'Nasal spray found to clear tau proteins from Alzheimer's mouse model brains'

 A multi-institutional team of neuroscientists has developed a nasal therapy that cleared the brains of Alzheimer's mouse models of toxic tau proteins. In their study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the group found a certain conformation-specific antibody that would bind to tau proteins, placed it inside of a shell that allowed it to travel through the blood brain barrier, and then tested it with mouse models.

Soraya Meftah, Claire Durrant, and Tara Spires-Jones, dementia specialists at the University of Edinburgh, in the U.K., have published a Focus piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team on this new effort.

Prior research has shown that most people who develop one of several types of progressive neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's, develop tau structural proteins due to tau mutations and misfolds.

Scientists have therefore been looking for ways to stop the flow of such proteins into the brains of affected people or to lower the amount once it gets there. Unfortunately, such efforts have met with limited success.

In this new study, the research team developed a nasal spray with the ability to clear tau proteins from the brains of mice engineered to have human-like Alzheimer's symptoms.

The researchers looked for an antibody that would bind to tau proteins and destroy them by putting antibodies into Petri dishes with nerve tissue containing tau proteins. Once they found one that appeared to be a good possibility, they encased a batch of them in tiny lipid bubbles, small enough to pass through the blood-brain barrier. Once in the brain, the bubble covers wore away, releasing the antibodies.

For therapeutic use, the team placed the antibody bubbles into a liquid solution and delivered it to a nasal spray bottle. They then used the nasal spray on several mouse models and observed them over time to see if it made a difference.

The research team found that the mice exhibited reduced dementia symptoms. Testing of the mice post mortem showed lowered levels of tau tangles and folds and fewer tau seeds. They also found the same results when applying their spray to human nerve tissue samples. More research is required to determine if the spray is safe for testing in human patients.

More information: Sagar Gaikwad et al, Nasal tau immunotherapy clears intracellular tau pathology and improves cognitive functions in aged tauopathy mice, Science Translational Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adj5958

Soraya Meftah et al, A nose for tau, Science Translational Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adq6489

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-nasal-spray-tau-proteins-alzheimer.html

'Blocking muscle fatigue in long COVID, other diseases'

 Infections and neurodegenerative diseases cause inflammation in the brain. But for unknown reasons, patients with brain inflammation often develop muscle problems that seem to be independent of the central nervous system. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have revealed how brain inflammation releases a specific protein that travels from the brain to the muscles and causes a loss of muscle function.

The study, in fruit flies and mice, also identified ways to block this process, which could have implications for treating or preventing the muscle wasting sometimes associated with inflammatory diseases, including bacterial infections, Alzheimer's disease and long COVID.

The study is published July 12 in the journal Science Immunology.

"We are interested in understanding the very deep muscle fatigue that is associated with some common illnesses," said senior author Aaron Johnson, Ph.D., an associate professor of developmental biology.

"Our study suggests that when we get sick, messenger proteins from the brain travel through the bloodstream and reduce energy levels in skeletal muscle. This is more than a lack of motivation to move because we don't feel well. These processes reduce energy levels in skeletal muscle, decreasing the capacity to move and function normally."

To investigate the effects of brain inflammation on muscle function, the researchers modeled three different types of diseases—an E. coli bacterial infection, a SARS-CoV-2 viral infection and Alzheimer's.

When the brain is exposed to inflammatory proteins characteristic of these diseases, damaging chemicals called reactive oxygen species build up. The reactive oxygen species cause brain cells to produce an immune-related molecule called interleukin-6 (IL-6), which travels throughout the body via the bloodstream.

The researchers found that IL-6 in mice—and the corresponding protein in fruit flies—reduced energy production in muscles' mitochondria, the energy factories of cells.

"Flies and mice that had COVID-associated proteins in the brain showed reduced motor function—the flies didn't climb as well as they should have, and the mice didn't run as well or as much as control mice," Johnson said.

"We saw similar effects on muscle function when the brain was exposed to bacterial-associated proteins and the Alzheimer's protein amyloid beta. We also see evidence that this effect can become chronic. Even if an infection is cleared quickly, the reduced muscle performance remains many days longer in our experiments."

Johnson, along with collaborators at the University of Florida and first author Shuo Yang, Ph.D.—who did this work as a postdoctoral researcher in Johnson's lab—make the case that the same processes are likely relevant in people.

