Child Mask Mandates Have No Clear Benefits And Cause Harm, BMJ Review Finds

  They kept telling us "Follow the Science!" all over the world, almost unanimously, although of course there was no science. 

  The real virologists, Dr Malone in the US, Dr Montagnier in France and many, many others were silenced while the ones paid by laboratories were non stop on television.

  That was then. You would think people have learned since? You would be wrong. The next pandemic will prove this although now it will of course be much harder to convince most people. We don't even know the name of the latest variant! 

  But the science about the consequences of the Covid madness is much less kind and starting to show up. A generation of children has been badly damaged, individually, in their ability to learn but more ominously socially, in their ability to live with others.   

  Does it matter? Hard to tell. The social, economic, technological and military problems are piling up so fast that in the end, maybe not!  

  Still, you would believe that elected governments in democratic countries would have the interest of their citizens at heart but that would be very "last century" as a concept. Today's governments are promoted jet-set applicants working on behalf of their corporate sponsors. The wet dream of Mussolini and his fascist colleagues with their vision of the fusion of government and large corporations. 

  They did it, Benito! Although of course the future will look nothing like the futuristic one you were dreaming about. Democracy is messy but free people are happier on their own than even the kindest tyranny can achieve, because they find solutions that the most well intended political systems from communist to fascist never seen to be able to stumble on in their technocratic pursuit of social perfection. And still the machine marches on, ignoring its mistakes, blinded by the light of salvation which always seems to be far ahead at the end of an endless tunnel. Burning bodies to save souls in the Middle Ages, now they are burning souls to save bodies. Is that what we call progress?

Authored by Guy Gin via DailySceptic.org,

A new systematic review has been published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, one of the journals of the British Medical Journal, by Sandlund et al. titled ‘Child mask mandates for COVID-19: a systematic review‘.

Since no randomised controlled trials have even been conducted on child mask-wearing or mask mandates, the authors systematically reviewed observational studies and included 22 in the final analysis: six found child mask mandates were associated with lower rates of infection; the other 16 didn’t.

But the studies that found they didn’t weren’t just greater in quantity; they were higher quality too.

Of the six studies reporting a significant negative correlation between masking and COVID-19 cases, five had critical and one had serious ROB [risk of bias].

Of the 16 studies failing to find a significant correlation, one (6.3%) had critical, 10 (62.5%) had serious, five (31.3%) had moderate and none had low ROB. [emphasis added here and below]

In short, almost all studies with critical ROB had pro-mask results, while all studies with moderate ROB did not.

Table 2 below gives a breakdown of the various types of bias the reviewers found. The six studies with pro-mask results are listed first.

All six studies reporting a negative association were potentially confounded by crucial differences between masked and unmasked groups, including the number of instructional school days, differences in school size, systematic baseline differences in case rates in all phases of the pandemic, testing policies, contact-tracing policy differences and teacher vaccination rates.

Almost all these confounds seem to apply to the worst of the bunch, Jehn et al., who found “the odds of a school-associated COVID-19 outbreak in schools without a mask requirement were 3.5 times higher than those in schools with an early mask requirement”. Unfortunately, this study was so bad even pro-maskers interviewed by the Atlantic said it was embarrassing. Among its many problems was that even though the study period was July 15th to August 31st 2021, “Some [schools] didn’t begin class until August 10th; others were open from July 19th or July 21st. That means students in the latter group of schools had twice as much time — six weeks instead of three weeks — in which to develop a Covid outbreak.” No wonder the researchers didn’t want to share the raw data.

That study was published in the U.S. CDC’s in-house propaganda rag Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, but even prestigious peer-review journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) have published similar rubbish by pro-mask scientists who gerrymandered results through a conveniently selected study design, as Sandlund et al. explain.

The Boston observational study [Cowger et al.] stated they could infer causality between lifting school mask mandates and increases in student and staff cases by using a difference-in-differences technique. However, a subsequent reanalysis called the methodology and results of this study into question and failed to find the same association when expanding the population to include the entire state or using different statistical analysis and also found the initial study’s results were likely confounded by differences in prior infection rates.

Interestingly, whereas as all pro-mask studies with critical risk of bias were done in North America (five in the U.S.; one in Canada), most of the studies with the lowest risk of bias were done in Europe.

