Corruption is Everywhere - Big Pharma - Of Course; Google; Canadian Government; Chad Bribery

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French health minister blasts ‘lousy’ disinformation campaign after influencers

were offered money to say Pfizer Covid jab is dangerous

25 May, 2021 09:55

A firefighter fills a syringe with a dose of the "Comirnaty" Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in a vaccination center

in Reze near Nantes as part of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccination campaign in France,

(FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

The French minister of health has labeled a campaign, which offered influencers €2,000 to suggest the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is dangerous, as “lousy.” The ministry says it’s “following the events closely.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Health Minister Olivier Veran said he and his ministry were still unsure about the origins of the campaign which sought to damage Pfizer’s reputation. “I do not know if it comes from France or from abroad,” he noted. 

“It’s lousy, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible and it doesn’t work,” he stated, adding that he was confident the French people are unlikely to be “diverted” by some “negative communication.” He claimed that the majority of French people want the vaccine as soon as possible.

Veran’s comments come after several influencers said on Monday that they had been contacted by a mysterious agency called ‘Fazze’ which describes itself as an ‘influencer marketing platform’.  

The agency reportedly offered French influencers €2,000 to claim the Pfizer vaccine is dangerous. Influencer Jeremie, known as ‘Docteur JFK’ on TikTok, told FranceInfo: “I was supposed to say the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had caused three times more deaths than AstraZeneca.” He added that the person contacting him wanted to remain anonymous and that he turned down the offer.

Gee, I wonder who could possibly have benefitted from influencers saying such things? Hmmm?

Leo Grasset, a YouTuber known as ‘DirtyBiology’, said he had also been contacted on May 24. He tweeted: “This is strange. I got offered a partnership that consists of destroying the Pfizer vaccine in a video. Huge budget, and a client that wants to stay anonymous.”

The French Ministry of Health has said it is keeping a close eye on developments and denounced the disinformation campaign.

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‘Completely inappropriate’: Top scientists denounce Big Pharma for implying annual Covid booster shots are crucial

13 May, 2021 14:19

(L) Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. © Reuters / John Thys; (R) Vials with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus disease vaccine. © Reuters / Dado Ruvic.

More than a dozen influential infectious disease and vaccine experts say the first round of jabs may offer enough protection against Covid-19, refuting Big Pharma’s claims that regular shots will “likely” be needed.

In a report on Thursday, Reuters quotes top infectious disease and vaccine-development experts as saying that the first round of inoculation with vaccines against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants may be adequate to offer enduring protection.

The scientists also expressed concern that it’s the pharmaceutical executives rather than health specialists who are shaping public expectations around booster shots.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in April that people would “likely” need a third dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated, adding that yearly vaccinations would possibly be necessary. 

Is it possible that there is an expiration of efficacy built-in to the vaccines? I detest big pharma so much that nothing would surprise me.

The CEO of American vaccine manufacturer Moderna, Stephane Bancel, also said this week that a booster shot might be needed as early as this autumn.

“There is zero, and I mean zero, evidence to suggest that that is the case,” Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters. Frieden now leads the global public health initiative Resolve to Save Lives. He went on to say that it was “completely inappropriate” to state that people would need an annual booster, “because we have no idea what the likelihood of that is.”

The World Health Organization has expressed a similar view. Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, told the outlet that there was no data yet available “that would inform a decision about whether or not booster doses are needed.” She added that the WHO was forming a panel of experts to assess vaccine efficacy data and to recommend changes to vaccination programs if necessary.

Pfizer responded to the criticism, saying it expected that the boosters would be necessary “while the virus was still circulating widely” – a situation that could change once the pandemic is brought under control.

The group of experts has also expressed concern that wealthy nations rushing to get booster shots as early as this year would push poorer nations farther back along the queue, as they are already struggling to buy doses for their first round of jabs. 

The UN reported in April that low-income countries had received just 0.2% of all Covid-19 shots given to date. 

Global spending on Covid-19 vaccines and booster shots could total $157 billion through 2025, says the US health-data firm IQVIA Holdings. Moderna, for example, has set a goal to produce three billion doses of vaccine by next year.

