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The climate scaremongers: Health chief’s nonsensical warning of doom

By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | November 4, 2022

We are used to silly, irresponsible climate scare stories from the BBC and the papers, but when they come from the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency it is quite another matter.

According to the Guardian last week: ‘The climate crisis poses a “significant and growing threat” to health in the UK, the country’s most senior public health expert has warned.

‘Professor Dame Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said there was a common misconception that a warmer climate would bring net health benefits due to milder winters. But the climate emergency would bring far wider-reaching health impacts, she said, with food security, flooding and mosquito-borne diseases posing threats.

‘Referring to the recent floods in Pakistan, Harries said the UK needed to build resilience to protect the population from the health impacts of extreme weather events. “Colleagues from Pakistan . . . are suffering from the impacts of flooding. They are dealing with stagnant water, higher risks of sewage overflowing into publicly accessible water spaces,” she said. “We are seeing some of the things that could be happening in the UK”.’

She went on to repeat the fake claims that this summer’s heatwave had killed 2,800 people, a claim already exposed as a sham on TCW. And she warned us that we would have to stay indoors in the middle of the day in summer, and have longer summer holidays for schools. She even ridiculously claimed that we would soon have outbreaks of dengue fever.

The comparison with Pakistan is utterly absurd, and there’s no evidence that summers in England are getting wetter, or for that matter drier.

Indeed, even her claim that we would soon be having Mediterranean summers is just as ridiculous. The simple fact is that even this summer was not as hot as 1976. The average summer temperature may have increased, as cold summers become less frequent, but even with the wall-to-wall sunshine we had this year, summers show no sign of breaking through that 16C barrier:

By contrast, average summer temperatures in the south of France are typically six or seven degrees higher.

Harries’s comments about dengue are particularly misleading. The spread of dengue globally has not been because of climate change, as one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases, Professor Duane Gubler, has explained.

According to him, the principal drivers are urbanisation, globalisation and lack of effective mosquito control. The mosquitoes which carry the virus thrive in urban habitats, where dengue quickly spreads, while air travel provides the ideal mechanism for transport of viruses to new cities, regions and continents. The result, he says, is epidemic dengue.

The World Health Organisation also notes that the mosquito which has brought the dengue virus to Europe is actually adapted to cold weather: ‘Aedes albopictus, a secondary dengue vector in Asia, has spread to North America and more than 25 countries in the European Region, largely due to the international trade in used tyres (a breeding habitat) and other goods (e.g. lucky bamboo). Aedes albopictus is highly adaptive and, therefore, can survive in cooler temperate regions of Europe.’

Britain is no stranger to mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue. Large epidemics of dengue have been recorded here and elsewhere in Europe since the 18th century. One massive epidemic, estimated at one million cases with at least 1,000 deaths, occurred in Greece in 1927-28. Climate change has nothing to do with the spread of dengue.

And what about this ‘food security’ Harries is waffling on about? Agricultural output has been rising since the BSE scare of the 1990s:

https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare

If the professor is worried about Britain’s food security, maybe she should be objecting to the government’s plans to rewild large swathes of our countryside, to attack the dairy and meat industry and to build solar farms on prime agricultural land.

BBC’s Arctic warming trick

ACCORDING to a BBC report, Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago deep inside the Arctic Circle, is heating at six times the global average. (The BBC and Guardian now routinely call it ‘heating’ rather than ‘warming’, though I don’t think the Svalbarders would call average annual temperatures of 1C ‘hot’!)

The report, Svalbard: The race to save the fastest-warming place on Earth,  states: ‘Svalbard is home to the world’s northernmost permanent settlement, Longyearbyen, which is estimated to be heating at six times the global average. So what is being done to save it?

‘Svalbard’s church is a blood-red wooden building with bright white trim – the most northerly place of worship in the world. Its priest, Siv Limstrand, has been here for only three years but is shocked by the impact of climate change she has witnessed in that time. “Every Sunday when we gather for worship, a part of our intercessions is always about climate change and its threats,” explains Limstrand. “We know that the clock is ticking.”

‘You feel on borrowed time here in what successive scientific studies have found is the fastest-warming place on Earth. Experts from the Norwegian Polar Institute are among those who calculate it is heating six times faster than the global average. The consensus is that the temperature in Svalbard has jumped 4C in the past 50 years. Wildlife and human life are now in a struggle to survive. This is why Limstrand’s congregation is praying for help.’

Obviously a priest who has been there three years is an expert on Svalbard’s climate!

But as this is the BBC, they tell you only half the story. In line with most of the Arctic, Svalbard was virtually as warm as now in the 1930s and 40s, as the chart for Bjoernoeya (Bear Island) shows:

https://www.ecad.eu/indicesextremes/customquerytimeseriesplots.php

In between, as the chart highlights, Svalbard went through a drastic cooling episode in the 1960s and 70s. It is from this unusually cold base period that the BBC claim their 4C of warming. That extreme cold interval affected much of the Arctic, and had a particularly catastrophic effect on countries like Iceland. Trausti Jonsson, senior researcher at the Iceland Met Office, lived through those times and said this:

‘In 1965 there was a real and very sudden climatic change in Iceland (deterioration). It was larger in the north than in the south and affected both the agriculture and fishing – and therefore also the whole of society with soaring unemployment rates and a 50 per cent devaluation of the local currency,’

Going further back in time, ice core studies have shown that Svalbard was as warm as now, if not warmer, in the 1300s, before temperatures plunged in the Little Ice Age. The 1800s were the coldest period of the lot in the last 1,000 years.