In a Spanish study of almost 600 000 children, the researchers did not find a significant difference in cases between unmasked five-year-olds and masked six-year-olds; instead, case rates correlated closely with the age of children, which was also observed in another Spanish study. … A lack of significant association between masking children and risk of COVID-19 was also reported by the U.K. Department of Education. … A Finnish study compared case rates in children with and without mask mandates in 10-12 year-olds, and the authors found no reduction in COVID-19 case rates when mask recommendations were extended to include 10-12 year olds.

All this means that Sandlund et al. come to the inevitable conclusion that “real-world effectiveness of child mask mandates against SARS-CoV-2 transmission or infection has not been demonstrated with high-quality evidence”.

But the issue of child mask mandates isn’t just about mask effectiveness; it’s about potential harms too, such as negative effects on language learning and communication.

Mask wearing causes reduced word identification and impedes the ability to teach and evaluate speech. There is a link between observation of the mouth and language processing, and people of all ages continue to focus on the mouth when listening to non-native speech.

Masks may also have negative psychological effects on children too.

There is also evidence that masks hinder social-emotional learning and language/literacy development in young children. Children with special-education needs and autism may be disproportionately impacted by mask requirements as they rely heavily on facial expressions to pick up social cues. Misinterpretation of facial expressions increases anxiety and depression in individuals. School environments with mask mandates were also found to have increased anxiety levels compared to those without mandates.

Additionally, the physiological effects of masks may be worse for children than adults.

In addition, mask wearing has been associated with physiological harm — many of which are more frequently reported in children than in adults — which may have multiple negative downstream effects, including reduced time and intensity of exercise, additional sick days, reduced learning capacity, and increased anxiety. Masking has also been found to lead to rapid increase in CO2 content in inhaled air — higher in children than in adults — and to levels above acceptable safety standards for healthy adult workers, which may rise further with physical exertion.

This leads to a simple cost-benefit analysis of child mask mandates.

• Costs: potentially language learning and communication issues, worse psychological well-being and negative physiological effects.

• Benefits: None

In conclusion, Sandlund et al. recommend that “Adults who work with children should be educated about the lack of clear benefits and the potential harms of masking children”.

Even though it would be too little too late, it’d be nice if some of the various governments around the world that forced kids to mask followed this recommendation. It’s a shame they won’t.

Tucker Carlson interviewing Alex Jones (Video 15')

 

 The elites are voluntarily crashing our society to take control.  

 Well if he is not right, let's say that what's happening now looks suspiciously like what he is describing. 

 Now as discussing in a previous post, 2030 is still very far away. Before that you have 2024...

Dr. Michael Nehls: The Indoctrinated Brain

 As I have been arguing for 3 years now, there was more to the Covid crisis than meet the eyes.

Dr. Michael Nehls: The Indoctrinated Brain

December 7th, 2023

When you talk to normal people nowadays, do you notice that something has gone very wrong?

Dr. Michael Nehls argues that the Covid operation is actually a mind control program that involves the coordinated use of media and neurotoxic substances against billions of people.

The Indoctrinated Brain: How to Successfully Fend Off the Global Attack on Your Mental Freedom by Michael Nehls MD PhD

I’ve struggled for years to determine the real motivations behind the Covid operation.

Profits, kill off and power… These are all obvious. Of course, it’s all of those, but they seem insufficient when considering the audacity and scale of Covid.

Covid is much bigger than all of these things, which have been going on, quietly, mentioned on little Internet backwaters like Cryptogon for decades.

With Covid, they came for billions of us all at once.

This is planned. This is on purpose. This is not a coincidence.

Are we days away from 3WW? (Video 42')

  Although he tends to be extreme, I like Canadian Preper because he highlights facts which mostly come just under the radar and are ignored by most medias.

  If, as he said today, Friday, Dec 8th, 2023, Netanyahu is indeed planning to let extremist Zionists people storm the Mosque of the Dome in Jerusalem in the coming days, then it's unavoidable, the 3rd World War will start either before the end of the year or soon after.

 This would explain why Putin just went to Saudi Arabia and the Iranian President is in Moscow today. Either you stop this from happening or the gates of hell open soon after. 

 The chances? 50/50 

 But this would change little, the chance to stumble into a World War in 2024 are very close to 100%

 This is not by accident that this blog is called 4th Turning. We have in fact reached a fundamental inflection point. Sometimes in 2024, the Western financial system will explode. The Western elites know this of course and understand that before it happens, the world MUST go into emergency mode and the only way to do this is war. 

 We may have months left or we may have weeks. But the trillions of dollars of debt are all coming home to roost. That part of the story is already in the cards.

 How we play it will be decided in the coming weeks, before the end of the year.

