France makes massive nuclear bet
RT | February 10, 2022
French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday that the government will back the construction of six new nuclear reactors across the country. The first will enter service by 2035, according to the French leader.
“We must continue the great adventure of civil nuclear power in France,” Macron told the media on a visit to the eastern city of Belfort – the home of General Electric’s France-based turbine unit. He also announced the commissioning of a study to assess the feasibility for a further eight reactors.
“Given the electricity needs, the need to anticipate the transition, the end of the existing fleet, we are going to launch today a program of new nuclear reactors,” Macron declared.
The six new units will be EPRs – originally known as European Pressurized Water Reactors – which have been designed and developed by French company Framatome and its parent Électricité de France (EDF). The technology is also being used in the UK’s Hinkley Point power station and in Taishan, China.
The new EPR reactors will be supplemented by small modular reactors (SMR) with the aim of creating “25 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity by 2050,” Macron said.
The president added that he had made two further big decisions. He said he had asked EDF to study the conditions for extending the lifespan of a reactor beyond 50 years and claimed he wanted future reactors to be ever-lasting, only shutting down for safety reasons.
France has strongly supported the development of its nuclear industry throughout the last four decades, however neighboring Germany has phased out nuclear power, with environmental and safety concerns at the heart of its reasoning.
Pandemic-related school closings likely to have far-reaching effects on child well-being
By Sandra M. Chafouleas – The Conversation – February 9, 2022
A global analysis has found that kids whose schools closed to stop the spread of various waves of the coronavirus lost educational progress and are at increased risk of dropping out of school.
As a result, the study says, they will earn less money from work over their lifetimes than they would have if schools had remained open.
Educational researchers like me know these students will feel the effects of pandemic-related school closures for many years to come. Here are four other ways the closings have affected students’ well-being for the long term:
1. Academic progress
At the end of the 2020-2021 school year, most students were about four to five months behind where they should have been in math and reading, according to a July 2021 report by McKinsey and Co., a global management consulting firm.
When the researchers looked at the data from fall 2021, though, they found students attending majority-white schools are catching up. But students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds — including those attending majority-Black or low-income schools — are falling further behind.
As a result, students attending majority-Black schools are now estimated to be a full year behind those attending majority-white schools.
Differences also can vary by grade level. High schools have been closed more total days than elementary schools. According to a recent news report, 2021 graduation rates dipped across the country, and some education leaders fear future graduating classes may be hit even harder.
Schools have scrambled to provide options such as credit recovery to boost graduation rates, leaving concerns about the quality of learning.
College and university leaders have been preparing for first-year students with less knowledge, weaker study habits and more difficulty concentrating than new college arrivals in past years.
2. Social-emotional development
Even early in the pandemic, school closings were harming students’ social and emotional well-being, according to a review of 36 studies across 11 countries including the U.S. By summer 2021, teachers and administrators in the U.S. said students felt more emotional distress, disengagement, depression, anxiety and loneliness than in previous years.
When schools resumed in fall 2021, large numbers of children in the U.S. had lost a primary caregiver over the previous year to COVID-19. A colleague and I raised concerns about the anxiety and grief those students would likely feel.
In addition, 28% of all parents of children in grades K-12 are “very concerned” or “extremely concerned” about their child’s mental health and social and emotional well-being. That’s down from a high of 35% in spring 2021, but is still 7% higher than before the pandemic.
Parents of Black and Hispanic students are 5% more likely to be worried than parents of white students.
Schools and organizations have focused resources on supporting students’ social, emotional and mental health. The U.S. Department of Education, for example, recommends, based on research, that teachers integrate lessons around compassion and courage into classroom activities, and that schools establish wellness teams to help students.
States have said they plan to address these needs with federal funds meant to help schools respond to the pandemic. In Connecticut, for example, school districts will hire additional mental health support staff, offer social-emotional programs and partner with local agencies to increase access to supports.