There is nothing unprecedented or unusual about Svalbard’s climate nowadays. But the BBC would rather the inhabitants return to the freezing days of the 1960s!

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Why Does the UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Report Never Mention Side-Effects?

BY AMANUENSIS | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 3, 2022

In the past few months I’ve read newspaper articles warning of the increased risk of death following gardening, stress at work, solar flares, sleeping in front of the television, hot weather, cold weather, shock of high energy bills, the price of food, laughing too much and sleeping in the wrong position – these recent warnings add to the multitude of stories on the health consequences of our dietary choices, sedentary lifestyle and climate change. If that wasn’t scary enough, we’ve also seen efforts to educate the public about how common sudden deaths are in younger adults and teenagers. Given this background of suddenly emerging risks to life resulting from our modern lifestyle, it is clearly very important to fully understand all risks that might be emerging resulting from the Covid vaccines, no matter how trivial.

With the above in mind, it is perhaps rather surprising that the Vaccine Surveillance Report from the UKHSA has never actually mentioned vaccine side-effects or complications. Sure, the word ‘safe’ is typically used a few times in each report, but there’s never been a mention of side-effects and their rates. They don’t even like to use the term ‘rare side-effects’ – as far as the Vaccine Surveillance Reports are concerned the vaccines are simply ‘safe’. They’ve never reported any of the data from the Yellow Card side-effect reporting system, nor mentioned any of the increasing numbers of scientific studies reporting on an increasing number of ‘complications’ after receiving the various vaccines.

I suppose at this point I could stop – since side-effects aren’t covered in the Vaccine Surveillance Reports, and this is a series of posts reviewing the UKHSA Vaccine Surveillance Reports, there’s nothing to discuss.  However, vaccine side-effects and complications are important, so I hope that I can be forgiven for exploring this aspect of the vaccines a little further in this post.

Over the past 18 months there have been many studies which have found worrying high side-effect rates following vaccination. The results of these studies have been discussed in multiple places across the internet, and many of these studies have been covered by the Daily Sceptic. The only common theme has been the remarkable insistence by authorities worldwide on ignoring the results of these studies, except where the evidence has become overwhelming and they are forced into some response.

The vast array of side-effects found by these investigative studies is now too voluminous to cover completely here, so instead I’ll focus on a few specific side-effects and discuss the response to these new findings.

Thrombocytopenia and blood-clotting related problems

The first inkling that there might be a risk of thrombocytopenia (low blood platelet count) after vaccination came in January 2021, a mere month after the vaccinations started, after a doctor in New York died of complications following acute thrombocytopenia about two weeks after being given the Pfizer vaccine.  Pfizer responded with a statement that this definitely wasn’t anything to do with their vaccine, despite acute thrombocytopenia being relatively rare and the doctor not being in a risk group. In the months that followed, many more cases of thrombocytopenia and other blood clotting disorders occurred, from Pfizer and the other vaccine offerings, but the official response remained coincidence. Eventually the volume of problems became too large to ignore, and in June 2021 the U.K. authorities decided that those aged under 40 shouldn’t be offered the AstraZeneca vaccine. I found this restriction to the AstraZeneca vaccine a bit odd, as the other vaccines appeared to have similarly high rates of clotting problems in the weeks following vaccination, but it appears that the authorities had chosen their demon to blame. Of course, older adults weren’t too keen to be told that they were going to have to take these risks, and demand for the AstraZeneca vaccine plummeted. A few months later the AstraZeneca vaccine was only made available to those who were unable to take the Pfizer vaccine (the only alternative in the U.K. at that time). Even though the known problems of clotting related disorders post-vaccination are bad enough, it isn’t clear if the instances of severe clotting related problems (resulting in hospitalisation) are also accompanied by higher numbers of clotting problems below the clinical threshold (‘microclotting’), or whether these mild cases might have longer term consequences. Another area of post-vaccine effects that demands more research.

Myocarditis

The risk from myocarditis first appeared in a leaked report out of Israel in April 2021 suggesting worryingly high rates occurring in younger males. Quite why it was deemed necessary for this safety-related information to be kept secret isn’t clear, but authorities worldwide responded quickly once the information was leaked to reassure everyone that this risk was very very low and that the vaccines were very very safe (and effective, of course). While the official line is that post-vaccination myocarditis is rare, studies keep on finding higher and higher incidence rates, particularly in the young male risk group. Indeed, in August a scientific paper describing the impact of Covid vaccination in Thailand suggested that the conditions suggestive of myocarditis and pericarditis after vaccination were found in over 29% of vaccine recipients aged between 13 and 18 years of age, and a similar result has since been described after vaccination in Switzerland. The longer term impact of these ‘mild problems related to the heart’ aren’t yet known.

