hence is why Eritrea became involved). However, because Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took a very strong hand against the TPLF without properly managing the image of the situation, he and Eritrea both have lost control over the public relations side, not to mention some of their own soldier’s actions. In other words, the militaries have mostly won the conflict, but lost the image battle. This is particularly serious considering that the TPLF has been used historically by NATO, such as during the 1970s and 1980s as proxy fighters against the Soviet-supported Derg that overthrew Haile Selassie and set up a communist dictatorship.
Just look at the news. CNN recently had an exclusive interview with the leader of TPLF. The TPLF also had a particularly strong relationship with the Obama administration, and remember, Biden has naturally maintained strong ties with the previous administration he was Vice President for.
Will the US put troops on the ground? I have suspected as much, but it would most likely all be done in the context of NATO- think Bosnia 1994 but more serious. The UN may have her own peacekeepers there too, but no matter what happens, at this point, where the USA goes NATO as a whole also goes.
Either way, the situation is bad, and the chance for intervention is very high. For example, consider the following situation as a possible, but clearly not inevitable scenario-
Ethiopia puts down the TPLF rebellion and occupies Tigray. Separatist movements move into the underground, as they gain support from the US and NATO as the “international community” condemns Ahmed. Ethiopia, Eritrea, and puts sanctions on them. Ethiopia continues to have sporadic bouts of violence both with Sudan and within its own borders as conditions in the country continue to deteriorate. Some of this is happening/may happen in the near future, such as with the major refugee crisis that has developed already.
A Tigray insurgency akin to IRA begins, and at the same time, the various other inter-country and border ethnic groups, particularly the Oromos and Somalis, start their own rebellions. In response, Ahmed tries to keep control and he cracks down and starts arresting opposition and leadership. IN response, the US/NATO uses it to accuse him of further “human rights abuses: while the media promotes the political line. As predicted, things worsens and the country descends into a brutal civil war between the Tigray, Amhara, Oromo and Somali groups. This naturally is used to justify “humanitarian intervention”, so NATO and friends get involved and raze Ethiopia and Eritrea. Thousands die, the current food/famine situation goes from bad to nightmare mode, and fighting continues for power and Ethiopia becomes a war zone between what could be the Republics of Tigray, Amhara, Afan, Ogaden, and Gambela.
Sudan and South Sudan, sensing the blood in the water and wanting to maintain water access on their ends due to Ethiopia’s position as the motherland of the Nile, get involved and start taking pieces for themselves. Egypt was already involved in the military action because she is the second largest recipient of US aid after Israel (and honestly, an Ethiopian denial of Egyptian water demands would be an attack on the image of US power projection abroad, which the US will never allow to happen), and now the nation is just a shadow of its former self. The Ethiopian dam project is in the dustbin, parts of Ethiopia- possibly some of the above mentioned pseudorepublics -go to Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia, meanwhile Ethiopia gets the “Gaddhafi treatment” given to Libya back in 2012 as “rebels” take control, and just like in the days of ISIS, the liquidations of common people in horrible ways are back on camera. The world watches in horror, except instead of Arabs and Semites, its Hamites and Afro-Semitic peoples who are suffering. The world watches in horror.
Meanwhile, countless people have died of famine, the conditions are the worst in all of Africa, and people are begging to leave. The region, which is now a combination between rebel occupied or US/UN/NATO occupied, becomes the worst place on the planet, and then suddenly, people begin to migrate, encouraged by the US/UN/NATO. Where do they go? Sure enough they are being invited by Germany, France, England, and all of the European Union plus the US to migrate. The US does her part too, of course, and the nationalist in Europe and the US begin to become angry again, nationalism rises as people flood in and crime increases…
..And sure enough, it’s 2015 and 2016 all over again, except much larger and more serious. Plus, it just happens to have the added effects of flooding the area with German/Italian/French/American industries involved in the rare earth metals business, as well as other goods needed for war. To that, Russian and Chinese investment in the region, both being well-known and acknowledged as geopolitical threats (especially the Russians, since they have been making inroads into Ethiopia for centuries as a part of their own plans and struggles with Germany) are kicked out again, and left with the options of basically trolling western powers instead of actually having real power to influence the destination of those parts of the world by their own national actions. Russia continues to move further into isolation as does China, except the Russians are more serious because they know what is at stake and continue to play their side carefully in preparations for a coming global war. Meanwhile, the US and NATO militarizes the whole region, continuing already existing trends such as the French re-militarization of their former colony in Djibouti.
