November 21st, 2021 • 2h 51m
Shownotes
Every new episode of No Agenda is accompanied by a comprehensive list of shownotes curated by Adam while preparing for the show. Clips played by the hosts during the show can also be found here.
Covid Down Under
Mandates Down Under
There is a very interesting development in Australia. A number of federal
Senators are threatening to withold their support for the government, and
to block all further legislation unless a Bill is passed in the federal
parliament to ban vaccine mandates and discrimination against unvaccinated
people.
The Prime Minister Scott Morrison has a razor thin margin and has no choice
but to bow to the rebel Senator's demands.
There are echoes of a previous constitutional crisis from 1975 when an
Australian government was dismissed because they lost the numbers in the
parliament
Build Back Better
Being POTUS is rough - everyone's talking about your sphincter
Belarus in the Firing Line for a Color Revolution
With his refusal to toe the coronavirus line Alexandr Lukashenko has outlived his usefulness, and is being shuffled off the grand chessboard
Burundi said no and boom
The president of Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza, dismissed covid19 as nonsense.
The president of Burundi was vilified in the Western press.
The president of Burundi expelled the World Health Organization from his country.
The president of Burundi died suddenly of a “heart attack”.
The NEW president of Burundi immediately reversed his predecessor’s Covid19 policies.
Dutch politicians doxxed with home addresses
Mandates
German clinic boss commits suicide, leave snote
Big fuss about alleged farewell letter from Chemnitz clinic boss
About two weeks ago, the tragic death of Dr. Thomas Jendges († 55) all of Chemnitz . According to TAG24 information, the head of the Chemnitz hospital fell from the hospital building on Flemmingstrasse. He died on the spot of his serious injuries. Now an alleged farewell letter is causing a stir on the internet.
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Reports of a letter that the deceased alledgly left behind are circulating. Jendges alledgly killed himself to set an example against the corona vaccinations. These are “bio-warfare agents”, so it says in the postings. He is also said to have described the vaccine in his letter as genocide and a crime against humanity”, according to Tag24.
According to Las repúblicas, In the lengthy farewell letter Dr. Thomas Jendges wrote before his suicide and demanded its publication, he is said to have harshly criticized the information policy of governments in dealing with the dangerousness of Covid vaccines. The constant lies and deceit to the patient and the vaccinated that the vaccines are supposedly harmless, he could no longer bear them, it is said in the letter.
He condemns vaccinating the population with experimental and lethal vaccines against Covid-19, which is in fact more of a biological warfare agent created and manipulated for that use, than for any other known utility. For Dr. Thomas Jendges a genocide and a crime against humanity is taking place, they report that he says the letter, according to the German press such as the Bild newspaper.
Idaho Nurses told to shut up BOTG
In the morning!
I hope you are enjoying your Friday. I am a nurse in Idaho. Need to be anonymous due to my position.
I ran across this two days ago and couldn't believe what I was reading. The Association of the State Boards of Nursing sent out the attached notification this week. That's right, don't spout anything that will go against the "science" of Covid or vaccinations or you too could loose your license.
First it was get the jab or loose your job. Now it's get the jab and don't dare talk about what you believe is best or you loose both the job and the license.
This has been endorsed by 7, now 11 nursing associations. To all my fellow nurses out there, quit supporting these associations with your time ,talent ,and treasure. They do not speak for us and they do not act on our behalf. These associations include American Nurses Association, AONE nursing leadership association and many others.
It scares me that nurses have reported that their supervisors have already asked them to acknowledge this statement now as policy. And I am sure these same nursing supervisors are asking people to narc on each other.- not verified, but a logical next step.
My husband, a dude named Ben, works for a tech company. He needs to be anonymous too. His screening is more onerous than my hospital. Get the jab or be fired. Each week regardless of your jab status, get a covid test before you present to work the next day. Every day, questionairre on your phone, temperature screen while showing your badge and a proximity device to ensure the slaves are not near each other.
I am heartbroken that this is the world we live in.
UK rumored lock-downs Dec 15th
Norway BOTG
A boots on the ground report from your Candinavian in Scandinavia, Sir James of Norway.
The big problem here these days is the Plague of the Vaccinated that has hit us since the reopening in late September. Before the vaccination rollouts, no-one would ever dream of going out in public with even the slightest of cold symptoms. Now they're showing up at work sick as dogs, hacking and harfing all over the place. "Don't worry, it's not covid", they say. "No, I don't need to be tested! I haven't lost my sense of smell, and I'm fully vaccinated, so this can't possibly be covid!"
How has this happened? As Upstanding Citizens of Gitmo Nation, I think we've really dropped the ball on this one. It's so simple: the media's use of the word "effective". We're constantly being bombarded with messages like, "Look Brulf, these vaccines are so extrawwdinarly *effective* at preventing serious illness. Oh my gosh can you see that juice they're so *effective* at preventing hospitalisation". They're not even hiding the fine print of "preventing serious illness and hospitalisation" behind an ass-tick, but they *are* hijacking our built-in understanding of the word "effective".
When we hear the words "effective" and "vaccine" in the same sentence, we immediately think, "Why, I know of several effective vaccines! Just look at what the effective smallpox vaccine did - that virus was eradicated!". The result: our Plague of the Vaccinated, thinking they are 100% immune, and our unvaccinated pointing out that the media has been lying by omission - "I know what an effective vaccine is, and this ain't it! These vaccines don't even work!". Both parties have only heard the words "effective vaccine" and ignored the rest. NLP achieved.