 Prepare yourself, 2024 will be a year to behold!

 

WW3 HAS BEGUN: CIA/ NUCLEAR EXPERT- ANDREW BUSTAMANTE (Video 42')

  Amazing interview! The guy looks and sounds like some kind of later day hippy but articulates a deeper, well thought analysis of current affairs without overstatements which is quite convincing. His point about a 3WW by proxy is especially interesting since this is indeed exactly what we are seeing if you look rationally at what is going on. The interesting corollary of such analysis is that we are less on the edge than people such as his interviewer, the Canadian Preper, would like to believe.  

 He also introduces nuances in a polarized discussion by explaining the ambivalent relations between the Gulf Arabs and Iran which I can confirm are real. I remember a few years ago seeing hundreds of boats crossing the Strait of Hormuz daily taking manufactured goods to Iran and bringing food to Oman and the Emirates showing that Iran is far less isolated than some would like to believe. 

 And these voices of reason and analysis, between media propaganda and internet hysteria is what unfortunately is missing in our world today. Well worth listening to!

 

Rothschild Wants Merger Between Corporations, Governments And AI To “Save Capitalism”

   Ever wondered who really runs the show in the shadow? Behind most Western governments, corporations and the WEF? Why is Israel untouchable? Follow the money!

  All the "saving-the-Earth" nonsense has one goal in sight, consolidating the world structure and their power above all. In the long term, this never works. But they are not aiming at the long term since as Keynes famously said, "In the long term, we're all dead." The next 100 years we'll do for now. And with the help of AI, nothing seems impossible.

 Brandon Smith alt-market.us

By Brandon Smith

If you’re not familiar with a little organization called the “Council For Inclusive Capitalism,” don’t worry, most people have never heard of it. The group was formed at the height of the covid pandemic; as fear instilled by government officials and the media propagated the news feeds, the majority of the public was rather distracted. The CIC is essentially everything that conspiracy theorists have been warning about for years packaged into a single Orwellian entity, complete with dramatic piano music and a mask of humanitarian philanthropy.

The basic root function of the council is to centralize most or all major corporations (corporations with global influence) and join them with governments into a network that places ideology over profit motive. Some people might argue that corporations need to adopt a shared value system instead of simply roaming around like sharks devouring whatever they can sink their teeth into. But who gets to choose the set of values that corporate behemoths follow?

The CIC is a physical body representing the action arm of the ESG concept. It is meant to create incentives and punishments for the business world based on their compliance with the values of globalism and woke socialism, as well as their submission to the climate agenda. I have written about this issue extensively, but my article ‘What Is The “Council For Inclusive Capitalism?” It’s The New World Order’ is probably the best overview of the group and their intentions.

The idea is simple: Bring the majority of corporations into line with the far-left political order. Once this is done, they will force those companies to use their platforms and public exposure to indoctrinate the masses. We have seen this strategy in action over the past several years, with many companies producing a steady stream of products, media content and marketing rife with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion propaganda, not to mention anti-west and anti-conservative propaganda.

These corporations have been so ingrained into the DEI and ESG format that many of them are willing to alienate the majority of their customers and lose vast profits. The last vestiges of free market economics are thus destroyed, because the profit motive has been replaced with a political motive.

Why would companies choose to join with such an organization if they are going to be constantly micromanaged in their operations? It my not be presented to them as a choice, but rather an inevitable requirement. Those who get in on the ground floor get the best seats at the cabal’s table; those who join late might be crushed under the weight of an oppressive socialist bureaucracy.

Then again, the choice could also be voluntary with the promise that corporate leaders will be given extensive governance roles after the “Great Reset” of capitalism which the World Economic Forum discusses so often.

Keep in mind that the only way such companies would be able to survive after being shunned by the majority of the public is if they join with governments, are handed a state sponsored monopoly and are supported by perpetual subsidies. They might even be operating under the assumption that as long as they continue to serve the woke religion they will eventually be rewarded with “too woke to fail” status.

Mussolini once defined the meeting of corporate power with government power as the original design for fascism. The Council for Inclusive Capitalism is the living breathing expression of that authoritarian seed.