Period related problems

All clinical studies into side-effects are mindful of the need to treat any issues related to sexual function carefully – individuals are less likely to seek medical attention when it comes to sex-related problems and those related to our reproductive systems in general. Thus it should have been a huge red-flag when anecdotal reports of heavy or missed periods following vaccination started to appear early in 2021. Alas, our authorities simply responded with the usual ‘it definitely isn’t the vaccines’ and ignored the problem. The complex situation regarding reporting of side-effects related to reproductive function is nicely illustrated by the number of problems reported to the Yellow Card side-effect reporting system – early May 2021 saw a huge increase in reporting of side-effects related to menstruation. The reason? Most likely, an article on the problem on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour in late March, in which listeners were urged to report any problems into the Yellow-Card system. It is very disappointing that our side-effect reporting system could be so heavily influenced by a radio programme in this way. Really there should have been active monitoring of post-vaccination complications and side-effects, but the inadequate Yellow Card system is all we had. Official guidelines now state that problems related to menstruation are relatively rare but even if they do occur they’ll be of no consequence whatsoever and women shouldn’t worry about taking the vaccines. Eventually we’ll find out if this reassurance was correct.

What’s also troubling is the way that the only side-effects that are discussed in the traditional media are the ones that have been officially recognised (albeit under duress). What about the increase in hospital consultant activity for stroke victims over the last 18 months?

Or the increase in consultant activity for hormonal problems?

Or the increase in referrals for suspected cancers?

Like the significant increase in excess deaths that we’ve seen this year, there seems to be much going on but little interest on the part of our authorities to investigate these issues at all. Maybe they’re all the result of the lockdowns, maybe they’re due to Covid itself, maybe it was the vaccines, and perhaps it is all just a massive coincidence – but it simply isn’t good enough to decide that it can’t possibly be the vaccines and refuse to even discuss undertaking the research that might clarify the situation.

At least in recent weeks we’ve had an increase in calls for some robust investigations to be undertaken, such as discussed in the Daily Sceptic in mid October.  Then again, we’ve also had the brief hour-and-a-half spent a week ago by the House of Commons to debate the issues around vaccine safety. Despite some MPs detailing concerns about the safety of the vaccines, the Chair was quick to respond with empty reassurances and the debate ended with a statement urging people to get vaccinated to protect themselves, others and the NHS. I fear that there’ll be quite some way to go before the full impact of the vaccines is accepted by our authorities.

An important aspect of the rate of side-effects and complications is the impact on the risk-benefit analysis used by our authorities to determine who should take the vaccines. The risk of side-effects should be tolerable so long as the benefit offered by any medical product is greater than the risks. Since the vaccines were introduced back in December 2020 we have seen marked changes both in the risks posed by the vaccines (more side-effects and complications have come to light) and the benefits offered (the vaccines clearly offer little protection against infection, their protection against hospitalisation and death appears to be rather less than claimed, and at the same time Covid appears to have evolved to become much less virulent). In addition, nearly everyone in the Western world will now have had a Covid infection, resulting in at least some natural immunity. Unfortunately, our authorities have never actually published any of their risk-benefit analyses and how the ratio changes with age and morbidity, so we can’t tell how new information on risks and benefits has changed the calculation. Then again, I suppose it is easier to be inconsistent if you never actually tell anyone what factors your decisions are based upon.

One of the big problems regarding the Covid mRNA vaccines in particular is that there were only sparse data published on how long the mRNA would remain active in the body and where it would end up (pharmacokinetics and biodistribution). Originally the reassuring voices told us that the mRNA would break down within hours, and that the mRNA vesicles would remain close to the point of injection. However, evidence has emerged in the months since our authorities proceeded to inject everyone in the world that has suggested that the mRNA remains active for many weeks following vaccination, that it travels to multiple organs in the body and that the pharmaceutical companies knew this prior to the vaccines being released. Even worse, a recent study has suggested that the mRNA is present in breast milk for a short time following vaccination (for fairness I must point out that our authorities still think that it is completely and utterly safe for recently vaccinated mothers to continue breastfeeding). I find it concerning that we’re only now starting to find out the full complexity of the interaction of the mRNA vaccines with the body.

Recent studies have estimated the current rate of serious short-term side-effects after the Covid vaccines at around one in 800. I find this number interesting, as I suspect that this is as bad a side-effect rate as could be found for a supposedly benign or prophylactic treatment. I estimate that an incidence rate of around one in 1,000 marks the point at which problems become apparent even to a casual observer, provided sufficient numbers are given the medical product. If a side-effect rate for a benign or prophylactic treatment is worse than this people would notice and demand that the medicine or medical treatment is withdrawn. Thankfully, there aren’t too many examples of terrible medical mistakes – probably the most famous example is Thalidomide, where around one in 1,000 mothers who took the drug gave birth to a child with serious physical malformations. Even so, it took three years before the nature of the problem was understood and Thalidomide was withdrawn from sale. It is perhaps interesting to note that at least in the early stages of the problem being recognised the blame was put on the nuclear tests that had occurred in previous years – was this the 1950s equivalent of ‘climate change’?