This is just one scenario. But it is a very possible scenario. No matter what happens, however, the chance of US intervention into the Horn of Africa region is very high. Remember that back in 1993 the US was there for similar reasons (the Black Hawk Down incident), and in this sense, nothing had really changed, except the natural issues I mentioned before are closer to being realized than in the past.
Likewise, referring to the Nile drying up, remember that wars often do not help human or natural circumstances. In fact, there is a strong chance that even if the US does blow up the Horn of Africa, it will not stop the environmental factors other than to worsen them. In other words, Egypt will still starve- it is just that they will be joined by the sub-Saharan African neighbors.
Ethiopia’s government on Thursday faced mounting pressure to withdraw troops from the northern region of Tigray amid growing reports of war crimes in an embattled area that now faces a humanitarian crisis.
Criticism of the conduct of government troops and their allies from neighboring Eritrea grew after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted Wednesday that “ethnic cleansing” has happened in parts of Tigray.
“The challenge in Ethiopia is very significant, and it’s one that we are very focused on, particularly the situation in Tigray, where we are seeing very credible reports of human rights abuses and atrocities that are ongoing,” Blinken told the foreign affairs committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Although Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed expressed concerns about the actions of the fugitive leaders of Tigray, Blinken said, “the situation in Tigray today is unacceptable and has to change, and that means a few things. It means making sure that we are getting into the region, into Tigray. Aid workers and others … to make sure that the people are cared for, provided for and protected.”
Eritrean troops as well as fighters from Amhara, an Ethiopian region bordering Tigray, “need to come out,” he said, adding that the region needs “a force that will not abuse the human rights of the people of Tigray or commit acts of ethnic cleansing, which we’ve seen in western Tigray. That has to stop.”
There was no immediate comment from Ethiopian authorities.
But the fugitive leaders of Tigray seized on Blinken’s comments, issuing a statement on Thursday condemning what they called “the genocidal campaign” targeting their people.
“Thousands of civilians have been massacred, hundreds of thousands forcibly displaced from their homes, civilian installations and Infrastructures systemically destroyed,” said the statement posted on Twitter by Getachew Reda, one of the fugitive leaders of Tigray. “Despite shamelessly protesting its innocence and profusely promising to allow access to humanitarian agencies and international investigation into allegations, Abiy Ahmed’s regime and its partners in crime have only stepped up their war crimes and crimes against humanity in recent weeks and days.”
A senior Ethiopian diplomat on Wednesday quit his post in Washington over concerns about the reported atrocities in Tigray. Berhane Kidanemariam, who served as the deputy chief of mission at the Ethiopian embassy in Washington, slammed Abiy as a reckless leader who is dividing his country.
Accounts of atrocities by Ethiopian and allied forces against residents of Tigray have been detailed in reports by The Associated Press and by Amnesty International. Ethiopia’s federal government and regional officials in Tigray both maintain that each other’s governments are illegitimate after the pandemic disrupted elections.
The conflict began in November, when Abiy sent government troops into Tigray after an attack there on federal military facilities. No one knows how many thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict.
Humanitarian officials have warned that a growing number of people might be starving to death in Tigray. The fighting erupted on the brink of harvest in the largely agricultural region and sent an untold number of people fleeing their homes. Witnesses have described widespread looting by Eritrean soldiers as well as the burning of crops.
