Vanessa Beeley

Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist and photographer who has worked extensively in the Middle East - on the ground in Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine, while also covering the conflict in Yemen since 2015. In 2017 Vanessa was a finalist for the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism which was won by the much-acclaimed Robert Parry that year. In 2018 Vanessa was named one of the 238 most respected journalists in the UK by the British National Council for the Training of Journalists. In 2019, Vanessa was among recipients of the Serena Shim Award for uncompromised integrity in journalism. Vanessa contributes regularly to Mint Press News, Russia Today, UK Column, The Last American Vagabond, Sputnik radio, 21st Century Wire and many other independent media outlets. Please support her work at her https://www.patreon.com/vanessabeeley Patreon Page.

Wildfires Rage Across Syria in Wake of Increased US-Led Economic Warfare

The combination of a ten year military war, maximum pressure economic sanctions, the deliberate destruction of essential civilian infrastructure and the blatant scorched earth policies of the American neocolonialist foreign policy-managers are designed to reduce Syria to another failed state following NATO’s Libya blueprint.

Vanessa Beeley
By Vanessa Beeley
People fleeing Latakia

For nearly two weeks, Syria has been battling a new wave of fires that have engulfed much of the agricultural and forest-rich mountainous areas of western Syria. Thanks to a corporate media blackout, very few in the West are aware of the devastation that is affecting the Syrian people already crippled by U.S.-led economic sanctions, recently

Read Full Article

As Syria Struggles Under COVID-19 Lockdown, America’s Scorched Earth Policy Ensures Food Insecurity

Infuriated by a failed military campaign to remove Syria’s leadership, the US is now turning the economic screws on a nation that has endured a brutal 10-year war of attrition waged by extremist mercenaries.

Vanessa Beeley
By Vanessa Beeley
Virus Outbreak Syria

In a world dominated by American exceptionalism and neo-colonialism, hunger has become a weapon of war. “The use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare is prohibited” under international humanitarian law yet the U.S. regularly reduces entire nations to dangerous levels of food insecurity in order to subjugate them. Food,

Read Full Article

How Victims of the US’ “Maximum Pressure” Campaign Are Coping with Coronavirus

Despite crippling sanctions, years of war, military intervention and a “maximum pressure “campaign that has only increased since the coronavirus began, victims of America’s heavy-handed foreign policy are rising to the challenge.

Vanessa Beeley
By Vanessa Beeley
US Sanctions Coronavirus Feature photo

As Western nations descend into a panic over the coronavirus pandemic, Americans are getting a taste of what it’s like for the millions who have been living under U.S. sanctions and warfare. Iran has been hit hard by the pandemic with 850 confirmed deaths to date. It’s Rial lost 80 percent of its value and food costs have nearly doubled. With

Read Full Article

After His Mysterious Death, the Media Scrambles to Get its Story Straight About White Helmets Founder James Le Mesurier

Almost immediately after Le Mesurier’s alleged plunge to his death, reports began to emerge of tampering and the removal of details about the controversial “private security” operative’s career.

Vanessa Beeley
By Vanessa Beeley
James Le Mesurier Feature photo

On November 11, 2019, the British founder of the notorious White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, died in Istanbul, Turkey. The circumstances surrounding his death immediately elicited a flurry of Turkish and corporate media reports, many of them contradictory, as the details of his final hours came to light.  Mark Urban, the diplomatic editor at BBC

Read Full Article

ISIS Captives Offer a Convenient Pawn in Turkey’s Syria Chess Game

ISIS is the latest bogeyman in a global terror portfolio that serves a neoconservative agenda in the Middle East, and Turkey has been its midwife and curator.

Vanessa Beeley
By Vanessa Beeley
Turkey Syria ISIS Feature photo

Turkey recently threatened to send 1,200 ISIS terrorists back to their countries of origin in the EU, the U.S., and the UK. Turkey’s Interior Minister, Suleyman Solyu, claimed that extradition would begin on Monday, November 11, ironically on Armistice Day. Ankara claimed it would even send back those whose citizenships have been revoked. How

Read Full Article

The White Helmets, Hala Systems and the Grotesque Militarization of “Humanitarianism” in Syria

Vanessa Beeley looks at how the now-infamous White Helmets partnered with Chicago-based Hala Systems to militarize so-called humanitarian efforts in Syria.

Vanessa Beeley
By Vanessa Beeley
Hala White Helmets Feature photo

Syria, August 2019 - reports came in that Russian warplanes had destroyed two terrorist-manned early warning radar posts in the Northern Hama countryside, known as the 20th post and the Eagle post. According to an article published by South Front, these early warning posts are “tasked with monitoring flights of Russian and Syrian warplanes” and

Read Full Article

Faux Humanitarian Irwin Cotler, the White Helmets, and the Whitewashing of an Appalling Agenda

Cotler’s campaigns for foreign regime change or intervention almost always march in lock-step with neoconservative U.S. foreign policy. His “humanitarian” branding is but a thin veneer of hypocrisy to conceal his establishment policies — policies that almost always serve the interests of Israel.

Vanessa Beeley
By Vanessa Beeley
Irwin Cotler Feature photo

On July 22, 2018, Israel organized and facilitated an exceptional evacuation of White Helmet operatives from southern Syria, claiming the operatives were at risk from an advancing Syrian Arab Army. A number of NATO member states backed the move, calling on Israel to bring their intelligence assets to safety.  The White Helmets have been

Read Full Article