The Man with so many Dark Secrets!

A Convenient Death (2020)
The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein
Authors: Alana Goodman & Daniel Halper

The turn of the 21st century witnessed the rise of conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate, #MeToo, following the exposé of Harvey Weinstein, and QAnon. One prominent news story that captured public consciousness was that of Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein began life as the modest son of a refuse collector in Coney Island. Although poorly qualified and lacking a university degree, he fabricated his resume to secure a teaching position at a school. He was an intelligent man, but when his deception was revealed, he transitioned to the money market. Despite lacking formal qualifications, he succeeded in persuading his clients to invest significantly through him.

Epstein claims to have made millions for his clients, but some insist that he keeps the liaisons going through well-crafted blackmail.  

He is said to have made tonnes through his shady business of pimping minor girls and arranging them for some 'special' clients. His close clientele may include Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Alec Baldwin, MBS, Ehud Barak and maybe Trump.

Many of those mentioned in his later exposé deny ever knowing Epstein, but video evidence is plentiful. The mastermind behind Epstein's recruitment was Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Britain's disgraced media baron Robert Maxwell. She is reported to have a network for procuring underage girls to get the ring started.

It is said that Epstein was audacious in his actions. He flaunted his private jets, including a Boeing 727 whimsically named 'Lolita Express', about the 1962 film 'Lolita', to win over VIPS, and even acquired his own island for his alleged illicit activities. His net worth remains questionable. Some even doubt whether he is truly worth what he claims to possess. Conversely, much like he does for his clients, he may have concealed his wealth in offshore accounts, beyond the scrutiny of prying eyes. Epstein was known to be a philanthropist, donating to numerous institutions of higher learning and funding research. His most prominent client was Leslie Wexner, the owner of 'Victoria's Secret', who availed himself of more than just his financial management services.

In 2005, one of the girls recruited as an escort reported to the police. This soon opened a can of worms that would not disappear. Epstein's house of cards collapsed. Ghislaine was also implicated. One by one, Epstein's acquaintances claimed not to know him. After receiving a jail sentence for soliciting a prostitute and an underage one, he was released in 2009. In 2019, he was rearrested on federal sex trafficking charges. A month after his arrest, having rewritten his will and preparing for his trials with his team of lawyers, he was found dead in his cell. The cause of death was determined to be suicide by hanging. Even though Epstein was on suicide watch, the CCTV was not functioning. No staff had observed his activities for an extended period. The post-mortem findings were contradictory, such as the ability of a tall man to hang himself without sufficient leg space. The pattern of neck injury was also questioned by detractors.

For a man carrying so many dirty secrets which could tarnish the image of many, there is every reason for him to be dead and not wash their dirty linen in public.

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The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein

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Paedophilic Ring - Fact or Fiction?

 Sound of Freedom (2022)
 Director: Alejandro Monteverde

This movie drew a lot of flak from either side of the spectrum. People over the subject matter put forward in the movie cry foul over the lack of publicity about this movie. On the other end, those who stand by the belief that the whole talk of the existence of secret pedophilic prostitution is bunkum are up in arms. They cannot believe that Tinseltown is pandering to conspiracy theorists. It does not help that it is the third highest-grossing film in the US after Barbie and Oppenheimer. 

On one end, big studios had malaise, like Fox and later Disney, which bought Fox to get off the ground. It had to be purchased by a small independent studio funded by crowdsourcing and the excellent work of Mel Gibson and the movie star Jim Caviezel, who played the protagonist Tom Ballard.

For a long time, during Trump's tenure, a strong lobbyist swore to the presence of an entity called QAnon. Nobody could pinpoint who QAnon actually was, but rumours were rife that it could be someone entrenched deep within the Administration, or it could be Mr Donald Trump himself. QAnon was supposed to be prophetic, a seer who could foresee events yet to happen and would whisper cryptic messages to the general public. 

