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Israel rains down bombs on Gaza, resistance responds with 1000-plus rockets

Press TV – May 12, 2021

Palestinian resistance groups have fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli-occupied cities in response to the regime’s continued bombardments of civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, as the death toll from the latest flare-up rises on both sides.

The Islamic Jihad resistance movement’s military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, announced that 100 rockets had been fired at the cities of Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva and Sderot early on Wednesday, Palestine Today reported.

Hamas’s military arm also announced that it launched 210 rockets toward the occupied territories early in the morning.

The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that it was “in the process of firing 110 rockets toward the city of Tel Aviv” and 100 others toward the town of Be’er Sheva, “as reprisal for the restarting of strikes against civilian homes.”

The Israeli army announced on Wednesday morning that Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza have launched more than 1,000 rockets toward different cities in the occupied territories since Monday evening.

Since then, the army said, 850 rockets have landed in Israel or been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile system.

Israeli authorities have so far confirmed five deaths as a result of the rockets fired from Gaza on several cities, including Tel Aviv.

The Israeli army also announced it had intercepted a Hamas drone early Wednesday.

Two Hamas commanders killed

The Israeli military has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on the blockade Gaza Strip, resulting in scores of fatalities.

Palestinian media reported that the Israeli regime continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing two Hamas commanders and three children.

Palestinian sources identified the two commanders as Hassan al-Kaogi (Abu Ali) and Wail Issa (Abu Ahmad).

Israel targeted Gaza’s police and security headquarters and the Islamic University of Gaza for the third consecutive day, which saw 30 simultaneous attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said in a tweet that the victims were Hamas intelligence officials.

It also said the Israeli attacks were a response to “hundreds of rockets” launched from Gaza in the last 24 hours, adding that they marked “our largest strike since 2014.”

Three Palestinian children were also killed during an Israeli air raid on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza, Shehab News reported.

Pregnant Palestinian woman, 5-year-old son killed

Meanwhile, a pregnant Palestinian woman and her 5-year-old son were also killed during the Israeli airstrike that targeted their house in the Gaza Strip.

The woman, identified as Reem, and her son, Zaid, were reported killed after the strike hit their house in Tel al-Hawa, a neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza.

Reem’s brother, Ahmed Saad, reported their deaths on social media. She was four months pregnant.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on Wednesday afternoon that as many as 48 Palestinians, including 14 children and three women, had lost their lives in Gaza in the latest Israeli strikes, with a total of 296 civilians — most of them women and children — wounded since Monday.

Palestinian rocket hits Israeli pipeline

As a result of rockets fired from Gaza on Wednesday, an Israeli pipeline near Ashkelon was hit causing fire.

The rockets also killed two Israeli settlers and injured at least 100 Israelis.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Israel is responsible for the consequences of its atrocities in Jerusalem al-Quds and al-Aqsa Mosque, whose flames “extended to Gaza.”

He said Qatar, Egypt and the UN had been in contact with Hamas urging calm, but he told the regime in Israel that “If they want to escalate, the resistance is ready, if they want to stop, the resistance is ready.”

Earlier, Israeli minister for military affairs Benny Gantz warned that “this is just the beginning” of Israel’s assaults.

‘I saw my cousins set alight’, survivor recalls

One of the survivors of Israel’s attack in northern Gaza on Tuesday recalled the horror of watching five members of his family, including young brothers Ibrahim and Marwan, die during the strike.

“We were laughing and having fun, when suddenly they began to bomb us, everything around us caught fire,” their cousin, also called Ibrahim, told AFP.

“I saw my cousins set alight, and torn into pieces,” said the 14-year-old, breaking down in tears. “Why did they leave me? I would have wanted to die as a martyr like them.”

Israeli bombardments of Gaza continued on Wednesday, shaking Gazans’ homes and lighting up the besieged city’s sky just after dawn, with at least 30 explosions reported by residents within a matter of minutes.

Israel declares ‘state of emergency’ in Lod

The occupied territories were hit with protests as well, which, in the city of Lod, prompted the Israeli government to declare a “state of emergency” following the killing of a Palestinian by a Jewish settler in the city.

“Everything necessary is done to restore law and order in Lod” and throughout the occupied territories, Israeli public security minister Amir Ohana said.

He announced that the Israeli regime has decided to deploy 16 Border Police reserve units to Lod from the occupied West Bank.

Minor confrontations were also reported following Fajr (dawn) prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday morning, with Palestinians chanting protest and resistance songs, while Israeli forces were deployed around the complex.

Unrest erupted across Israeli-occupied territories on Tuesday night and into Wednesday, as social media posts showed protests in the city of Rahat as well as in Qalansawe.

