Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism ignores Palestinian rights, narrative
By Kathryn Shihadah | Israel-Palestine News | August 14, 2021
The Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism (JDA) was released in March as a progressive variant of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “working definition” of anti-Semitism – a definition that, despite its wide acceptance, is deeply problematic.
Progressives agree that JDA is a huge improvement over IHRA. JDA acknowledges that support for the Palestinian cause is “not on the face of it” antisemitic; it also leaves room for opposition to Zionism, criticism of Israel (including use of the word “apartheid,” or a “double standard” framing), and even the BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) movement.
But while it makes these allowances, the parameters the Jerusalem Declaration sets for that debate leave much to be desired. Many Palestinian individuals and organizations and others have published objections, some of which are referenced below (specifically, Mark Mohannad Ayyesh, writing for Al Jazeera news network, and Samer Abdelnour, writing for Al Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network.
Proponents of justice and racial equality would do well to remember that while anti-Semitism has its victims, Zionism in the last half century arguably has had more – in 2002 Israeli author Israel Shahak wrote: “In the last 40 years the number of non-Jews killed by Jews is by far greater than the number of the Jews killed by non-Jews.” Yet Palestinians are not invited to participate in mainstream dialogue about the state that was built on land stolen from them.
Two of the most common objections to the JDA definition of anti-Semitism have to do with “Palestinian hostility” toward Israel and Jews’ right to exist in Israel as equals (presumably equal to Palestinians).
1. Palestinian hostility toward Israel
In judging whether an action is anti-Semitic, the JDA authors rightly remind readers to be context-conscious. The Preamble to the Jerusalem Declaration states:
Context can include the intention behind an utterance, or a pattern of speech over time, or even the identity of the speaker, especially when the subject is Israel or Zionism.
So, for example, hostility to Israel could be an expression of an antisemitic animus, or it could be a reaction to a human rights violation, or it could be the emotion that a Palestinian person feels on account of their experience at the hands of the State.
At first glance, this statement may resonate with justice-seekers because it acknowledges the negative encounters that Palestinians may have had with the state – something the IHRA definition lacked. But hiding below the surface of these words is an implication that Palestinian hostility might be merely an emotional reaction to an incident of perceived misconduct.
JDA leaves no room for the possibility that Palestinians have over 70 years’ worth of legitimate grievances against Israel – grievances that Palestinians have identified as coming not from Jews, but from Zionism as an ideology and from Israel as a state.
In simple terms, JDA seems to recommend that Palestinian outrage is an emotional outburst that must be tolerated: ‘It’s not antisemitism – they’re just letting off steam.’
(As an aside, notice the preposterous suggestion that Palestinians may be having “a reaction to a human rights violation.” After generations of ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and state violence, no Palestinian has been lucky enough to endure just one human rights violation.)
2. Jews’ right to exist in Israel as equals
The Jerusalem Declaration offers examples of allegedly unacceptable, anti-Semitic language that are very similar to those in the IHRA definition, including:
- Blaming all Jews for Israel’s conduct
- Demanding that Jews publicly denounce Zionism
- Assuming that non-Israeli Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home countries
- Denying Israeli Jews the right to exist and flourish as Jews, “in accordance with the principle of equality”
This last item is problematic for Palestinians (and their allies) for several reasons.
To begin with, the statement does not define “equality.” In fact, “equality” in the context of apartheid and ethnic cleansing is nonsense.
The “right to exist and flourish” is not reciprocal. True equality and mutual flourishing would require the dismantling of Israeli apartheid as a starting point.
Palestinian writer Samer Abdulnour sums up his objections to the supposed antisemitic statement:
The definition discusses Jewish flourishing without any acknowledgment that since the inception of Israel until the present day, this flourishing is tied to privileges that stem from [Palestinian] dispossession and military occupation, and the denial of our collective freedom and right of return—that is, our right to exist and flourish.