Compared to the likes of the smallpox vaccine, yup, these covid vaccines are a steaming pile of crock. On the other hand, they actually *are* telling the truth about the vaccines reducing the risk of hospitalisation, as evidenced by your Ireland clip from Thursday's show. They reported that about 1 in 1,000 unvaccinated are hospitalised, while only about 1 in 10,000 vaccinated are hospitalised.
In Norway it seems pretty clear that vaccinated people need to stop partying like it's 2019, because they're spreading the virus (and probably new variants) like wildfire. The unvaccinated are left in a really difficult situation where the likelihood of getting infected by one of these idiots, and therefore overloading the healthcare system, has gone way up.
Jeg elsker dig,
Sir James of Norway
Ireland BOTG
Flew JFK to Dublin arrived Friday @ 8am.
Uploaded cdc card to Delta airline website before departure.
Filled out Traveller Locator Form.
Did not have to show cdc card on boarding at jfk.
Dublin passport/border officer asked no Covid questions in Ireland. Did not ask to see card.
Masks in doors at Dublin stores —
Fish and Chips shop had sign that said “be ready to present Vax Card” — never asked and we are indoors.
Belfast: (Saturday)
Many unmasked inside retail. Never asked to put mask on.
Belfast Christmas Market packed with people. Big line where guy went through line and told everyone “have your vaccine card ready to show”
By the time we (wife and daughter and I) got to front of line with our cards out the security guards looked at us and said “your grand move on” before even lifting my card to show them.
We left before protest started. (Big protest about vaccine passports in Belfast Saturday)
Dinner - at restauraunt in republic - they said show Vax— I showed my card my wife was getting hers and daughters out of her purse the person looked at mine and said “okay follow me” and sat us —we never showed other cards.
OTG
PhD Talk on the Decentralized Web and censorship
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2021 11:41 AM
To: iads-phd-forum@qmul.ac.uk
Subject: PhD forum talk "Toxicity on the Decentralized Web and the Potential for Model Sharing" by Haris Bin Zia
Hi everyone,
We are excited to announce the next talk of the IADS PhD forum seminars. Harris will talk about the challenges of moderating toxicity in the Decentraliseded Web. This will take place on the 23rd of November at 11 am on this Zoom link. You can add this talk and the rest of the forum events to your calendar from here.
Please contact one of the organisers if you are interested in presenting your research in future IADS PhD forum seminars. We also have a nomination form, if you are interested to nominate someone you know please fill the form and we’ll contact them.
Title Toxicity on the Decentralized Web and the Potential for Model Sharing
Abstract The Decentralised Web (DW) is an evolving concept, which encompasses technologies aimed at providing greater transparency and openness on the web. The DW relies on independent servers that mesh together in a peer-to-peer fashion to deliver a range of services (e.g. micro-blogs, image sharing, video streaming). However, decentralised systems face a number of challenges; in this paper, we focus on the difficulty of effectively moderating toxic content on decentralised social networks. Using a dataset of 9,927,712 posts from 116,856 users of Pleroma (a decentralised microblogging service), we quantify the presence of toxic content on the platform, finding it to be prevalent and spreading between instances. We show that automating per-instance content moderation is challenging due to the lack of training data available on each server and the amount of manual effort involved in labeling posts. We then set out to develop and evaluate a model sharing scheme, ModPair, which allows instances to more effectively detect toxic content, improving per-instance content moderation, on average, by 5.9%.
Substack has journalist immunity
BLM LGBBTQQIAAPK+ Noodle Boy
The Surge
Fake Meat
St Louis fed touts Tofurkey
Now for the main course: turkey (i.e., poultry) or tofurkey (i.e., soybeans)? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, roasted turkey has almost 3 times the caloric value and 1.5 times the protein value of an equivalent serving of fried tofu by weight. Between 1990 and the time of this writing, the average global price of poultry has been 6 times higher than the price of soybeans.
As of the third quarter of 2021, a hearty Thanksgiving dinner serving of turkey costs $1.42. A tofurkey (soybean) dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs $0.66 and provides almost twice as much protein. Keep in mind that this plant-based meal would be almost 3 times larger by weight than the poultry-based meal and may either keep you at the dinner table longer or provide you with more leftovers. Of course, our calculations here don’t include the time value, energy costs, and additional ingredients required to cook the meals.
Faux Fish
VAERS
FDA Produces the First 91+ pages of Documents from Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine File - by Aaron Siri - Injecting Freedom
Pfizer explains, on page 6, that “Due to the large numbers of spontaneous adverse event reports received for the product, [Pfizer] has prioritised the processing of serious cases…” and that Pfizer “has also taken a [sic] multiple actions to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports” including “increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues” and “has onboarded approximately [REDACTED] additional fulltime employees (FTEs).” Query why it is proprietary to share how many people Pfizer had to hire to track all of the adverse events being reported shortly after launching its product.
As for the volume of reports, in the 2 ½ months following EUA, Pfizer received a total of 42,086 reports containing 158,893 “events.” Most of these reports were from the U.S. and disproportionately involved women (29,914 vs. 9,182 provided by men) and those between 31 and 50 years old (13,886 vs 21,325 for all other age groups combined, with another 6,876 whose ages were unknown). Also, 25,957 of the events were classified as “Nervous system disorders”
Females between the ages of 30 and 51. Nervous system disorders. That sounds familiar. As a matter of fact, that sounds similar to the concerns raised by some of the women testifying or described in the videos below.