The group is headed by Lady Lynn de Rothschild of the notorious Rothschild dynasty, and has expanded to include an army of corporate partners, government partners, UN partners and even the Vatican. A key component to the globalist agenda that is mentioned frequently is Artificial Intelligence (AI), along with its supposed ability to upend everything in our society and economy forever. While the abilities of AI are highly overrated, the elites seem to think it’s some kind of godlike apparatus that will remake the world. Lady Rothschild engaged with the media recently to promote an interesting and revealing argument:

Surprisingly, Rothschild meets some resistance from her interviewers which forces her to make an indirect admission: AI will require a “root and branch reform of the economy,” meaning, free markets have to go and government/corporate partners will have to step in to control everything, for the sake of the populace and the “greater good”, of course. Except it’s all a sham.

AI, much like climate change, is quickly becoming yet another fabricated excuse for global centralization. The CIC along with institutions like the WEF and the UN have been asserting for the past few years that “someone” needs to step in to moderate AI so that no single government abuses its apparently unlimited power. In other words: Problem, Reaction, Solution.

The globalists create a problem out of thin air (AI), then suggest it is a much greater boon (or threat) to humanity than it actually is, then they offer their services as fair and benevolent arbiters of the technology and its effects. Rothschild suggests it herself in the interview when she claims that “capitalists” will have to adjust their priorities over to social causes in the wake of AI. As I stated before, it’s just ESG in another form.

I would point out the tone of disdain in Rothschild’s reaction when free markets are brought into the debate. These people HATE any notion of free markets. Adam Smith’s system was drafted in direct response to the trespasses of mercantilist control. The two constructs are mutually exclusive. You cannot have free markets (or freedom) within a centralized mercantilist empire. You cannot have free markets and socialism within the same economy. And to be clear, the system we have in the US today is NOT a free market system, it is former free market system slowly undermined over time.

Free markets are already fair. Corporate elites interfere with that fairness when they join with governments to rig the system in their favor and gain undue advantages. The inequities Rothschild describes as an excuse for centralization were in fact created by elites like her. The CIC and the Great Reset agenda are nothing more than tools to entrench corporate and elitist power forever.

They get to decide which companies thrive or die. They get to decide the social values of the next century. They get to dictate how the worlds resources are utilized and who is allowed access to them. And, governments will ensure that they are protected from the rage of the people should the public become wise to their hostile takeover.

The most insulting part? Anyone who criticizes or attacks this ideological invasion of our economic life will be accused of being a monster. After all, the CIC just wants to save humanity from itself, right? If you want to stop them, you must be some kind of selfish villain that values individual freedom over the common good.

The bigger question that the globalists don’t want us to ask, though, is what makes them qualified to determine the common good? Why is is assumed that they should be the arbiters of everything? Even the stagflation crisis we are facing today is a direct result of governments and central banks stepping in with trillions in fiat money to save the “too big to fail” corporations from their own disastrous practices. Why should we trust them with our social welfare, or anything else for that matter?

The globalists will respond to this argument with AI. They will say that AI is the ultimate “objective” mediator because it has no emotional or political loyalties. They will assert that AI must become the de facto decision making apparatus for human civilization. And now you see why Rothschild is so anxious to spearhead the creation of a global regulatory framework for AI – Whoever controls the functions of AI, whoever programs the software, eventually controls the world, all while using AI as a proxy. If anything goes wrong, they can simply say that it was AI that made the decision, not them.

It is the perfect shadow government; a technocratic Wizard of OZ using the smoke and mirrors of an AI puppet to rule the planet, removing all accountability and displacing all rebellion. For how can the populace argue with or revolt against a faceless algorithm floating in the digital ether?

New Zealand: Important Medical Staff Were Granted Covid Vaccine Exemptions

  This tells you all you need to know about the vaccine but also about our society. If you are part of the new nobility, you have a choice. For the others, Do as we tell you or lose your job. 

 The amazing fact is that most people still bother voting or listening to the news. 

I’ve been running Cryptogon for over two decades and this is up there with the worst frauds I’ve ever encountered.

Via: Hatchard Report:

The criteria for granting exemptions apparently entailed an assessment concerning how vital staff were to the working of the health service. In other words, senior figures and those holding key surgical positions could actually insist they remain unvaccinated and continue to be allowed to work. Whilst unvaccinated nurses for example could not gain exemptions and lost their positions.

If senior staff who wished to remain unvaccinated had spoken out publicly, the issue of Covid vaccine safety might have been given a public airing. Instead the Ministry of Health and the government kept a lid on all and any discussion. It did so through liaison with mainstream and social media outlets to censor content and through tight control of staff.

List of cancelled Posts - A short History of censorship

 I started this blog in March 2019. The good old days of the Internet, pre-Covid when nothing was cancelled and sure enough all my post of 2019 are still accessible.  