The bacterial brain infection meningitis is known to increase IL-6 levels and can be associated with muscle issues in some patients, for instance. Among COVID-19 patients, inflammatory SARS-CoV-2 proteins have been found in the brain during autopsy, and many long COVID patients report extreme fatigue and muscle weakness even long after the initial infection has cleared.

Patients with Alzheimer's disease also show increased levels of IL-6 in the blood as well as muscle weakness.

The study pinpoints potential targets for preventing or treating muscle weakness related to brain inflammation. The researchers found that IL-6 activates what is called the JAK-STAT pathway in muscle, and this is what causes the reduced energy production of mitochondria.

Several therapeutics already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for other diseases can block this pathway. JAK inhibitors as well as several monoclonal antibodies against IL-6 are approved to treat various types of arthritis and manage other inflammatory conditions.

"We're not sure why the brain produces a protein signal that is so damaging to muscle function across so many different disease categories," Johnson said.

"If we want to speculate about possible reasons this process has stayed with us over the course of human evolution, despite the damage it does, it could be a way for the brain to reallocate resources to itself as it fights off disease. We need more research to better understand this process and its consequences throughout the body.

"In the meantime, we hope our study encourages more clinical research into this pathway and whether existing treatments that block various parts of it can help the many patients who experience this type of debilitating muscle fatigue," he said.

More information: Shuo Yang et al, Infection and chronic disease activate a systemic brain-muscle signaling axis, Science Immunology (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.adm7908. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adm7908

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-scientists-block-muscle-fatigue-covid.html

'AI beats clinical tests at predicting progress of Alzheimer's'

 Cambridge scientists have developed an artificially-intelligent tool capable of predicting in four cases out of five whether people with early signs of dementia will remain stable or develop Alzheimer's disease.

The team say this new approach could reduce the need for invasive and costly diagnostic tests while improving treatment outcomes early when interventions such as lifestyle changes or new medicines may have a chance to work best.

Dementia poses a significant global health care challenge, affecting over 55 million people worldwide at an estimated annual cost of $820 billion. The number of cases is expected to almost treble over the next 50 years.

The main cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for 60–80% of cases. Early detection is crucial as this is when treatments are likely to be most effective, yet early dementia diagnosis and prognosis may not be accurate without the use of invasive or expensive tests such as positron emission tomography (PET) scans or lumbar puncture, which are not available in all memory clinics.

As a result, up to a third of patients may be misdiagnosed and others diagnosed too late for treatment to be effective.

A team led by scientists from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge has developed a machine learning model able to predict whether and how fast an individual with mild memory and thinking problems will progress to developing Alzheimer's disease. In research published in eClinicalMedicine, they show that it is more accurate than current clinical diagnostic tools.

To build their model, the researchers used routinely-collected, non-invasive, and low-cost patient data—cognitive tests and structural MRI scans showing gray matter atrophy—from over 400 individuals who were part of a research cohort in the U.S..

They then tested the model using real-world patient data from a further 600 participants from the US cohort and—importantly—longitudinal data from 900 people from memory clinics in the UK and Singapore.

The algorithm was able to distinguish between people with stable mild cognitive impairment and those who progressed to Alzheimer's disease within a three-year period. It was able to correctly identify individuals who went on to develop Alzheimer's in 82% of cases and correctly identify those who didn't in 81% of cases from cognitive tests and an MRI scan alone.

The algorithm was around three times more accurate at predicting the progression to Alzheimer's than the current standard of care; that is, standard clinical markers (such as gray matter atrophy or cognitive scores) or clinical diagnosis. This shows that the model could significantly reduce misdiagnosis.

The model also allowed the researchers to stratify people with Alzheimer's disease using data from each person's first visit at the memory clinic into three groups: those whose symptoms would remain stable (around 50% of participants), those who would progress to Alzheimer's slowly (around 35%) and those who would progress more rapidly (the remaining 15%).

These predictions were validated when looking at follow-up data over six years. This is important as it could help identify those people at an early enough stage that they may benefit from new treatments, while also identifying those people who need close monitoring as their condition is likely to deteriorate rapidly.

Importantly, those 50% of people who have symptoms such as memory loss but remain stable, would be better directed to a different clinical pathway as their symptoms may be due to other causes rather than dementia, such as anxiety or depression.

