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Biden Extends Obama’s Executive Order Against Venezuela for One More Year

Biden considers Venezuela a threat to the security of his country. File photo.
By Randolf Borges | Ultimas Noticias* | March 3, 2021

US President Joe Biden has extended Executive Order 13692 signed by Barack Obama in 2015, declaring Venezuela as “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the North American country. The renewal of the order was signed on Tuesday, March 2 and published this Wednesday and maintains that the measure will continue after March 8, the date on which the document turns six years old.

“The situation in Venezuela continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue with the national emergency declared in Decree 13692 with respect to the situation in Venezuela,” says part of the document that Biden sent to the Congress of his country to continue with the suffocation campaign against million of Venezuelans.

The new US president considers that the “threat” raised in 2015 “has not improved” with respect to Venezuela, which is why he decided to extend the sanctioning mechanism against the South American country.

The Executive Order that paved the way for more sanctions

After Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13692, the way was open for a series of sanctions and coercive measures to be imposed against the Venezuelan people.

Thus came Executive Order 13808, of August 24, 2017, which prohibits the direct or indirect purchase of securities from the Government of Venezuela.

Then Executive Order 13827, of March 19, 2018, was imposed, which prevents all transactions related to the issuance and use of any type of electronic money. That same year, Executive Order 13835 was issued, with which the prohibitions on transactions or refinancing operations of the Venezuelan debt are intensified.

On November 1, 2018, Executive Order 13850 was issued, which blocks assets and prohibits transactions by persons operating in the gold sector. Executive Order 13857, of January 25, 2019, designated Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), its subsidiaries and associated entities as subject to sanctions by the United States, blocking the main source of revenues for the Venezuelan economy.

One of the last sanctions was issued through Executive Order 13884, of August 5, 2019, which transforms the coercive measures into an “embargo” and authorizes the application of secondary sanctions against companies or countries that have commercial relations with Venezuela.

In a recent visit to Venezuela by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the effects of sanctions on human rights, Alena Douhan, a preliminary report was made public labeling sanctions as criminal and urging the lifting of all sanctions. A few days before, the US Government Accountability Office issued a report recognizing the negative effects of US sanctions on Venezuelan economy and on human rights.

Here is the full text of Joe Biden’s letter:

CONTINUATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY WITH RESPECT TO VENEZUELA

On March 8, 2015, the President issued Executive Order 13692, declaring a national emergency with respect to the situation in Venezuela, including the Government of Venezuela’s erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests, and arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors, as well as the exacerbating presence of significant government corruption.

The President took additional steps pursuant to this national emergency in Executive Order 13808 of August 24, 2017; Executive Order 13827 of March 19, 2018; Executive Order 13835 of May 21, 2018; Executive Order 13850 of November 1, 2018; Executive Order 13857 of January 25, 2019; and Executive Order 13884 of August 5, 2019.

The circumstances described in Executive Order 13692, and subsequent Executive Orders issued with respect to Venezuela, have not improved, and they continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Therefore in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692.

This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

THE WHITE HOUSE,

March 2, 2021.

*Translation: Orinoco Tribune

March 5, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Ten Fatal Errors: Scientists Attack Paper That Established Global PCR Driven Lockdown

By Celia Farber | Uncover DC | December 3, 2020

War has broken out in the scientific literature that strikes at the existential core of Covid-19 and its proposed causative virus.

At the heart of the controversy lies the fact that the creators of the most commonly used test, the RT-PCR, published instructions for how to test for SARS-CoV-2 “without having virus material available,” in their own words, relying instead on the Chinese scientists’ genetic sequence published on the internet.

The paper “Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time PCR” was published 24 hours after it was submitted to Eurosurveillance, clearly evading peer review. Its lead authors were Christian Drosten and Victor Corman, which is how it took on the title  “Corman-Drosten paper.” It provided the “recipe,” or work flow for the Covid-19 diagnostic test, quickly applied all over the world, after it was accepted as the standard of testing by the WHO.

German scientist Christian Drosten was also a co-discoverer of the SARS-associated coronavirus, and developed a test for it in 2003. Drosten, who heads the Charite Institute of Virology in Berlin, and a team of fellow scientists in Europe and Hong Kong, moved very quickly, as soon as cases of the illness were being reported out of Wuhan in December of 2019. They submitted the paper on Jan. 21, it was published in Eurosurveillance on Jan. 23, and was immediately accepted as the standard of testing internationally, by the WHO, which began sending test kits to affected regions.

In the harrowing months that followed, amid lockdowns, economic collapse, school closures and widespread panic, few were aware of the immense problems with the paper, which tragically offered a testing method that would yield between 80 and 97 percent false positive results, due to a non existent gold standard which would be the virus itself.

It all came to a head on Nov. 30, when the Corman-Drosten foundation paper was challenged by 22 international scientists who wrote a letter demanding the paper’s retraction, along with an extensive critique citing 10 errors in the paper it deemed “fatal.”

