MOSCOW (Sputnik) - After Russia launched a probe into biological research by the United States in Ukraine, similar suspicions were raised in other parts of the world, including in Indonesia, which former US Ambassador Cameron Hume once described as a "reservoir of emerging infectious diseases."

Indonesian news media Detik broke a story in April about a covert US operation to collect human blood and rabid dog samples during the 2016 Pacific Partnership exercise in the West Sumatran coastal city of Padang.

Documents obtained by reporters suggest that American naval surgeons operated on local patients aboard hospital ship USNS Mercy and transported three rabid dogs from West Sumatra — all without permission of the Indonesian Health Ministry. Padang health officials also told Detik that the Americans wanted to harvest samples of dengue fever virus from local mosquitoes.

The story brought back the memory of the NAMRU 2, a US navy’s bio laboratory that the US ran in a busy neighborhood in the capital Jakarta from 1970 to 2009 when it was banned by the Health Ministry for being "a threat to Indonesia’s sovereignty."

NAMRU 2 was established amid an outbreak of bubonic plague in Indonesia and handled a wide range of pathogens, from HIV to those causing malaria, tuberculosis, and dengue fever. But Siti Fadilah Supari, a cardiologist who was health minister from 2004 to 2009, told Sputnik the US help in overcoming diseases was minimal.

"Although they focused on malaria and tuberculosis, the results for 40 years in Indonesia, were not significant," she said.

The US-Indonesian agreement on the laboratory ended in 1980 and "after that they were stateless," Supari added.

But it was not only the lab’s poor performance that really made Supari concerned about the facility.

"I only knew their lab is very closed. And the researchers were American Marines, all of whom had diplomatic immunity… We never knew what they were carrying in their diplomatic briefcases. There were also some researchers from Indonesia helping them," she explained to Sputnik.

Back then, the ex-minister was also concerned about lack of equal involvement of Indonesian staff in the project and, most importantly, by the possibility of US diplomats smuggling infectious samples from Indonesia to the US to be used for military research.

Supari wrote in her bestselling book, "It’s Time for the World to Change," that in the wake of the bird flu (H5N1) outbreak she objected to the mandatory practice of sharing local virus samples with WHO-linked authorities, which, in her opinion, was neither transparent nor fair.

Being a WHO Collaborating Center, NAMRU 2 diagnosed a batch of H5N1 cases in Indonesia in 2006. The Indonesian government asked the Americans not to hand over the samples to anyone but the WHO-affiliated US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

But several publications showed that the CDC shared the samples with a sequence database at Los Alamos National Laboratory, known for designing the world’s first nuclear bomb. This angered the Indonesians and prompted fears that the infectious disease could be weaponized.

As a minister, Supari paid a surprise visit to NAMRU 2 in 2008 and talked to the press about the lab’s lack of transparency and the fact that it did not share results of its work with the Indonesian government.

Henry, a journalist with a key Indonesian media outlet, told Sputnik that around the time when this story was making headlines nationwide NAMRU 2 almost burned down.

Henry said he went to cover the fire. He saw two foreign-looking men in the middle of chaos blocking journalists from entering the compound.

"It looked like the fire was at the administrative part of NAMRU, where all documents are kept. I didn’t pay much attention to this fact at the time, but in hindsight it may look almost as if someone wanted to hide something," he said.

Indonesia's scrutiny of NAMRU 2 also ruffled feathers in Washington. A leak of thousands of US diplomatic cables by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks website in 2010 revealed that the US embassy in Jakarta sent hundreds of updates on NAMRU and its efforts to save its reputation.

The diplomatic mission and NAMRU administration took "an offensive against misinformation" in 2008 by holding a news conference on the lab. However, a memo by US Ambassador to Indonesia Cameron Hume to the State Department showed that the Americans eventually concluded that "the best hope to keep NAMRU-2 in Indonesia is to convince key policymakers of its continued usefulness to both countries."

In the middle of the struggle over the lab in 2009, Hume sent another sensitive but unclassified memo to Washington, explaining the importance of continuing biological research in Indonesia.

"Indonesia is… a reservoir of emerging infectious diseases including many of international concern. With densely populated communities living in close contact with livestock and new settlements encroaching on wildlife reservoirs, Indonesia creates ideal opportunities for new infectious diseases to emerge," he wrote.

Supari’s resistance became a big problem for the US. She was mentioned personally in most NAMRU-related memos. On June 12 of 2009, American diplomats suggested that DC step in to help manage her by deepening health cooperation with Indonesia.

"If managed correctly, Supari could accept NAMRU if she is assured of our genuine interest in developing a new research laboratory model (bigger and more comprehensive than NAMRU), she could then be helpful on visa extensions for NAMRU personnel so that negotiations on the broader engagement can begin," the memo said.