Senior author Professor Zoe Kourtzi from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge said, "We've created a tool which, despite using only data from cognitive tests and MRI scans, is much more sensitive than current approaches at predicting whether someone will progress from mild symptoms to Alzheimer's—and if so, whether this progress will be fast or slow.

"This has the potential to significantly improve patient well-being, showing us which people need closest care, while removing the anxiety for those patients we predict will remain stable. At a time of intense pressure on health care resources, this will also help remove the need for unnecessary invasive and costly diagnostic tests."

While the researchers tested the algorithm on data from a research cohort, it was validated using independent data that included almost 900 individuals who attended memory clinics in the UK and Singapore.

In the UK, patients were recruited through the Quantitative MRI in NHS Memory Clinics Study (QMIN-MC) led by study co-author Dr. Timothy Rittman at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trusts (CPFT).

The researchers say this shows it should be applicable in a real-world patient, clinical setting.

Dr. Ben Underwood, Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at CPFT and assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, said, "Memory problems are common as we get older. In clinic I see how uncertainty about whether these might be the first signs of dementia can cause a lot of worry for people and their families, as well as being frustrating for doctors who would much prefer to give definitive answers.

"The fact that we might be able to reduce this uncertainty with information we already have is exciting and is likely to become even more important as new treatments emerge."

Professor Kourtzi said, "AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on. To make sure ours has the potential to be adopted in a health care setting, we trained and tested it on routinely-collected data not just from research cohorts, but from patients in actual memory clinics. This shows it will be generalizable to a real-world setting."

The team now hope to extend their model to other forms of dementia, such as vascular dementia and frontotemporal dementia, and using different types of data, such as markers from blood tests.

Professor Kourtzi added, "If we're going to tackle the growing health challenge presented by dementia, we will need better tools for identifying and intervening at the earliest possible stage.

"Our vision is to scale up our AI tool to help clinicians assign the right person at the right time to the right diagnostic and treatment pathway. Our tool can help match the right patients to clinical trials, accelerating new drug discovery for disease modifying treatments."

More information: Robust and interpretable AI-guided marker for early dementia prediction in real-world clinical settings, eClinicalMedicine (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2024.102725

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-artificial-intelligence-outperforms-clinical-alzheimer.html

'Most Americans point to inflation as biggest issue ahead of election: Survey'

 Nearly two-thirds of Americans say inflation is a very serious problem heading into the November election, and voters are more likely to trust former President Trump to handle the issue over President Biden, according to a new poll.

The latest YouGov poll, released Friday, found that inflation tops the list of issues voters surveyed identified among their top concerns, with 64 percent of respondents saying it is a major problem.

The survey included 25 issues to rank as a serious problem, somewhat serious problem, minor problem or not a problem.

Other issues that ranked among voters’ most serious concerns included corruption (57 percent), drug abuse (56 percent), homelessness (55 percent), weakening of democracy (54 percent) and a shortage of affordable housing (54 percent).

About half said violent crime (51 percent), gun violence (51 percent), illegal immigration (50 percent), and poverty (49 percent) are very serious problems the country faces.

Religious prejudice (25 percent), sexism (22 percent) and lack of public transportation (17 percent) were the issues that were least likely to be named among the most serious issues on the list.

The poll also found a deep partisan divide on the most pressing issues facing the country. A majority of Democrats surveyed said the most serious problems are gun violence (76 percent) and climate change (70 percent). Republicans, on the other hand, ranked inflation (82 percent) and illegal immigration (79 percent) as their top concerns.

For 23 of the 25 problems polled, more Americans surveyed said they strongly or somewhat approve of Trump’s handling versus Biden’s.

Of people who identified inflation as a very serious problem, 60 percent said they approve of the former president’s plans to address the issue, compared to 15 percent who said the same for Biden’s handling of record-high inflation.

Investors and economists have warned that inflation could rise under the policies Trump and Republicans have proposed if they manage to sweep the upcoming elections.

The Labor Department this week reported the consumer price index (CPI) dipped to a 3 percent annual increase in June, down from 3.3 percent in May, marking the first month of price declines since the pandemic.

“Today’s report shows that we are making significant progress fighting inflation,” Biden boasted of the news.

Prices have remained at least 3 percent higher than a year ago — far from the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.