The 1st post I cannot access is dated Jul 14, 2019. A video about the Japanese Model. OK, not cancelled considering the subject, the video was probably erased.

The second one if also a video on YouTube by Elon Musk about the risk of AI in January of 2021. Which means that all my controversial articles and videos about Covid-19 during the year 2020 are still accessible. 

Then we find an interesting article about Oligarchy in America later in January 2021.

The next one is in March 2021, titled Was Covid a Bio-weapon? (95% probability but not yet so clear then.)

Then an article from Dough Casey in May 2021 on How the Covid lock-downs will become Climate lock-downs. (We are definitively heading in that direction! COP-28?)

Then in Sep 2021, an Article called Covid Vaccine Dystopia, a Manifesto. (We are now slowly, very slowly discovering that the vaccines may have killed more people than the virus.)

Then an article in Dec 2021 When Idiocy becomes Hardwired. OK.

Jan 2022, 3D, the future of advertising. A fluke I guess. 

Apr 2022, The end of Progress.

Jun 2022, Earth most dangerous Website, The Story of Wikileaks. (A YouTube Video - Unknown at that time but soon YouTube videos are going to disappear faster and faster, but not yet in early 2022. Tells you how fast this all went)

Aug 2022, Covid Vaccine Propaganda Busted. High deaths and Cancers. (Now we're starting to see more and more articles on this subject... But in 2022 it's definitively a no-no subject.)

Dec 2022, Fascism in the EU. (No comments)

Feb 2023, Death jumped 8.9% in Japan in 2022. (Interesting. So it's not just Covid misinformation which is cancelled. Inconvenient statistics, even without mentioning Covid or the Vaccines are also erased!)

Mar 2023, Douglas Macgregor, Ukraine is crumbling under the Russian Offensive. (He was of course right but by the beginning of 2023, YouTube has moved from erasing misinformation about vaccines to censoring unapproved information about Ukraine. This of course is pure censorship! Oh slippery slope!)

Aug 2023, A story that will change your mind forever by Dr David Martin. (In August this year you were not yet permitted to voice doubts about the vaccines.)

Sep 2023, Don't Dismiss the Possibility of Gold Confiscation. (Should we really NOT talk about gold? Still not talking about it now that it's approaching 2100 USD per Once.)

Sep 2023, Tucker Carlson Video, "I'm exposing what they are planning!" (No don't please!)

Nov 2023, Tucker Carlson Video,The Interview of Martin Shkreli (This was truly an amazing video and I can easily understand why this would be cancelled. You do not want people to think too much about certain things. If you can find it somewhere else, it is worth listening to.)

So with this personal sample, you can see how over the last 4 years we moved from zero censorship, to limited censorship about Covid "misinformation" in 2022 to finally a more broad censorship about diverse social subject.

On this trajectory, it is not very hard to guess that even more subjects will be censored in 2024, until finally we enter either in 2025 or 2026 a regime of broad automatic censorship of almost everything including political critique as the EU wants to put in place. 

In the end, China  was only a few years early in 2020 (as I warned about then). By 2030, we will all be living in a Chinese type of society with the same very limited political freedom and far less economic freedom in Europe.

This of course presuppose that our society can survive in its current state until 2030. A tall order!

ALERT: BOMBSHELL WW3 INFO, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

   I listen to this guy, Canadian Preper from time to time as among his warning of doom and gloom, he sometimes ask good questions. And today's question about Hamas was a great one.

  These guys managed a very sophisticated operation out of the high surveillance open prison that Gaza has become. It could be because Israel let them do it in order to launch a major war against their Arab neighbors. This is also what I initially thought too. But it could also be because Israel has become complaisant. OK, interesting but not ground breaking. Some people have been saying that.

  But let's look at it differently from the Hamas point of view.

  Hamas knew that whatever they do, Israel would over react and probably go after them until annihilation, so beyond a wish to die, what could have been the motivation to arrange such a high stake war?

  His source, a former Egyptian diplomat tells him an interesting story with 3 levels of importance. 

  1 - Get the list of moles in Gaza (people working for Israel.) OK, maybe but what's the point of getting Gaza destroyed to get the names of a few moles? Has to be way down the list.

  2 - Get codes and sources within the Israel Army. Far more interesting since this allows access to sensitive information.

  3 - Get access to that sensitive information on behalf of the enemies of Israel to counter Israel's next move.

THIS indeed, could be it! Imagine Iran getting access to very confidential information about Israel and Netanyahu. What happens next? 