Ultimately, decisions on whether booster shots will be necessary “will best be made by public health experts, rather than CEOs of a company who may benefit financially,”  said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Google fined $120 million by Italy’s antitrust authority for abusing market position to block rival’s smartphone app

13 May, 2021 10:11

FILE PHOTO: The Google logo on the company's European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.

© Reuters / Clodagh Kilcoyne

Italy’s competition authority has fined Google €100 million ($120 million) for abusing its market position to block the Enel X app from the Play Store.

The Autorita Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato’s (AGCM) ruling centers around the claim that Google has abused its market position, controlling the Android operating system and Play Store, to prevent a rival app, Enel X, from being made available to users.

“By refusing Enel X Italia interoperability with Android Auto, Google has unfairly limited the possibilities for end users to avail themselves of the Enel X Italia app when driving and recharging an electric vehicle,” the antitrust regulator stated.

As part of its judgement, the regulator decreed that Google must make the Enel X app, which is for individuals with electric vehicles, available on Android Auto, as not doing so would “permanently jeopardize Enel X Italia’s chances of building a solid user base,” thereby violating competition rules.

Google’s actions violated Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EU), according to the AGCM, which bars companies from engaging in abusive behavior by holding a dominant position in a specific market.

The action by the AGCM is the latest punishment handed to the tech company for breaching rules laid out by antitrust regulators, with Google having been hit by €8.25 billion ($10 billion) in fines by the EU in the past three years.

EU investigators have been critical of Alphabet and its subsidiary for engaging in activity that they claim blocks or limits rivals on online shopping, advertising or Android smartphone platforms.

In response to the ruling, a Google spokesperson said: “We disagree with [the] authority’s decision and we will review our options.” The representative rejected the claim that it had abused its market position to block the app, arguing its “goal is to allow even more developers to make their apps available over time” but apps must comply with “strict guidelines” and safety standards before being approved.

Trudeau Is Cleared by Ethics Watchdog in WE Charity Scandal

FM Morneau did violate Canada’s conflict-of-interest act

Bloomberg News

Natalie Obiko Pearson

Publishing date: May 13, 2021 

(Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was cleared by Canada’s ethics watchdog for his role in awarding a no-bid government contract to a high-profile charity with ties to his family.

In a report released Thursday, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion concluded that Trudeau didn’t give preferential treatment to WE Charity when it was selected last summer to be the sole administrator of a program to distribute C$544 million ($448 million) in pandemic aid to students. Trudeau’s finance minister at the time, however, was found to be in conflict.

The contract sparked a political uproar when it came to light that Trudeau’s wife, mother and brother had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past to appear at events for WE, which is led by two Canadian brothers, Craig and Marc Kielburger.

“I determined there was no friendship between Mr. Trudeau and the Kielburgers, nor was Mr​. Trudeau involved in any discussions with them leading to the decision,” Dion said. The watchdog, who began his examination last July, added that while the family connection “created the appearance of a conflict of interest,” it didn’t formally cross a line.

The report blunts a major attack on the prime minister’s character as he weighs the timing of an election, expected this year, in which he could win back his parliamentary majority. Trudeau has at times faced criticism for his judgment, and this was his third conflict-of-interest probe since taking power.

“This confirms what I have been saying from the beginning,” Trudeau said in a statement after the report’s release. The prime minister has nonetheless apologized for failing to recuse himself from the decision.

Why didn't he recuse himself? Why did he apologize if he did nothing wrong?

The WE organization was lauded over its 25-year history by Fortune 500 companies, politicians, and celebrities from Prince Harry to Oprah Winfrey, allowing the Kielburger brothers to cultivate ties with influential backers. Among those was former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who played a more direct role in the awarding of the government’s pandemic aid program.

In a separate report, the ethics watchdog concluded that Morneau did violate Canada’s conflict-of-interest act.

“Mr. Morneau afforded WE preferential treatment by permitting members of his ministerial staff to disproportionately assist a constituent,” Dion said. “This unfettered access to the Office of the Minister of Finance was based, in my view, on the relationship between Mr. Morneau and Mr. Craig Kielburger,” who were friends, he said.

Morneau's daughter worked for WE Foundation.

Morneau abruptly resigned last August, amid a broader rift with Trudeau, after belatedly discovering that his family hadn’t paid for trips to luxury voluntourism camps where the WE organization hosts donors. He reimbursed the charity, and was cleared earlier by the watchdog for that slip.