Titled “External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-Cov-2 Reveals 10 Major Flaws At The Molecular and Methodological Level: Consequences For False-Positive Results,” the paper’s lead author is Dr. Pieter Borger, an expert on the molecular biology of gene expression. Several other esteemed names are associated with the paper including Dr. Michael Yeadon, former VP of Pfizer and outspoken critic of much of the so-called science beneath the WHO’s global lockdown, masking, and school shut-down measures.

I reached one of the authors, Dr. Kevin Corbett, at his home in London. He spoke simply and with controlled apoplexy. He confirmed and cast additional light on the shocking fact that the paper was written in the absence of a viral isolate, among many other problems.

“Every scientific rationale for the development of that test has been totally destroyed by this paper. It’s like Hiroshima/Nagasaki to the Covid test,” he said. “When Drosten developed the test, China hadn’t given them a viral isolate. They developed the test from a sequence in a gene bank. Do you see? China gave them a genetic sequence with no corresponding viral isolate. They had a code, but no body for the code. No viral morphology.”

I asked him to define “viral morphology” for the layperson.

“In the fish market,” he said, “it’s like giving you a few bones and saying that’s your fish. It could be any fish. Not even a skeleton. Here’s a few fragments of bones. That’s your fish. Listen, the Corman/Drosten paper, there’s nothing from a patient in it. It’s all from gene banks. and the bits of the virus sequence that weren’t there they made up. They synthetically created them to fill in the blanks. That’s what genetics is; it’s a code. So its ABBBCCDDD and you’re missing some what you think is EEE so you put it in. It’s all synthetic. You just manufacture the bits that are missing. This is the end result of the geneticization of virology. This is basically a computer virus.”

In an interview posted on his Twitter feed, Dr. Pieter Borger said, “The virus wasn’t in Europe and the paper was already finished.”  He said these facts “should have been on television long ago. I explained it on LinkedIn, but you get banned if you do.” Regarding PCR he said, “You are not detecting a virus.”

“Once I heard a good comparison,” he continued. “If you go to a junkyard and you find a wheel or a hubcap from a Mercedes, and a steering wheel of a Mercedes, can you infer that you are in a Mercedes garage at that moment? If you only see those two parts? No, you can’t. You don’t know anything about it… you only know you have a steering wheel, you can find those things everywhere. In every junkyard you can find them.” He describes the RT PCR tests as having “no relevance for the diagnosis whatsoever.”

German lawyer Reiner Fuellmich who is central to a growing group of lawyers, scientists, politicians, and even secret pharmaceutical whistleblowers, said in an interview, “We believe that in order to make this house of cards collapse, we have to attack the PCR test. The fact is, there are no asymptomatic infections.”

This seemingly radical claim was bolstered by a paper out of Wuhan of all places, published by Nature.com, which found no “viable virus” in PCR positive cases.

“The screening of the 9,865,404 participants without a history of COVID-19 found no newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, and identified 300 asymptomatic positive cases with a detection rate of 0.303 (95 % CI 0.270–0.339)/10,000. … A total of 1174 close contacts of the asymptomatic positive cases were traced, and they all tested negative for the COVID-19. … Of the 34,424 participants with a history of COVID-19, 107 tested positive again, giving a repositive rate of 0.310% (95% CI 0.423–0.574%.) Virus cultures were negative for all asymptomatic positive and repositive cases, indicating no “viable virus” in positive cases detected in this study.”

Dr. Corbett, a Ph.D., and retired RN elaborated: “There are 10 fatal errors in this Drosten test paper. Public Health England is a co-author on it. All the public health authorities across the EU have co-authored this paper. But here is the bottom line: There was no viral isolate to validate what they were doing. The PCR products of the amplification didn’t correspond to any viral isolate at that time. I call it ‘donut ring science.’ There is nothing at the center of it. It’s all about code, genetics, nothing to do with reality, or the actual person, the patient.”

I read him some of the critiques from the other side, that say it’s been isolated “all over the world.”

“Yes, there have since been papers saying they’ve produced viral isolates. But there are no controls for them. The CDC produced a paper in July, I think it was, where they said: ‘Here’s the viral isolate.’ Do you know what they did? They swabbed one person. One person, who’d been to China and had cold symptoms. One person. And they assumed he had it to begin with. So it’s all full of holes, the whole thing.”

One of their 10 challenges is the stunning fact that EuroSurveillance published the paper 24 hours after it was submitted back in January. “Twenty-four hours,” Dr. Corbett said incredulously. “That never happens. It takes months to get a review done. They turned this around in 24 hours. It was waved through, it was not peer-reviewed. There’s no standard operational procedure for this test. There’s major and minor concerns about this paper and we go through it all here. it should be retracted. If they retract it, it means the whole thing falls to bits. The whole edifice collapses. It’s a house of cards built on sand and we’ve just moved the sand.”