They now know how Israel is planning to attack them and can prepare accordingly.

They can share some confidential information with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others.

The Israelis start to panic and behave like a headless chicken, their plans, years in the making, all nixed instantly. The Americans likewise who, as their own over reaction concentrate a huge fleet of warships in the Eastern Mediterraneans.   

  What's the chance? I would say fairly high since it not only fits quite well with what we have seen over the last few weeks but gives a very interesting background to what's going on in the area. 

  Might just be an interesting theory but it sounds very likely to my opinion.

  Let's see how things develop in the coming days.

The West Is Inching Closer To More Insanity In The Baltic Sea

  The West keeps upping the ante in the North. After Ukraine and Gaza, will international tensions move to the Baltic Sea?

  There is no lack of antagonism among the Baltic people towards Russia with countless wars over the centuries to feed hatred and confrontation. 

  The good thing is that all these countries are chihuahuas ready to bite but with an almost complete lack of capabilities to enforce anything at all. The less good one is that Europe is losing almost every gambit in its confrontation with the Eastern bear and may find it necessary to up the ante to prove that its former military strength is still there.   

  The risks are high. But then again, a few Russians warships "visiting" Iran close to the Hormuz Strait would probably help the Europeans come to their sense rather quickly.   

Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

In the Baltic Sea – home of the twisted wreckage of the Nord Stream pipelines – another pipeline was recently damaged along with telecommunications cables.

Western officials are making escalatory statements and are again floating the idea of closing the “NATO lake” to Russian ships, which would likely be viewed by Moscow as an act of war.

Onshore, Finland is rapidly militarizing its border with Russia. And a notable Chinese cargo ship is now at the center of the firestorm.

The Newnew Polar Bear

Over the weekend of October 8th there was an unusual drop in pressure in the Finnish-Estonian Balticconnector gas pipeline. By the morning of October 10th, an investigation had found that the pipeline had ruptured. Telecom cables linking Finland, Estonia and Sweden had also been damaged, as had a Russian telecom cable in the Gulf of Finland.

By October 20th, Finland and Estonia were pointing the finger at the Newnew Polar Bear – a Chinese vessel. The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation produced a large anchor found near the damaged pipeline, which it believes belonged to the 169-meter-long ship and likely broke off as it was dragged across the sea floor. Investigators have not explained a theory for how exactly the anchor damaged telecom cables on opposite sides of the pipeline and broke off at the Balticconector.

I haven’t been able to track down an exact distance between the Balticconnector and the telecom cables, but Finnish telecom operator Elisa told Reuters that the distance between the two was “significant.”

Nonetheless, speculation is that damaging the pipeline and cables would have been hard to do without knowing. According to Insurance Marine News:

It seemed unlikely-to-impossible that the crew could have been unaware of this incident, as the event would have slowed the ship dramatically and involuntarily. If the anchor had fallen accidentally and it had hit the gas line, it could have caused severe damage to the pipe. If the anchor had been stuck to the seabed, it would not have passed unnoticed because the speed would have slowed and the ship would have tilted.

The Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat wrote on Oct. 23rd that the Newnew Polar Bear stopped in bad weather 1.4 nautical miles from the gas pipeline for about eight minutes before continuing on.

Images of the Newnew missing an anchor were soon circulating:

Newnew Shipping Co. has been silent on the matter. Meanwhile, Finland and Estonia have formally submitted a legal notice to China for cooperation as part of their ongoing investigation. Beijing has promised its full cooperation, although it’s possible China might not be too eager to assist Estonia, which is allowing Taiwan to set up a government office in Tallinn. The Estonian FM recently doubled down on that decision, declaring that the country’s goal is to cooperate “with like-minded partners, mainly our transatlantic allies.”

Accusations have already been flying of a plot by the Russians and Chinese since the Newnew sails under the Hong Kong flag and had a Northern Sea Route sailing permission issued by the General Administration of the Northern Sea Route addressed to Torgmoll, a Russian-registered company with offices in Moscow and Shanghai. While this has been treated by some as some sort of smoking gun, it’s simply because of a joint project of two Chinese companies – the international shipping line Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co and cargo agent Torgmoll. Russia’s state-owned Rosatom also provides information and navigation support for the newly established container transportation service via the Northern Sea Route between China and Russia.

Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute, told RFE/RL the following:

Whether this incident was intentional or not, it’s something that both Russia and China can benefit from. Even if the scale may be small, it once again diverts NATO’s attention and resources away from other global focal points.