But no cause for alarm since Pfizer explains to the FDA: “The findings of these signal detection analyses are consistent with the known safety profile of the vaccine.” So if they knew these issues were going to arise, then why didn’t they appear to have enough staff to process this expected volume of reports? The grand conclusion by Pfizer to the FDA: “The data do not reveal any novel safety concerns or risks requiring label changes and support a favorable benefit risk profile of to the BNT162b2 vaccine.”
Nothing to see here. Just ask all those women.
CDC Myocarditis publication
Health Insurance heart email
Nearly 47% of the U.S. population has one of three high-risk factors for heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These risk factors include:
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Smoking
These and other conditions or lifestyle choices factor into your overall heart health.
Our free online heart health risk assessment gives you an easy-to-understand snapshot that can help you manage your heart health.
It only takes a few minutes to complete, and there’s no further obligation. Your results are available right away to view online or download.
Take my assessment
Climate Change
STORIES
Jezelf opzettelijk besmetten met het coronavirus? Doe het niet! | Nieuwsbericht | Inspectie Gezondheidszorg en Jeugd
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 15:39
Nieuwsbericht | 18-11-2021 | 15:58
Het is gevaarlijk om jezelf met opzet te besmetten met het coronavirus. Daarmee breng je jezelf en anderen in gevaar. De Inspectie Gezondheidszorg en Jeugd is dan ook verontwaardigd over initiatieven die hiervoor de mogelijkheid bieden.
Het coronavirus is gevaarlijk. Je kunt er ernstig ziek van worden. En je kunt anderen besmetten, die op hun beurt ernstig ziek kunnen worden. Wie zichzelf besmet, brengt opzettelijk de publieke gezondheid in gevaar.
Marina EckenhausenMarina Eckenhausen, inspecteur-generaal:
''Terwijl overal in de zorg keihard wordt gewerkt om zowel covidpatinten als alle andere patinten te helpen, zijn er dus blijkbaar organisaties die bewust het virus verder willen verspreiden. Ik vind dat ontluisterend. Het is een klap in het gezicht van iedereen die zich al ruimschoots anderhalf jaar inzet om de pandemie te bestrijden. En natuurlijk ook voor de nabestaanden van mensen die hun leven verloren hebben aan het coronavirus.''
De inspectie is op de hoogte gebracht van een website die materiaal aanbiedt om jezelf opzettelijk te besmetten met het coronavirus. De inspectie zal deze website bekijken en onderzoeken of en welke vervolgstappen nodig zijn.
Biden's potential Fed chair pick refuses to say if she's a capitalist or a socialist | Fox Business
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 15:31
A top contender to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve refused three times to answer whether or not she was a capitalist or a socialist in 2019.
"Governor Brainard, are you a capitalist or are you a socialist?" Rep. Roger Williams asked Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lael Brainard in a House Financial Services Committee hearing in September of 2019.
BIDEN SAYS FED CHAIR ANNOUNCEMENT COMING IN 'ABOUT 4 DAYS'
FILE - In this Sept. 30, 2021, file photo, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Powell says the tangled supply chains and shortages that have bedeviled the (Sarah Silbiger/Pool Photo via AP, File / Associated Press)
"Thank you for your question," Brainard responded. "I certainly have viewed markets that are well regulated that are competitive as providing really important benefits in terms of innovation and dynamism."
Williams, not satisfied with that response, asked again, "Well are you a capitalist or a socialist?"
Brainard declined to directly answer for a second time.
"So again, I would say that markets that are well regulated where we've seen strong competition certainly have seen important benefits," Brainard said.
WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS TREASURY NOMINEE OMAROVA AS 'EMINENTLY QUALIFIED' AFTER SHE WALKS BACK PAST STATEMENTS
Lael Brainard, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, during the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) annual meeting in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Williams, who briefly interrupted Brainard during her second response pointing out that he's asked the same question in a hearing 20 times and received the answer of capitalist each time, asked Brainard for a third time if she was a capitalist or a socialist.
"Again, I really don't think about it in those terms," Brainard responded.
Williams then turned to Office of Financial Research Director Dino Falaschetti, who was sitting next to Brainard, and asked the same question.
Falaschetti responded simply with "Capitalist" and the hearing moved on.
President Biden is weighing whether to renominate current Chair Jerome Powell, whose term officially expires in February. The Fed chair is one of the most powerful players in Washington, with the ability to dictate the pace of economic growth, and is typically nominated for a second term, often to reinforce the central bank's independence from politics.
Powell, a former private equity executive and a former Republican Treasury official who was nominated in 2017 by then-President Trump, has garnered bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for steering the U.S. through the coronavirus pandemic.
FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2020 file photo, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell listens during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Federal Reserve officials will start paring its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases as soo
But Brainard, the sole Democrat who sits on the Fed's Board of Governors, has also emerged as a potential contender for the job.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Biden reportedly interviewed both Brainard and Powell at the White House a little over a week ago and a final decision is expected soon. The two candidates are closely aligned on monetary policy, and both have argued that a recent inflation surge is likely to abate as pandemic-induced disruptions in the supply chain ease.