Mark Muhannad Ayyash points out that the JDA document assumes as non-negotiable the idea that Jews have the right to their own Jewish state – without acknowledging that this state was founded on land inhabited by indigenous Palestinians. Ayyash asks,
So how is this “principle of equality” to be secured in a context where the Israeli state must maintain Jewish sovereignty for a Jewish majority at all costs? Are Palestinians supposed to accept that the right of Jews in the State of Israel ought to take precedence over their own sovereign rights?
From the start, Palestinians rejected the creation of the state of Israel, not because it was Jewish, but because it was on their – the Palestinians’ – land. They fought the new state precisely because it denied them – the Palestinians – the right to exist and flourish as indigenous Palestinians.
The “principle of equality” was never a factor in the creation or maintenance of the state of Israel.
Ultimately, while the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism is a step forward from the IHRA definition, it still rejects the realities of what the Jewish State has done and is still doing to the Palestinian people.
Kathryn Shihadah is an editor and staff writer for If Americans Knew.
Canada to introduce vaccine passports for crossing provincial borders
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | August 14, 2021
Canada’s Minister for Transport Omar Alghabra announced the introduction of vaccine passports for transport across provincial borders via plane, trains, and large water vessels.
The move underscores the growing adaptation of digital vaccine passports across the globe, particularly in developed countries.
“Vaccine requirements in the transportation sector will help protect the safety of employees, their families, passengers, their communities and all Canadians. And more broadly, it will hasten Canada’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” Alghabra said during a press conference on Thursday.
For those who cannot get the jabs, the minister said they will still be able to travel by showing proof of recent negative tests.
Alghabra said that the government was looking into practical ways to implement the vaccine passes “as quickly as possible.”
Alghabra’s announcement coincided with an announcement from the Privy Council that the government would be mandating vaccination for federal employees. The employees will be required to show proof of having received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Canada: Fast-moving proposal creates filtering, blocking and reporting rules – and speech police to enforce them
BY CORYNNE MCSHERRY AND KATITZA RODRIGUEZ | EFF | AUGUST 10, 2021
Policymakers around the world are contemplating a wide variety of proposals to address “harmful” online expression. Many of these proposals are dangerously misguided and will inevitably result in the censorship of all kinds of lawful and valuable expression. And one of the most dangerous proposals may be adopted in Canada. How bad is it? As Stanford’s Daphne Keller observes, “It’s like a list of the worst ideas around the world.” She’s right.
These ideas include:
- broad “harmful content” categories that explicitly include speech that is legal but potentially upsetting or hurtful
- a hair-trigger 24-hour takedown requirement (far too short for reasonable consideration of context and nuance)
- an effective filtering requirement (the proposal says service providers must take reasonable measures which “may include” filters, but, in practice, compliance will require them)
- penalties of up to 3 percent of the providers’ gross revenues or up to 10 million dollars, whichever is higher
- mandatory reporting of potentially harmful content (and the users who post it) to law enforcement and national security agencies
- website blocking (platforms deemed to have violated some of the proposal’s requirements too often might be blocked completely by Canadian ISPs)
- onerous data-retention obligations
All of this is terrible, but perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the proposal is that it would create a new internet speech czar with broad powers to ensure compliance, and continuously redefine what compliance means.
These powers include the right to enter and inspect any place (other than a home):
“in which they believe on reasonable grounds there is any document, information or any other thing, including computer algorithms and software, relevant to the purpose of verifying compliance and preventing non-compliance . . . and examine the document, information or thing or remove it for examination or reproduction”; to hold hearing in response to public complaints, and, “do any act or thing . . . necessary to ensure compliance.”
But don’t worry—ISPs can avoid having their doors kicked in by coordinating with the speech police, who will give them “advice” on their content moderation practices. Follow that advice and you may be safe. Ignore it and be prepared to forfeit your computers and millions of dollars.
The potential harms here are vast, and they’ll only grow because so much of the regulation is left open. For example, platforms will likely be forced to rely on automated filters to assess and discover “harmful” content on their platforms, and users caught up in these sweeps could end up on file with the local cops—or with Canada’s national security agencies, thanks to the proposed reporting obligations.