The al-Aqsa Mosque and Bab al-Amoud (Damascus) Gate in Jerusalem al-Quds’ Old City as well as the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood have witnessed a spike in Israeli atrocities since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | 3 Comments

Emails show US Justice Dept Threatened MIT researchers who refuted voter fraud claims in Bolivian election

RT | May 11, 2021

An email exchange in which a US Justice Department (DOJ) lawyer threatens to subpoena academics who refuted voter fraud allegations in Bolivia’s 2019 presidential election has been leaked, fueling speculation of US involvement.

Between October 2020 and January 2021, Angela George – a trial attorney at the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs – repeatedly mailed a group of analysts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to obtain their research – eventually threatening to compel them to do so, according to an email chain released by The Intercept news outlet.

In their study for the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), MIT analysts Jack Williams and John Curiel refuted allegations of election-rigging by incumbent Bolivian President Evo Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party.

After Morales was voted back into power for a fourth term in the October 2019 election, opposition parties immediately leveled charges of voter fraud – which were amplified by an election audit conducted by the influential Washington-based regional cooperation body Organization of American States (OAS).

The Trump administration’s top diplomat for Latin America, Michael Kozak, weighed in and promised to “hold accountable anyone who undermines Bolivia’s democratic institutions.” After three weeks of unrest, the opposition installed Jeanine Áñez as president, in a coup.

The CEPR study, whose findings were published in February 2020, conducted a statistical analysis of the data and did not find “quantitative evidence” of irregularities as “claimed by the OAS” – and as had been reported by several major US publications, including the New York Times.

Following more protests and unrest, the Áñez government was forced to hold a new election, held on October 18, 2020. The first mail from Angela George came on October 15, just three days before the polls. In the initial email, the DOJ lawyer said the study data had been “formally requested” by the Bolivian government for a “criminal investigation” it had opened.

When in subsequent emails, Williams responded that the research had drawn on public information, George wrote, “I am simply trying to find out if the report… includes your research and is an authentic copy of the report that was produced” before raising the prospect of “a subpoena being served on you and the [MIT Election] lab” should it be required.

Speaking to The Intercept on condition of anonymity, a source familiar with the investigation said the “Justice Department inquiry frightened election researchers in the academic community and may have had a chilling effect on subsequent research.”

According to a former DOJ trial attorney who has also worked at the Department’s Office of International Affairs (OIA), the email exchange was “unusual.” That person, who also requested anonymity, noted that it signaled this was not a regular criminal investigation.

“This particular request is not your run-of-the-mill criminal investigation, so you can be fairly sure that it received very high-level exposure,” they said.

“Generally, OIA would enlist the FBI or other investigative agency to execute an incoming MLA (Mutual Legal Assistance) request such as a voluntary witness interview or inquiry like this one. It’s unusual for an OIA attorney to handle it,” the former trial attorney told the outlet.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment about the email exchanges, according to The Intercept.

Although Morales was in exile during the 2020 election, MAS won in a landslide. He has since returned. Áñez, who had dropped out of contention a month before the new election, is facing terrorism, sedition, and conspiracy charges.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 1 Comment

Degrowth: Universities Push Permanent Poverty as the Solution to Climate Change

By Eric Worral | Watts Up With That? | May 12, 2021

According to modelling by University of Sydney and ETH Zürich, scaling back total production and placing a cap on maximum wealth would not only save the planet, it would also allow us all to enjoy shorter working weeks and the financial security of a generous universal basic income.

Climate Change Modeling of “Degrowth” Scenarios – Reduction in GDP, Energy and Material Use

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY | MAY 11, 2021

Well-being can be maintained in a degrowth transition. […]

Degrowth focuses on the global North and is defined as an equitable, democratic reduction in energy and material use while maintaining wellbeing. A decline in GDP is accepted as a likely outcome of this transition. […]

“We can still satisfy peoples’ needs, maintain employment and reduce inequality with degrowth, which is what distinguishes this pathway from recession,” Mr Keyßer says.

“However, a just, democratic and orderly degrowth transition would involve reducing the gap between the haves and have-nots, with more equitable distribution from affluent nations to nations where human needs are still unmet — something that is yet to be fully explored.”

A ‘degrowth’ society could include:

  • A shorter working week, resulting in reduced unemployment alongside increasing productivity and stable economic output.
  • Universal basic services independent of income, for necessities i.e. food, health care, transport.
  • Limits on maximum income and wealth, enabling a universal basic income to be increased and reducing inequality, rather than increasing inequality as is the current global trend.