Naperville hospital COVID-19 patient in ivermectin lawsuit doing better
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 14:55
Updated 11/19/2021 12:03 PM
An Edward Hospital patient who received the controversial drug ivermectin to treat his COVID-19 infection is breathing on his own, according to one of his attorneys.
The attorney provided an update to DuPage County Judge Paul Fullerton on Friday morning. Fullerton had ordered the Naperville hospital earlier this month to allow an outside doctor to administer oral ivermectin to 71-year-old Sun Ng over the hospital's objection.
Ng, a visitor from Hong Kong, was hospitalized on Oct. 14 and placed on a ventilator four days later. His daughter, who has legal control of his health care, asked the hospital to allow ivermectin treatment.
Her lawyer, Ralph Lorigo, said the daughter has been emailing him updates, and she "feels this is a miraculous situation."
After receiving five days of ivermectin treatment, Ng removed his breathing tube himself, according to Lorigo. He said Ng is no longer in an intensive-care unit.
But Joseph Monahan, a lawyer representing Edward Hospital, told Fullerton Ng's condition was improving before the order to give him ivermectin was issued. Monahan also said the hospital was unable to confirm the contents of the drug given because the doctor obtained it online from India.
"We continue to strenuously object to the false science narrative that is being given to the court without basis," Monahan said.
"The arrogance of the hospital is amazing to me," Lorigo retorted.
Fullerton said all he wanted to know was Ng's condition.
"I think we all just wanted him to get better," Fullerton said. "I'm not saying ivermectin did anything or did not do anything."
The hospital has appealed Fullerton's order.
Lorigo is a New York lawyer who has been litigating ivermectin cases nationwide.
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Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Archives and Resources
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 14:42
SDS Documents New Left Notes
Vietnam War
University of California-Berkeley and Free Speech Movement
Columbia University
Kent State
Other locations
Cleveland Cornell Princeton U of Maryland U of Texas U of Washington Weatherman/Weather Underground
Women's Movement
Books & Memoirs
Memorials
Movies
SDS Graphics
German SDS
Contact us
sds was the largest and most influential US radical student organization of the 1960s. At its inception in 1960, there were just a few dozen members, inspired by the civil rights movement and initially concerned with equality, economic justice, peace, and participatory democracy. With the escalation of the Vietnam War, SDS grew rapidly as young people protested the destruction wrought by the US government and military. Polite protest turned into stronger and more determined resistance as rage and frustration increased all across the country.
Searching the Web for SDS source material, we found no centralized resource. This site is an attempt to remedy that problem. It is a work in progress, and your feedback, submissions, and suggestions for links are welcome.
Contact us
There is a Facebook group for those who gravitated toward or were active in SDS and related groups. Trade stories and photos about the past and about our current projects.Click on "request to join". (You have to be a Facebook member first.)
Activists from around the country who feel that a student movement is desperately needed to carry on the struggle for participatory democracy have formed a national organization, also called Students for a Democratic Society. For more information, click here.
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Students for a Democratic Society | The First Amendment Encyclopedia
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 14:40
Students for a Democratic Society formed in 1959 as a nonviolent youth group urging political change. Their attention turned to opposition of the Vietnam War in the 1960s. In this photo, Robert Pardun, a leader in SDS, talks to members of the press at a roadside park near the Lyndon B. Johnson Ranch in Texas in 1965. The group staged a vigil protesting President Johnson's administration policy in Vietnam. (AP Photo/Ferd Kaufman, used with permission from the Associated Press)
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a radical youth group established in the United States in 1959, developed as a branch of an older socialist educational organization, the League for Industrial Democracy.
The SDS held a passionate, if somewhat naive, belief that a nonviolent youth movement could transform U.S. society into a model political system in which the people, rather than just the social elite, would control social policy. The civil activism of its members frequently led them to exercise their First Amendment freedoms, sometimes in conflict with government officials.
First members of SDS were 'red-diaper babies'The first members of SDS were mostly ''red-diaper babies'' '-- that is, the children of parents who were themselves politically active and who had participated in progressive, and radical, social movements in the 1930s.
The newly formed SDS held its first organizational meeting in 1960 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Robert Alan Haber was elected president.
In this photo, Tom Hayden, founder of the Students for a Democratic Society, testifies before the President's Commission on Violence in 1968. (AP photo, used with permission from the Associated Press)SDS manifesto criticized US political systemThe political manifesto of the SDS, the Port Huron Statement, was written primarily by Tom Hayden, the 22-year-old former editor of the student newspaper at the University of Michigan.
The document, adopted in 1962 by the founding members of SDS, criticized the U.S. political system for failing to achieve international peace or to address effectively a myriad of social ills, including racism, materialism, militarism, poverty, and exploitation.
The manifesto called for a fully ''participatory democracy'' that would empower citizens to share in the social decisions that directly affected their lives and well-being.
SDS led to political awakening, First Amendment protests on college campusesThe civil rights movement that led to the formation of the SDS also precipitated another politicized youth movement, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement (FSM), led by junior philosophy major Mario Savio.
The Free Speech Movement arose as a First Amendment protest against the actions of University of California Berkeley officials, who were under pressure from prominent community leaders to prevent students from collecting donations and recruiting other students for work in the civil rights movement in the segregated South.
Together, the two movements '-- SDS and FSM '-- generated a political awakening across college campuses that was dubbed the New Left and became the core of the counterculture movements that dominated student activism during the sixties.