The authors of the Drosten paper, for their part, were dismissive on social media. One of them, Marion Koopman, referred to the Borger et al critique as “ongoing nonsense.” Drosten himself launched ad-hominem attacks at some of the authors via Twitter.

Koopman tweeted: “The labs on this paper all had worked with SARS, had samples from SARS patients in their freezers. So that made it possible to do a first check of how this would work. A valid choice in an emerging disease outbreak, where you are in the blind phase.”

At press time, Eurosurveillance at least did acknowledge to the paper’s authors that they had received it and were reviewing it. When asked on Twitter if there had been a response, lead author Peter Borger replied that the response among scientists had been overwhelming in its support.

From his home in Germany, Reiner Fuellmich said, “The reason why I decided to speak out is that I didn’t want these crazy people who are pulling the strings behind the scenes to rule the world. I had no idea when I came out with my first video that these people and their corporations were such a powerful block. We are up against some really powerful and devious and bad, evil people. But they’re not a united front. We on the good side so to speak, I am firmly convinced that we have the better people, who know much more not just intellectually. The thing is . . . we’re humans, and they’re not.”

Celia Farber is half-Swedish and being raised there, she knows socialism from the inside. She has contributed to the Epoch Times, Harper’s, Esquire, Rolling Stone and more. She left the legacy media, never to return. She is the recipient of the Semmelweis International Society Clean Hands Award For Investigative Journalism. She is the author of Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS, and the editor of The Truth Barrier, an investigative and literary website. She co-hosts The Whistleblower Newsroom with Kristina Borjesson on PRN, Fridays at 10 a.m.

February 27, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | Leave a comment

New York activists respond to brutal Black on Asian attack by rallying against White Nationalism

RT | February 21, 2021

Anti-racism activists in New York have risen up to rally against white supremacy as they demand justice for a Filipino American man who was viciously slashed with a box cutter on the subway. Never mind that the attacker was black.

Hundreds of protesters gathered at New York’s Washington Square Park on Saturday afternoon and marched through parts of Manhattan, chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets.” The marchers congregated in front of the iconic Macy’s store on 34th Street. One carried a sign declaring, “White nationalism is the virus.”

Organizers billed the event as seeking “justice for the attack on Noel Quintana.” A promotional poster also said, “End the violence toward Asians. Let’s unite against white nationalism.”

The 61-year-old Quintana, a native of Manila, was attacked on February 3 on a crowded subway car as he headed to work in the morning rush hour. The attacker repeatedly kicked Quintana’s tote bag, then slashed his face from ear to ear with a box cutter after the Asian man complained. Quintana had to seek help on his own, as none of the by-standers stepped in or called for an ambulance, and he received about 100 stitches to close his wounds.

Police described the alleged attacker as “wearing a black mask with a Louis Vuitton logo and a black North Face coat.” While apparently having a sharp eye for the apparel brands favored by the suspected knifeman, police didn’t mention other appearance aspects revealed in security camera footage of the man, such as his black skin and afro.

Social media users pointed out the apparent disconnect between the perpetrator of the crime and the race of people targeted in the march for justice. “This is the suspect if you want to identify him,” conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong said Sunday on Twitter.

Another poster for the anti-racism rally featured Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old Thai immigrant who was killed in late January in San Francisco when a man came running from across the street and slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. A 19-year-old black man, Antoine Watson, was arrested and charged with Ratanapakdee’s murder earlier this month.

“Is there a shred of evidence that 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee was killed by white nationalism?” journalist Lee Fang asked. Former Republican congressional candidate Joshua Foxworth responded with sarcasm, saying, “White nationalism is to blame for black people assaulting Asians.”

The incident involving Ratanapakdee was one in a series of unprovoked attacks on elderly Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay area recently. Yahya Muslim, a 28-year-old black man, was arrested for allegedly shoving a 91-year-old man to the pavement from behind, then knocking down two other Chinese pedestrians on the same street in Oakland’s Chinatown area. Like the Ratanapakdee murder, the January 31 Chinatown attacks occurred in broad daylight.

And just as with the Quintana case in New York, the black-on-Asian attacks in California were blamed on white people. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen argued that Asians must recognize the violence as “part of a pattern of white supremacy.” Even if the assailants are black, he added, “the solution is not to fall back on racist assumptions of our own but to hold the system of white supremacy responsible for dividing us.”

San Francisco diversity activist Michelle Kim offered a similar view, saying Asians have “more work to do to eradicate anti-blackness.” She added that Asians have a “perceived proximity to whiteness,” partly because their “solidarity work with other marginalized communities” was covered up. She wrote an article on the recent spike in hate crimes against Asians, asking, “Who is our real enemy?” Despite acknowledging that the attacks on elderly Asians were perpetrated by blacks, she answered her own question predictably: “white supremacy culture.”