On other concerns, voters were not as optimistic about either candidate’s ability to handle. More than half of respondents (55 percent) in the survey said they consider homelessness a very serious issue, but among them, only 25 percent approve of Biden’s handling, while 29 percent approve of Trump’s.

The YouGov poll includes responses from 2,272 adult citizens surveyed July 1-6. It has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

https://thehill.com/business/4769000-donald-trump-joe-biden-inflation-top-concern-2024-election/

'Russia reaches out to Pentagon for call after NATO summit'

 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart for the second time in less than a month and one day after the NATO summit wrapped up in Washington with a focus on countering Moscow, according to the Pentagon.

During the call with Russian Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov, which was initiated by Moscow, Austin “emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine,” deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.

Austin last spoke with Belousov on June 25, about 2.5 weeks earlier. Prior to that, the Pentagon chief had not directly spoken with his Russian counterpart since March 2023. Communications between Washington and Moscow have almost entirely broken down since Kremlin forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

But Russia appears to be roiled following the NATO Summit, during which alliance members issued a joint communique laying out new military and financial support for Ukraine and pledged their support for an “irreversible path” to future membership for the embattled country. 

What’s more, NATO has backed Ukraine’s push for more latitude in its use of Western-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia, with the United Kingdom announcing it would allow Kyiv to hit targets over Russian borders with British-provided long-range missiles.

In addition, the U.S. and Germany on Wednesday announced the movement of more strategic weapons into Europe, including long-range fires such as undeveloped hypersonic missile systems, starting in 2026.

Moscow, which has long viewed the expansion of NATO as a national security threat, said it would retaliate against the U.S. missile deployment plans.

“NATO once again very clearly confirmed its essence. It is an alliance founded in an era of confrontation with the aim of continuing confrontation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday during a press conference with Russian news agencies.

“We see in fact that the alliance’s military infrastructure is constantly and gradually moving towards our borders. … All of this will require us to take thoughtful, coordinated and effective responses to deter and confront the alliance.”

Adding to tensions, reports emerged this week that U.S. and German intelligence had foiled a Russian assassination plot against the CEO of a German manufacturing company sending munitions to Ukraine. 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has since said allies are increasing intelligence sharing to combat such Russian attacks.

Asked whether the Pentagon has any intelligence corroborating the Russian assassination scheme, or if Austin brought up the foiled plot with Belousov, Singh declined to provide further details.

“Of course we always, with any of our allies and partners, always share intelligence and information, but I just don’t have more to add,” she said.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4769153-austin-speaks-russia-nato/

'Being Volodymyr Zelenskiy: How war has changed Ukraine's leader'

 Intense. Impatient. Sleep-deprived. Step into the relentless world of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine's wartime president.

The 46-year-old said his ambition when he was elected in 2019 had been to help Ukraine become a modern democracy, before that mission was shattered by Russia's invasion in 2022.

"All I wanted five years ago was a very liberal country with a liberal economy," Zelenskiy, a former stand-up comic, told Reuters in an interview in May on the fifth anniversary of his inauguration.

This week, he instead found himself professing his desire to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin as he expressed anger and anguish over an airstrike that hit Ukraine's largest children's hospital.

The war-hardened Zelenskiy who's exhorted Western leaders to action at the NATO summit in Washington in recent days is a world away from the political novice who became president, let alone the TV comedian who was a showbiz heavyweight for years before.

He once even won Ukraine's version of "Dancing with the Stars".

The clean-shaven, boyish Zelenskiy sworn in as president in Kyiv in 2019 wearing a stylish suit fitted to his slight frame has been replaced by a much older looking, heavier-set, brooding figure typically clad in paramilitary fatigues with unshaven stubble and dark circles under his eyes.

Zelenskiy largely veered away from questions about himself in the interview with Reuters, instead focusing on his deep frustrations with some of Ukraine's wartime allies and returning to his central message: the West must to do more to help.

Reuters spoke to eight current and former Ukrainian and foreign officials who have worked with Zelenskiy, as well as several friends and colleagues from his past.

They paint a portrait of a leader who has become tougher and more decisive, less tolerant of mistakes and even prone to paranoia, as he copes with round-the-clock stress and fatigue.