In this photo, several hundred people affiliated with the SDS race through the Los Angeles Civic Center en route from the Federal Building to the County Courthouse in a demonstration against the Vietnam War in 1968. (AP Photo/Harold Filan, used with permission from the Associated Press)
SDS slogans like 'Make love - not war' become anti-war rallying criesShortly, however, the Vietnam War changed the direction of student activism. It quickly gravitated to the anti-war movement when in January 1966 the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson announced it would abolish automatic student deferments from the draft.
The SDS slogans of ''Make love '-- not war,'' ''Burn cards, not people,'' and ''Hell, no, we won't go!'' became the rallying cries for the anti-war movement.
SDS membership dwindled after FBI scrutinyMeanwhile, the SDS began to fall victim to internal factionalism and its own democratic processes.
As its membership became more diverse, various factions became intolerant of each other and vied for leadership and control of the SDS political agenda.
Followers of hard-line philosophies, such as those of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong, as well as that of the radical Weathermen Underground or Weathermen, became the subjects of investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for terrorist activities. The FBI scrutiny, along with the end of the Vietnam War, saw the national SDS organization diminish rapidly and its membership drift away sufficiently so that by the mid-1970s the SDS was effectively dead.
This article was originally published in 2009. William W. Riggs was a Professor at Texas A&M International University.
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Dutch police arrest more than 30 amid ongoing unrest
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 14:21
By MIKE CORDER
Posted 11/21/2021 7:00 AM
EDE, Netherlands -- Dutch police have arrested more than 30 people during unrest in The Hague and other towns in the Netherlands that followed an 'Å' orgy of violence '¯½ the previous night at a protest against coronavirus restrictions.
The violence by groups of youths in The Hague and elsewhere Saturday night wasn't as serious as Friday night in Rotterdam, where police opened fire on rampaging rioters and arrested 51 people.
Police said Sunday that they arrested 19 people in The Hague and used a water cannon to extinguish a fire on a street.
Two soccer matches in the country's top professional league were briefly halted when fans - banned from matches under a partial lockdown in force in the Netherlands for a week - broke into stadiums in the towns of Alkmaar and Almelo.
In The Hague, police said five officers were injured as they tried to break up unrest by a group of youths who set at least two fires on streets and threw fireworks. Police said in a tweet that one rioter threw a rock at an ambulance carrying a patient to a hospital.
In the southern towns of Roermond and Stein, police said they arrested a total of 13 people for setting fires and throwing fireworks, and in the fishing village of Urk police arrested eight people for public order offenses, Dutch broadcaster NOS reported.
Earlier Saturday, two protests against COVID-19 measures proceeded peacefully in Amsterdam and the southern city of Breda. Thousands of people marched through Amsterdam to protest COVID-19 restrictions.
Tens of thousands of protesters also took to the streets of Vienna on Saturday after the Austrian government announced a nationwide lockdown beginning Monday to contain skyrocketing coronavirus infections.
There were also demonstrations in Italy, Switzerland, Croatia and Northern Ireland.
Police in Rotterdam said that three rioters were hit by bullets and investigations were underway to establish if they were shot by police on Friday night. The condition of the injured rioters wasn't disclosed.
Officers in Rotterdam arrested 51 people, about half of them minors, police said Saturday afternoon. One police officer was hospitalized with a leg injury sustained in the rioting, another was treated by ambulance staff and 'Å'countless'¯½ others suffered minor injuries.
Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb called the rioting in his city an 'Å'orgy of violence" and said that 'Å'on a number of occasions the police felt it necessary to draw their weapons to defend themselves.'¯½
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Entrepreneur Rocketed Into Space, Then Died a Month Later - WSJ
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 13:34
Glen de Vries, a charismatic leader who co-founded a medical-software firm, found time to master the guitar, learn to fly and teach himself Japanese
Updated Nov. 17, 2021 4:44 pm ET...
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In the 1970s, Glen de Vries was a precocious little boy who loved science, Lego bricks and model rockets.
By 2021, he was a software entrepreneur who still loved science, still built rockets with Lego blocks and now could afford to fly on a real rocket, operated by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin LLC. Mr. de Vries was one of two paying customers on a 10-minute flight on Oct. 13 that took them and the actor William Shatner to the edge of space.
Back on Earth, Mr. de Vries called his space adventure life-changing. Though he declined to say how much he had paid for his ticket, he assured interviewers the trip was worth the price.
In an interview conducted by Carnegie Mellon University, he described the spacecraft as a ''cannonball with windows.'' On the way down, he said, ''you watch the curve of the planet go back to flat and the textures change. The view on the way back was just as incredible as it was on the way up.''
Four weeks later, on Nov. 11, Mr. de Vries was one of two people who died in the crash of a single-engine Cessna 172 in a wooded area near Lake Kemah, N.J. Investigators didn't immediately identify the pilot.
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Mr. de Vries, who was 49, was a charismatic biologist and computer scientist who co-founded Medidata Solutions Inc., a provider of software and other services for clinical trials of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
At his high school, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City, he was such an advanced student that he sometimes helped teach chemistry classes. As an adult, he mastered public speaking, ballroom dancing and guitar playing. He learned Japanese well enough to give speeches and sing karaoke.
