US-funded site in Georgia may have conducted illegal experiments on humans – ex-minister

A US-funded medical facility in Georgia may have been involved in illegal experiments on Georgian citizens, former Georgian security minister has claimed, citing leaked documents he obtained.

Igor Giorgadze, a former state security minister turned-opposition figure, has made the groundbreaking revelation during a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday. He said he managed to acquire over 100,000 pages of documents about the research done at the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health, located just outside the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi.

“Preliminary research on the documents … indicates that biologists from the US military medical group in Georgia and private contractors under a federal contract with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) could have indeed been conducting secret experiments on Georgian citizens,”Giorgadze said.

“A whole number of such experiments were lethal for my compatriots,” he added, citing a list of 30 people, who were treated for Hepatitis C in the facility in December 2015. Surprisingly, 24 of the said patients died on the same day, according to the documents.

“Many questions arise, since their cause of death is listed as ‘unknown’ and that no investigation into their deaths was launched,” Giorgadze stated.

Apart from the patient lists, the former official has invoices from the facility, which included rather strange purchases for a health institution, to say the least. Among them, there were “capsules for toxic compounds” and even ammunition for small arms, according to Giorgadze.

The former official admitted the documents might have been a deliberate disinformation attempt, yet, as a veteran intelligence officer, he believed them to be genuine. The ex-minister urged the US President Donald Trump to launch an investigation into the facility founded back in 2011, during the Obama administration.

The center was initially operated by Georgia’s Defense Ministry and prompted numerous allegations of bioweapons research and its involvement into outbreaks of epidemic diseases in the region. Georgia’s authorities, however, have repeatedly dismissed such accusations.

The facility has also been viewed with suspicion in Russia, with some top officials, including FSB chief Nikolay Patrushev, alleging that it was involved in bioweapons research.

https://www.rt.com/news/438214-us-human-experiments-georgia/

AI detects ‘mysterious repeating’ signals from ‘alien galaxy’ 3 billion light years away

Researchers at Breakthrough Listen, a project involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), have used AI to study signals from distant galaxies and found that we may have missed a lot in the hunt for alien life.

The team, led by UC Berkeley doctoral student Gerry Zhang, examined a phenomena known as Fast Radio Bursts or FRBs. These are signals from galaxies billions of light years away from Earth. FRBs last mere milliseconds and are extremely difficult to detect given the vast distances and huge areas involved.

The research is based on an unknown object called a “repeater” that is producing these FRBs, that is affectionately known as ‘FRB 121102,’ and is the only known FRB to have emitted multiple bursts.

“FRBs from 121102 originate in a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years from Earth, but the nature of the object emitting them is unknown. There are many theories, including that they could be the signatures of technology developed by extraterrestrial intelligent life,” the press release said.

More at

https://www.rt.com/news/438199-ai-signals-aliens-seti/

17 years after 9/11, Al-Qaeda rebranded by US government & media as besieged rebels

Seventeen years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government and media outlets have decided that Al-Qaeda is now a rebel group worthy of our sympathy. The cynical narrative change is par for the course, experts told RT.

As somber newspaper headlines mark the anniversary of the devastating attacks, some commentators have pointed out that the terrorist group accused of murdering 3,000 Americans seventeen years ago is now occupying northeastern Syria – with the US threatening to take military action if the "rebels" are evicted from the region by the Syrian army and its allies.

The United States has spent an estimated $1.5 trillion on its Global War Against Terrorism, launched in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, but the United States now seems to find itself providing diplomatic cover – not to mention excellent press – to the terrorists that it once vowed to eradicate.

The majority of Syria's Idlib province is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a State Department-designated terrorist group that is regarded as indistinguishable from Al-Qaeda. But the US has signaled that it will respond militarily to any efforts by Damascus to evict the internationally-recognized terrorist group from its last stronghold in Syria, with the New York Times even fawning over the jihadists as "a de facto governmental authority, facilitating trade across the long border with Turkey and organizing aid deliveries." What happened?

Never forget?

Even as social media fills up with maudlin GIFs vowing to "Never Forget"the September 11 attacks, one of the reasons that Al-Qaeda has been able to remain in Idlib is because Americans have actually "forgotten,"analysts say.

"A lot of time has passed since 9/11. They got Osama bin Laden and people have moved on, and they have other issues that they're focusing on," former Pentagon official Michael Maloof told RT. According to Maloof, many Americans are now preoccupied with domestic scandals like "Russian collusion," and they're "not focused on the extent to which the Trump administration is providing backing and support to Al-Qaeda today in Syria. And it's really tragic."

However, those who are paying attention are "tired of the lies," Willy Wimmer, a former state secretary to the German defense minister, told RT.

"I think the public in the West is tired of the lies of their own government concerning Al-Qaeda, or other terrorists groups." He noted that it's an open secret that the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia and Gulf states provide direct and indirect support to "rebel" groups that under normal circumstances would be considered terrorists.

What's the endgame?

But what does the United States hope to gain from deterring an attack on Al-Qaeda's last enclave in Syria?

Washington's threats of military action are a way of preserving a "modicum of influence" in Syria, Maloof said. "The US is looking at Idlib and support for Al-Qaeda to maintain influence and try to deflect attention away from domestic problems." He added that the US is using the excuses of "humanitarian disaster and chemical weapons" to justify its military activity in the country.

"They're going to go kinetic if there's an attack in Idlib," Maloof predicted.

Wimmer warned against trying to overthink Washington's shocking change of heart concerning Al-Qaeda. "You can't look at US foreign policy under logical terms," he said.

"These groups are used to topple whole regions, not only Syria but also other countries, and at the end we fight against a threat that was organized by our own governments. And I think people are tired of this."

He noted that the US has "danced on its own argument" by accusing Russia of using anti-terrorism operations as a false pretext for getting militarily involved in Syria, adding that unlike Russia and Iran's presence in the country, "under all legal terms, there is no justification for a US presence in Syria under international law."

https://www.rt.com/usa/438209-us-911-idlib-al-qaeda-rebels/