Countless social media observers pointed out the dishonesty of shifting the blame for anti-Asian violence away from those who are committing the crimes, and some pointed out the potential consequences of such deception. “Don’t expect them to stop without addressing who the real perpetrators are,” one commenter said. “If sacrificing your grandma to prove you aren’t racist is worth it, go ahead.”

February 21, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Atlantic Council urges Biden to enforce regime change in Belarus

By Paul Antonopoulos | February 18, 2021

A recent online meeting hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank discussed ways to force regime change in Belarus. The think tank detailed a plan with the aim of removing Aleksander Lukashenko, the current president of Belarus, from power by utilizing sanctions and other methods of pressure.

The Washington-based Atlantic Council is affiliated with NATO and receives funding from international billionaires like Adrienne Arsht, global companies like Goldman Sachs, Facebook and Google, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. These are only a few examples of their extensive funding. Some of the most powerful and influential figures in the world participate in the operations of the think tank, as well as a representative of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, Belarus’ main opposition figure.

Objectives of the virtual meeting, entitled “Biden and Belarus: A strategy for the new administration,” includes organizing Washington’s control over the Belarussian opposition movement. In addition, they suggest a new position for a senior organizer to administer and maintain sanctions against Minsk, and appoint a senior official to administer assistance to the opposition. Their agenda also emphasized recognizing Tikhanovskaya’s position as the true leader of Belarus and delegitimizing Lukashenko by relocating the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the Belarussian capital of Minsk, Julie Fisher, to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.

The Atlantic Council also suggested that U.S. Congressional funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty must be doubled from its current $117.4 million. The think tank also called for the U.S. to offer more advice to Belarussian opposition leaders. John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, suggested in the virtual meeting that Belarussian opposition leaders should reduce public expressions about their aspirations for Minsk to be involved in Western security councils like NATO and economic structures like the European Union so that they do not provoke any response from Moscow.

Economist Anders Åslund, who is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, also suggested that sanctions should be applied to companies in Russia and not Belarus. He argued that if sanctions hit Belarus, Minsk would be more dependent on Moscow. He also advised the Biden administration to sanction hundreds of Belarussian officials, saying that the aim of the sanctions is to put enough pressure on Belarus so that Lukashenko has no choice but to relinquish power. Åslund emphasized that this is really a group of regime change sanctions. In addition, the think tank suggested that the U.S. should increase its funding of the Belarussian opposition from $60 million to $200 million, saying that this amount came from Belarussian activists themselves.

As Åslund himself says, these measures exist entirely to force regime change against a sovereign nation. The mission of the Atlantic Council is to encourage and embolden the U.S. to control the Belarussian opposition movement with the aim of overthrowing Lukashenko. At the same time, the think tank claims that it respects Belarus’ sovereignty. However, it is evident that the think tank does not respect the sovereignty or self-determination of the Belarussian people and simply wants the Biden administration to install a lackey into power to continue Washington’s campaign of pressure against Russia.

If the Biden administration adopts the recommendations made by the Atlantic Council, this would not only cause significant tensions and further divisions in Belarus, but would also increase tensions between Washington and Moscow, which are already extremely strained.

The Atlantic Council promotes Western hegemony and a U.S.-led unipolar world order. The think tank is ranked seventh in the category of “2020 Top Think Tanks in the United States,” and tenth globally. Along with funding from the world’s richest people and most powerful corporations, the Atlantic Council wields great influence in not only NATO, but also various U.S. power structures like the White House and the Pentagon. For this reason, there is every chance that at some point during Biden’s presidential mandate that he will engage in a significant campaign of pressure against Belarus with the ultimate aim of further isolating Russia in Eastern Europe.

As the Atlantic Council attempts to maintain a U.S.-led unipolar order, Russia is one of its main targets because the Eurasian country inhibits American dominance over large areas of the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Because Belarus is the sole friendly state in Eastern Europe towards Russia, Lukashenko’s removal from power will open the path for Russia to be completely isolated in the region. Biden also champions a U.S.-led unipolar order, and because of this there is every chance that at some point in the future he will enact the Atlantic Council’s program against Belarus to target Russia.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

February 18, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Students Told To Take Unconscious Bias Test AND Get 100 Per Cent Mark!

By Richie Allen | February 16, 2021

Students of Somerville College Oxford have been told to complete an online unconscious bias test by this Friday and receive a 100 per cent mark in the subsequent test. Every student at the college has been ordered to participate in the course to root out racism, homophobia and transphobia. Apparently, the students might not be aware of their hatred and fear of Blacks, Asians Gays and Trannies. Tranny is considered to be an offensive noun by the way, but sod it, I’m very conscious of my bias.

I’m not really biased against anyone of course. Baroness Royall of Blaisdon is the principal of Somerville College. She’s demanded the students pass with full marks. You receive a score of 99 per cent? You’re a hateful racist bastard. Report for re-education classes in Room 5B on Monday.