I think it is only fair to give the professors an opportunity to showcase their degrowth theories, by slashing their university funding, so they can demonstrate by example how much happier we would be if we all embraced a permanent reduction in income.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular | 2 Comments

US biolab transparency urged after smearing China over weaponizing COVID-19

Global Times | May 10, 2021

It is the US that is conducting biological warfare and bioterrorism using genetic engineering technology, rather than China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday in response to a media report accusing China of weaponizing COVID-19.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry urged the US to be transparent on their biolabs and their ongoing bioweapons studies.

Quoting a so-called leaked document obtained by the US State Department, which is actually a book that is openly on sale, The Australian claimed China had been looking into whether it could weaponize the coronavirus five years before the COVID-19 pandemic, and even presented the document as evidence of China’s interest in bioweapons.

There are always some in the US who smear China either by hyping up facts or quoting so-called internal documents or reports, but it is usually a case of “the guilty party filing the suit first”, deliberate misinterpretation, presumption of guilt or merely spreading lies, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Monday at the press briefing.

Media reports said the so-called leaked document obtained by US officials is a published academic book, and not an internal secret document from the Chinese military, Hua pointed out.

The quote from former US Air Force colonel Michael J. Ainscough in the book said next generation bioweapons will be part of the US Air Force projects and aim to help the country better cope with weapons of mass destruction, indicating that the US is carrying out biological warfare and bioterrorism using genetic engineering technology, Hua said.

China has abided by its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention, and is not developing, studying or producing bioweapons, while the US has been secretly working on their biolabs, Hua pointed out, urging the US to be transparent on the issue.

The US has set up biolabs in 25 countries and regions across the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and former Soviet Union, with 16 in Ukraine alone. Some of the places where the labs are based have seen large-scale outbreaks of infectious diseases and other dangerous infectious diseases, the ministry said, citing media reports.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson demanded that the US address international concerns: Why is the US building so many biolabs around the globe? How much sensitive biological resources and information has the US obtained from other countries? What kind of activities has the US carried out in its Fort Detrick laboratory and other biolabs, and what’s the relationship between these biolabs and its “next generation bioweapons”?

Global Times

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

MIT Researchers Find That ‘Skeptics’ Value Data Literacy and Scientific Rigour

By Noah Carl  • Lockdown Sceptics •  May 12, 2021

Throughout the pandemic, governments have claimed to be following “the science”. But of course, many aspects of “the science” were never settled.

The WHO, as well as the UK Government, initially told us not to wear face masks. They then decided that face masks were essential. Countries like Australia and New Zealand introduced border controls in early February. Meanwhile, UK scientists were advising against port-of-entry screening. Researchers predicted there would be 96,000 deaths in Sweden by July. But as it turned out, there were less than 6,000.

Of course, many people have been sceptical of “the science” (by which I mean the officially endorsed science) from the very beginning. And of course, they’ve formed communities online with other like-minded persons. (Lockdown Sceptics would be one example of such a community.)

In an unpublished paper, researchers from MIT sought to understand how the users of these communities obtain, analyse, share and curate information. Surprisingly (to them), they found that users place a premium on data literacy and scientific rigour.

The researchers used a mixed methods design. First, they analysed a large sample of pandemic-related tweets sent between January and July 2020. Second, they employed ethnographic methods to study users on “anti-mask” Facebook groups. (Note that they use “anti-mask” as a “synecdoche for a broad spectrum of beliefs: that the pandemic is exaggerated, schools should be reopening, etc.”.)

In their analysis of Twitter data, the researchers found that sceptics “share the second-highest number of charts across the top six communities”, and that they are “the most prolific producers of area/line charts”, while sharing “the fewest number of photos”. They also found that such individuals “often create polished counter-visualizations that would not be out of place in scientific papers”.

In their study of “anti-mask” Facebook groups, the researchers found that users “value unmediated access to information and privilege personal research and direct reading over “expert interpretations”, and that “their approach to the pandemic is grounded in more scientific rigour, not less”.

“Most fundamentally,” the researchers write, “the groups we studied believe that science is a process, and not an institution”. They note:

While academic science is traditionally a system for producing knowledge within a laboratory, validating it through peer review, and sharing results within subsidiary communities, anti-maskers reject this hierarchical social model. They espouse a vision of science that is radically egalitarian and individualist.

According to the researchers, “anti-maskers often reveal themselves to be more sophisticated in their understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed than their ideological adversaries”, and data literacy is a “quintessential criterion for membership within the community they have created”.