Private communications are nominally excluded, but that is cold comfort—the Canadian government may decide, as contemplated by other countries, that encrypted chat groups of various sizes are not ‘private.’ If so, end-to-end encryption will be under further threat, with platforms pressured to undermine the security and integrity of their services in order to fulfill their filtering obligations. And regulators will likely demand that Apple expand its controversial new image assessment tool to address the broad “harmful content” categories covered by the proposal. … Full article
Guidance on How To Request a Religious Exemption for COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates in the Workplace
Rutherford Institute | August 13, 2021
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Responding to concerns from employees in both the public and private sector about workplace requirements regarding COVID-19 vaccines and a desire to express their religious objections to such requirements, The Rutherford Institute has issued guidance and an in-depth fact sheet and model letter for those seeking a religious exemption to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the workplace.
“For good or bad, COVID-19 has changed the way we navigate the world and the way in which ‘we the people’ exercise our rights. As a result, we find ourselves grappling with issues that touch on deep-seated moral, political, religious and personal questions for which there may be no clear-cut answers,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “One thing is clear, however: while the courts may defer to the government’s brand of Nanny State authoritarianism, we still have rights. The government may try to abridge those rights, it may refuse to recognize them, it may even attempt to nullify them, but it cannot erase them.”
Daily, growing numbers of public and private employers are requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and using the threat of termination to force acceptance of the vaccine. Unfortunately, legal protections in this area are limited. While the Americans with Disabilities Act protects those who can prove they have medical conditions that make receiving a vaccination dangerous, employees must be able to prove they have a sensitivity to vaccines. The requirement established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that employers provide religious accommodations may be invoked by employees who have sincere religious beliefs against receiving vaccinations. But an employer’s duty of accommodation is not absolute, and if it can show that accommodating the worker’s objections to vaccinations will interfere with its operations or workplace safety, the employee may face the choice between keeping her job or violating her religious beliefs.
Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on religion. Title VII further defines religion broadly to include not only beliefs, but also religious practices and observances. As a result, the federal employment discrimination law forbids discharging an employee because the employee chooses to engage in certain conduct, or not engage in certain conduct, that is a part of the employee’s religious beliefs and practices, and holds that someone cannot be discriminated against by their employer based on their religion unless the employer cannot reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business. Although there have been very few cases that have dealt specifically with Title VII’s ban on employment discrimination based on religion in the context of religious objections to vaccines mandated by the employer, it appears established that if an employee holds sincerely-held religious beliefs in opposition to receiving a vaccination, an employer that has a rule requiring that vaccination must reasonably accommodate the employee’s beliefs. For an employee who objects to an employer’s vaccine requirement, the first step is to give notice to the employer of the religious objection to receiving the vaccine. To this end, The Rutherford Institute has provided a model letter for use in requesting a religious exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the workplace.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
DOCUMENTS
Model Letter: Requesting Religious Accommodation in the Face of COVID-19 Vaccine Workplace Mandate
US Supreme Court declines to block Indiana University’s vaccine mandate, preserving key precedent for compulsory Covid-19 jabs
RT | August 13, 2021
The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from students who sought to strike down Indiana University’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate, leaving in place a potentially key legal precedent for forced inoculations.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the emergency request to hear the case on Thursday, meaning the high court won’t overturn rulings by an Indiana district court and the US Court of Appeals in Chicago, which upheld the mandate. There were no dissenting opinions cited from other Supreme Court justices.
The Indiana case marked the first legal challenge of a Covid-19 vaccine mandate to come before the Supreme Court. The decision may embolden other colleges and institutions that have considered requiring Covid-19 shots and comes at a time when a growing number of US businesses and schools are ordering such mandates.
Indiana University announced its vaccine order in May, affecting all students and faculty on campus. Eight students sued to block the mandate, saying it violated their right of bodily integrity and forced them to receive unwanted medical treatment. District and appellate court judges found that the university acted lawfully and in the legitimate interest of public health.