Where serious side-effects are more common than this for a supposedly benign product, the response is typically more rapid. The famous example here is Elixir Sulphanilamide, a treatment for bacterial infections created in the 1930s that caused over 100 deaths in the few weeks that it was for sale. The problem with Elixir Sulphanilamide was that it hadn’t been tested before release and the manufacturers hadn’t realised that a primary component was highly toxic. The owner of the company that made the elixir famously denied responsibility, stating that “we have been supplying a legitimate professional demand and not once could have foreseen the unlooked for results”. It was this scandal that led to the creation of the FDA in the USA, along with stringent requirements for the testing of new medical products. After the disaster it was demanded that never again would a medical treatment be released and given to many thousands of people without being fully tested to explore all potential problems (and not simply the ‘looked-for’ problems). As a side note, the outcome of the Elixir Sulphanilamide scandal was that the scientist who developed the formula committed suicide as a result of the extreme guilt of causing so much harm, while the company that released the medicine without testing was given a nominal fine. The manufacturer went on to produce further drugs (and profits) and after a succession of takeovers is now part of the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.  Funny how it all works.

Next time I’ll discuss one of the most wildly enthusiastic aspects of the Vaccine Surveillance Report – the predictions made by computer-models of the reduction in infections, hospitalisations and deaths offered by the vaccines.

Amanuensis is an ex-academic and senior Government scientist. He blogs at Bartram’s Folly.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Research: Countries That Sought ‘Zero-COVID’ Lockdowns Have The Least Immunity

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
By Steve Watson | Summit News | November 4, 2022

New research has revealed the countries that implemented the harshest lockdowns as part of ‘zero-COVID’ policies now have the least immunity from the virus itself.

The analysis by The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine estimates that China, which still has multiple lockdowns in place, has the lowest level of immunity to COVID-19 on the planet.

Other nations that didn’t institute harsh lockdowns, including Russia, Singapore and Brazil are thought to have the highest immunity levels, according to the research.

The research estimates immunity rates according to infection numbers, vaccination rates and how much time has passed in the interim.

The analysis posits that as of the end of October 2022, just 17.2% of the Chinese population have immunity from the virus, while Russia on the other hand is estimated to have an immunity rating of 74.5% with everyone in the country having contracted the virus.

While Singapore’s immunity rating is thought to be around 70%, and Brazil’s 68%, Japan, another country that put into place harsh restrictions is believed to have just 38.9% immunity.

The U.S. is believed to have 60.5% immunity at this time, according to the analysis.

Ironically, given the IHME’s COVID model being used to laud strict restrictions, the analysis again highlights the futility of lockdowns in preventing the spread of the virus in the longterm.

Johns Hopkins University previously concluded that lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released last month highlighted how a record number of children in the U.S. are now being hospitalised with common colds due to weakened immune systems.

The CDC data is consistent with research by scientists at Yale who warned that it is not normal to see children with combinations of seven common viruses, including adenovirus, rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus, influenza and parainfluenza, as well as COVID-19.

As we previously highlighted, there has also been a global outbreak of hepatitis cases in children, with the media asserting the cause is “unknown.”

Biden administration officials have continuously pushed for children to keep wearing masks in schools, and there are still hordes of hypochondriacs forcing their children to do so, despite COVID posing virtually no risk to the health of children in normal circumstances.

The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA), Europe’s equivalent of the FDA, has also warned that relying on endless rounds of booster shots to fight COVID-19 could end up causing “immune response” problems.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 3 Comments

What We Knew In the Early Days

Brownstone Institute | November 4, 2022

The claim is now everywhere: we had to lock down because we just didn’t know about this virus. It was all very confusing and we had to play it safe. We had no other option because we just had no clarity about what we were dealing with. The precautionary principle dictated the unprecedented actions.

Actually, the precautionary principle goes both directions. It also dictates that we not enact policies that we know for sure would wreck lives and liberties. They did it anyway, without sufficient knowledge that the measures would achieve any positive good.

We approach the third year and people have forgotten that all the harms of lockdowns were strongly warned about by many voices in many venues. In addition, the virus was much better understood back then and openly discussed. We knew for certain that the panic and fear were being wildly overblown.

Below follows resources assembled by the ‘Robber Baron‘ and many others who write for the Brownstone Institute. These citations from newspapers, magazines, academic journals and interviews, with many respected voices, show that we certainly knew tremendous amounts in the early days. All the warnings and information were readily available to anyone paying attention.

We certainly live in an age of short attention span but many of these signs and warnings came weeks or months before the world locked down and they chronicled the damage as it was happening. Why all this came to be completely ignored remains the burning question.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Combining COVID-19 BA4/5 and Influenza mRNA

Recipe for Disaster

By Dr. Peter McCullough & John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 5, 2022

Recently both Pfizer and Moderna announced they were developing a combination injection utilizing mRNA coding for the BA4/BA5 Omicron subvariant and new mRNA coding for antigens contained in the influenza virus.[i] Because the COVID-19 component is under Emergency Use Authorization, has failed in animal studies and no human trials have been reported, that component should be off the table from the start.

A recent paper from Chemaitelly and colleagues demonstrated in the Omicron era, COVID-19 boosters had unacceptably low protection against acquiring the infection and no valid study has ever demonstrated reductions in hospitalizations and deaths.[ii]

To make matters worse, any theoretical benefit from a COVID-19 vaccine would last < 6 months, so additional shots would be out of phase with the other component of the combination product. mRNA coding for influenza would be a new biological product not under EUA so should have to go through the full 5-year regulatory development cycle for genetic biologicals. It looks like the vaccine companies are trying the shortcut this development cycle by combining the non-emergency flu shot with the EUA COVID-19 vaccine. Influenza A and B are the cause of seasonal epidemics, and the segmented RNA genome enables frequent antigenic changes. For this reason, the seasonal vaccines are developed annually based on the expected circulating strains of two influenza A viruses– H1N1 and H3N2, and two influenza B viruses– Victoria and Yamagata lineages.[iii] Because of the strain mismatches, the effectiveness has been abysmal.