This reminds me of the clean-up of corruption happening in Russia. I can't help but think that these acts of cleaning up corruption are restricted to people who have crossed a line, or made an enemy of more powerful oligarchs. 

What is the difference between Morneau accepting luxury trips from WE, and Trudeau doing the same from the Aga Khan?

Over the months, what began as a conflict-of-interest scandal has widened to closer scrutiny of the WE organization itself and the Kielburger brothers. Questions arose about a complex corporate structure that mixed philanthropy with for-profit activities, how funds were allocated, and whether the organization was as transparent with donors as it should have been.

Charlie Angus — an opposition New Democratic Party member of a parliamentary ethics committee that has been probing those issues separately — expressed support for the decision to clear Trudeau but said the watchdog’s findings on Morneau underscore ongoing concerns.

“The Ethics Commissioner has shone a light on how the Kielburger organization was able to have such unfettered access, right into the highest corridors of power,” he said. “They were not registered to lobby but they used the friendships that they carefully cultivated within the Liberal government to get access that no other group could have dreamed of getting.”

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Former Chadian diplomats to U.S. & Canada indicted

for bribery, money laundering

By Darryl Coote

May 25 (UPI) -- A federal grand Jury has charged two former Chadian diplomats to the United States and Canada with accepting a $2 million bribe from a Canadian start-up energy company and attempting to launder the payment.

The Justice Department announced Monday that the indictment returned by the Washington, D.C., grand jury was unsealed Thursday, accusing Mahamoud Adam Bechir, the former ambassador to both Canada and the United States, and Youssouf Hamid Takane, the former deputy chief of mission to the two countries, of accepting the bribe from the company while serving in their positions between August 2009 and July 2014.

According to the indictment, the Chadian pair demanded the bribe from the unnamed Canadian company in exchange for influencing their government to assist it in obtaining oil rights.

Naeem Tyab, a Canadian citizen and founding shareholder of the involved company, was also charged in the indictment with arranging for the bribe to be paid to Bechir's wife, Nouracham Bechir Niam, who is also a co-defendant, through a "sham" contract for consulting services that were never rendered, the Justice Department said.

"The bribery and corruption of foreign officials causes grave harm to both the global economy and the interests of the United States," said Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips of the District of Columbia. "My office and the Justice Department are committed to prosecuting these violations and efforts to launder the proceeds of these crimes."

All four people face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering while Bechir, Takane and Niam face charges of money laundering, which comes with a maximum potential sentence of 20 years imprisonment.

Naim and Tyab face charges of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which comes with a potential five years in prison.

Tyab was arrested in New York on Feb. 9, 2019, and pleaded guilty in late April that same year to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA, and forfeited some $27 million.

The other three defendants are at large, the Justice Department said.

Islam - Current Day > Jews Charged for Beating Up Arab; Terrorist Neutralized in Jerusalem; Democrats Ready to Abandon Israel; Islamophobia

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Israeli prosecutors charge 3 Jewish suspects over 'attempted lynching' of Arab man pulled out of his car and beaten

24 May, 2021 14:58

A vandalized Arab restaurant after clashes in the Israeli town of Bat Yam on May 12.

© AFP / Gil Cohen-Magen

Two Jewish men and an unnamed minor were indicted on charges of attempted murder and terrorism Monday over a brutal attack that landed an Arab man in hospital during the height of Israeli-Palestinian tensions earlier this month.

The victim, Saeed Mousa, was assaulted by a mob in the town of Bat Yam on May 12 as an exchange of strikes between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Gaza-based armed group Hamas provoked a wave of violent Jewish-Palestinian clashes inside Israel.

Mousa was dragged out of his car and harshly beaten with flagpoles and even an electric scooter in a shocking attack broadcast on live TV. The Israeli-Arab was taken to hospital in serious condition, but has reportedly improved.

On Monday, the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office charged Netanel Binyamin, 25, Lahav Ohanina, 18, and a 16-year-old minor, whose name couldn't be disclosed for legal reasons, over the attack on Mousa. In its statement, the prosecutors described the incident as an "attempted lynching".