The UK government has recommended that unconscious bias courses be phased out. According to The Times newspaper this week, Boris Johnson will appointment a “free speech champion” to monitor universities that engage in the de-platforming of speakers and other measures which stifle free speech. Oh the irony! This is the same government that is working with Facebook and Twitter to ban anyone who dares question the safety of the coronavirus vaccines right?

The Daily Mail newspaper has seen the Somerville College Unconscious Bias Test and it’s ridiculous and also just a bit scary.

The Mail says:

During the test used by Somerville College, seen by the Daily Mail, students must admit that they are ‘susceptible to bias’ and need to ‘accept responsibility for monitoring our own behaviours’. They are also forced to admit to suffering from the bizarrely-named ‘mini-me syndrome’, because they ‘automatically favour’ people like themselves. In one section, students must concede that a black lecturer would be more likely to be disliked by students than her white colleagues. In another section, they are also told that thinking their tutor ‘doesn’t look smart’ and is ‘a bit unprofessional’ may not be appropriate.

Forcing students to admit that they “suffer from the so called “mini-me syndrome” is barking. It’s preposterous and dangerous. As is demanding that they accept as a fact that black lecturers are more likely to be disliked by students. The Free Speech Union has condemned it. It has advised Baroness Blaisdon that her orders could be a breach of both the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.

She has backed down somewhat, saying that she should have ‘thought further’ about her order that all students must score 100 per cent. She wrote in reply to the FSU: ‘On reflection, it has been agreed that completing the test with less than 100 per cent will be seen as the opportunity for a chat about the issues involved, nothing more.’

No you cloth-eared bint, scrap the test and stop gaslighting the young men and women you are supposed to be educating. Telling people that unknown to themselves, they are racist and biased and fearful and not inclusive enough is a form of psychological abuse. Enough already.

February 16, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

US Research Doctors Stole Liver Tissue From Sick Veterans, Special Council Report Reveals

By Jason Dunn – Sputnik – 10.02.2021

A Veterans Affairs study, headed by Dr. Samuel Ho from 2013 to 2016, involved liver tissue, blood, stool, and urine samples collected from patients with alcoholism and liver disease without their consent.

Sick US veterans had liver tissue harvested by doctors involved in a military research operation, in breach of department regulations and putting patients “at serious risk”, according to a report from the government’s whistleblower watchdog service to the White House.

In a document issued to US President Joe Biden this week, the Office of Special Counsel announced that its investigation into the Veterans Affairs (VA) research project revealed a conversation within the VA as to whether liver biopsies are considered standard care.

The project claimed that the operations were valid, but admitted that they sometimes conducted the procedure without the consent of the patient.

According to the special counsel in a memo to President Joe Biden on Tuesday, whistleblowers who revealed the information had made serious arguments that the VA is incorrect about their degree of care being misreported and veterans could be harmed and possibly killed as a result of unnecessary operations.

“The overall picture of alleged malfeasance painted by the whistleblowers is compelling”, said Special Counsel Henry J. Kerner in the communication to Biden. “The whistleblowers also provided extensive information to support their assertion that patients were, in fact, harmed by their participation in this study”.

In the final report, Kerner said that he appreciated the enthusiasm by the VA to conduct another investigation, but noted that the VA’s conclusions in its own evaluation were not consistent with whistleblower testimony.

He highlighted “several egregious flaws” in research protocols, and questioned the “integrity” of the VA self-review.

Despite claims by the VA that the research was vindicated as valid, it was reportedly unable to explain how the biopsies took place prior to the initiation of the study.

“The agency’s determination that the standard of care was met, in light of the whistleblowers’ evidence, remains unconvincing, as do the agency’s continued assertions regarding the meaning of ‘archival tissue'”, Kerner said.

He said that the VA should carry out another analysis and urged researchers to reconsider their standards of care for veterans that undergo the procedures.

​A 2019 VA letter stated that doctors involved in the project had taken samples for research “without effectively verifying whether this was approved by the Institutional Review Board”, the Washington Times reported.

The project later said, following a review of the procedures, that a re-review had ruled that the operations in question –  known as a transjugular biopsy – were justified.

Whistleblowers said there was one doctor in the VA San Diego Healthcare System who claimed that the surgery had been done to veterans who were “seriously ill”.

The OSC began looking into the project in 2017 following concerns raised by whistleblowers about the practices taking place in San Diego – one of seven sites where the research was being conducted.

The VA research began in 2013.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Medical Trial: Cheap Asthma Inhalers 90% Reduction in Severe Covid Symptoms

By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | February 10, 2021

Queensland University and Oxford University Medical researchers investigating why asthma sufferers were “under-represented” in severe Covid cases have completed a clinical trial of Budesonide asthma inhalers. According to researchers the randomised trial was stopped early, because the results were so remarkable, the researchers did not believe it ethical to deny treatment to placebo patients.