Last year, Chung and colleagues reported the influenza vaccine had 16% vaccine efficacy which was statistically insignificant from zero.[iv]

Combining the genetic code for both the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and conserved proteins of influenza A and B would mean installation of the long-lasting genetic code for multiple foreign proteins in the human body. Production of these proteins will induce an ongoing multi-pronged immune response which is likely to create amplified side effects, above and beyond each component alone, rendering even greater incapacitation than we have seen with the COVID-19 vaccine alone. Dr. David Wiseman, PhD, former JNJ scientist and vaccine developer commented on the combined vaccine product for NTD news. He made the case that safety signals would be confused and impossible to sort out.

NTD News: Dr. David Wiseman: Combined mRNA BA4/5 and Influenza Vaccines are Ill-Conceived

In the history of drug development, when a technology goes bad and delivers side effects and fails to stop or ameliorate an illness, that line of development should be dropped.  In the case of mRNA, the bio-pharmaceutical complex is hell-bent on forcing these new products into large populations no matter what adverse health consequences emerge.   So, the next time you are in the clinic and about to take another vaccine, ask the nurse “does this vaccine have mRNA in it?” If the answer is yes, then consider deferring or seeking an alternative. Thus far, there is no mRNA vaccine that is either safe or effective.

[i] Reuters : Pfizer, BioNTech start COVID-flu combination vaccine study

[ii] Chemaitelly H, AlMukdad S, Ayoub HH, Altarawneh HN, Coyle P, Tang P, Yassine HM, Al-Khatib HA, Smatti MK, Hasan MR, Al-Kanaani Z, Al-Kuwari E, Jeremijenko A, Kaleeckal AH, Latif AN, Shaik RM, Abdul-Rahim HF, Nasrallah GK, Al-Kuwari MG, Al-Romaihi HE, Butt AA, Al-Thani MH, Al-Khal A, Bertollini R, Abu-Raddad LJ. Covid-19 Vaccine Protection among Children and Adolescents in Qatar. N Engl J Med. 2022 Nov 2. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2210058. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36322837.

[iii] Rcheulishvili N, Papukashvili D, Liu C, Ji Y, He Y, Wang PG. Promising strategy for developing mRNA-based universal influenza virus vaccine for human population, poultry, and pigs- focus on the bigger picture. Front Immunol. 2022;13:1025884. Published 2022 Oct 17. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2022.1025884

[iv] Chung JR, Kim SS, Kondor RJ, Smith C, Budd AP, Tartof SY, Florea A, Talbot HK, Grijalva CG, Wernli KJ, Phillips CH, Monto AS, Martin ET, Belongia EA, McLean HQ, Gaglani M, Reis M, Geffel KM, Nowalk MP, DaSilva J, Keong LM, Stark TJ, Barnes JR, Wentworth DE, Brammer L, Burns E, Fry AM, Patel MM, Flannery B. Interim Estimates of 2021-22 Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness – United States, February 2022. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2022 Mar 11;71(10):365-370. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm7110a1. PMID: 35271561; PMCID: PMC8911998.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Kashmiris mark 1947 murder of 200,000 Muslims by Hindu extremists

Press TV – November 6, 2022

Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control (LOC) are marking the 75th anniversary of the day when hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed in the Jammu region.

More than 200,000 Muslims were systematically killed by Hindu extremists when they were migrating to Pakistan.

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leaders on Sunday paid tributes to the memory of those killed.

Detained senior APHC leader Shabbir Ahmad Shah, in a message from New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, said the massacre of Muslims was the most horrible incident of Kashmir’s history that continues to haunt the regional people.

Other APHC leaders, in a joint statement, said the Kashmiris “will always remember the great sacrifice of the Jammu martyrs”.

“The Kashmiris have been rendering sacrifices for a great cause for the last several decades and the day is not far when they will achieve their cherished goal,” the statement said.

They also urged the international community to press India to stop its “brutalities” in Kashmir and settle the dispute in accordance with the aspirations of its people and the relevant UN resolutions.

Between October and November in 1947, the majority of Muslims living in Jammu, Kathua, Reasi and Udhampur were uprooted from their homes during the days the genocide took place.

The crimes that were committed during that week included abduction and rape of Muslim women, mass slaughtering of Muslims including children and stealing of personal belongings.

In one of the many incidents that took place during that week, it was announced by the beat of the drum for all Muslims to assemble at the parade ground in Jammu.

They were later loaded on motor lorry convoys to be sent to Suchetgarh in India, but instead they were driven to Kathua road of the Jammu region and told to get off, after which they were killed by the Hindu forces that escorted them.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | 10 Comments

Jen Psaki says censorship deposition would be “burdensome” for her family life and new MSNBC gig

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | November 6, 2022

Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary, and Department of Justice (DOJ) are fighting a subpoena requiring her to testify in the lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general – alleging that the Biden administration colluded with social media platforms to censor certain viewpoints on the pandemic.

The motion to quash the subpoena was filed in a federal court in Virginia. It argues that the deposition would be “extremely burdensome” for Psaki, who is preparing to be the host of a new show on MSNBC.