Russia has denied any involvement and China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning recently said this on the issue:

We hope relevant parties will follow the principles of being objective, fair, just and professional and find out what happened soon. China stands ready to provide necessary assistance in accordance with international law.

Interestingly, there is much more significance to the Newnew Polar Bear than just its alleged involvement in the incident with the pipeline and communication cables. From Maritime Executive:

In another demonstration of the efforts to expand shipping along Russia’s Northern Sea Route, the Chinese-owned containership Newnew Polar Bear (15,950 dwt) became the first to reach the Russian port in Kaliningrad after a six-week passage. The governor of the Kaliningrad region Anton Alikhanov hailed the achievement on his Telegram account.

The vessel was acquired earlier this year by a new Chinese shipping company, Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co., and ushered in the route sailing from St. Petersburg at the beginning of July. She started the return trip from China in late August, reaching Kaliningrad on Tuesday and spending three days on dock. The ship registered in Hong Kong is 554 feet long with a capacity of 1,600 TEU.

She is part of the effort to expand trade between China and Russia and grow traffic along the Northern Sea Route. President Vladimir Putin has ordered the authorities overseeing the route to boost annual shipments to 80 million metric tons in 2024.

“Transport companies plan to make this logistics product permanent. It turns out cheaper and faster than through the Suez Canal,” writes Alikhanov touting the party line on his Telegram account.

So the Newnew was also a symbolic milestone for the increasing Russia-China trade via the North Sea route – part of the Arctic final frontier of the New Cold War where Russia already has an apparent advantage. Moscow says freight turnover in the Arctic Basin rose 4.4 percent in 2022 to 98.5 mln metric tons. From Reuters: 

Russia is sending more crude oil produced in the Arctic region to China and India, and at steeper discounts, after Europe slammed its doors shut on Russian supplies last month, trade sources and data show.

Over many years Russia has built up its fleet of icebreakers, ships and submarines. Moscow has also developed mining and oil well operations along its 15,000 miles of Arctic coastline. The US is trying to play catch up by pouring money into existing bases in Alaska and Greenland and establishing four US military bases on Norwegian soil. But Russian economic activity in the Arctic is only expected to increase in coming years, and Moscow considers it an “area of existential importance: where it can use all components in the defense of its interests, including force.

Much of the oil and gas from the Russian arctic used to go to Europe. It’s now headed to China and India. India got its first shipment of Arctic liquefied gas last year, and the country’s energy companies are looking at investing in Russian projects there.

As Andrew Korybko points out, Finland’s efforts to manufacture crises at its Russia border could be seen as part of the West’s efforts to militarize the Arctic confrontation:

Granted, the “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) between NATO and Russia places very real limits on how much pressure can be exerted along this newfound front, but still opening it might be deemed by the bloc’s decisionmakers to be better than keeping it closed in that scenario. In other words, “where one door closes, another opens”, or to be more direct, the end of NATO’s proxy war on Russia via Ukraine could lead to the opening of a less high-stakes but still destabilizing front in Finland.

This outcome would also serve the supplementary purpose of being exploited by the Mainstream Media as the “publicly plausible” pretext for accelerating the Arctic’s militarization. This “final frontier” of the New Cold War is poised to soon be a theater of competition between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the Sino-Russo Entente due to the Northern Sea Route’s growing role in facilitating East-West trade. Considering this, hyping up the Finnish front like NATO is already doing “kills two birds with one stone”.

The immediate fallout from the damage to the Balticconnector is minor. According to Naval News, the Finnish gas grid is still stable thanks to a massive US-owned floating LNG facility that was moored last year to replace Russian gas. The rupture of the Balticconnector does mean that Finland cannot send gas to Estonia until repairs are made, which could take a few months. The telecom cables have already been repaired.

Bigger picture, however, it will serve as a useful tool to further militarize the Baltic and Arctic.

Before the investigation into the damage of the pipeline and communications cables even settled on the Newnew Polar Bear, Baltic officials had itchy trigger fingers pointed at Russia. For example, Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs said the Baltic Sea should be closed to Russia if it is found Moscow was involved. The statement was part of the growing chorus to turn the Baltic into a new front against Russia.

A Baltic Blockade?

The tale of the Newnew Polar Bear could provide more fuel for western hardliners who keep pushing the blockade gambit. The Financial Times reported on Nov. 14 that the EU was actually considering stopping Russian oil ships to check their papers as part of a desperate attempt to enforce the ill-conceived oil price caps. Under that failed plan oil not sold under the $60-a-barrel limit cannot be covered by western insurance for its sea voyage.