The students had argued that the mandate infringed their constitutional right to due process and alleged that risks associated with Covid-19 vaccines outweigh the benefits for healthy people in their age group. “Protection of others does not relieve our society from the central canon of medical ethics requiring voluntary and informed consent,” the lawsuit said.
The appellate court rejected the plaintiffs’ initial appeal, noting that they had other options, such as taking courses online, going to another school or applying for a medical or religious exemption. The court cited a 1905 case in which a Massachusetts mandate for a smallpox vaccine was upheld, at least partly on the basis that the government had a rational reason for ordering inoculations amid a health crisis.
Hundreds of US colleges and universities have imposed vaccine mandates, while some have waited to determine the legality of such orders. Still others have said their mandates are contingent on full FDA approval of one or more Covid-19 vaccines, inasmuch as the three jabs currently available in the US have received only emergency use authorization.
Thursday’s decision comes as a disappointment to conservatives who oppose vaccine mandates. Adding to the aggravation for some observers was the fact that the rejection was handed down by Barrett, the allegedly conservative justice who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump last fall.
“Her true colors have been exposed again,” one Twitter commenter said. “She’s not about protecting people in USA.”
Punishing Scapegoats
By Doug E. Steil | Aletho News | August 12, 2021
Two days ago Merkel and the Bavarian minister announced stringent new measures directed against those who refuse to get their clot shot. For the past few weeks specific media have been inciting hatred against this group, based on lies, more specifically implicit premises that are untrue, as well as illogical or unwarranted conclusions:
• People who got the clot shot are immune to being infected.
• Hence, they are also incapable of infecting others.
• Asymptomatic viral transfer (with high viral load but no sickness) is very common.
• Nearly everyone with no clot shot is at equal risk to get acute viral symptoms.
• At least a 85% “vaccination rate” is required for herd immunity to end the pandemic.
• Those refusing the clot shot are guilty of prolonging the pandemic, harming society.
• These skeptics not going along are parasites who should be shunned from public life.
The recent graph from the central reporting authority in Berlin, the Robert Koch Institute, depicts a 26 week period that highlights the situation very well. The histogram data show gene sequencing information from sampling valid PCR test results, so all the false positives they got are not included here. The government pays labs 200 EUR to sequence a sample.
The gray shades represent the percentage per week that constitutes the derivatives of the virus that emerged in Wuhan, upon which the trial data associated with the clot shot temporary emergency use authorization are based. The blue shades refer to the British variant, and the red to the Indian variant, which have been renamed to get Greek letters. The South African and Brazilian variants barely play a role here.
From an epidemiological perspective it is clear that in Germany the original and British variants have essentially already been eradicated, what one would call “herd immunity” has been attained. Based on information from other countries farther along in the mass experiment, as well as recent admission by the CDC, the clot shot has no effect on the Indian (delta) variant.
Under these circumstances a plausible perception management approach could thus have been:
• Proclaim the experiment was a success because two key variants were wiped out.
• Acknowledge the clot shot is not effective against stemming the Indian variant.
• Discontinue any further inoculations, due to their potential adverse harm.
• Assert that the remaining variant has mild effects and can easily be dealt with.
• Declare an end to the so-called pandemic and the associated restrictive measures.
• Treat all people the same way, yet monitor possible viral spread with thermometers.
However, this was not done because the issue is not about public health but about instituting a totalitarian system that wants to deal harshly with those who are skeptical or critical about the false premises used to bring it on and staunchly refuse to go along with the clot shot experiment. Therefore, the consequences for those not already contaminated twice by the clot shot were instead, as follows:
• The threshold level to get an antigen test for basic activities (haircut, restaurant) was lowered from 50 to 35 (incidences per 100K population per week, based on flawed PCR test).
• People needing to get tested must pay for such tests out of their own pocket beginning October 11.
• In the future, they will likely be excluded altogether from participating in public life. It was suggested they should be shunned by private businesses (restaurants, hotels, cultural venues) as unwelcome customers.