One of the most damaging rumours that went around then was the existence of Pizzagate. Pizzagate became a code word for the proof of the existence of Satanistic, hedonistic, cannibalistic child abusers with a big pedophilic ring within the Democratic Party of the USA. They allegedly drank tortured children's blood to reap the benefit of adrenochrome, an elixir of youth. The ring later involved a more comprehensive web, including moguls of the cinema industry, royalties and public figures. Nobody has been convicted thus far for such crimes, but it will not die soon. The latest victim is Hunter Biden, the son of POTUS Joe Biden. 

Slavery never really died. It just got rebranded. The hunt for wealth will continue as long as the economic divide grows exponentially worldwide and fiat money is used to gauge an individual's success. With wealth, decadence becomes a well-deserved fringe benefit. The march to the wild side becomes a dare. The market for sex for hire and appetite for experimental experiences grows exponentially, too.

Despite the numerous laws enacted worldwide by governments and world bodies, children are abducted and trafficked over borders for multiple reasons, including child labour, adoption, begging, working as child soldiers and serving as sex slaves.

This film is based on the real-life experiences of Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security Agent who left his job at the agency to start a non-profit organisation called Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), credited for rescuing thousands of children from sex trafficking rings. In this movie, he travels to Columbia to rescue a preteen Honduran girl from one of these rings.

Detractors to the successes of OUR insist that their laurels were highly exaggerated. They insist that all the trafficked children were abducted and kept outside the USA. What they forget is that there is a market for it, and their customers are Americans who frequent them outside American shores.

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Power, a double-edged sword that cuts own hand!

Cairo Conspiracy (aka Boy from Heaven; 2022)
Director: Tarik Saleh

What started as a guide for mankind to live in symbiosis with Nature and his fellow beings has come to this. Religion used to be a solace for the broken-hearted and for broken dreams. It is unbelievable how some doe-eyed ignorant (read stupid) voters in some Eastern States of the Malaysian Peninsula are hoodwinked into believing that a vote for the Islamic party is a ticket to secure a place in Jannah in the afterworld. Can you get any stupider than that? Not to forget the self-centred foot soldiers who want to re-instate the past glory of the Levant kingdom without a thought for the innocent collateral damage just because they want to spend eternity with virgins (or grapes in the new revised version of the scriptures!). The only problem is that, in a body-less afterlife, they would not have a body for bodily pleasures.

Recently, the cabal of non-god-believing leftists took it upon themselves to destroy the career of an 87-year-old Tibetan godman with his 80 years record of unblemished career by ridiculously editing his innocent grandfatherly encounter with a worshipper to give it a pedophilic overtone. 

Religion has turned into a political tool, a money-churning machine, a puppet string to control the masses (with a silent 'm') besides fulfilling its traditional role of being the opiate of choice to the public. It herds its followers to think collectively without taxing the grey cells or changing the status quo. Thinking outside the box is not encouraged. Decision-making is best left to the elitists, the clerics, as they know what is best for mankind. They are the moral guardians, which they enforce with iron fists and supposed zero-tolerance.

Unlike Plato's Republic, modern democracies are not ruled by philosophers. Following the shenanigans of the Church in Europe, there became a distinct separation between governments and the Church (or other religions in other countries). Following Khomeni's establishment of a true Islamic Republic in Iran, increasingly, many clerics have been slowly exerting their influence. Invoking the name of God seems to cow all believers into submission. In most countries, clerics and politicians become strange bedfellows; one leeching on the other for power. The dynamics between these two unholy unions are anything but sincere. There is constant Hawkeye surveillance on the other and an ongoing ploy to reign in the other's control of resources.

The Egyptian-Swedish filmmaker, Tarik Saleh, had no plans to make this movie as the storyline seems to undermine an institution considered most prestigious amongst the Sunni sect, Cairo's al-Azhar University. His previous film, 'Nile Hilton Incident' (2017), got him in trouble with the Egyptian authorities for painting the Egyptian police as corrupt. And Saleh was not welcomed in Egypt. So, most of the shooting had to be done in Turkey and Sweden instead.

Adam, a son of a fisherman from a small town, is chosen to study at al-Azhar University. His freshman year saw the sudden death of the Great Imam. He soon finds himself a pawn in the skullduggery of the appointment of the new Imam. He has to assume the role of the Secret Service to discover the clandestine activities of opposing factions in trying to win the coveted position over.