Over-the-counter inhalers suppress severe COVID symptoms, trial finds

By Stuart Layt | February 10, 2021

… QUT associate professor Dan Nicolau, one of the lead researchers on the trial at the University of Oxford, said the results showed the method was extremely effective at preventing severe COVID-19 symptoms.

“When we first began the trial back in March [2020], we were hoping for 50 per cent reduction [in risk of developing serious symptoms], which itself would have been very high,” he said.

“We got 90 per cent, which even with only a few hundred people is off the charts.

“And it’s not just the overall result – their temperatures are less, they get less fever, and they recover faster.”

Professor Nicolau said they realised in the early stages of the pandemic that people with asthma were under-represented in severe and fatal cases of COVID-19. […]

The randomised trial ended up looking at 146 patients, who were given regular doses of either corticosteroid budesonide via an inhaler, or a placebo.

If other teams confirm this finding, it is a remarkable breakthrough. And confirmation should be very straightforward, given the widespread availability of this inhaler.

February 11, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Dozens of people develop rare blood disorder after taking coronavirus vaccines – reports

RT | February 10, 2021

At least 36 recipients of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines in the US have developed a rare immune disorder that attacks the blood, according to reports. One patient is dead, and doctors can’t rule out blaming the vaccine.

Dr. Gregory Michael – a 56-year-old obstetrician-gynecologist who ran his own practice at Miami Beach’s Mount Sinai Medical Center for more than a decade – died in January of a brain hemorrhage. He had received a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine two weeks earlier, and immediately developed immune thrombocytopenia, a rare and sometimes fatal blood disorder.

Michael is one of at least 36 people to have developed the condition after receiving either Pfizer’s or Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines, according to a New York Times report published on Monday. The cases were self-reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) before the end of January, meaning more people could have developed the condition since then.

Immune thrombocytopenia is a rare condition affecting an estimated 50,000 people in the US. The condition is caused by the body’s own immune system attacking the platelets that are the component of the blood responsible for clotting. With their blood unable to clot, patients often develop internal or external bruising, which may look like a rash. In several cases like Michael’s, the condition has caused massive hemorrhages or strokes.

One patient contacted by the Times suffered heavy vaginal bleeding two weeks after receiving Moderna’s vaccine and required platelet transfusions and steroid treatment to survive. Another woman was hospitalized with bruising and bleeding blisters in her mouth just a day after receiving the same shot. Her condition deteriorated to the point where doctors concerned that a slight knock would trigger fatal bleeding were afraid to move her from the hospital bed.

The cases can’t all conclusively be linked with the vaccines, but Dr. James Bussel, a hematologist and expert on the condition, told the Times that an association “is possible.”

“Having it happen after a vaccine is well-known and has been seen with many other vaccines,” he said. “Why it happens, we don’t know.”

Unlike traditional vaccines, which use an inactive form of the pathogen they protect against, both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s offerings are mRNA vaccines. Technologically new and therefore untested on a mass basis, these vaccines work by introducing into the body’s cells a strand of RNA with instructions that tell the person’s DNA how to begin making antibodies.

Researchers at Cambridge University state that side effects could include “autoimmune reactions,” but Harvard scientists say that mRNA vaccines produce “a stronger type of immunity” than their traditional counterparts.

Immune thrombocytopenia can also develop as a result of certain medications and cancers, from influenza, and seemingly from Covid-19 itself. As early as last spring, long before any vaccines were near completion, doctors in the US, Europe, India and China noticed the condition in Covid patients and suspected a link.

Officials with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that they are investigating the VAERS reports, while both Pfizer and Moderna told the Times that they are monitoring the safety of their vaccines.

Doctors contacted by the Times still insist that vaccination is safe, and that the risk of developing serious illness from the coronavirus is still higher than the risk of side effects from the vaccine.

February 10, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin Expresses Regret Over Biden’s Aggressive Statements on Russia

By Evgeny Mikhaylov – Sputnik – 05.02.2021

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has slammed [proclaimed] US President Joe Biden’s demand to free Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, saying that some kind of ultimatums are unacceptable.

“This is very aggressive and unconstructive rhetoric, to our regret… We have already said that we will not heed such statements, which are some kind of mentoring lectures”, he said

The official also expressed hope that the US has enough “political willpower” to continue constructive interaction with Moscow.

The American president previously declared that the US “will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia”, saying the days of “the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions are over”.

After Biden’s inauguration, the new US president had a phone call with President Vladimir Putin. According to the White House, Biden raised problematic issues between the two countries, such as recent cyberattacks against American companies and government bodies (which Washington still blames on Russia despite a lack of evidence), Moscow’s purported election meddling, the arrest of Navalny, and many others.