The chosen policy is short-sighted. As the virtuous (obedient) people continue to spread the virus among each other, the skeptics will be blamed for the spread, while those newly infected who thought they were immune will be told that the clot shot is not quite 100% effective, so they will soon need to get a booster shot. Thus, another cycle of madness will be perpetuated, as the totalitarian grip tightens. Authorities want to get rid of the experimental control group consisting of those who did not consent.
Swiss Police Threaten to Stop Enforcing COVID-19 Rules
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | August 10, 2021
Police in Switzerland have threatened to stop enforcing COVID-19 rules over fears that the measures are disproportionately undermining the fundamental rights of citizens.
A group representing police officers in the Alpine country wrote a letter to the Swiss Federation of Police Officers (FSFP) warning of potential insubordination within the force over the enforcement of draconian laws.
“If the measures were to conflict with the general opinion of the population, disproportionately limiting their fundamental rights, many police officers would no longer be willing to apply them,” the group wrote in the letter.
While the letter was received favorably by lockdown skeptics, the FSFP attempted to dismiss it by claiming it only represented a small number of police officers.
Adrian Gaugler of the Conference of Cantonal Police Commanders went further, threatening the officers with sanctions if they refused to enforce the measures.
“An officer who refuses to enforce the law can be punished,” said Gaugler.
“Police refusing to enforce coronavirus measures is not unique to Switzerland,” writes Chris Tomlinson.
“Earlier this year, police in the Canadian province of Ontario rejected new powers given by the provincial government that would have allowed them to stop any motorist or pedestrian and demand to know where they live and why they were not at home.”
As we previously highlighted, after lockdown was imposed in Switzerland, calls to private investigators soared as a result of people wanting their neighbors investigated for making too much noise.
The big question: Why should someone who has had Covid need the vaccine?
By Kathy Gyngell | TCW Defending Freedom | August 10, 2021
LAST week TCW Defending Freedom writer Frederick Edward tweeted this eminently reasonable question: If the purpose of vaccination is to give antibodies, then why should he, as someone who’s already had Covid, have the vaccine?
Of course there is no rational or reasonable explanation. Nor is it explicable why, given the levels of testing to which the government is subjecting the population, it does not add antibody testing to the mix.
It is unreasonable and Todd Zywicki, an American law professor, is determined to demonstrate this. In an article for the Wall Street Journal he explains why he is suing his employer, the highly rated George Mason University in Virginia, a state institution which is mandating Covid vaccines. In sum, it is that since he already has natural immunity, there can be no justification for a coercive violation of his bodily autonomy.
He explains that although vaccination is unnecessary and potentially risky, the only other options open to him are to teach remotely or to seek a medical exemption that would require him to wear a mask, remain socially distanced from faculty or students during, say, office hours, and submit to weekly testing. In which case, he writes:
‘It would be impossible for me to perform my duties to the best of my ability under such conditions. The administration has threatened those who don’t submit with disciplinary action, including termination of employment. This week the public-interest lawyers at the New Civil Liberties Alliance filed suit on my behalf, challenging the university’s mandatory vaccination requirement for those with naturally acquired immunity. This coercive mandate violates my constitutional right to bodily integrity for no compelling reason.’
He cites clinical studies from Israel, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, England and elsewhere that ‘have demonstrated beyond a doubt that natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 provides robust and durable protection against reinfection comparable to or better than that provided by the most effective vaccines’ and goes on to question the approval of vaccines with less efficacy than natural immunity, referencing the World Health Organisation conclusion: ‘Current evidence points to most individuals developing strong protective immune responses following natural infection with SARS-CoV-2.’
Even more interesting is the centering of his case around the danger of vaccination to those who have previously contracted and recovered from Covid:
‘It isn’t merely unnecessary for me to get the shot. It’s potentially dangerous. Covid-recovered individuals have been mostly excluded from the vaccine clinical trials, rendering any claims about the purported safety for this group largely speculative. Moreover, clinical evidence has suggested that Covid survivors suffer more frequent and more serious side effects from vaccination than those who have never been infected.