We obtained a copy of the motion for you here.

“Among other things, I understand that I would need to devote several days preparing for the deposition, as well as attending the deposition itself, and that would be highly disruptive to both my work and my family,” Psaki wrote in the request.

Psaki has in the past admitted that the Biden administration was flagging people’s speech to social media platforms.

The DOJ argued that Psaki’s deposition would result in a debate over executive privilege considering she was a top adviser to President .

The DOJ lawyer said: “If permitted to proceed, the deposition of Ms. Psaki would inevitably set the Executive and Judicial Branches ‘on a collision course’ through adjudications of executive privilege, thrusting the court into ‘the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy,’ and ‘difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances’ would quickly be pushed to the fore.”

“Plaintiffs have not identified any evidence showing or even suggesting that Ms. Psaki ever communicated with any social-media company in her capacity as Press Secretary about misinformation, much less that she ‘exercised coercive power’ to compel a social-media company to take any action,” the DOJ added.

Other defendants that have tried to use a similar “burdensome” defense have already been shut down by District Judge Terry Doughty who said, “The Court finds that both the public interest and the interest of the other parties in preserving free speech significantly outweighs the inconvenience the three deponents will have in preparing for and giving their depositions.”

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 2 Comments

Another Extraordinary Murder in Washington D.C.

Mary Mahoney was allegedly the victim of a botched robbery in the Georgetown Starbucks

Mary Mahoney, murdered on July 7, 1997
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 6, 2022

When Seth Rich was murdered in Washington D.C. on July 10, 2016, the Metropolitan Police Department immediately proposed that it was a “botched robbery.” The case reminded me of the murder of Mary Mahoney in a Georgetown Starbucks on July 7, 1997.

Mary Mahoney was an intern in Bill Clinton’s White House during his first term. She then got a job working as a manager of Starbucks in Georgetown, which was frequented by many notable figures in the Washington political establishment. Her murder (along with her two coworkers) was the first triple murder in the neighborhood’s history. Prior to the crime, not a single homicide had been committed in Georgetown for eighteen months.

Robbery appeared an unlikely motive, as none of the day’s cash proceeds had been taken from the store. Mahoney’s murder occurred during the same period that Newsweek reporter Mike Isikoff was investigating allegations that President Clinton had sexually harassed White House employees—an investigation that would ultimately lead him to Monica Lewinsky. Attorneys for Paula Jones were also seeking corroborating cases of Clinton’s sexual harassment of young women.

A year after the murder occurred, the police received a tip to examine a man named Carl D. Cooper from a woman who had just watched an America’s Most Wanted episode on the triple homicide. For several months, investigators found no evidence linking Cooper to the crime. Then another informant came forth—a former drug addict named Eric Butera, who was himself later murdered in “a robbery gone wrong.”

Based on information gleaned from Butera’s associates, Carl Cooper was arrested. After a grueling four-day interrogation, Cooper confessed, stating that the triple homicide was a “botched robbery” (which just happened to be the official working hypothesis). While held at gunpoint, Mary, refused to give Cooper the keys to the safe—a heroic act to save her 50 billion market cap employer from losing a few thousand dollars. Because Mary refused to give Cooper the keys, he shot her five times, including a shot to the back of the head. He then shot her two coworkers, and then left the store without taking a dime.

Cooper was convicted on the grounds of his confession to the Metropolitan Police. However, in a subsequent interview with an FBI investigator, Cooper recanted his confession. Although the FBI investigator unequivocally stated this in his testimony, the court concluded that Cooper’s initial confession was sufficient for his conviction. Cooper was initially represented by a court-appointed attorney, but after his trial began, his court-appointed attorney was joined by the prominent Washington D.C. defender, Francis D. Carter, who initially represented Monica Lewinsky when Monica stated her willingness to remain silent about her affair with Clinton. Carter drafted an affidavit for Monica in which she stated that she had NOT had an affair with the president. Carter was forced to withdraw this affidavit after Monica made statements to Lynda Tripp (equipped with a secret recording device) confirming her affair with Clinton.

That Carter joined the Carl Cooper defense team strikes me as very peculiar, especially given that Carter did not change the defense strategy. I wonder if Carter’s primarily job was—under cover of client-attorney confidentiality—to deliver a message to Carter pertaining to his sentencing prospects and what he might reasonably expect for his wife (to whom he was apparently very attached) if he stuck with his confession.

Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno initially sought the death penalty for Cooper— the first death-penalty matter brought to trial in the District in nearly 30 years, but federal prosecutors later withdrew this request. To date, no evidence has been found linking Cooper to the triple homicide.

In a related case, the District of Columbia was successfully sued for the wrongful death of Metropolitan Police informant, Eric Butera, as the jury concluded the police had been negligent in protecting him during an undercover operation to obtain more information about the Starbucks triple slaying. The woman who gave the initial tip to America’s Most Wanted later publicly accused the police of refusing to protect her and fell under suspicion for being motivated primarily by the reward money offered by the show.

Since the murders occurred, the crime has been the subject of extensive media coverage, several documentary television features, and hundreds of online commentators. Conventional newspaper coverage of the crimes—primarily conducted by the Washington Post and the Washington Times—consisted entirely of straightforward reporting of information provided by police and judicial officers.