The three have been indicted over the attempted murder of Mousa and face other charges ranging from aggravated intentional assault to causing a public disturbance and incitement to terrorism. They acted out of nationalist and racist motives, the prosecutors said.

The suspects are also believed to have taken part in an attack on an Arab-owned restaurant, while shouting "Death to Arabs," on that same day.

According to prosecutors, the trio were active members of a group on WhatsApp, which urged Jews to come to the promenade in Bat Yam in order to target Israeli-Arabs.

The Israeli public broadcaster Kan reportedly filmed Ohanina saying that he and the others took to the streets on May 12 “to fight with Arabs,” declaring “we will beat them; if necessary, we will kill them.”

On Sunday, the Israeli Justice Ministry announced that it had so far filed 140 indictments against around 230 people in relation to the clashes and rioting earlier this month. The ministry didn’t reveal the nationalities of the suspects, but the Jerusalem Post paper reported that only around 20 of them were Jews while the majority were Arabs.

One of the differences between Palestinians and Jews is that Palestinians have never prosecuted a Palestinian for injuring or murdering a Jew. Indeed, they are declared heroes and they or their survivors are given nice pensions in respect of the murderer. 

Israeli police 'neutralize' assailant who stabbed two in East Jerusalem

24 May, 2021 11:34

An Israeli security force member stands guard at the scene of an incident in Jerusalem May 24, 2021.

© REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Israeli police have shot dead a knife-wielding attacker who stabbed two people in an area of East Jerusalem that has been a focal point of protests and clashes between Palestinians and law enforcement in recent weeks.

Israeli police said in a tweet on Monday that a terrorist arrived at a rail station, pulled out a knife and wounded two people. “Police officers who were on the scene responded quickly, fired at the attacker – and neutralized him,” the post reads. 

The assailant injured two men in their 20s during the attack, one seriously and one moderately, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service.

A widely circulated video appears to show one of the victims wearing an Israeli military uniform. In the graphic video, the man can be seen kneeling with a knife in his back while medics treat him.

The incident took place near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where the possible eviction of Palestinian families was a flashpoint for mass protests that sparked the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza militants.

Images published by Reuters appear to show the assailant motionless on the side of the road while surrounded by medics and security personnel. Israeli security forces have been deployed to the area and can be seen standing on guard. 

A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, mediated by Egypt, has held for four days but tensions remain high in East Jerusalem. On Friday, violent clashes erupted at Al-Aqsa mosque, just hours after the ceasefire was agreed.

Sheikh Jarrah, IS

Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv to ‘bolster’ Gaza ceasefire as 500+ Biden campaign staffers call to ‘hold Israel accountable’

25 May, 2021 05:32 

FILE PHOTO: The Israeli settlement of Har Homa is seen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

©  Reuters / Mussa Qawasma

Over 500 Joe Biden campaign staffers have penned an open letter calling on the White House to pressure Israel to change its behavior, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarks on a trip to meet leaders in Tel Aviv.

Addressed directly to Biden, the letter asked the president to “unequivocally condemn Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians” during a recent flare-up of fighting with armed groups in Gaza, arguing that Tel Aviv must be pressured to change the “underlying conditions” that give rise to periodic violence between the two sides.

Then you must deal with the fanatical hatred Palestinians have for Jews. 

“We commend your efforts to broker a ceasefire. Yet, we also cannot unsee the horrific violence that unfolded in recent weeks in Israel/Palestine, and we implore you to continue using the power of your office to hold Israel accountable for its actions and lay the groundwork for justice and lasting peace,” the staffers said.

To ensure a lasting ceasefire and a future of peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, we ask that you work to end the underlying conditions of occupation, blockade, and settlement expansion...

There will be no lasting ceasefire as long as there are Jews in Israel. Can't you understand that? Hamas does not want peace, they want Israel gone!

The letter features a series of demands, urging Biden to push the Israeli government to end the blockade on Gaza and settlement expansion in the West Bank, including in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where looming evictions for Palestinian residents served as a flashpoint for the last round of fighting.

The staffers also asked the administration to pressure Tel Aviv to respect international law – which prohibits West Bank settlements – to investigate Israeli strikes in Gaza, end federal tax breaks for donations to settler groups and to “support Palestinians’ right to self-determination.”