3. Behavioral habits
The return to in-person learning has been accompanied by school leaders’ reports of increasing student misbehavior and threats of violence. These increases were more likely to be reported in larger districts and where most students had engaged in remote or hybrid learning — rather than in-person instruction — during the prior school year.
Viral social media “challenges” — like memes on TikTok suggesting students “smack a staff member” or skip school on a particular day — certainly aren’t helping educators provide safe and supportive environments.
Parents’ distress is also affecting their children. Students whose parents are depressed, anxious, lonely and exhausted are more likely to misbehave in school — and that connection grew stronger during lockdown periods when schools were closed.
Meanwhile, news reports show students are missing more school than they were before the pandemic, with more kids out for more than 15 days of a school year.
Given links between chronic absenteeism and increased high school dropout rates, researchers warn this increase in missed school could lead between 1.7 million and 3.3 million students in eighth through 12th grade to not graduate on time.
4. Physical health
Adults have suffered hair loss, sore eyes, irritable bowels and skin flare-ups as a result of the pandemic. One study found that Chinese preschool children whose schools closed during the pandemic were shorter than preschoolers in previous years, though the researchers did not observe noteworthy differences in weight change.
Schools can be a primary place for children to access physical activity and healthy food. Amid school closures, researchers are exploring the effects of losing out on these benefits. During lockdowns in Italy, children with obesity engaged in less physical activity, slept and used screens more and increased their consumption of potato chips and sugary drinks.
In the U.S., 1 in 4 families with school-age children don’t have reliable access to food. Abrupt school closures cut off more than 30 million children from free and reduced-price lunches and breakfasts delivered at school.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees school food programs, provided waivers to let schools provide meals in ways that fit their students’ needs. In Connecticut, for example, researchers found that letting families know about wider availability and pickup sites for to-go school meals boosted the number of students who received food during the pandemic.
Time will tell if the costs of school closings will be worth the benefits. These early indicators show that decisions are not as simple as reducing the physical health risks of COVID-19. A full assessment would consider the effects across all aspects of child well-being, including how diverse populations are affected.
Connection, collaboration and positive interaction are fundamental to healthy childhood growth and development. Working together, schools, families and communities can assess and address every child’s needs to reduce the lasting effects of school closings.
Disclosure statement
Sandra M. Chafouleas receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Education, Connecticut State Department of Education, the Neag Foundation, and the Principal Foundation.
The Pfizer clinical trial in kids under age 5 has now failed TWICE
By Toby Rogers | February 12, 2022
On December 17, 2021, Pfizer announced that the clinical trial of its mRNA shot in kids under age 5 had failed. Rather than withdraw this product, Pfizer “amended” its clinical trial to add a third dose. So Pfizer kept the original trial going and subjected these little kids to yet another shot of genetically modified mRNA.
The drug dealers at the FDA said, ‘sounds great, let’s proceed with authorization even in the absence of data.’ That created a huge public backlash as parents rightly protested that the FDA should not approve a drug for kids that failed in a clinical trial.
Yesterday (Feb. 11, 2022), the FDA was forced to admit defeat and Pfizer pulled its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application to inject kids under age 5.
Pfizer and the FDA claimed that they were “waiting for more data” that would be available in early April. We now know that this was a lie.
Buried deep in an article on page A13 of the NY Times this morning we learned the real reason why Pfizer withdrew its EUA — the clinical trial had failed, again.
Remember, Pfizer kept the clinical trial going after December 17. So between then and yesterday’s announcement, there was now roughly 55 more days worth of data. And it was truly terrible.
From the NY Times :
Then, late on Thursday [Feb. 10], Pfizer alerted the F.D.A. that it had more recent data, from mid-January on, showing a more discouraging picture as the Omicron variant bore down. The new data revealed that two doses were not sufficiently effective in preventing symptomatic infection.
Read that again. They have the data. And the data show that this shot does not work.