Based on these descriptions, one might assume the paper was written by a cadre of undercover sceptics. But the researchers make clear they are “not promoting these views”. Overall, it’s a fascinating study which is worth reading in full.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Sorry, CBS, NOAA’s “U.S. Climate Normals,” Report Misrepresents the Science

By H. Sterling Burnett | ClimateRealism | May 7, 2021

CBS News’ story covering of the Biden administration’s new U.S Climate Normals report says government data show the United States is warming at an unusually rapid rate due to human induced climate change, causing more frequent and severe extreme weather events. This story, as with the government report it is based upon, is long on alarm but short on facts. Data from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show temperatures in the United States aren’t rising at an unusually rapid rate. In addition, incidences of extreme weather events are neither more frequent nor more severe than in the past.

“Just a quick glance at the new U.S. Climate Normals maps published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday is enough for most climate scientists to say, ‘I told you so,’” writes CBS in an article, titled “NOAA’s “new normal” climate report is anything but normal.”

“While the new normals are just 10 years removed from the earlier set, the changes are still significant. In that time the nation has warmed an average of half a degree Fahrenheit,” CBS continues. “That may not sound like much, but small changes in the normals mean much larger changes in the extremes like extremes like heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and hurricanes.”

NOAA’s new report may claim temperatures are rising across the United States, and weather is getting more extreme, but its own data and data from the IPCC say otherwise.

As discussed in Climate at a Glance: Temperatures, contrary to NOAA’s claim that temperatures are rising rapidly, thermometer readings in the United States report current temperatures are similar to the temperatures recorded 80 years ago. Also, NOAA’s own U.S. Climate Reference Network, an extremely accurate network of temperature stations throughout the United States requiring no corrective adjustments, shows no significant warming has occurred in the United States since it was established in 2005.

Data from the IPCC and NOAA also demonstrate there has been no measurable increase in the number or severity of droughts, hurricanes or floods, since the early part of the 19th century. Also, data from the IPCC and NOAA show the incidences of heatwaves [see the figure below] and wildfires in the United States and globally have actually declined during the recent period of modest warming.

Had CBS compared the publicly available data against the alarming soundbites contained in the Biden administration’s new U.S. Climate Normals report, it could have easily discovered the report misrepresents what data show. A news organization committed to pursuing the truth, wherever it leads, would have looked beneath the surface of the report at the underlying data. Such an investigation would have revealed temperatures aren’t rising unnaturally, and weather extremes aren’t increasing.

That’s the good news CBS should have reported.

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a research fellow for environment and energy policy at The Heartland Institute. Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most recently as a senior fellow in charge of NCPA’s environmental policy program. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

CNN’s Cooper Accuses Rand Paul Of ‘Disrespecting Medical Science’ For Questioning Fauci

By Steve Watson | Summit News | May 12, 2021

Following another confrontation between Senator Rand Paul and White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci Tuesday, during which Paul questioned Fauci about his extensive ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, CNN’s Anderson Cooper declared that Paul should “have more respect at least for medical science.”

Reporting on the exchange, the CNN host proclaimed that Paul is “an ophthalmologist. You would think that he would be — have more respect at least for medical science.”

It’s unclear how asking valid questions about Fauci and the NIH’s funding of the Wuhan lab where dangerous experiments on bat coronaviruses were being conducted represents a disrespect for science. […]

Commenting on his latest exchange with Fauci, Paul himself stressed that Fauci “was being dishonest.“

“In fact, one of the main papers published by Dr. Shi in the Wuhan Institute says in the byline, “Funded by the NIH,” and funded specifically by the NIAI which is AID, which is Fauci’s group,” Paul urged.

“So, no, he completely dissembled on that. He’s leading you on to believe something that’s not true,” The Senator added. … Read full article

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | 1 Comment

Pandemic: follow the real money, the unthinkable amount of money

By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | May 12, 2021

For the past year, I’ve been demonstrating that every major scientific assertion about the so-called pandemic is a lie. This article is about something else.

The money.

Money that makes the bailout/stimulus sums look like chump change. Money that makes Bill Gates look like a guy on welfare scraping by.

To understand my line of approach here, you have to understand that people are conditioned, in many ways, to accept modern medical care.

One successful method of conditioning: a whole nation is invaded by medical propaganda and medical treatment, during a purported crisis. The bottom line: “only doctors can save the population.”

Think about that chunk of mind control. Think about the long-term implications.

And as you read on, picture very populous countries that, to a significant degree, still rely on non-modern traditional medicine—herbs, natural remedies, etc.

Do you really believe that when the authorities declare the medical/pandemic crisis is over, the populations of such invaded countries will just go back to their former beliefs and practices?