As the letter made the rounds on Monday night, Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport ahead of meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He will also travel to Egypt and Jordan later in the trip, where he is expected to discuss a ceasefire deal mediated by Cairo that ended 11 days of fighting in Gaza, as well as efforts to rebuild there.

The eruption of violence left at least 248 Palestinians and 12 Israelis dead, seeing thousands of Hamas rockets fired into Israeli cities and hundreds of IDF airstrikes in response.

The staffers’ plea also comes amid mounting pressure from progressive Democrats to alter the tight US relationship with Israel, with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) leading efforts in Congress to block a $735 weapons deal to Tel Aviv, first reported at the height of fighting in Gaza. 

“At a moment when US-made bombs are devastating Gaza, and killing women and children, we cannot simply let another huge arms sale go through without even a congressional debate,” Sanders said last week before introducing a resolution to block the sale. 

Israel is the only country in the world that I have ever heard of that gives people an hour's warning before blowing up their building. Hamas deliberately plants their missile silos in places where children and civilians will suffer casualties. These people are incredibly evil.

We need to take a hard look at whether the sale of these weapons is actually helping do that, or whether it is simply fueling conflict.

What about stopping the missiles entering Gaza for use against Israel. Your plan would leave Israel helpless against the next attack, but, perhaps that is what you want.

The West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip were occupied by Israeli forces following the Six Day War in 1967. Though Tel Aviv evacuated its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 – keeping it under blockade ever since – settlements have continued to grow in the other territories, seeing hundreds of Jewish communities built on land taken from Arab owners. More than 440,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank, as well as another 209,000 across 12 neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, according to data compiled by Peace Now and B'Tselem.

It's astonishing to me that the UN would expect Israel, or any country, to not occupy land conquered from their enemies during war started by their enemies. The UN's attitude toward Israel is unlike any other country in the world and is an example of spectacular anti-semitism. 

If Gaza was able to import 5000 missiles while being blockaded, how many could they import if their ports were wide open? 

I have been writing for many years now that the USA would abandon Israel soon, and this letter is an indication that the majority of Democrats are ready to do that. The minute that happens, Israel will be attacked most grievously and America will have to stand in judgment.

Rise of Islamophobia in the West propelled by US strategy to ‘demonize’ Muslims, Turkey’s Erdogan says

25 May, 2021 15:42

Fueled by Washington’s anti-Muslim attitude after 9/11, Islamophobia is “spreading like cancer” in the West, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed, adding that those who used to target Jews have now turned on Muslims.

Read the story immediately above. Growing Islamophobia, since 911, is an obvious consequence of a horrifically evil attack. the hundreds of terrorist acts since, nearly all committed by Muslims, are not helping Islam's image as the Religion of Peace. But rather, a religion of terrorists, child rapists, and liars.

“The US administration’s strategy to demonize Muslims post-9/11 has served as a means to further trigger anti-Muslim sentiment that already existed in the cultural structure of many Western societies,” Erdogan said in a speech at the International Symposium on Media and Islamophobia in Ankara on Tuesday.

The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment has become a serious problem due to the inaction of governments in the EU and the US to challenge it, Erdogan added. Now, right-wing groups which were long considered marginal, have instead become mainstream political forces in many European countries, and those who used to target the Jewish community have turned against Muslims.

Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment have been spreading like cancer cells in many parts of the globe, primarily in the West.

So has antisemitism! Mostly thanks to propaganda coming from Muslims.

Erdogan blasted the very word ‘Islamophobia’, saying that it was invented by Western societies to sugarcoat what actually is “new racism against Muslims” and “hostility against Islam.”

Ankara’s relations with both Washington and Brussels have been tense in recent years, with Erdogan frequently raising the persecution of Muslims in his jabs against Western leaders.

Erdogan has been increasingly unhappy over American pressure on Turkey to give up on Russian-made S-400 missile systems, Washington’s support for Kurdish militias in Syria, which are deemed terrorists by Ankara, and US reluctance to hand over exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was accused of masterminding a failed military coup in Turkey in 2016.

Earlier this week, Erdogan insisted that he wants “stronger cooperation with our European friends and allies” amid a cooldown in relations between Brussels and Ankara over a whole range of international issues.