Uri Attia, a friend, recalled being stuck in an airport and struggling to rebook after a canceled flight to Costa Rica. ''I was about to blow my top,'' Mr. Attia said. Mr. de Vries calmly offered a plan: ''You and I are going to unleash the power of comedy.'' His goofy charm quickly induced an airline employee to find first-class seats on an alternative flight.
After his death, family members visited his home and found he had been working on a Lego replica of Blue Origin's spacecraft.
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Glen Michael de Vries was born June 29, 1972, and grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. His mother, now known as Madeline Hooper, ran a public relations firm. His father, Alan de Vries, was a Wall Street securities trader and executive. His parents divorced when Glen was young but worked out amicable ways to share parenting responsibilities.
''He just was a curious kid,'' his mother said. ''He was so into how things go together and how things mechanically work and why planes fly.'' At age 10, he had his first computer, a Sinclair 1000.
He earned a degree in molecular biology and genetics at Carnegie Mellon University, where he rowed on the crew team. To earn spending money, he took a job calling alumni to solicit donations. One of his calls yielded an invitation to work in a research lab at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.
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At the lab, he met Edward Ikeguchi, who was doing his medical residency in urology. As they worked on research related to prostate-cancer treatments in the mid-1990s, the two young men noticed that records were kept on paper and shared via barely legible carbon copies and faxes. ''The nurses were basically running around like headless chickens filling out forms,'' Dr. Ikeguchi said.
Though the internet was still a novelty, the two men began working on online forms for clinical trials and formed a business, eventually called Medidata. Their first big capital expenditure was about $20,000 for a copper-wire internet connection to Mr. de Vries's apartment. In 1999 they were joined by Tarek Sherif, who had financial experience and became chief executive.
Medidata went public in 2009 and a decade later was sold to Dassault Syst¨mes for about $5.8 billion. Messrs. de Vries and Sherif stayed on as senior executives. ''In 21 years, we never had an argument,'' Mr. Sherif said. ''We disagreed on things but we would always find common ground.''
Mr. de Vries served as a trustee of Dancing Classrooms, a nonprofit that teaches children to dance. It was, he said, a way to develop poise, mutual respect and confidence.
He learned to fly airplanes about two years ago and later bought a Diamond DA40 plane. A few days before his death he posted on Instagram a picture of his plane on a bumpy runway at a tiny airport near Limington, Maine. ''Really good restaurant!'' he reported. ''Worth a trip!''
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Whenever he could find time, he jammed on his guitar in an amateur band called Spread Eagle, whose specialties included covers of Journey's ''Separate Ways'' and Three Dog Night's ''Joy to the World.''
He served as a trustee at Carnegie Mellon University and endowed a deanship at CMU's Mellon College of Science.
His 2020 book, ''The Patient Equation,'' envisioned an injection of data science into medicine to bring the best medical knowledge ''to patients of all demographics around the world.'' He foresaw personal health-tracking devices feeding data into global online platforms to allow for more sharing of information to speed up research and foster personalized treatments.
Mr. de Vries was married and divorced three times. His survivors include his parents and two half sisters, Lizzy de Vries and Catherine Hooper.
Mr. Attia summed up Mr. de Vries's approach to life this way: ''He would go into every situation asking how could this be more fun?''
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
Covid denial to climate denial: How conspiracists are shifting focus - BBC News
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:44
By Marianna SpringSpecialist disinformation reporter, BBC News
Image source, Getty Images
Members of an online movement infected with pandemic conspiracies are shifting their focus - and are increasingly peddling falsehoods about climate change.
Matthew is convinced that shadowy forces lie behind two of the biggest news stories of our time, and that he's not being told the truth.
"This whole campaign of fear and propaganda is an attempt to try and drive some agenda," he says. "It doesn't matter whether it's climate change or a virus or something else."
Originally from the UK, Matthew has been living in New Zealand for the past 20 years. The country is one of several that have aimed to completely stamp out Covid-19 through strict lockdowns.
Troubled by the New Zealand government's approach, he turned to social media for news and community. The online groups he joined - opposed to vaccines and masks - exposed him to completely unfounded conspiracies about sinister global plots behind the Covid-19 pandemic.
Image caption, Groups on Telegram encourage members to post stickers with anti-vaccine slogans in their local neighbourhoods
His immersion in this conspiratorial world has coloured his outlook and affected his relationships. He's speaking to me on a video call while hidden away at the end of his garden, because he's afraid his partner - who doesn't share some of his views - might hear him.
And recently, groups like the ones he's a part of have been sharing misleading claims not only about Covid, but about climate change. He sees "Covid and climate propaganda" as part of the same so-called plot.
The White Rose network
It's part of a larger pattern. Anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine Telegram groups, which once focused exclusively on the pandemic, are now injecting the climate change debate with the same conspiratorial narratives they use to explain the pandemic.
The posts go far beyond political criticism and debate - they're full of incorrect information, fake stories and pseudoscience.
According to researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank that researches global disinformation trends, some anti-lockdown groups have become polluted by misleading posts about climate change being overplayed, or even a so-called "hoax" designed to control people.
"Increasingly, terminology around Covid-19 measures is being used to stoke fear and mobilise against climate action," says the ISD's Jennie King.
She says this isn't really about climate as a policy issue.
"It's the fact that these are really neat vectors to get themes like power, personal freedom, agency, citizen against state, loss of traditional lifestyles - to get all of those ideas to a much broader audience."