“Thank you for saving our lives with drugs and vaccines, but now we’ll return to our ancient Ayurveda and acupuncture…”

The invasion of the doctors and the public health authorities, during the crisis, is the point of the spear. The way in. The first planned stage of PERMANENTLY CONVERTING THE WHOLE COUNTRY TO MODERN PHARMACEUTICAL MEDICINE.

We’re talking about MARKETS.

New markets as targets of the invasion.

Where are these new markets?

China, India, Indonesia, for example.

Each of these countries still maintains, to a significant degree, traditional non-modern healing practices.

What will happen in the long term, beyond the current “pandemic,” if Big Pharma is able to gain a total monopolistic position in these nations?

What if the invasion of the COVID drugs and vaccines is successfully followed by new waves of modern medical/pharmaceutical ground troops, and a complete takeover of these nations is achieved?

How much money would we be talking about?

Here, from registerednursing.org (12/25/20) is a startling assessment:

“During one’s lifetime, over $400K will be spent on the average American’s healthcare in today’s dollars. And that is if medical costs rise [at] the same rate as inflation. If medical costs rise at 3% more than inflation, your healthcare will cost over $2MM, the vast majority of which will take place after the age of 45.”

Yes, healthcare costs in America are very high. So let’s cut that $400K in half. Let’s say the lifetime healthcare cost for the average person is $200K.

How many people, combined, live in China, India, and Indonesia?

Let’s peg that figure at 3 billion.

Now, imagine that 30 years from now, each one of those people is being subjected to modern medicine, at the rate of $200K for a lifetime.

What is 3 billion people multiplied by $200K?

600 TRILLION DOLLARS.

That’s a market.

Is that a permanent market pharmaceutical companies and hospitals and public-health doctors think is worth fighting for?

A market to control and own?

And if the opening salvo in that fight needed some tremendous IMPACT, some serious conditioning and mind control, would the declaration of a global pandemic do the trick?

Would the masks and distancing and lockdowns and business closures and bankruptcies and travel bans; the wall-to-wall media fear-porn day after day; the contact tracing and antiviral drugs and vaccines; the heavy police presence to enforce all the restrictions; the inflated false case and deaths numbers—would that declared pandemic be the way to go…if the ultimate goal is a 600 TRILLION DOLLAR MARKET?

You bet it would.

And that’s the way corporations view the planet.

As markets.

Territories to capture.

And now you can see the financial reason why the powers-that-be are forcing this false pandemic on the whole world in every possible way:

THE MONEY that’s at stake.

CODA: A person could say a 600-trillion-dollar market is impossible; there isn’t enough fake money you can invent to cover it. And maybe that’s true. But however you need to cut that awesome figure to accommodate what banks can achieve, the final number is still going to be an overwhelming percentage of the global economy.

Which is why I’ve been saying for some years that we live in a medical civilization.

“But… but wait… you’re never going to get all three billion people into lifetime care in the modern medical system…”

“True. The three billion people and the 600 trillion-dollar market is the striven-for ideal, the far shore of the pot of gold.”

“And those three countries you mentioned—China, India, and Indonesia—they already have a significant amount of modern medicine.”

“Yes they do. But they also have a significant amount of non-modern traditional healing. And notice that I only mentioned those three nations, in arriving at the 600 trillion-dollar figure. I said nothing about about South America or Africa, for example.”

“Oh.”

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , | Leave a comment

The human fingerprints all over the virus

By Neville Hodgkinson | Conservative Woman | May 10, 2021

COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers (and their allies in mainstream science and government) have so far failed to acknowledge evidence from adverse event reporting schemes that their products are killing and injuring thousands. They say that apart from ‘extremely rare’ allergic reactions – to which they have reluctantly added ‘extremely rare’ blood clotting disorders – there are no known mechanisms whereby such damage could be occurring.

That position was never tenable. The famous spike protein, which most of the vaccines introduce into the body as a means of countering the virus, is in itself a dangerous toxin. The reason it is so dangerous is similar to the reason why the virus itself is a threat to human beings: it has characteristics that enable it to bind to, and distort the action of, a wide range of human cells.

These characteristics almost certainly stem from it being a chimeric virus, originally native to Chinese bats but manipulated in the laboratory to test its capacity to change into a threat to humans.

Scientists hope that the vaccine, through challenging our immune systems by getting our body cells to manufacture small quantities of the protein, will protect against much greater damage from the virus. But the nature of the protein is such as to make it inherently risky, a risk that may be dangerously multiplied when vaccination coincides with a wave of infection, as in India recently.

A paper widely held to be the ‘smoking gun’ for ultimately bequeathing us Covid-19 was published in Nature in 2015 by US and Chinese researchers, who deliberately altered the spike protein of a bat coronavirus so that it could infect human cells. The work, mainly at the laboratory in Wuhan, China, from which many believe the virus to have accidentally escaped, was claimed to ‘underscore the potential threat of cross-species transmission’ of the virus.