EU leaders have expressed concerns over Turkey’s involvement in the fighting in Libya, its support of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and Ankara’s aggressive rivalry for maritime jurisdiction and energy exploration rights in the Mediterranean with Greece and Cyprus.

More Clues About the Origins of Covid-19

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Fury is often the response when someone is caught out in a lie.

China furious as new report suggests Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care

weeks before Covid-19 outbreak was disclosed

24 May, 2021 08:51

Researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became so ill in November 2019 that they required hospital treatment, the Wall Street Journal has reported as the international community continues to probe Covid-19's origins.

According to a US intelligence report cited by the paper, three staff members from the institute became so ill that they required hospital care weeks before Beijing acknowledged the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

One source told the Wall Street Journal that the intelligence was provided by a foreign ally and could be significant but required further verification. Another person familiar with the matter described the information as coming from various sources, adding that the intelligence was of “exquisite quality” and “very precise.” However, the individual acknowledged that the intelligence did not reveal why the researchers fell ill. Notably, a State Department document issued during the final days of Donald Trump’s administration said several researchers from the institute became sick in the fall of 2019 with symptoms associated with Covid-19, as well as more common seasonal illnesses. 

According to the Journal, President Joe Biden’s administration hasn’t disputed the claim that Wuhan researchers fell ill weeks before the Covid-19 outbreak was made public. But one administration official told the paper that Trump’s government had “put spin on the ball” by interpreting the intelligence as clear evidence that the virus came from the laboratory. Several other current US officials said the information was “circumstantial” but worthy of further investigation. 

China’s Foreign Ministry issued a response to the report on Monday, insisting that there were no reported Covid-19 cases among staff and students at the virology institute. 

The previously undisclosed report comes amid growing debate over how the pandemic began.

Beijing has strenuously denied that the laboratory played any role in the international health crisis. In March, a team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report after visiting Wuhan which effectively ruled out the possibility that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident. The team did not identify the origin of the virus, but said that the introduction of the disease through an intermediate host followed by zoonotic transmission – from animals to humans – was “likely to very likely." The report also said it was possible that the virus was introduced to residents in Wuhan through the food supply. 

The Chinese city reported the first cases of the illness on December 31, 2019, and shut down a market that authorities initially believed was linked to the disease’s spread. 

Following the release of the WHO’s findings, 14 nations, including the US and UK, issued a joint statement expressing concerns that the investigation was not thorough enough. The states called for “transparent” further analysis of the outbreak that is “free from interference” and “unimpeded.”

In fact, the investigation was a farce and its conclusions were not based on any evidence whatsoever.

How scientists at Wuhan lab helped Chinese army in secret project to find animal viruses

Covid19 Origins - Another CDC Director Suggests Wuhan Virus Leak a Possibility

Coronavirus: Dossier Lays Out Case Against China Bat Virus Program; Designer Virus

During the early months of the pandemic, Washington accused China of not doing enough to contain the virus and even suggested the disease may have leaked from the Wuhan lab. The Trump administration never provided evidence for the claim, however. 

China’s Foreign Ministry noted the WHO’s conclusion that a lab leak was highly unlikely and accused Washington of continuing to “hype the lab leak theory.” 

"Is [Washington] actually concerned about tracing the source or trying to divert attention?” it said in a statement to the Journal. 

The WHO is scheduled to outline the next phase of its investigation into Covid-19’s origins, with the new report potentially fueling speculation that the lab-leak theory requires further consideration. 

Sometimes All You Can Do Is Just Shake Your Head - The Divine Horse

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Hundreds in India flout lockdown to cremate ‘divine horse’

who died ‘trying to rid the world of Covid-19’

24 May, 2021 07:38

Residents of a small village in southern India were put in isolation after a mass gathering last weekend, during which a horse dedicated to a local deity was solemnly cremated.

The incident happened in Maradimath, a hamlet of about 400 houses in the Karnataka state. Locals flouted social distancing rules, which the state government last week extended till June, to give the sacred animal a send-off.

The horse was attached to a local temple. Earlier in the week, believers released it to graze freely in the village with a prayer to Shri Kadasiddeshwar to rid the world of Covid-19. On Friday night, the horse unexpectedly died, and the next day villagers held an elaborate cremation ceremony, conducted by the temple seer, Sri Pavadeshwar Swami.