Given the controversial nature of the police investigation and judicial proceedings against the man who was charged for committing the crime, it is surprising how little the mainstream media questioned official accounts. Likewise, the TV documentaries simply presented narratives provided by law officers as though they contained nothing that was questionable. This is particularly notable given that substantial details of the official narrative, provided by the same investigating officers, are represented differently in different documentaries. Moreover, some of officers’ statements in the documentaries pertaining to Starbucks procedures and security protocols are NOT consistent with what a veteran Starbucks manager told me.

I would like to interview Carl D. Cooper in prison, but I cannot find him in the federal prison system. Though I have not had the time and resources to dig deep into this component of the story, my preliminary research suggests that his whereabouts in the federal prison system have been concealed.

In 2016, the lead homicide detective in the Mary Mahoney case — Detective James Trainium — published a book titled How the Police Generate False Confessions. It’s a detailed examination of how the police obtain false confessions, and the author is clearly writing from personal experience.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

An Extraordinary Unsolved Murder in Washington D.C.

In the matter of SETH RICH, the FBI asks for 66 years to release his laptop contents Nov 5 DNC Staffer Seth Rich, murdered on July 10, 2016

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 5, 2022

“A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.” —James Madison

As an investigative author I’ve often dealt with the extreme frustration of making federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and state Open Records Act requests. So often, it seems that federal and state agencies don’t want to release the information, delay in responding, and then cite multiple exceptions to the law in order to justify keeping the information secret.

I therefore felt sympathy for my fellow Texan, Brian Huddleston, when I saw the recent Epoch Times report that his FOIA request for the information found on Seth Rich’s laptop is being thwarted by the FBI, which asked the judge who ruled in Huddleston’s favor to grant the Bureau 66 years to fulfill the request.

Readers of this Substack may find the FBI’s request reminiscent of the FDA’s request for 55 years to release COVID-19 vaccine data. Given the unfortunate reality of human mortality, one wonders what public interest will be served 55 or 66 years from now, apart from satisfying the curiosity of historians who aren’t yet born.

The murder of Seth Rich—in the middle of one of the most brutal presidential election years in history—has always struck me as an example of the authorities NOT investigating a matter of public interest. The mainstream media and half the country were so blinded by partisan passions that they couldn’t see the grounds for suspecting that the young man’s murder was politically motivated. Just a few hours after the incident occurred—before there was any time to perform an investigation—the Metropolitan Police Department announced that the murder appeared to be a “botched robbery.”

Since Seth Rich was murdered on July 10, 2016—12 days before Wikileaks published embarrassing DNC e-mails—there has been much speculation that he could have been the source because he was upset about how the DNC had treated Bernie Sanders. A good investigator wouldn’t speculate about the crime, but he would certainly notice that, statistically speaking, the murder is extraordinary.

Seth Rich was shot in the back near his apartment building, and though he was carrying a valuable watch, wallet, and cell phone, these were not taken by the assailant. Perhaps it was a botched robbery, as the Metropolitan Police Department quickly announced, but shooting a guy in the back without taking his valuables is not typical of armed robbery. Other robberies in the same neighborhood around the same time followed the conventional pattern of the assailant threatening the victim and demanding his or her valuables instead of opening fire on the victim.

In the year 2016, there were 135 homicides in Washington D.C., which has a resident population of 672,000, which comes to approximately one murder per 5000 residents— a dramatic decline from the city’s murder rate in the early nineties. Incidentally, the Metropolitan Police conducted an analysis of homicide for the years 1998-2000—after homicide rates had dropped significantly—and concluded that the primary motives were

1) Argument/conflict

2). Drug related

3). Revenge/retaliation

4). Robbery

5). Gang related.

During this period, homicides were not equally distributed throughout the city, but were concentrated in particular neighborhoods. 92% of the victims were African Americans 3.2% were Hispanic and 3.2% were white. Though one must consider the possibility that homicide trends in DC have changed since 2000 (apart from merely decreasing in numbers) it’s notable that, of the currently unsolved homicides in Washington DC in the year 2016, Seth Rich is the only white victim in a city that is now 44% white.

Julian Assange has always insisted the DNC e-mails were leaked and not hacked. Former NSA technical director William Binney has also insisted that if the DNC e-mails were hacked, it would be child’s play for the NSA to establish the precise routing of the hack, which indicates that the e-mails were more likely leaked by an insider.

Regarding motive, a good investigator would consider the hypothesis that Seth Rich was murdered NOT in retaliation, but to eliminate him as a witness that the DNC e-mails were leaked by an insider and not hacked by Russians. Almost immediately after the embarrassing e-mails were published, the DNC vehemently proclaimed it was Russian hackers who were responsible, though no evidence has been presented to support this accusation.

Regarding the assailant: A good investigator would consider the hypothesis that he was contracted to murder Rich but knew nothing about his target or the motive for killing him. This hypothesis is consistent with Rich being murdered as he approached the entrance to his home—that is, the contract killer was provided only with the address and a photograph of his target.

Another notable aspect of this crime has been the extremely emotional tone of press reporting from the same reporters who so passionately embraced the Russian meddling story. The mere suggestion that Seth Rich’s murder was politically motivated prompted these same people to angrily denounce this (perfectly reasonable hypothesis) as “wild, right wing conspiracy theory” and to demand that reporters cease and desist from exploring this hypothesis.