At the same time, the presidents managed to find common ground on New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) that resulted in the accord being extended.

February 5, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Britain’s ban on China’s global television network is a hostile and misguided move that will lead to retaliation from Beijing

By Tom Fowdy | RT | February 4, 2021

The UK communications regulator Ofcom has revoked the license of China Global Television Network (CGTN), banning it from broadcasting in the country. The channel, which was due to set up its new European headquarters in London, is accused of being editorially controlled by the country’s ruling Communist Party and thus violating broadcasting rules.

The UK has overplayed its hand with this vindictive action that demonstrates it is intent on following America’s anti-China foreign policy. When the strikeback comes, it will be more than just the BBC in Beijing’s crosshairs.

Just minutes after the Ofcom ban came through, China’s Foreign Ministry has asked the BBC to “apologise” for a report concerning Covid-19. This is a sign of things to come. In fact, it mirrors the same pattern of events from a year ago when Mike Pompeo, then US secretary of state, announced restrictions on Chinese media operating in the United States. This resulted in China expelling American journalists after having asked the Wall Street Journal to apologize for its coverage. The move, however, is clearly a political one, and undoubtedly a huge provocation in UK-China ties, and one which is bound to have enormous consequences, especially for the BBC’s content and coverage within China itself. The announcement comes conspicuously just a week after Beijing had declared non-recognition of UK British National Overseas (BNO) passports over controversy surrounding a migration plan for Hong Kongers.

And here’s what Britain doesn’t seem to realize. Whilst it is true that the media environment within China is tightly controlled, reciprocity matters nonetheless. The BBC is still operating and broadcasting in China, even if its reports are subject to some censorship. As a result, it is almost guaranteed that Beijing will take some form of reciprocal action, and given the BBC’s incredibly politicised coverage of China of late, it seems untenable that they wouldn’t.

Pompeo last year launched an assault on Chinese media operating in the United States. He implemented visa restrictions, demanded they reduce their numbers and made them register as diplomatic overseas missions. What even he didn’t do, however, despite his fanatical approach to Beijing, was kick them out completely or deny them a presence in America. He understood at the very least that freedom of speech was a staple of American values and that irrespective of differences between political systems, how a country’s media was treated was a medium of diplomacy. Therefore reciprocity, the idea of “tit for tat,” matters. Pompeo knew if he pushed too hard, American journalism within China, already walking on eggshells, would be finished altogether.

Not surprisingly, China retaliated. However, its diplomatic style was indirect, as opposed to explicit. Not long after Pompeo’s announcement, Beijing took issue with the Wall Street Journal, over a headline describing the country as “the sick man of Asia,” which it deemed to be derogatory,  and demanded the publication apologise. The Journal did not, and so Beijing expelled a number of its reporters as punishment.

The timing of this UK-Sino row is not a coincidence. Beijing is already frustrated with the BBC behind the scenes, but because of diplomatic considerations chose to do nothing about it. As the above illustrates, a nation cannot simply expel journalists without justification – even China knows this. To do so is to violate a norm. History is already repeating itself.

However, Beijing is increasingly unhappy with the BBC. The broadcaster has been persistent in driving forwards the narrative on issues such as Xinjiang, including commissioning a report on allegations of forced labour which led to US sanctions against the cotton sector, and then yesterday producing a graphic set of interviews whereby Chinese authorities were accused of systematic sexual abuse of the Uyghur minority. For the sake of its relationship with London, Beijing has to date acted with restraint.

However, because the UK has acted first, China now has a political casus belli to take retaliatory actions targeting journalists who consistently broadcast unfavourable or misrepresentative stories about its internal affairs. The BBC is unquestionably on the top of that list, and Beijing’s demand for an apology from it shows what lies ahead.

Inevitably, the BBC will refuse and insist that its coverage is accurate and impartial, as it always does. Thus, like what happened with the Wall Street Journal a year ago, Beijing will close the doors on them in some way, reciprocating Britain’s action in banning CGTN. This may involve expelling a correspondent or removing the BBC’s right to appear on Chinese television altogether.

It is likely to go a lot wider than tit-for-tat media strikes. This sets UK-China relations on a collision course, affirming a growing view in Beijing that the UK is now a hostile country, intent on following America’s anti-China foreign policy. This will inevitably involve China subjecting Britain to the same harsh treatment it has meted out to Australia and Canada, involving sanctions on goods and the like.

Given that there were other options before banning, the UK has definitely overplayed its hand with this. Even Pompeo, of all people, knew better than to ban CGTN completely.

Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

February 4, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Beijing hopes Washington will follow China’s lead and invite WHO to the US in search for origin of Covid-19

RT | February 2, 2021

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has urged Washington to invite the WHO to conduct traceability testing in the US, citing the fact the American authorities found Covid-19 antibodies in blood donations as early as December 2019.

Speaking on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that Beijing has always maintained close communication and cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) on Covid-19 traceability, and he said it was time the US followed suit.