The researchers acknowledged that these so-called ‘gain of function’ experiments carried risks, writing: ‘The potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens.’

Also in 2015, a document written by Chinese scientists and public health officials discussed the weaponisation of such viruses, according to a report published on Saturday by Weekend Australian. It says the document is discussed in a book, What really happened in Wuhan, by The Australian investigations writer Sharri Markson, to be published by HarperCollins in September.

Entitled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the paper is said to have predicted that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons. It describes SARS viruses as a ‘new era of genetic weapons’ which can be ‘artificially manipulated into an emerging human ­disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed in a way never seen before’.

Despite the enormous importance to the world of getting to the truth of how Covid-19 originated, the scientific establishment has seemed desperate to deny the possibility that it was man-made.

In March last year Nature added an ‘Editors’ note’ to the ‘smoking gun’ paper, stating: ‘We are aware that this article is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing Covid-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus.’

This is, to say the least, being economical with the truth, and may come to be seen as an extreme betrayal of science by a journal world-famous for its supposed reliability.

More than a year ago, an Anglo-Norwegian team of scientists pointed to the 2015 Nature report findings as the most likely precursor of research which culminated in SARS-COV-2, the virus causing Covid-19. They emphasised that vaccine makers who failed to acknowledge its chimeric nature might unwittingly put the public at risk.

British vaccines expert Angus Dalgliesh, a London University professor of oncology, co-authored with leading Norwegian researchers a paper that spells out in ruthless detail the sequence of laboratory events through which they claim the SARS-COV-2 spike protein arose. This understanding was reached through the team’s own work aimed at developing a safe candidate Covid vaccine.

The paper is headed: ‘The evidence which suggests that this is no naturally evolved virus – A reconstructed aetiology of the SARS-COV-2 spike.’

After analysing the biochemistry of the spike, the team concludes that it has six inserts, ‘unique fingerprints . . . indicative of purposive manipulation’. It describes four linked published research projects ‘which, we suggest, show by deduction how, where, when and by whom the SARS-COV-2 spike acquired its special characteristics’.

The authors write: ‘Since, regrettably, international access has not been allowed to the relevant laboratories or materials, since Chinese scientists who wished to share their knowledge have not been able to do so and indeed since it appears that preserved virus material and related information have been destroyed, we are compelled to apply deduction to the published scientific literature, informed by our own biochemical analyses.

‘We refute pre-emptively objection that this methodology does not result in absolute proof by observing that to make such a statement is to misunderstand scientific logic. The longer the chain of causation of individual findings that is shown, especially converging from different disciplines, the greater the confidence in the whole.’

The researchers say that the four key ‘gain of function’ studies are linked in two ways: scientifically, in that the third and fourth build on the results of the first and second; and in the continuity of the institution and personnel across all four.

‘The Wuhan Institute of Virology is a key collaborator in all these projects and Dr Zheng-Li Shi is one of the institute’s most experienced virologists and bat specialists. She is a common thread through all the key research projects.’

The unique ‘fingerprints’ of manipulation which make what was once a bat virus so dangerous include the following:

A large part of the spike protein has high human similarity, ‘a built-in stealth property’ that also ‘implies a high risk for the development of severe adverse events/toxicity and even antibody-dependent enhancement’ [a problem in which a previous infection or vaccination increases rather than reduces the risk from subsequent infection]. Specific precautions would be needed when using the spike protein in any vaccine candidate, ‘precautions that might not suggest themselves to designers employing conventional methodologies and innocent assumptions about the target virus’.

The spike protein has inserts on its surface which greatly increase its ability to hook into, infect and harm a wide range of human cells. ‘Such a result is typically the objective of gain of function experiments to create chimeric viruses of high potency.’

The paper tracks in detail how these and other unique features of the virus came about, from work on bat and human viruses first reported in 2008 by Dr Zheng-Li Shi and Wuhan Institute of Virology colleagues, through collaboration with American researchers working with human epithelial cells, which are widespread throughout the body, and culminating in a virus capable of infecting human lung, taste, intestinal and other tissues.

Despite the eminence of its authors the paper has remained largely hidden from view, being published only on a Norwegian website.

Its importance, however, is highlighted by a string of recent research findings which confirm that Covid-19 is much more than a simple respiratory infection, and that even without the virus, the spike protein can damage blood vessel linings (epithelial tissues), causing heart and circulatory disorders as well as respiratory disease and gut problems (see here and here and here and here and here).