But even here, I think there is reason to believe that they are still lying. We already knew that “two doses were not sufficiently effective” — Pfizer announced that in December. The “more recent data, from mid-January on” is not the two dose regimen anymore, that phase of the trial is finished.
I think there is every reason to believe that this is now the three dose trial that they are describing. If the three dose trial was on track and showing promising results, they would have proceeded with authorization. So now we likely have the first evidence that the three dose trial has failed as well.
(Here’s my math: Pfizer likely injected the third dose into these kids between Dec. 17 and mid-January. So “from mid-January on” (to Feb. 10) is looking at the data in the 25 days after the third injection. In the comments, please let me know if you interpret this differently.)
So it is definitely NOT the case that this is just an incomplete trial that they are waiting to finish up in early April. All of the existing data is bad. Pfizer is now scrambling to find ways to save this product even though the clinical trial has now failed twice. And what’s Pfizer’s plan going forward — to just hope that the data in the next 60 days (from now through early April) magically turns the corner!? Talk about wishful thinking!
Just when I think the cartel and its enablers in the mainstream media could not possibly get any more cynical they sink to new lows.
Janet Woodcock and Peter Marks at the FDA must be fired and prosecuted for reckless endangerment of children. Pfizer must stop this grotesque clinical trial immediately and permanently suspend any plans to inject genetically modified mRNA into children under 5. Anything less is savagery and barbarism.
Bank freezes Freedom Convoy donations
RT | February 12, 2022
The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) has announced that it will not be handing over $1.4 million in donations to the Freedom Convoy, and is planning to surrender the money to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice instead.
Speaking to Canada’s CTV News on Friday, a representative for the top 10 North American financial institution revealed that “TD has asked the court to accept the funds, which were raised through crowdfunding and deposited into personal accounts at TD.” Approximately $1 million is the money raised for the Canadian truckers and not refunded by GoFundMe, and the other $0.4 million is made up of direct donations. The bank said it was applying to entrust the funds with the authorities in the hope that “they may be managed and distributed in accordance with the intentions of the donors, and/or to be returned to the donors who have requested refunds but whose entitlement to a refund cannot be determined by TD.”
Freedom Convoy lawyer Keith Wilson is vowing to put up a legal fight to “have the restrictions on the donated funds lifted as soon as possible.”
This is not the first time the Freedom Convoy has had its donations frozen, with GoFundMe announcing earlier this month that it would not hand over $9 million out of the $10 million raised for the movement. As justification for the move, the crowdfunding platform cited Canadian police reports of “violence and other unlawful activity” by the protesters. GoFundMe was initially planning to send the money to charities instead, but then decided to refund the donations.
The truckers switched to Christian fundraising platform GiveSendGo shortly afterwards. However, the Ontario Superior Court announced on Thursday that it would be freezing funds coming from GiveSendGo accounts. The court sided with Ontario’s attorney general, who claimed the money would be used to further a criminal act.
GiveSendGo responded by saying the Canadian court’s order does not apply to it, with money still being raised for the protesters.
With donations to the movement being seized on multiple occasions, the truckers are now turning to cryptocurrencies. According to a video posted by the truckers on Facebook, by Friday, they had already raised $913,000 in Bitcoin. The Ottawa police are apparently aware of the new fundraising strategy, mentioning it in documents filed in an Ontario court. The Canadian authorities are, however, yet to outline any steps to counter the move.
Freedom Convoy activists have been protesting in downtown Ottawa since January 29, as well as blocking a number of border crossings to the US. Their main complaint regards Covid vaccine mandates for truckers who cross the border – though their demands have expanded to include calls to ditch all Covid restrictions and for Justin Trudeau’s government to resign.
On Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency in the province, urging the protesters to “end these occupations and go home.”
US nuclear submarine violates Russian waters – Defense Ministry
RT | February 12, 2022
A US Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine has been detected and chased away in Russian territorial waters off the Kuril Islands, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
The vessel was found submerged off the small uninhabited island of Urup while Russia’s Pacific Fleet was holding exercises in the area. Russian vessels contacted the submarine, warning it was in the country’s territorial waters and ordering it to surface immediately, the military said.