Despite this, Supari managed to close NAMRU 2 with support from Indonesia’s top diplomats and military. She left the office in 2009. Her successor, Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, reportedly had ties with NAMRU 2 in the past but chose not to allow the official resumption of the lab’s research in Jakarta.

But Supari says she believes American biological research is still continuing on Indonesian soil.

"I can’t prove it, but, from what I read and hear, research activities are still going on in various forms of collaboration with research institutions and universities in Indonesia. I think the government should be aware of this," she said.

The US has never admitted that its navy broke laws during the 2016 naval exercise in Padang. However Henry, who happened to have visited USNS Mercy in 2005 when he himself nearly drowned during a flood in Pulau Nias in North Sumatra province, said he had been asked for assistance to find patients for US naval surgeons to operate on.

"They brought most of their patients aboard from a hospital in Gunung Sitoli — the capital of Pulau Nias Regency, where they underwent screening — but not all of them. The officer asked me whether I can help them to find more patients for operations — uncomplicated ones… So, I went to a nearby village asking around whether other people needed assistance. And Americans deployed their Sikorski SH-60 Seahawk helicopters to pick them up from the village, bringing them directly to the ship," he said.

The Detik investigation revealed that US marines were more selective of Indonesian patients in 2016, with all candidates receiving a medical screening exam at a hospital in Penang. Journalists cited sources who claimed the Americans still violated local laws, specifically on the transfer of pathogens.

Journalists said that they were looking into possible further violations of the country’s health laws by the US navy in Indonesia during the 2018 Pacific Partnership exercise in the Bengkulu Province, but so far they have not found any evidence.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220526/evidence-points-to-us-continuing-biological-research-in-indonesia-despite-lab-ban-1095788699.html

MEANWHILE IN NIGERIA....

The Russian military has spent over two months now detailing the extent and reach of the US military-biological research effort in Ukraine, revealing that the Pentagon has used the country as a testing ground for the study of deadly bioagents, and uncovering the tangled web of military, corporate, and political interests behind these activities.

Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defence Troops chief Igor Kirillov issued a fresh briefing on Friday, providing new information on US military biological activities in Ukraine, as well as details on what his troops know about monkeypox, a smallpox cousin which has caused a global health scare in recent weeks.

The Pentagon, he said, introduced a mandatory smallpox vaccination back in 2003, with US diplomats and medical personnel also required to be jabbed against the infectious disease.

"This indicates that the United States considers the smallpox pathogen a priority pathogenic agent for combat use, and ongoing vaccination measures are aimed at protecting their own military contingents", Kirillov said.

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The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the World Health Assembly’s vote on a draft resolution calling for Russia’s suspension from regional meetings over Ukraine showed the world was waking up to the fact that Kiev’s allies were trying to isolate Moscow and politicize the UN health agency.

The 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva voted 88-12, with 53 abstentions, to pass the resolution on "Health emergency in Ukraine." Russia said this was just a fraction of the 183 member states who make up the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, media reports suggest the US administration could announce a new security aid package for Ukraine that includes advanced, long-range rocket systems as early as next week.

Also on Friday, the Russian military providd new details on US military biological activities in Ukraine, highlighing also Washington's interest in the smallpox pathogen as a priority pathogenic agent for combat use.

Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February in response to calls from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's republics for protection against intensifying attacks by Ukrainian troops, with aim of putting an end to the 8-year offensive by the Kiev regime.

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Moscow has claimed that Ukraine’s sprawling network of secret biological labs has been plagued with critical safety flaws, while funds allocated to fix the issues have been consistently disappearing.

Multiple laboratories were simply not fit to handle the hazardous materials and pathogens they have been working with, Chief of Russia’s Radioactive, Chemical, and Biological Protection Forces Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said during a briefing on Friday.

“According to official data, only three laboratories with a BSL-3 biological safety level have had the right to perform such studies. These are the Odessa Anti-Plague Institute, the Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene in Lvov, and the Public Health Center in Kiev,” Kirillov stated.

Even the facilities that were supposed to meet the biosafety requirements were riddled with assorted issues, the official said, citing a report by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. The ministry allegedly uncovered multiple violations at the Anti-Plague Institute, including the improper containment of pathogens, faulty ventilation, and a lack of control over access to hazardous materials. The institute has had a large collection of some 654 pathogens, including anthrax, cholera, and other infectious diseases, Kirillov added.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/556207-ukraine-biolabs-neglect-corruption/

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BY James O’Neill

Earlier this year Russia alleged that Ukraine and the United States were developing biological weapons. The development of these weapons has been banned since the signing of a convention on the topic in 1971. These reports are all dismissed by the Western mainstream media that alleged it was Russian disinformation. Unfortunately for the Western media the Russian allegations were effectively admitted by the United States when Victoria Nuland made a statement that the United States and Ukraine were working together to ensure that the research materials did not fall into Russian hands.

