The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Did testing and euthanasia protocols help create the appearance of a sudden-spreading deadly novel virus? The evidence gets stronger for those who care to look. JONATHAN ENGLER Some people were onto the midazolam / euthanasia story from very early on. Although I was aware of the noise around Jacqui Deevoy’s one-hour 2021   documentary   “A Good Death” 1   as well as the data showing increased midazolam orders, it is to my chagrin that I didn’t pay enough attention to this story early enough, choosing to believe a variation of one of these singly or in combination: The extra midazolam ordered in many places was not actually used, it was “just in case”. The extra midazolam used was used for good reason, to ease distress and make the end of life more comfortable for those dying of covid. However, I don’t believe either of those propositions anymore, largely because of the weight of evidence I have now seen, which amounts to strongly suggesting the following: There is good evidence that

  Russia, SCO, BRICS: The Normalization of Afghanistan PEPE ESCOBAR   The whole Russia-Taliban affair involves a humongous package – encompassing oil, gas, minerals and loads of rail connectivity. This past Sunday in Doha, I had a meeting with three high-level representatives of the Taliban Political Office in Qatar, including a founding member of the body (in 2012) and a key official of the previous Taliban government of 1996-2001. By mutual consent, their names should not be made public. The cordial meeting was brokered by Professor Sultan Barakat, who teaches at the College of Public Policy at Hamad bin Khalifa University – set in an outstanding, immaculate campus outside of Doha which attracts students from across the Global South. Prof. Barakat is one of those very few – discreet – players who knows everything that matters in West Asia, and in his case, also in the intersection of Central and South Asia. With my three Taliban interlocutors, we talked extensively about the challeng