One group which has adopted such ideas is the White Rose - a network with locally-run subgroups around the world, from the UK to the US, Germany and New Zealand - where Matthew came across it.
"It's not run by any one or two people," Matthew explains. "It's kind of a decentralised community organisation, so you obtain stickers and then post them on lampposts and things like that."
These stickers bear slogans with anti-vaccine, anti-mask and conspiratorial content, including slogans such as "Resist the New Normal", "Real Men Don't Wear Masks", and false statements such as "There Is No Pandemic". Matthew first joined his local White Rose channel after seeing it advertised on a sticker - and he now puts up the same slogans on lamp posts around his home near Auckland.
Image caption, The influence of powerful people and themes of 'forced vaccination' feature heavily on White Rose stickers
While we chat, he mentions "The Great Reset" - an unfounded conspiracy theory that a global elite is using the pandemic to establish a shadowy New World Order, a "super-government" that will control the lives of citizens around the world.
Although he thinks some of the theories posted online are too conspiratorial, Matthew does believe there's a "confluence of vested interests, the governments, major corporations" running the show.
His views are having a real impact on Matthew's life - setting him apart from those he's closest to.
Recently, he says, he felt uncomfortable because his nine-year-old daughter was doing a climate change presentation at school.
At the same time, he regrets falling down a conspiratorial rabbit hole.
"I have woken up every day the last three or four months, feeling very anxious around the world about the world and what's happening," he says. "And I often wish I hadn't."
'She's completely off the rails'
Christine is looking at this from the other side of the coin. She's a nurse in Belfast who has been treating Covid patients.
During the pandemic, her girlfriend began to believe extreme conspiracies about Covid-19 and vaccines. She even started to think that Christine was part of a vast conspiracy. Just like Matthew, she joined the White Rose channel for her local area. The BBC contacted Telegram for comment.
"It's crazy. It's scary," Christine tells me just before she heads into the hospital for a night shift.
Her girlfriend then got hooked by false claims about climate change - repeatedly posting about the topic on Instagram. It became so difficult, Christine had to call the relationship quits.
"She now believes climate change isn't real - and that everything is a scheme to depopulate the Earth and wipe out humanity."
Christine shakes her head in despair.
The new conspiracy frontline
As the pandemic progresses, vaccines take effect and many countries - particularly rich ones - inch closer to normality, this pivot from Covid towards climate change is something researchers have observed across a number of online spaces.
One way that ISD has seen this play out is around the term "climate lockdown". It's used to refer to the completely unfounded idea that in the future we might have Covid-style lockdowns to counteract climate change.
The term has found popularity with YouTubers who peddle conspiracy theories - but climate scientists say lockdowns would not be a serious climate change mitigation strategy. Covid lockdowns, for instance, only marginally reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the distress caused by Covid and lockdowns - and the falsehoods that have sprung up around them - have laid the groundwork for yet more conspiracies to spread. A mindset has gripped a group of people who blame all bad news on shady plots by powerful people - rather than accepting the reality about the future of the planet.
With reporting from Ant Adeane
School Forces Unmasked Kids to Wear Yellow Badges '' Summit News
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:42
The Spectator has published an article citing official data from Public Health England, which states that for the over 30's, ''the rates of Covid infection per 100,000 are now higher among the vaxxed than the unvaxxed.''
Well, this is awkward.
The article, written by Lionel Shriver, is titled 'The absurd theatre of vaccine passports'.
It points out that according to official data, vaccines only offer about 17 per cent protection for the over-fifties.
''As I observed then, this would mean the vaxxed and unvaxxed pose a comparable danger to each other,'' writes Shriver. ''All Covid apartheid schemes are therefore insensible.''
She then clearly explains how the official data undermines the entire argument behind vaccine passports, which ban the unvaccinated from entering innumerable venues.
''Fresher information has fortified this conclusion of the summer. In every age group over 30 in the UK, the rates of Covid infection per 100,000 are now higher among the vaxxed than the unvaxxed. Indeed, in the cohorts aged between 40 and 79, infection rates among the vaccinated are more than twice as high as among the unvaccinated. PHE's fruitlessly rechristened body, the UK Health Security Agency, frantically clarifies that the data 'should not be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness', a caveat which I include for the sake of accuracy. But the differences in the infection rates are drastic enough for you to draw your own conclusions.''
Shriver then summarizes how that data demolishes the reason for implementing vaccine passport schemes.
''Gatekeeping of pleasure palaces promotes the wrong impression '-- statistically, the lie '-- that the unvaccinated riff-raff exiled to the pavement pose a far graver threat of communicable disease than the diners in the nearby banquette who, like you, have righteously got the shot. In truth, the double-jabbed airline passenger in 24A can be just as risky a seat-mate as the great unwashed banished from the flight.''
Meanwhile, the Times reports the results of another study which ''found the double-jabbed are just as likely to pass on Covid-19 as unvaccinated people.''
After Public Health England published the data, government bureaucrats begin to panic that people would use it to suggest vaccines were not that effective.
Office for Statistics Regulation director Ed Humpherson called an urgent meeting with U.K. Health Security Agency during which he worried about the data having ''the potential to mislead.''
''We noted that these data have been used to argue that vaccines are ineffective,'' Humpherson subsequently wrote.
Isn't it strange how the government and associated regulatory bodies appear to be afraid of raw data?