"This is a sleep-deprived regime," said Zelenskiy's former defence minister Oleksii Reznikov, adding that the president was often on the move around Ukraine and had a "grab bag" with a change of clothes and a toothbrush because he frequently didn't know where he'd be spending the night.

"This is the president's daily life - broken sleep. It is consultations at night and addresses to parliaments, senates ... regardless of the time," Reznikov said. "He's in stress mode 24 hours a day, seven days a week - it's a never-ending marathon."

There's little tolerance for the ill-prepared.

Zelenskiy will order officials and advisers out of the room if he feels they're not fully ready, according to a member of his team, who recounted how the president dismissed his aides in frustration during a meeting earlier this year to plan the information campaign surrounding the mobilisation drive.

"If he sees people aren't prepared or are contradicting each other, he'll say, get out of here. I don't have time for this," said the team member who was present at the meeting and requested anonymity to speak freely about Zelenskiy.

Many of the people interviewed spoke of being impressed by Zelenskiy's mental endurance and his ability to cope with his role as Ukraine's president, wartime commander-in-chief and bridge to the world.

"His memory is a huge strength. He keeps a large amount of information in his head, he very quickly grasps details and nuances," Reznikov said. "This gift accelerated his rapid mastery of the English language - I watched it."

Former minister Reznikov, who was dismissed by Zelenskiy in September 2023 after corruption scandals at his ministry that he denied any connection with, dismissed any suggestion that a former TV funnyman with scant geopolitical experience could take on the might of Vladimir Putin's Russia, whose forces overwhelmingly outnumber and outgun Ukraine's.

"I would apply Mark Twain's quote to President Zelenskiy," he added. "It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog."

At the same time, Zelenskiy has grown increasingly "paranoid" about suspected Russian attempts to assassinate him and destabilise Ukraine's leadership, according to a senior European official who has held talks with the leader.

"And rightly so," the official added.

PLAYING PIANO WITH HIS...

Zelenskiy's grave appeals to the NATO summit this week present a stark counterpoint to the irreverent comedy sketches that sent audience into howls of laughter in years gone by.

One YouTube clip from 2016 shows Ukraine's future leader standing behind a piano with his trousers around his ankles, "playing" tunes despite his hands being nowhere near the keyboard, to the delight of the crowd.

"Of course he's changed over the past five years," said Andriy Shaykan, who studied with Zelenskiy at the Kryvyi Rih Economic Institute between 1995 and 2000. "He's become older, as a person upon whom an incredible burden is placed. He sleeps for a few hours a night. That huge pressure - it shows."

Zelenskiy grew up in the 1990s in Kryvyi Rih, a steelmaking city in central Ukraine that was consumed by economic turmoil and rampant crime after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

He found his niche in entertainment, building a hit comedy troupe - named Kvartal 95 after his home district - which won the KVN Russian TV talent show popular across the former Soviet region.

In 2015, Zelenskiy starred in a new TV sitcom "Servant of the People", playing an honest school teacher who becomes Ukrainian president after a classroom rant about corruption goes viral online.

The role struck a chord with Ukrainians fed up with post-Soviet graft and, in an extraordinary case of life mimicking art, helped catapult him into the president's office in a landslide vote.

Artem Gagarin, a writer for Kvartal 95, admits he was baffled when his former boss decided to run for office.

"He was Ukraine's top comic, basically the top show-businessman. Why did he need this?"

Five years on, he says he is grateful that Zelenskiy chose the path he did, as he has proved himself a natural leader.

"Otherwise, where would we be now?"

'A MILITARY LEADER'

Zelenskiy certainly isn't universally loved at home.

His public approval rating, which leapt to 90% in 2022 after the invasion as Ukrainians rallied round the flag, has been dragged down by war fatigue, an unpopular conscription drive, the sacking of a respected general and a grim battlefield outlook that has seen Russia slowly advancing in the east in recent months.

A president elected to drain the establishment swamp in a fierce expression of Ukrainian democracy has become ruler of a country under martial law.

Zelenskiy's main political rivals have been frozen out of key decision-making about issues such as military strategy, governance and international relations throughout the war and many ordinary Ukrainians have voiced unease at the concentration of power in his team's hands.

"People now do not perceive him as previously, as an anti-establishment politician, a former comedian," said Anton Hrushetskyi, executive director of the Kyiv-based KIIS pollster. "They see him as a military leader and all the jokes from the past, people leave them in the past."