“I hope that the United States will adopt a positive, scientific, and cooperative attitude on traceability issues, as well as maintain transparency, like China, and invite WHO experts to the United States to conduct traceability research and make positive contributions to international anti-epidemic cooperation and scientific traceability.” Wang said.

The spokesman told reporters that traceability testing was a very complex issue, with many clues, reports and studies needing to be taken into account.

“I will give you an example. According to a research report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were antibodies to the new coronavirus in some American blood donations in December 2019. This means that the new coronavirus may have appeared in the United States at that time, earlier than the official US report,” Wang stated, reinforcing Beijing’s call for Washington to invite the WHO to America.

Wang continued to point out that China has conducted multiple rounds of in-depth exchanges and shared a lot of information and research results with international partners, including the WHO.

WHO experts are currently in China investigating the source of Covid-19, and they visited a wet market in Wuhan on Sunday. It has been widely suggested that a Chinese wet market was the environment where Covid-19 first passed to humans.

Scientists are still exploring a number of theories relating to the origins of the virus.

February 3, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Military coup in Myanmar a blow against the Biden regime

By Lucas Leiroz | February 2, 2021

This week, news of a coup in Myanmar shocked international society. Official statements by the UN and several Western governments condemning the attitude of the Burmese military in overthrowing Aung San Suu Kyi and its allies are sharing space in public opinion with neutral statements that only call for the country’s stabilization, as was the Chinese position. Between having been dangerous to democratic institutions or merely changing the government by armed means, there is a range of different possibilities, making the case worthy of a technical and impartial analysis.

The events of February 1, 2021 can be summarized as follows: Burmese State Adviser Aung San Suu Kyi, who heads the country’s government, and President Win Myint were detained by the Burmese army, under extremely obscure circumstances. Previously, tensions between the government and the military of this Asian country had been growing, generating fears of a coup in some sectors of Burmese society – however, such a quick and incisive attitude on the part of the military was not expected by the population.

The root of the conflict of interest between the government and the military was, in short, the last electoral process, which the Army classified as fraudulent and illegal. As a result of the crisis, the country’s political leader was arrested, in what was considered a coup by the media and some foreign governments. Some regional ministers were also captured by the military, as well as several other government’s allies. Citizens’ reports attest that military personnel are spread throughout the country’s streets, carrying out patrolling services and avoiding possible riots.

The military’s distrust of the electoral process is due to several factors. The election was held on November 8 and was the second general election since the end of the military government in 2011. Since the fall of the military, a scenario of tension of interests has been established among the civil political elite, interested in the preservation of democratic institutions, and the military elite, interested in conserving their power and continuing their national project. The country’s ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won by an immense advantage, getting 396 seats out of a total of 476. On the other hand, the Union, Solidarity and Development Party, supported by the Army, took the minimum number of seats in Parliament, which further aggravated the rivalry.

The speech of the Burmese military since the elections was unique in stating that there was large-scale electoral fraud. For this reason, the military had been demanding for months that the government postpone the summons to Parliament, which was scheduled for February 1 – which did not occur, resulting in the coup. Before that, representatives of the Burmese Government and Army met to resolve the conflict but were unable to reach an agreement of common interest.

Previously, in the midst of such fears of a possible anti-democratic coup, the country’s military has on several occasions denied the intention to do anything in this sense, categorically claiming that these accusations were unfounded and disseminated by a pro-government media. However, there are reports that the commander of the armed forces, Min Aung Hlaing, said on January 27 that the national constitution could be repealed if the laws were not properly implemented – and this in fact happened.

However, it would be naïve to believe that this event has no sign of external interference. In fact, a polarized political scenario has been outlined in Myanmar for years. Historically, the military has sympathy with China and Democrats sympathize with the West. Last month, Min Aung Hlaing and the head of Chinese diplomacy, Wang Li, met to discuss the Burmese political crisis and the chief of the armed forces alleged electoral fraud in the November process.

Chinese interest in Myanmar is clear. Maintaining an allied government in a border country is extremely strategic for Beijing and avoids a greater degree of Western influence in its continental zone. Bilateral trade between China and Myanmar has always been intense, but it has declined with the rise of the recently overthrown government, whose pro-Western positions have weakened ties with Beijing. Also, due to the latest events of ethnic conflict and persecution of the majority Buddhist military against Islamic minorities, the West has imposed several sanctions on the Burmese military, which have been consented by the civilian government. It does not seem to be by chance that the Chinese reaction to the coup was limited to a request for both sides to resolve their differences, without any condemnation against the military.

If Chinese influence is real, the military coup in Myanmar can be interpreted as a test and a warning against Washington. Losing space on the Chinese border is unpleasant for American interests but, in the midst of a strong internal crisis, will Biden really react strongly or will his response be limited to mere notes of repudiation?

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

February 2, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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