The submarine, however, did not respond to the messages, and destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov was deployed to chase it off. The Russian vessel used “appropriate means” against the US sub, the military noted without providing any further details.
Following the run-in with the destroyer, the Virginia-class submarine used an active radar decoy, sailing away from Russian waters at full speed.
The Pacific Fleet’s drills continued as scheduled after the incident, the military added.
Shortly after the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry said it has summoned a US military attaché to explain the incursion. Moscow added that the actions of the submarine constitute a major violation of international law, and create a threat to Russia’s national security. The military said it reserves the right to take any security measures in its own territorial waters.
It was not immediately clear what exact vessel was involved in the incident, with no official statement produced by the Pentagon on the incursion so far. The US has 19 active duty Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines. The vessels are armed with cruise and anti-ship missiles, as well as massive Mark 48 torpedoes.
US war hysteria over Ukraine won’t gel
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 12, 2022
The two takeaways out of the French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Moscow and his six-hour long talks with President Vladimir Putin have been the assurance held out by the latter that Russian forces would not ramp up the crisis near Ukraine’s borders — “there would be no deterioration or escalation” — and second, an agreement that Russia would pull troops out of Belarus at the end of exercises taking place currently near Ukraine’s northern borders.
The very fact of the French side putting such sensitive details in the public domain suggests that Moscow sees nothing wrong in it. Moscow has simply clarified that the redeployment of troops out of Belarus is not to be construed as any “deal” with France.
The paradox is, instead of working on these crucial assurances from Moscow, Washington has since chosen to travel in the opposite direction with the White House orchestrating a war hysteria through last week. President Biden and his advisor Jake Sullivan have conjured up an apocalyptic scenario.
The White House claims it has intelligence but dodges details. All we have are some satellite imagery from Max (which works for US intelligence). The patchy details have led to Biden speculating about a world war!
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is creating diplomatic synergy out of the war hysteria. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an audacious bid to hustle the US’ QUAD partners to endorse Washington’s allegations of Russia’s “aggression” — although the group has nothing to do with European security issues.
Again on Friday, Biden with a stroke of his pen effectively commandeered the foreign reserves of Afghanistan to the tune of 7 billion-plus dollars. According to the New York Times, “It is highly unusual for the United States government to commandeer a foreign country’s assets on domestic soil.”
But Biden is getting away with such high-handed behaviour that might be deemed illegal or immoral or cynical when the Beltway is caught up in a frenzy over an incoming war with Russia! To be sure, all through Friday, the White House strove to keep the headlines on “Russian aggression.” Biden held a videoconference with the European allies while Sullivan networked with the EU bureaucrats in Brussels to coordinate on “preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia should it choose military escalation.”
Sullivan also gave a press briefing at the White House to highlight that “we are in the window when an invasion [by Russia] could begin at any time should Vladimir Putin decide to order it. I will not comment on the details of our intelligence information. But I do want to be clear: It could begin during the Olympics.”
So, that’s it. Sullivan’s latest version is that Russia may invade Ukraine before Feb. 20. The timeline has been tweaked, as the prognosis a week ago was that such an invasion was “imminent” — and still earlier, that it would happen no sooner than deep frost set in so that tank manoeuvring on Ukrainian terrain would become feasible!
Yet, isn’t it amazing that at such a tumultuous time in modern history when Biden visualises a potential world war, he sent away his state secretary on a 6-day tour of Asia-Pacific? In fact, at the moment, Blinken is shuttling somewhere in the tropics — between Suva (Fiji) and Honolulu (Hawaii)!