Well, western officials admit that “almost none” of Russian crude exports were sold below that price point in October, and the ships are simply using non-western insurance.

Now, EU officials are saying with a straight face that the reason they must stop ships carrying Russian crude is that non-western insurance policies may not be effective in the event of an oil spill. Anonymous EU officials told the Financial Times that the task would fall to Denmark in the narrow Danish Straits and checks would be conducted under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea laws permitting states to to “institute proceedings, including detention of the vessel” given “clear objective evidence” that the vessel poses a threat of environmental damage.

What of the problems with such a plan? The Financial Times notes:

But officials briefed on the proposal say it relies on the capacity of Denmark’s naval authorities to stop and check the tankers, and raises the question of what Copenhagen would do if a ship refused to stop. “Discussions appear to be centred on making life more complicated for Russia and the buyers of its oil,” said Henning Gloystein at Eurasia Group. “If you can make the bureaucracy and risk associated with trading Russian oil a lot more onerous the expectation is buyers will start to demand larger discounts again for their trouble.”

The fact that Russia would almost certainly see such efforts as an act of war goes unmentioned. Roughly 60 percent of Russia’s total seaborne oil exports pass through the Danish straits on its way to international markets, and Moscow’s updated version of the Naval Doctrine of the Russian Federation lists the Baltic Sea and and the Danish Straits as “important areas,” in which the use of force will be available as a last resort after the other options have been exhausted.

After the FT report based on info from unnamed EU officials, Reuters shot it down with other anonymous EU officials saying that there was no such plan in the European Commission’s proposal for tightening the implementation of a price cap on Russia’s crude oil, noting the following:

Three maritime experts said blocking commercial vessels in the Danish straits would be contrary to fundamental rules of the sea, including the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs marine traffic.

Denmark would only have the right to stop a vessel if it posed an obvious threat, they said.

“Denmark has never done anything like that before. Blocking commercial traffic in the Danish straits would come close to a declaration of war,” said Hans Peter Michaelsen, an independent defense analyst.

It’s possible that disagreement over the ship inspection gambit is one of the reasons behind the delay in the European Commission’s delay on its 12th sanctions package. It’s also possible that the FT report was just another in a long line of trial balloons on the possibility of upping the ante in the Baltic.

Estonia, which has a population smaller than Russia’s armed forces, is making noise about causing problems in the Gulf of Finland with Estonian Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur recently talking about how Helsinki and Tallinn will integrate their coastal missile defense, which he says would allow the countries to close the Gulf of Finland to Russian warships if necessary. Early this year Estonia was also proposing closing the Gulf of Finland to Russia – effectively blockading Saint Petersburg.

The fact that western governments continue to go back to these ideas increases the odds that at some point they’re going to try something along these lines.

They’re already well on their way to implementing The Center for Strategic and International Studies plan for NATO near-term actions in the Baltic:

• Bring Sweden and Finland into NATO. The ratification of these two nations needs to move forward without delay. Elevating them from strong partners to alliance members changes the calculus of a Baltic conflict significantly. The alliance can immediately leverage these two nations to increase strategic depth.

• Forward stage capabilities. Mines, anti-submarine capabilities, missile defense, and secure supply and logistics infrastructure should be forward staged across all domains, increasing deterrence.

• Increase patrol. A whole-of-government approach from each Baltic nation and its allies is needed to ensure that energy, communications, and sea routes remain secure. This includes Baltic Air Policing, readiness to shift the balance of A2/AD, and the monitoring and protection of maritime infrastructure.

• Strengthen command and control. Existing multi-domain command and control should be tested and ready for use. The need for effective command and control will be swift and will require resilient disaggregated nodes, though an eye should also be kept on future capability.

Taken altogether, it’s clear that despite the waning support for Project Ukraine, there will be no winding down of the confrontation between Europe and Russia, and the Baltic is one potential spot for tensions to rise considerably. The Caucasus and Central Asia are other hot spots, as is the Black Sea where attempts continue to sabotage the TurkStream pipeline that transports gas from Russia to Turkiye and onwards to southeastern Europe.

Upon the announcement that Finland and Sweden would join NATO, former Secretary General of the military bloc Anders Fogh Rasmussen proclaimed it was a strategic victory because “If we wish, we can block all entry and exit to Russia through St. Petersburg”.

The caveat to Rasmussen’s pronouncement is that such an effort could very well lead to open war. Is the West crazy enough to try?