Zelenskiy's public approval has stabilised at around 60%, which is "high considering the overall difficult situation" of a war that is dragging on with no end in sight, Hrushetskyi added.

U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who has met Zelenskiy several times in Ukraine and in Washington, told Reuters that he had grown into his position as an inspiring wartime leader.

That process began when he refused to be evacuated by the West at the start of the war as Russian troops bore down on Kyiv, McCaul said.

"Zelenskiy is always serious, and gets to the point," he added. "I remember meeting with him and his generals and they gave me a list of weapons that they wanted."

FRUSTRATION WITH ALLIES

Despite having supporters like McCaul and U.S. President Joe Biden, Zelenskiy has struggled to retain global attention for Ukraine's plight since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October last year.

His persistent appeals for more Western aid are often imbued with a moral indignation that Ukraine is paying in blood to defend the democratic world from Russia.

"He repeats 15 times what he needs, that we need to do more or face the consequences, and he doesn't let it go," said the senior European official.

The Ukrainian leader has become increasingly frustrated with Western nations, according to a second European official who said he would be well advised to "tread carefully" to avoid alienating much-needed allies.

At meetings and phone calls with foreign officials, Zelenskiy hammers home the same message, relentlessly pushing his cause, two European officials told Reuters.

More recently, in a subtle but notable shift of emphasis since a summit in Switzerland held to garner international support and isolate Russia, he has underlined the urgent need for a fair resolution to the war and talked of a second summit later this year that could include a representative from Moscow.

"We don't want to drag out this war and we must reach a just peace as soon as possible," he said in Kyiv after talks with Slovenia's president on June 28.

Trying to ramp up pressure on NATO on his way to its Vilnius summit last year, Zelenskiy lashed out at the military alliance saying it was "absurd" that it failed to give Kyiv a clear timetable for it to join.

In Washington this week, with that goal still elusive, the Ukrainian leadership was less abrasive, with his chief of staff saying he was happy with its outcome.

Zelenskiy himself has warded off questions about how he has performed as leader of Ukraine under exceptional circumstances.

"I cannot assess my activity, I think it is not very ethical," he said in the interview with Reuters at his office in central Kyiv to mark five years in power.

"I am proud that I am the president of Ukraine – this is my attitude to all these five years."

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/being-volodymyr-zelenskiy-war-changed-060406045.html

'Escobar: We Are NATO, And We're Coming To Get Ya'

 by Pepe Escobar,

We are the world. We are the people. We are NATO. And we’re comin’ to get ya – wherever you are, whether you want it or not.

Call it the latest pop iteration of the “rules-based international order” – duly christened at NATO’s 75th birthday in D.C.

Well, the Global Majority had already been warned – but brains under techno-feudalism tend to be reduced to mush.

So a gentle reminder is in order. This had already been stated in the first paragraph of the Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation, issued on January 9, 2023:

“We will further mobilize the combined set of instruments at our disposal, be they political, economic, or military, (italics mine) to pursue our common objectives to the benefit of our one billion citizens.”

Correction: barely one million, part of the 0.1% plutocracy. Certainly not one billion.

Cut to the 2024 NATO Summit Declaration – obviously redacted, with stellar mediocrity, by the Americans, with the other 31 assorted vassal members duly assenting.

So here’s the main 2024 NATO “strategic” trifecta:

1. Extra tens of billions of dollars in “assistance” to the upcoming rump Ukraine; the overwhelming majority of these funds will be slushing around the industrial-military money laundering complex.

2. Forceful imposition of extra military spending on all members.

3. Massive hyping up of the “China threat”.

As for the theme song of the NATO 75 show, there are actually two. Apart from “China Threat” (closing credits), the other one (opening credits) is “Free Ukraine”. The lyrics go something like this: it looks like we are at war against Russia in Ukraine, but don’t be fooled: NATO is not a participant in the war.

Well, they are even setting up a NATO office in Kiev, but that is just to coordinate production for a Netflix war series.

Those malignant authoritarians

The outgoing epileptic slab of Norwegian wood posing as NATO Secretary-General – before the arrival of his Dutch Gouda replacement – put on quite a performance. Highlights include his fierce denunciation of “the growing alliance between Russia and its authoritarian friends in Asia”, as in “authoritarian leaders in Iran, North Korea and China”. These malignant entities “all want NATO to fail”. So there’s much work to do “with our friends in the Indo-Pacific”.