‘The onslaught of the Delta variant in recent weeks has reinforced the lessons about the robust protection afforded by natural immunity. Unlike the current vaccines, which are designed to target the spike protein of the virus, natural immunity recognizes the entire complement of SARS-CoV-2 proteins and thus protects against a greater array of variants.
‘Thus even as vaccine breakthrough infections multiply around the world, natural immunity is robust to the Delta and other variants. With respect to the Gamma variant, a recent analysis of an outbreak among a small group of mine workers in French Guiana found that 60 per cent of fully vaccinated miners suffered breakthrough infections compared with zero among those with natural immunity.
‘And whereas the vaccine’s protection may wane faster than expected, the latest estimates on the durability of natural immunity stretch to at least 11 months, the duration of most follow-up studies. Some 16 months after contracting Covid I am still testing positive for antibodies. In fact, researchers have discovered that the antibodies produced by natural infection continue to evolve to generate “increasingly broad and potent antibodies that are resistant to mutations” compared with the more static “antibodies elicited by vaccination”.’
We will follow his case with interest.
The new assumption that only by vaccination can herd immunity can be achieved is a false one – it is not science. It needs to be challenged in the courts here too.
CDC has a plan to stick the “high risk” in special camps, which will most likely enhance transmission of Covid
Green Zones or Concentration Camps?
By Meryl Nass, MD | August 9, 2021
For people who still think that public health dictates are intended for our benefit, will you still think so when the public health police decide to remove granny from her home to a high risk camp, where latrines will be provided? And hopefully food and medical care, all based on the refugee model? This was updated a year ago, so it has probably changed in the interim.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/shielding-approach-humanitarian.html
The purpose of this document is to highlight potential implementation challenges of the shielding approach from CDC’s perspective and guide thinking around implementation in the absence of empirical data. Considerations are based on current evidence known about the transmission and severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and may need to be revised as more information becomes available. Please check the CDC website periodically for updates.
What is the Shielding Approach? 1
The shielding approach aims to reduce the number of severe COVID-19 cases by limiting contact between individuals at higher risk of developing severe disease (“high-risk”) and the general population (“low-risk”). High-risk individuals would be temporarily relocated to safe or “green zones” established at the household, neighborhood, camp/sector or community level depending on the context and setting.1,2 They would have minimal contact with family members and other low-risk residents.
Operational Considerations
The shielding approach requires several prerequisites for effective implementation. Several are addressed, including access to healthcare and provision of food. However, there are several prerequisites which require additional considerations. Table 2 presents the prerequisites or suggestions as stated in the shielding guidance document (column 1) and CDC presents additional questions and considerations alongside these prerequisites (column 2).
Table 2: Suggested Prerequisites per the shielding documents and CDC’s Operational Considerations for Implementation
Suggested Prerequisites
*As stated in the shielding document*
- Each green zone has a dedicated latrine/bathing facility for high-risk individuals
- To minimize external contact, each green zone should include able-bodied high-risk individuals capable of caring for residents who have disabilities or are less mobile
- Otherwise, designate low-risk individuals for these tasks, preferably who have recovered from confirmed COVID-19 and are assumed to be immune.
- The green zone and living areas for high-risk residents should be aligned with minimum humanitarian (SPHERE) standards.6
Considerations as suggested by CDC
- The shielding approach advises against any new facility construction to establish green zones; however, few settings will have existing shelters or communal facilities with designated latrines/bathing facilities to accommodate high-risk individuals. In these settings, most latrines used by HHs are located outside the home and often shared by multiple HHs.
- If dedicated facilities are available, ensure safety measures such as proper lighting, handwashing/hygiene infrastructure, maintenance and disinfection of latrines.
- Ensure facilities can accommodate high-risk individuals with disabilities, children and separate genders at the neighborhood/camp-level.
- This may be difficult to sustain, especially if the caregivers are also high risk. As caregivers may often will be family members, ensure that this strategy is socially or culturally acceptable.