Their devotion was not appreciated by local authorities, however. After images of the gathering spread online, the government of the township that includes the locality ordered its full isolation.

Villagers were told to stay in their homes and wait for testing for Covid-19 and other respiratory infections, local official Prakash Holeppagol told journalists on Sunday.

The state reported 25,979 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday and a record number of coronavirus-related deaths, 626.

Apparently, the horse was a big failure at this divinity stuff. 

Maradimath, India

Military Madness: Billions of Dollars Going to Military Manufacturers for Useless Equipment

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UK Defence Ministry spent £3.2 billion on tanks

that can’t shoot on the move

24 May, 2021 15:51

An Ajax prototype seen near its future assembly plant in site in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, March 4, 2016

© UK Ministry of Defence

The UK has spent a whopping £3.2 billion ($4.5 billion) on noisy tanks that can’t shoot while moving, according to a Times report. The news comes after critics called on the government to upgrade its “deplorable” armoured fleet.

Developed by General Dynamics, the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle impressed then-Prime Minister David Cameron so much that he ordered 589 of them in 2014, after receiving the Army’s go-ahead four years earlier. Delivery dates have since been missed, and the Army is still waiting to roll out the vehicles, but a Times report on Sunday revealed that technical experts have encountered numerous “safety issues,” including excessive noise inside the vehicles, and cannons that can’t fire while on the move due to vibration.

Armed with 40mm cannons and light machine guns, the Ajax vehicles are lighter and more maneuverable than Britain’s aging main battle tank, the Challenger 2. As such, an inability to fire while moving renders the vehicles useless to the reconnaissance units that would eventually use them in the field.

Nevertheless, the British government has handed over more than £3.2 billion for the vehicles, out of a total programme cost of £5.5 billion, according to Ministry of Defence documents seen by the Times. The most recent round of payments, adding up to nearly £600 million, were made this year.

Government spending watchdogs are apparently unhappy, and one of the Times’ sources suggested that payments are not linked to the delivery of working vehicles. If so, General Dynamics has thus far earned a sizeable chunk of change from the UK's defence coffers without delivering a working product.

The Ajax was conceived to replace the obsolete 1970s-era Scimitar light tanks currently used by armoured reconnaissance units, yet the future of such vehicles was uncertain even before the latest issues with the Ajax emerged. When Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled a massive hike in defence expenditure last year, he said that the government’s spending would “be focused on the technologies that will revolutionize warfare,” including a heavy investment in artificial intelligence and the creation of an RAF Space Command, capable of launching a rocket from Scotland in 2022. 

However, a parliamentary committee in March excoriated the government for neglecting Britain’s conventional forces, drawing attention to the “deplorable” state of Her Majesty’s armored vehicle capability. Their report heavily criticized the cost and delays involved with the Ajax program, including the vibration issue that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace referred to late last year as “a slight pause in the area around the turret.”

“Of the vehicles we do still have, some date back to the early 1960s, when the Morris 1100 was the most popular car and Elvis was the Christmas number one,” committee chairman Tobias Ellwood said at the time. “A mixture of bureaucratic procrastination, military indecision, financial mismanagement and general ineptitude has led to a severe and sustained erosion of our military capabilities.”

Yet the Ajax boondoggle is not the first incidence of mismanagement at the MoD.

When the Ministry of Defence replaced the FN FAL with the Enfield SA80 as its service rifle in the late 1980s, problems soon emerged. The weapon would jam, its metal components would rust and deform, and it proved wholly unusable in desert environments – which became apparent when British soldiers took part in the Gulf War. After a post-war report identifying these faults leaked to the press, the ministry first pretended the report was fake, before embarking on a costly upgrade programme.

More recently, the ministry has been slammed for spending so much money on its two new ‘Queen Elizabeth’ class aircraft carriers that it couldn’t afford the planes and support vessels needed to deploy them for a year, and couldn’t modify the ships to perform amphibious landings – one of their selling points.

Furthermore, the American F-35 fighter jets that these carriers would launch have been plagued by delays, design flaws and cost overruns, to the point where the ministry has refused to say whether it will buy its original order of 138 F-35s, and declined to offer a cost estimate for the programme as a whole. The 48 jets already ordered are estimated to run up a bill of £9.1 billion by 2025, and the government has not commented on whether upgrade costs will drive that figure up further.