What do we make out of this charade of war hysteria? Three things can be said. First, the US feels a constant need to rally European allies who are sceptical about the Russia bogey, and the war hysteria helps. Second, Washington is overtly keen to sever Russia’s relations with European countries where energy cooperation is a template — especially, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Three, most important, the war hysteria provides the alibi to step up US deployments in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. The size of the NATO deployment on Russia’s western borders already stands at 175,000 troops! Advanced weapons have been deployed too. (Eight nuclear-capable heavy B-52 members are deployed to a forward base in the UK.) Over and above, US has established an air bridge to ferry weapons to Ukraine. As of Friday, more than 15 military flights landed in Ukraine with 1200 tonnes of materials.
Quite obviously, this war hysteria cannot be sustained indefinitely. Something has to give way. Now, the big question is: What if Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine, as Putin reportedly assured Macron as recently as Monday?
Evidently, the US predicament is two-fold: While war hysteria helps to rally the European allies, Washington also cannot afford to let the Europeans dominate the dialogue track with Moscow lest it create a dynamics of its own. Washington has a trust deficit with Macron who is a passionate advocate of European initiatives on European security issues.
Macron is on record that Europe’s security cannot be assured without Russia’s security! Equally, there is panic in the Beltway that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also heading for Moscow on Tuesday. And, Macron is expected to have a call with Putin today! Curiously, Biden decided that he too should have a call with Putin later today!
Above all, the UK too has entered the diplomatic fray. All indications are that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on Friday were substantive. (Interestingly, the UK Chief of Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin who accompanied Wallace separately met with his Russian counterpart General Valery Gerasimov.)
Wallace described his talks as “frank and constructive.” The MOD readout in London was couched in a restrained tone as if UK is impervious to Biden and Sullivan’s war hysteria. Importantly, it highlighted Shoigu’s assurance to Wallace that Russia will not invade Ukraine.
Notably, the Russian readout too sought to put the accent on “urgent measures to ensure security guarantees” to Russia. It said, “Army General S. K. Shoigu pointed out that the military and political situation in Europe had worsened considerably due to tension whipped up around Ukraine and NATO’s military presence near the Russian borders.”
How far this pantomime on the diplomatic stage continues is unclear. There is the lurking danger that extreme nationalist forces who call the shots in Kiev, egged on by Washington, may feel emboldened to create new facts on the ground in Donbass. This was precisely how the Georgian war had erupted in 2008.
Indeed, a new level of criticality has appeared lately in Donbass with large scale mobilisation by Ukrainian forces and reports of western mercenaries in the guise of military advisors. The US intentions remain unclear.
A conflict in Donbass will put the Kremlin in dilemma. If Russia intervenes in Donbass to keep at bay the rampaging radical Ukrainian nationalist forces, Washington will certainly use it as alibi to impose harsh sanctions to isolate Russia and severely damage Moscow’s ties with European countries.
On the contrary, Russia will have no option but to intervene, as hundreds of thousands of Russian passport holders live in Donbass. (Some put the figure around 700,000.) The radical neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists are known to be notoriously anti-Russian and all sorts of atrocities — even genocide — may take place.
The likelihood of conflict erupting in Donbass remains high. Biden may get a splendid opportunity to salvage his reputation after the debacle in Afghanistan. He has an eye, for sure, on the mid-term elections in November and the bipartisan consensus supportive of a tough line on “Putin’s Russia” also helps.
Fundamentally, the US has no intentions of giving Russia the security guarantee it needs. For, NATO’s eastward expansion and encirclement of Russia happens to be Washington’s core agenda. And, since 2014, that agenda has been so far advanced that there is no turning point now. It must be carried forward to its logical conclusion.
The Washington elites realise that the US lacks the capability to take on China and Russia simultaneously. A paradigm shift is needed. In the US calculus, forcing Putin to abdicate after a humiliating retreat over Ukraine and a severe weakening of Russian military power only can bring about the strategic rollback of Russia’s resurgence and its alliance with China.
It is, therefore, an imperative first step on the pathway to an eventual epochal confrontation with China, which poses a formidable challenge to America’s global hegemony in the 21st century.