“Indo-Pacific” is a crude “rules-based international order” invention. No one across Asia, anywhere, has ever used it; everyone refers to Asia-Pacific.

The joint declaration directly blames China for fueling Russian “aggression” in Ukraine: Beijing is described as a “decisive enabler” of the Kremlin’s “war effort”. NATO script writers even directly threaten China: China “cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation”.

To counter-act such malignity, NATO will expand its “partnerships” with “Indo-Pacific” states.

Even before the summit declaration, the Global Times was already losing their cool with these inanities: “Under the hype from the U.S. and NATO, it seems that China has become the ‘key’ to the survival of Europe, controlling the fate of the Russia-Ukraine conflict like a ‘decisive power.’”

The tawdry rhetorical fest in D.C. definitely won’t cut it in Beijing: the Hegemon just wants “to reach more deeply into Asia, trying to establish an ‘Asia-Pacific NATO’ to help achieve the U.S.’ ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy.’”

Southeast Asia, via diplomatic channels, essentially agrees: with the exception of bought and paid for misguided Filipinos, no one wants serious turbulence across Asia-Pacific like NATO has unleashed across Europe.

Zhou Bo, senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy and a retired PLA officer, also dismissed the Indo-Pacific shenanigans even before the summit: we had an excellent exchange about it late last year at the Astana Forum in Kazakhstan.

Whatever happens, Exceptionalistan will remain on overdrive. NATO and Japan have agreed to establish a “highly confidential security information” line, around the clock. So count on meek Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to enhance Japan’s “pivotal role” in the building of an Asian NATO.

Everyone with a brain from Urumqi to Bangalore knows that the motto across Asia, for the Exceptionalists, is “Today Ukraine, Tomorrow Taiwan”. The absolute majority of ASEAN, and hopefully India, will not fall for it.

What is clear is that the NATO at 75 circus is absolutely clueless and impervious to what happened at the recent SCO summit in Astana. Especially when it comes to the SCO now positioned as a key node in bringing on a new, Eurasia-wide collective security arrangement.

As for Ukraine, once again Medvedev Unplugged, in inimitable style, delivered the Russian position:

“The Washington Summit Declaration of July 10 mentions ‘the irreversible path of Ukraine’ to NATO. For Russia, 2 possible ways of how this path ends are acceptable: either Ukraine disappears, or NATO does. Still better, both.”

In parallel, China is conducting military exercises in Belarus only a few days after Minsk officially became a SCO member. Translation: forget about NATO “expanding” to Asia when Beijing is already making it clear it is very much present in NATO’s alleged “backyard”.

A declaration of war against Eurasia

Michael Hudson once again has reminded everyone with a brain that the running NATO warmongering show has nothing to do with peaceful internationalism. It’s rather about “a unipolar U.S. military alliance leading toward military aggression and economic sanctions to isolate Russia and China. Or more to the point, to isolate European and other allies from its former trade and investment with Russia and China, making those allies more dependent on the United States.”

The 2024 NATO declaration actually is a renewed declaration of war, hybrid and otherwise, against Eurasia – as well as Afro-Eurasia (yes, there are promises of “partnerships” advancing everywhere from Africa to the Middle East).

The Eurasia integration process is about geoeconomic integration – including, crucially, transportation corridors connecting, among other latitudes, northern Europe with West Asia.

For the Hegemon, this is the ultimate nightmare: Eurasia integration driving Western Europe away from the U.S. and preventing that perennial wet dream, the colonization of Russia.

So only plan A would apply, with absolute ruthlessness: Washington – literally – bombed Russia-Germany integration (Nord Stream 1 and 2, and more) and turned the vassal lands of frightened, discombobulated Europeans into a potentially very dangerous place, right beside a raging Hot War.

So once again, let everyone go back to that first paragraph of the January 2023 EU-NATO joint communiqué. That’s what we’re facing today, reflected on the title of my latest book, Eurasia v. NATOstan: NATO – in theory – fully mobilized, in military, political and economic terms, to fight against any Global Majority forces that may destabilize Imperial Hegemony.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-we-are-nato-and-were-coming-get-ya