Since then, the Western media has gone quiet on the issue. One might speculate that given their protestations that the allegations were all Russian disinformation, the revealing of actual evidence has proved too embarrassing for them to comment further. Unfortunately for them, the evidence is abundantly clear. The head of the Russian investigative committee, Alexander Bastrykin said that his team of investigators were making progress in a criminal probe into Ukraine’s Pentagon funded bioweapons program.

Mr Bastrykin said that the United States had spent more than $224 million in Ukraine since 2005 and the money was used to equip and upgrade around 30 research centres governed by the Ukrainian ministers of Defence, Health and Agriculture. Nuland’s plea about keeping the material out of Russian hands was too little, too late.

The Russians have filed a formal complaint with the international body and have raised the matter in the United Nations Security Council. The Russian allegations are devastating to the United States, which is a major reason for the silence by the Western media of the evidence. The Russian allegation is that the existence of the laboratories poses a worldwide threat. The allegation was filed under article six of the Convention.

It will be impossible for the proceedings to be kept secret, despite the willingness of the Western media to first of all deny the facts as to what the Russians had discovered, then to file allegations that there was a threat that Russia might use chemical weapons in its operation in Ukraine. That is standard Western media action, to first of all deny that any such program exists, and then to allege that the target of the operation would use such weapons to win the war that they continue to insist will be won by Ukraine.

These allegations are occurring at a time when the Russians are clearly winning the economic war that has been waged upon them since the February intervention by Russia in the war in Donbass. The European Union, headed by the rabid anti-Russian Ursula van der Lyen had believed that the sanctions they imposed on Russia would lead to not only their defeat in the war in Ukraine, but also to the collapse of the Russian economy.

What has actually happened has been a rude shock to her and her colleagues in the European Union. Russia has not only survived European sanctions but has in fact flourished. Inflation has been brought under control. The initial high rate has been reduced to 16% and the Russian government has made a decision to raise the rate of pension payments to protect the living standards of the elder group of citizens. The European Union has had to quietly retreat from its plan to eliminate imports of Russian gas and oil. Its reluctant acquiescence with economic reality was undoubtedly forced by the open rebellion of several European union states for whom losing access to Russian oil and gas would have meant the death of their economies.

The Russians also insisted that the European imports of the commodities would have to be paid for in roubles. This created an initial panic until the details of the scheme revealed that payments could in effect be made to the Russian bank in Euros which then converted them to roubles for payment to the supplier of the gas etc. The collapse of the European sanctions has led to the rouble reaching its highest point for a number of years. Rather than collapsing the Russian economy, the last few months have seen it getting stronger by the day.

The Russians, not surprisingly, no longer place any faith in the goodwill of the Europeans and have signed significant deals with India and China to meet their energy requirements. It is part of a more general diversification of Russia’s exports to Africa, South America and Asia, all of whom with only minor exceptions refused to join the United States-European led restrictions upon Russia. That points to a wider principle. The last 300 or so years of European dominance of world trade is coming to an end, to be replaced by a non-dollar reliant system.

One of the expected manifestations of this emerging new world order will be an expansion of the BRICS, currently consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. For example, Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Thailand all participated in a BRICS foreign ministers meeting held a week ago. Pakistan is also frequently been trained as a possible member.

The position of India is interesting. It is not only a member of BRICS and the SCO, having joined the latter in June 2017, it also attended the recent meeting in Tokyo of the four nations grouping consisting of Australia, Japan, United States and India which is clearly set up as an anti-China alliance. Membership of this group for India is clearly inconsistent with membership of both BRICS and the SCO and it will be interesting to see how India manages this obvious contradiction in his foreign policy. India also has a strong and continuing relationship with Russia, and it is interesting that India refused to succumb to enormous United States pressure to condemn Russia over the events in the Ukraine.

India currently has 1.380 billion people, or 17.7% of the world’s population and is second in population size only to China who it is expected to pass in population the next two to three decades. It’s economic and political power is not yet commensurate with its population size, but that also is expected to grow. Its long-standing friendship with Russia is also an important geopolitical strength. The revelation about Ukraine’s clearly illegal involvement with the United States bioweapons development will do nothing to diminish that friendship.

The world is clearly undergoing a major shift in his geopolitical alignments. Russia is playing a central role in that development and its revelations about the clearly illegal United States weapons developments are only going to enhance that central role.

James O’Neill, an Australian-based former Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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https://journal-neo.org/2022/05/30/recent-revelations-about-ukraine-s-illegal-arms-projects-highlights-other-major-shifts-in-the-world/

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