There should be investigations into the selection of this inadequate equipment. There must be a reason for selecting junk, and I suspect some people got very rich from these decisions. If corruption isn't involved, then it must come down to spectacular stupidity.

Deep State - Making Junk and Getting Richer - The F-35 Trillion Dollar Disaster

Ozzone 4-22 >Are you ready to look into the Face of God with every doctrine, attitude, and decision you make? If not, you are not ready to teach, preach, or correct others.

 

    Lord, may I be completely in tune with You before I open my mouth or write something.

Correct me when I am not in tune with You and help me to glorify You in all I say and do.

Amen.

Environmental Threats Remote and Invisible Meant to Create Fear - Patrick Moore

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Environmental Threats Based on Invisible, Remote Subjects to Create Fear:

Greenpeace Co-founder

BY ISAAC TEO

May 22, 2021 Updated: May 23, 2021

The co-founder of Greenpeace says in his new book that alleged environmental catastrophes and threats are based on subjects that are either invisible or extremely remote in order to create fear, forcing people to rely on experts to tell them the truth.

“It dawned on me that the great majority of scare stories about the present and future state of the planet, and humanity as a whole, are based on subjects that are either invisible, like CO2 and radiation, or extremely remote, like polar bears and coral reefs,” wrote Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, in his book titled “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom.”

“Thus, most people have no way of determining the truth of these claims of alleged catastrophes and doomsday threats. Instead, they must rely on the activists, the media, the politicians, and the scientists—all of whom have a very large financial and/or political stake in the subject—to tell them the truth.”

Moore, also a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, said he left Greenpeace after 15 years when he realized the movement had taken “a sharp turn to the political left.”

During a webinar on May 20, he said the main purpose of writing the book was to show that those narratives are “just a big hoax.”

Language is manipulated to invoke negativity, fear, and compliance in order for proponents of environmental catastrophes to push their narratives, Moore said.

“A classic example of propaganda is ‘dirty oil,’” he noted. “That’s how we grow our food—in dirt. So what’s wrong with dirty? But they’re not using it to mean dirt as in soil. They’re using it to mean ‘dirty rotten scoundrel.’ In other words, it’s purely an epithet—a negative epithet.”

Moore said that kind of wording has nothing to do with scientific description or the actual quality of oil. Rather, it’s an example of a propaganda technique where a normal concept is merged with an undesirable idea in order to make something seem bad.

“Much of propaganda is about associating negative words with normal words, and therefore turning them into a negative,” he said.

“This welcomes the opportunity to invent narratives such as the claim that ‘CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are causing climate emergency,’” he writes in his book.

But Moore said the amount of CO2 has been declining in the global atmosphere for at least half a billion years based on historical records.

In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight in 2014, Moore argued that although there is some correlation, there is little evidence to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia.

“The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming,” he testified at the time.

The book also addresses the issue of coral reefs reported to be dying allegedly due to climate change warming the oceans. Moore explains in the book that the most diverse coral reefs are found in the world’s warmest oceans, in a roughly triangular-shaped region in the western Pacific Ocean known as the Coral Triangle. The region extends from the Philippine Archipelago in the north to the Indonesia Archipelago in the south and extends east to the seas around the Solomon Islands.

The Coral Triangle has the world’s “highest biodiversity of coral, with more than 600 species, which is 76 percent of all coral species,” the book states. It adds that the region also has the “highest biodiversity of reef fish, with 2,000 species, which is 37 percent of all reef-fish species,” and is “home to six of the world’s seven species of marine turtles.”

“In other words, they found no evidence that there is anywhere in the world’s oceans that indicates a decline in species richness due to warmer ocean water,” Moore writes, referring to a research paper on global marine species diversity and the factors that influence higher or lower diversity.

“They found the opposite, that the warmest waters in the world have the highest species diversity for every taxonomic class of marine life.”

His book, “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom,” also seeks to dispel what Moore calls the “unified theory of scare stories.” They include the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific, which has a high concentration of microplastic debris and is said to be twice the size of Texas; polar bears being threatened with extinction due to climate change; and ocean acidification.

The book is published by Ecosense Environmental Inc. and is available on Amazon. (Click on Image).