Despite millions seemingly receiving the vaccine safely, scientists and regulators may be failing to recognise deaths and injuries linked to this wide-ranging toxic potential of the spike protein that forms the basis of most of the jabs. The research findings add urgency to calls on the government and regulators to investigate numerous reports of vaccine-related deaths, especially in the elderly and care homes, and especially in the hours or days immediately following vaccination.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Telegraph’s Global Security Correspondents Claim No Trade Off Between Lockdowns and the Economy

By Will Jones • Lockdown Sceptics • May 12, 2021  

The Telegraph‘s Global Health Security correspondents Paul Nuki and Sarah Newey claimed this morning that there is “no trade off” between the economy and public health when it comes to COVID-19 and lockdowns.

Writing in the newspaper, the correspondents (whose coverage is partly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) write that the “‘health v economy’ trade-off” is “false” because “countries where the virus was swiftly contained – such as Vietnam – have seen less economic damage, plus far fewer deaths”.

This claim, based on one country, fails to acknowledge that the entire South East Asian region, regardless of the measures taken, has had a much milder experience of COVID-19 than some other parts of the world, particularly Europe and the Americas. Furthermore, while it may be true that Vietnam’s early border closures produced better outcomes (there is some evidence of this), that bird has well and truly flown for most of the world so the example of Vietnam is now irrelevant as far as this pandemic is concerned.

Perhaps, though, they have a future pandemic in mind. In fact, the peer-reviewed evidence is that lockdowns have no impact on the epidemic death toll (although it’s worth noting that Vietnam, which Nuki and Newey hold up as an example we should follow in future, has never imposed a full, country-wide lockdown). It’s also not clear how countries which close their borders to an endemic virus can ever hope to open them again – a problem Vietnam is currently experiencing. Vietnam is also not exactly an international global hub.

The article is part the Global Health Security team’s promotion of an agenda to give the World Health Organisation more funding and more power to declare pandemics faster and be more proactive in ensuring compliance amongst states with public health edicts. They note approvingly that the pandemic has “thrust health to the centre stage, and may be an opportunity to promote a ‘green and healthy recovery’”. They appear to like the idea of a fast-acting global government imposing lockdowns so we can all be like Vietnam and “contain” the virus quickly, supposedly without suffering economic damage despite the vast disruption to the global economy this would bring.

Nuki and Newey highlight the problem of “viral misinformation” as one of 13 “mistakes” made early in the pandemic, though they blame the internet and social media rather than the WHO, despite its part in promoting myths about the virus such as that it doesn’t spread between humans and it doesn’t spread via aerosols.

But are Nuki and Newey engaging in disseminating misinformation of their own, making the bizarre claim that public health containment strategies have no trade-off with the economy based on a single unrepresentative country? When the U.K. economy shrank by a record 9.9% in 2020, this claim is frankly ridiculous and such claims are at odds with the Telegraph’s overall coverage of the way different countries have managed the pandemic, which has been quite balanced. Should the paper really be allowing a team of journalists whose work is partly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to use its platform to promote an agenda of enhanced global control in the name of public health?

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

NIH hit with lawsuit for blocking COVID Gain of Function research evidence

NIH Failed to Promptly Release Documents Concerning “Gain of Function/Gain of Threat” Research on Influenza, MERS, SARS, and COVID

Center for Food Safety | May 4, 2021

Last week, Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). CFS is suing the agency over its failure to release government documents related to the approval and issuance of NIH contracts and grants that fund research projects involving controversial gain of function/gain of threat studies with dangerous, so-called “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens.”

“The NIH’s refusal to make public the research it is funding to enhance the transmissibility, infectiousness, and lethality of potential pandemic viruses is grossly irresponsible,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety. “We are litigating to get that information because transparency and public knowledge about these highly hazardous experiments could be an important step in avoiding the next pandemic.”

An enhanced, “laboratory-generated” potential pandemic pathogen results from the enhancement of a potential pandemic pathogen’s transmissibility or virulence in humans. Gain of function/gain of threat studies, or research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease, is a subset of life sciences research that most commonly involves the creation or use of enhanced potential pandemic pathogens.

CFS’s lawsuit focuses on the agency’s withholding of records concerning NIH’s funding of proposed research that could create, transfer, or use enhanced potential pandemic pathogens for which additional review under HHS’ Framework for Guiding Funding Decisions about Proposed Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (HHS P3CO Framework) is required.

“FOIA requires NIH to release records promptly. Unfortunately, the agency has failed to comply with FOIA’s statutory deadlines with respect to our request,” said Victoria Yundt, staff attorney at Center for Food Safety.”Consequently, NIH has unlawfully deprived the public of its statutory right to obtain records containing crucial information about government approval and funding of new and continued gain of function/gain of threat studies that consist of creating, transferring, or using enhanced potential pandemic pathogens in U.S. laboratories, which—if released from a laboratory accident—could result in catastrophic consequences to the human environment.”