He finally realises that power is a double-edged sword that can cut one's own hand.

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Only theories, nothing more.

MH 370: The Plane that Disappeared(2023, Netflix)
3-part Documentary

"Good night, Malaysia 370!" Those were the last words before Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah disappeared with his Boeing 777, 227 passengers from 14 nations and 12 crew members into thin air in the early hours of 8th March 2014 en route to Beijing.

Nine years later, the world is still clueless about how an aircraft as big as a building could disappear without evidence. In an era when we may be at the cusp of discovery of the Higgs boson (God) particle, and we can convict a politician with denatured DNA from semen deposited three days previously, we are still unable to make head or tail to a Boeing plane's whereabouts. All the satellites and tracking devices that monitor our every move simply failed to comprehend its fate after it went off the radar after 0130hrs. External communications and transponder signals simultaneously disappeared after entering the Vietnamese air space.

This documentary series has yet to shed any new information on the disappearance of MH370. We know now that all communications went kaput after reaching Vietnam before the Vietnamese ground control could get in touch. A telecommunication tower on Penang Island picked up signals from the co-pilot's mobile phone hours after the vessel went missing. The incompetent Malaysian Airforce towers picked an aberrant signal in the Straits of Malacca. Unfortunately, they could not make head or tail on the origin or meaning. They could not confirm whether it was a flying object at all. I remember reading from the local dailies that a junior officer who noticed the signal decided not to disturb his superiors from their beauty sleep, fearing retributions.

Then somebody suggested seeing a possible satellite image of an aeroplane in the South China Sea. Nothing was found by patrolling Navy ships. Imersat telecommunication satellite opined they may have had pinging cues from MH 370 somewhere along the Indian Ocean. The trouble was that they could pinpoint its exact location. For all they knew, it could extend from the Arabian Sea all the way to the turbulent South Seas. None of the observation towers in Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar or India had reported the passing of an unaccounted Boeing 777. Apparently, the policeman of the world, the USA, and Boeing are also in the dark about its locale.

Its black box was never discovered. Neither was any debris found despite extensive combing of oceans and beaches. Almost 15 months after the mishap, large chunks of plane parts belonging to the ill-fated plane made their presence in Reunion Island and Mozambique. The fact that a shady maverick in the vein of Indiana Jones found it and not a single boatman sighted it at sea raised suspicion about whether the evidence was planted. I remember there were some mysterious deaths of officials around the time of these discoveries.

As it stands now, there are only wild conspiratory theories to explain the whole fiasco. Still, none of them manages to correlate all the shreds of evidence we have so far. Then there is a question of which of the findings is indeed credible. Occam's razor principle suggests that when one encounters a problematic crossroad, the more plausible explanation is, the simpler one. As they say, "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." The problem is that all clues are equally compelling and are backed with scientific or pseudo-scientific convincing explanations.

 

Science and logic go out of the window in the modern world. Facts are sometimes stranger than fiction. The 6-tonne elephant in the room has yet to speak. Despite many of the victims being Chinese, China decided to play silent.

MH370 disappeared in Vietnam, a China vassal state. Search parties have searched a vast area, minus territories, under the umbrage of the CCP. There were talks of suspicious cargo on the plane. It was once mentioned to be mangosteens, even though it was off-season. Then there was talk of people travelling with fake Pakistani passports. At that time, the murmur was that the cargo was drones from Afghanistan meant to be delivered to the Urghurs. Another mention was some high-fi computer technology in the aviation industry. The passenger lists also included high-profile personalities of interest to the USA attending a computer conference in Beijing.

Is it possible that the whole thing is a nicely executed perfect crime by the CCP? Once MH 370 entered Vietnam airspace, it took control of the entire aeroplane, disarmed its connectivity to the outside world, brought it down to a safe space in its territory, dismantled whatever it needed to and cleaned up all pieces of evidence. With increasing curiosity, it simply fed the world with elements of evidence to confuse everyone.

That is what we are left with, only conspiracy theories. In a world of information overload, no one is sure of anything. With MH17 being shot down by Russia-sponsored Ukranian terrorists so soon after the MH370 fiasco, there is a question of whether there is a Russian hand in this mess.