- Currently, we do not know if prior infection confers immunity.
- The shielding approach requires strict adherence to infection, prevention and control (IPC) measures. They require, uninterrupted availability of soap, water, hygiene/cleaning supplies, masks or cloth face coverings, etc. for all individuals in green zones. Thus, it is necessary to ensure minimum public health standards6 are maintained and possibly supplemented to decrease the risk of other outbreaks outside of COVID-19. Attaining and maintaining minimum SPHERE6 standards is difficult in these settings for the general population.8,9,10 Users should consider that provision of services and supplies to high risk individuals could be at the expense of low-risk residents, putting them at increased risk for other outbreaks.
French cafés sit EMPTY as police RAID outdoor diners, after Macron extends vaccine pass to restaurants
RT | August 9, 2021
Police in France have begun enforcing the vaccination pass mandate to enter cafés and restaurants, leading to many of their tables being empty during the usually busy lunchtime, as the French lunched on public benches instead.
On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron’s government extended the controversial ‘pass sanitaire’ requirement to dining venues, even outdoor ones, disregarding the weekend of mass protests that drew at least 250,000 people onto the streets across France.
A video doing the rounds on social media, shot by a Reuters photographer, showed French police checking diners’ papers. Those without the pass face a €135 *($158) fine, which increases to €9,000 ($10,560) for a repeat offense.
By lunchtime, many sidewalk cafés were sitting completely empty as their regular customers chose instead to sit on public benches outside – according to a multitude of photos and comments posted on social media, anyway.
Another video showed outdoor venues with few diners on the Champs Élysées, Paris’ main thoroughfare.
There were photos of empty tables right across the city at times when such places would ordinarily be full.
The famous Grande Brasserie, near the Bastille square, had a few customers inside, but no one out on its patio. One Twitter user speculated that the outdoor seating areas were empty as the result of some kind of nationwide boycott of the health pass.
The pass, introduced by Macron to compel vaccinations against Covid-19, has been mandatory for entrance to museums, movie theaters, swimming pools, and other venues since July 21. The courts have also ruled that it was constitutional to mandate vaccinations for healthcare workers, some of whom have gone on strike in protest.
Facing a rising number of Covid-19 cases attributed to the Delta variant of the virus, the French authorities have pressed hard to vaccinate everyone. Meanwhile, vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna have drastically increased the price of their vaccines in the European Union.
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$1.5bn up in smoke: US THAAD missile stockpile dries up defending Israel against Iran
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | July 2, 2025
According to American media, defense news outlets, and independent analysts, the 12-day Israeli military aggression against Iran significantly depleted the US stockpile of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) interceptor missiles.
Citing official sources, American magazine Newsweek reported on Friday that the US transferred a substantial portion of its advanced missile defense capabilities to support the Israeli regime, an effort with questionable results and a critical impact on US strategic reserves.
THAAD, developed by Lockheed Martin arms manufacturing company, is a key component of Israel’s multi-layered air defense architecture. It is designed to intercept medium-range ballistic missiles, including those launched from Iran and Yemen.
The US-made system is capable of targeting short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their terminal phase, whether inside or outside Earth’s atmosphere.
THAAD uses a “hit-to-kill” method, relying on kinetic energy rather than explosive warheads to destroy incoming threats, intercepting at altitudes of up to 150 km and ranges between 150-200 km.
Operated exclusively by American personnel, the US military maintains eight THAAD batteries with an estimated 350–400 interceptors in total. The eighth battery was activated during the June 20 Israeli aggression against Iran and is capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles. … continue
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- Iraqi resistance group rejects disarmament, vows to maintain support for Lebanon
- If Americans Knew
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- Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Publish Letter to the American People
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- Israeli media: The IDF Shows It Doesn’t Turn a Blind Eye; It Actively Emboldens Settler Havoc
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- New Report: “Scholasticide and Genocide in Gaza: Assessment, Testimonies and Legal Analysis”
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- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
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- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
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