And yet, given that the crime remains unsolved, why not explore this hypothesis?

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , , | 13 Comments

UN votes overwhelmingly to rid Israel of nuclear weapons

Free West Media | November 6, 2022

The United Nations General Assembly was unequivocal: With 152 votes to 5, Israel’s nuclear arsenal was condemned by a vast majority of countries. Although Tel Aviv has never officially acknowledged its nuclear capability, experts believe it has at least 90 nuclear warheads, and perhaps many more.

On October 28, almost 80 percent of all UN member states adopted a resolution that called on Israel to give up its nuclear weapons, join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities. The resolution, document A/C.1/77/L.2, was titled “The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East”.

It was adopted in the 25th plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly’s First Committee, which is focused on disarmament and international security.

The five countries that voted against the measure were the United States and Canada, the small island nations of Palau and Micronesia, and Israel itself. Some 24 members of the European Union, NATO allies, and India abstained.

The resolution urged Israel “not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and to place all its unsafeguarded nuclear facilities under full-scope Agency safeguards as an important confidence-building measure among all States of the region and as a step towards enhancing peace and security”.

It was introduced by Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt (on behalf of the Arab League), Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and the UN-recognized state of Palestine.

In 2019, the United States and Israel were the only countries that voted against UN General Assembly draft resolutions calling for establishing a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, preventing an arms race in outer space, and ending Washington’s illegal six-decade blockade of Cuba.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 2 Comments

Foreign Ministry says ‘US more isolated’ as anti-Iran meeting in New York failed to gain momentum

Press TV – November 6, 2022

The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry has said that the US is “more isolated” as the anti-Iranian UN Security Council Arria-formula meeting failed to gain momentum, stating that the attempts to isolate Iran from the world are doomed.

“Known violators of human rights and supporters of the most notorious terrorist groups came together at the anti-Iranian Arria Formula in New York in the mistaken belief that they could condemn and isolate Iran,” Nasser Kan’ani wrote in a post published on his official Twitter page.

He highlighted that the organizers of the event, by means of media dictatorship, did not allow representatives of 19 countries opposing anti-Iran sanctions, including Venezuela, to deliver a speech there.

“Instead, the United States let two ill-famed women [Shirin Ebadi and and Nazanin Boniadi], who support sanctions against Iranian women and children, take the podium,” Kan’ani noted.

He went on to say that the US administration failed in New York as delegates from the 19 states took part in a meeting of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations in the Iranian capital city of Tehran less than a week later.

“Who is really isolated?” the senior Iranian diplomat also questioned.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amir Saied Iravani blasted the irony between the United States’ attempt to hold an unofficial anti-Iran meeting at the UN Security Council under the pretext of human rights while imposing harsh sanctions on Iranians for decades.

Iran’s UN envoy said the US-organized meeting held at the United Nations clearly aimed to interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state, which amounts to a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law.

The senior diplomat made the remarks while speaking at the UN Security Council Stakeout in New York.

He added that the Arria-formula meeting took place as the US once again resorted to a “disinformation campaign in a blatant hypocrisy.”

The Iranian ambassador said it is ironic that the US has alleged that the event is intended to “protect” human rights in Iran, “while Iranians continue to suffer greatly as the result of the United States’ decades-long brutal sanctions; a true war in which the actual warfare is replaced with food and medicine.”

“It has become a standard practice for the US to abuse such valued concepts as human rights and manipulate the UN platforms and resources to advance its ill-based political agenda,” Iravani emphasized.

He said that the US has never been really concerned about human rights in Iran or elsewhere as the history is self-evident enough to prove it.

Riots broke out in Iran in mid-September after the death of young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old fainted at a police station in Tehran, and was pronounced dead three days later at a hospital.

An official report by Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization concluded that Amini’s death was caused by an illness rather than alleged blows to the head or other vital body organs.

In the meantime, rioters have been going on a rampage across the country. They have been receiving overwhelming backing from Western powers, especially the United States, despite continuing to brutally attack security officers and cause massive damage to public property.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Iran Unveils New Air Defense Missile

Al-Manar – November 6, 2022

A new solid-propellant missile paired with Iran’s homegrown air defence system ‘Bavar-373’ was unveiled on Sunday.

The new missile, dubbed ‘Sayyad 4B’, has a range of 300 kilometers.

In a recent test, the Bavar-373 air defence system successfully hit a target at a distance of over 300 km with the new missile.

The Iranian air defence system managed to detect the target at a range of more than 450 kilometers with its optimized radar and tracked the target at a distance of around 405 km before detonating it with Sayyad 4B.

Sayyad 4B missile’s engine runs on hybrid solid fuel and has undergone an operational test for the first time.

The new breakthrough has increased the range of the detection radar of Bavar 373 from 350 to 450 km, while its tracking radar’s range has risen from 260 to 400 kilometers.

The employment of Sayyad 4B also means that the range of the Iranian air defence system missiles has been extended to 300 km and the altitude of engagement has increased from 27 to 32 km.

Iranian military experts and technicians have in recent years made great headway in manufacturing a broad range of indigenous equipment, making the armed forces self-sufficient in the defence sphere.

Iran maintains that its military might poses no threat to regional countries, stressing that the Islamic Republic’s defence doctrine is entirely based on deterrence.

November 6, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

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