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They stirred a honest hornet's nest!

Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022)
Acted and Directed: R Madhavan

I heard about the Isro Spy Case a few years ago. I did not think much about it then, but my interest was piqued when R Madhavan announced and promoted Nambi Narayanan's story; at the same time, he announced his intention to make a movie about him. 

Then came the 'Rocket Boys', a miniseries showcasing India's intention to apply for membership to the exclusive club of having nuclear facilities and rocket technology. It further stirred everyone's anticipation of Madhavan's movie. Then came Covid-related closures and the delays in production and post-production work. 

With the Real McCoy

We have all heard of Kalam, the satellite launches and even India's Mars exploration. Mangalyaan in 2014. Mangalyaan was initially made to last six months, but it is still functional more than seven years (three Martian years) after its launch. The man who made all these possible is Dr Nambi Narayanan. He was wrongly accused of being a Pakistani spy, imprisoned for fifty over days, humiliated, and lost many good years of his productive life. This is his story. It is a tale of political backstabbing, Cold War espionage, honey trapping, big bucks and escapades of James Bond proportions. Despite being declared innocent of all charges by CBI, compensated handsomely for his ordeals by the Supreme Court and conferred the nation's highest awards, he intends to track down the people who accused him and all other honest serving patriots in India.

The story is told in a flashback format as the senior rocket scientist gives what is expected to be a boring interview. Dr Narayanan tells his whole life experience, from his stint at ISRO with the likes of Kalam and Vikram Sarabhai, his doctorate in Princeton, his research into fluid propulsion technology and his refusal to accept a post at NASA. His patriotic fervour pushed him to help ISRO source more advanced equipment from Scotland, France and Russia. All the while, the Americans appear to make the going tough for India. The Indians close association with the Russians made the Americans hot under the collar. At the time when the Soviet Union was about to collapse, Nambi and his team, in a daring escape, managed to secure some advanced Russian rocketry components.

NY Times apologised for this cartoon
which came out after India's Mars Mission.

Then came the arrest in 1994 and the accusation of treason for selling India's rocket technology to Pakistan. Two Mauritian ladies were roped in to be the go-betweens. After failing to secure a confession and the news became a national scandal, the Central Bureau of Investigation was called in. CBI exonerated him.

The post-arrest days were painful for Nambi and his family, his wife primarily. Obstatrcised by the community and vilified by the press, the public was quick to hurl brickbats, lash out sharp tongues and throw physical stones at their home. His wife became an emotional wreck.

The conspirators were never identified. Many theories have been flaunted, nevertheless. The American involvement with big bucks being dangled at potential inside men was entertained. Nambi was climbing fast in the industry, and there were naturally evil eyes. In Kerala, there was severe political in-fighting. A faction wanted to put the Chief Minister in a bad light. They succeeded eventually, as the CM resigned after the seemingly poor handling of the ISRO spy case. Corrupt police officers, Kerala Deputy Intelligence Bureau included, are suspected of having picked the two Maldivian ladies for unrelated matters and beat them into submission to play the part.

Even though the film is just newly released, critics are quick to shoot the movie down, the storyline, the direction and everything about the film. They complain about the supposedly 'forced' patriotism that the movie is trying to promote. If that is not enough, these sepoys or Uncle Toms, crack jokes at the Indian traditional almanac (panchangam). A perusal of most liberal media outlets will reveal them consistently giving low rankings, a 2.5/5 when in reality, it deserves a 4/5 as the movie achieved its intended aim. That is, to publicise an Indian icon that would have been lost in the annals of history or made infamous by the trumped-up accusations. It gives the Indian diaspora a reason to feel good about themselves.

Still managing a smile after a 27-year-old legal battle.
Padma Bushan Award in 2019.

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/isro-spy-case-us-was-also-conspiracy-implicate-me-nambi-narayanan-tells-court-152358

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What is the bottomline?

Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (2022)

Netflix documentary

Whenever I see the tagline at a particular private medical centre that reads "We Care", I cringe. I tell myself that it should be reading "We Care, right! - Only for your money!" Somehow when a business entity says such a thing, it sounds ingenuine. More and more, we notice these foolhardy manoeuvres hiding behind informed consent and pages of indecipherable agreement terms.

Multinational companies move in with their big budgets and high-rolling executives to portray an image of purity and magnanimity, teaching smaller firms how to practise fair trade. In reality, they are no more than fly-by-night snake oil salesmen who would disappear at the crack of dawn. Over the past few years, the shenanigans of Boeing, the mega-conglomerate which made more than half of the world's planes, has come to light.

First, in late 2018, a brand new Boeing 737 Max belonging to Lion Air of Indonesia went plunging down into the Java Straits at full throttle soon after takeoff. Boeing executives were quick to deny that a brand new Boeing could be anything but faulty. They alleged, condescendingly, that the pilot did not know how to fly. 189 people perished.

Five months later, in 2019, another Boeing 737 Max crashed in Ethiopia. Soon after takeoff, with minimal warning, it took a nosedive into some hills killing all 157 onboard. The executives, this time, said that the pilots did not read or understand the flying manuals.

Only after their black boxes were found did a possibility of a significant design flaw be entertained. Boeing started cutting corners in their zest to stay afloat and maintain profitability after its merger with McDonnell Douglas. To continue the lion's shares in the aeroplane building business over its European rival Airbus, but not able to produce a new design, Boeing kept churning out bigger 737s. It introduced the 737 Max series with the MCAS system. The MCAS was a device working in the background of the array of plane computers to keep this big machine stable in the air. The trouble was that it had the power to control the ship independently, and the worse part was that none of the Boeings pilots was ever made aware or trained on MCAS.

In both of the cases, the MCAS sensors went faulty. The plane engines went rogue and just crashed with no chance for the captains to realise what went wrong and react. It all happened in mere 10 seconds.

The biggest worrying thing about the whole affair was that Boeing knew about their products' fault but maliciously decided to pay importance to money over safety. They continued denying culpability. This was discovered from the bipartisan Congressional hearings and extensive investigative journalism.

Boeing rested on its past laurels and long tradition of being the pioneer in churning out fighter planes in World War. It exerted its dominance by demonstrating a condescending attitude towards its Asian and African clientele. Even when China, some Asian and European countries grounded their Boeing fleets, the haughty Boeing did not budge. Even the American Federal Aviation Authority maintained no fault in the 737 Max. For the first time in American history, its President, Trump, of course, had the gumption to ground American planes on its soil with immediate effect.

The hearing saw an explosive revelation of a business with many shortcomings. Their internal memos clearly showed their realisation of a faulty MCAS system, but they continued anyway, placing profitability over safety. Its CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, was clearly disgraced in front of a gallery of gobsmacked pilots, the family of the crash victims and the world at large. The company culture of profit and deception over safety was bare for scrutiny.

The documentary narrates in an understandable manner the descent of a giant company that emphasises engineering marvels to spiral down the decadent rabbit hole of greed. Its computer generated possible imagery of the final moments of the ill-fated flights are just devastating.

For failing to recognise safety risks and allowing the company to cut corners to get the planes to market, the CEO, Dennis Muilenberg, was dishonourably sacked, losing Boeing's stock worth $14.6 million but not without his pension and stock benefits of about $62 million.

Boeing ex-CEO, Dennis Muilenburg

The whole fiasco only highlights a straightforward fact. The West has lost its fervour. The rest of the world has awoken to the demand of the new world's needs. Yet, the West still bask in the glory of its tainted history and gunboat diplomacy. For example, take space exploration. It used to be a big boys' club exclusively in the domain of select Western countries. Wham! Escaping West's radar, China quietly launched a spaceship to the dark side of the Moon without much fanfare, and India sent a vessel to Mars at a fraction of their cost. The West is gobsmacked, and naturally, they are resolved to bring the others down at any price, but they would not admit it but instead put up a rather nonchalant attitude.

Now, they cry foul. They complain about CCP's unethical practice, human rights and environmental degradation as if they were not guilty of these in annals of history.

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