Without the requested records, CFS cannot determine how many gain of function/gain of threat projects have been funded by the NIH, nor how many of these projects have undergone the proper review or comply with other federal laws and regulations.

NIH’s unlawful withholding of public records undermines FOIA’s basic purpose of government transparency. CFS has a history of suing the federal government to compel agencies to be compliant with FOIA. CFS’s FOIA program is committed to upholding the principles embodied in FOIA, such as maintaining an open and transparent government.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

In Defence of the Handshake

By David McGrogan | Lockdown Sceptics | May 11, 2021

One of the first characteristics of the ‘new normal’ to appear in early 2020 was the avoidance of the humble handshake. And this has crystallised ever since. Pressing the flesh has now become one of those things, we’re told, like going to the office 9-5 each day, or appearing unmasked on a crowded train, that has been consigned to the dustbin of history. We won’t do that anymore, even if (when?) Covid completely disappears.

Well, don’t believe the hype. The handshake is alive and well and living in Paris – not to mention London, New York, and Stockton-on-Tees. Prohibition never eliminates a practice, as any fool can tell you; it just drives it into the weeds. And handshaking is no different. People are still doing it. And now it has a subversive edge. When somebody offers you their hand these days, it is no longer just the meaningless ritual of yesteryear – it sends some important messages, which are all the more profound for the fact that they are not consciously sent or received. Human communication is not just verbal, but physical, and one only has to think for a second to realise that our physical ways of communicating – kissing, hugging, shaking hands – are often the most significant. What words are there that can surpass a simple hug from a loved one at a time of crisis? Or a first kiss? Or a handshake on the playground after a fight?

The first unconscious message sent by the post-2020 handshake is simply stated: you and your fellow hand-shaker are simpatico. The mask-wearing, the social distancing, the fear-mongering – maybe you’ll go along with it if you must, but deep down inside, you hate it. And with that furtive handshake, both of you now know that you’re in the same club. The wheat has been separated from the chaff.

The second unconscious message is more powerful. It says, in a nutshell: “I know that your hand may be covered in germs. But I will shake it nonetheless.” It is a statement. In taking the proffered hand, you are stepping outside of your safety zone – literally and figuratively – to physically connect with another human being. But you are also taking a risk, however small. This signifies to that person that you are prepared to trust them, and therefore that your relationship and their goodwill really matter to you.

But there is a third, and even more potent signal that is sent by the modern handshake. This one is more difficult to summarise in a simple sentence, but one might describe it as the rejection of a certain tendency in modern society to disdain the body – especially the bodies of other people – and to seek to transcend its apparent inadequacies, crudity, and primitivism.

Even before lockdown, our society had become increasingly verbal and cerebral as the use of the internet came to dominate our lives, and as professional jobs became ever more remote (no pun intended) from physical work. We had already come to privilege the word over mere action. And at the same time, many of us had already grown used to almost literally living inside our own minds, inhabiting an ‘extremely online’ world in which thought and feeling were completely detached (or so it was easy to delude ourselves) from the physical realm. As a consequence, for many people physical social contact had already come to seem almost distasteful. That trend has only accelerated since last March, partly because it now appears to have a justification to support it. Where previously a hatred of physical contact would be something of an embarrassment, deemed misanthropic and precious, it can now be spun into something virtuous. Living unmoored from the nasty, smelly, disease-ridden sphere of other people is a sign that you are in fact a good person. You are stopping the spread.

The post-2020 handshake is a rebellion against this tendency. It relocates us in the world, and particularly the world of others. It says that there is something in our nature as social animals that values the physical presence of people – not just their words on a screen, abstracted chatter, but their totality. Warts, germs, and all. We are not simply our minds, shackled to a hunk of ponderous meat. We are the whole package, and the whole package matters.

With the easing of lockdown we have arrived at a fork in the road. In one direction, life as it was. In the other, a new normal of face masks, social distancing, and lateral-flow tests, ‘just in case’. The idea that we should passively let our politicians make decisions about such fundamental matters, assuming they will make wise decisions on our behalf, is foolishness. Those of us who want to recapture the life we once had need to get serious about doing the things that we always used to do, in acceptance of the very small associated risks. That begins with shaking hands – the simple gesture that has been with us for thousands of years, through plague, war and famine, and whose message of trust and openness is too important to allow it to be abandoned because of this novel pathogen.

Dr David McGrogan is Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | 2 Comments

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