If the vaccines are as effective as they tell us, why would they be worried?
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Covid passports to be introduced in Northern Ireland - Belfast Live
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:38
Northern Ireland Executive ministers have today voted in favour of mandatory Covid vaccine passports.
During a meeting at Stormont on Wednesday, Sinn F(C)in, Alliance and the SDLP backed the proposals made by the Health Minister.
DUP ministers voted against the move but did not deploy a cross community voting mechanism to block it, PA Media reports.
Robin Swann's department will now draw up a further paper to explore more details.
Mr Swann proposed that regulations needed for the law change come into effect on November 29, with a 14-day grace period prior to becoming enforceable on December 13.
BBC reports that it's understood the measure would apply for access to:
nightclubs hospitality venues which serve food and drink cinemas, theatres, concert halls and conference centres indoor events with 500 or more attendees with some or all of the audience not normally seated outdoor events with 4,000 or more attendees with some or all of the audience not normally seated events where more than 10,000 people will be present regardless of whether they are seated Meanwhile, a modelling paper from health officials presented to the Executive ahead of the meeting warned passports may not be enough to suppress rapidly increasing Covid case numbers, which have surged 23% in a week, and that ''more severe restrictions'' may need to be considered in mid-December to avoid hospitals being overwhelmed.
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Read MoreRelated ArticlesCovid NI: 'More severe restrictions' may be needed, health officials warnRead MoreRelated ArticlesDUP's Sammy Wilson says vaccine passport plan is 'unwarranted state control'
Biden's potential Fed chair pick refuses to say if she's a capitalist or a socialist | Fox Business
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 05:53
Published November 19, 2021
A decision on a new Federal Reserve chair is believed to be imminentJohnson Smick International chairman and CEO David Smick provides insight into whether inflation is transitory.
A top contender to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve refused three times to answer whether or not she was a capitalist or a socialist in 2019.
"Governor Brainard, are you a capitalist or are you a socialist?" Rep. Roger Williams asked Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lael Brainard in a House Financial Services Committee hearing in September of 2019.
BIDEN SAYS FED CHAIR ANNOUNCEMENT COMING IN 'ABOUT 4 DAYS'
FILE - In this Sept. 30, 2021, file photo, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Powell says the tangled supply chains and shortages that have bedeviled the '... (Sarah Silbiger/Pool Photo via AP, File / Associated Press)
"Thank you for your question," Brainard responded. "I certainly have viewed markets that are well regulated that are competitive as providing really important benefits in terms of innovation and dynamism."
Williams, not satisfied with that response, asked again, "Well are you a capitalist or a socialist?"
Brainard declined to directly answer for a second time.
"So again, I would say that markets that are well regulated where we've seen strong competition certainly have seen important benefits," Brainard said.
WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS TREASURY NOMINEE OMAROVA AS 'EMINENTLY QUALIFIED' AFTER SHE WALKS BACK PAST STATEMENTS
Lael Brainard, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, during the National Association of Business Economics (NABE) annual meeting in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Williams, who briefly interrupted Brainard during her second response pointing out that he's asked the same question in a hearing 20 times and received the answer of capitalist each time, asked Brainard for a third time if she was a capitalist or a socialist.
"Again, I really don't think about it in those terms," Brainard responded.
Williams then turned to Office of Financial Research Director Dino Falaschetti, who was sitting next to Brainard, and asked the same question.
Falaschetti responded simply with "Capitalist" and the hearing moved on.
President Biden is weighing whether to renominate current Chair Jerome Powell, whose term officially expires in February. The Fed chair is one of the most powerful players in Washington, with the ability to dictate the pace of economic growth, and is typically nominated for a second term, often to reinforce the central bank's independence from politics.
Powell, a former private equity executive and a former Republican Treasury official who was nominated in 2017 by then-President Trump, has garnered bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for steering the U.S. through the coronavirus pandemic.
FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2020 file photo, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell listens during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Federal Reserve officials will start paring its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases as so '...
But Brainard, the sole Democrat who sits on the Fed's Board of Governors, has also emerged as a potential contender for the job.
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Biden reportedly interviewed both Brainard and Powell at the White House a little over a week ago and a final decision is expected soon. The two candidates are closely aligned on monetary policy, and both have argued that a recent inflation surge is likely to abate as pandemic-induced disruptions in the supply chain ease.
Windsor police arrest suspect in Windsor Assembly Plant explosion | Windsor Star
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 05:34
Author of the article:
Trevor Wilhelm
Publishing date:
Nov 17, 2021
'
2 days ago
'
4 minute read
'
7 Comments
A Windsor officer is shown in the 1700 block of Drouillard Road on Wednesday, November 17, 2021 where a man was arrested in connection with a bomb incident at the Windsor Assembly Plant recently. Photo by Dan Janisse / Windsor StarThe man arrested Wednesday in connection with an explosion at Windsor Assembly Plant allegedly used a homemade bomb set on a timer, the Star has learned.
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Windsor police shut down a section of Drouillard Road shortly after the arrest as they searched the suspect's home using a remote-controlled robot.
The suspect is a former Windsor Assembly Plant worker who was recently suspended, according to a woman who said she is his mother.
''He got fired because people felt threatened,'' Pauline Maisonneuve said Wednesday as she watched police go in and out of her son's apartment. ''He's just a protester, a little loud. Posts a lot of stuff on TikTok.''
Investigators confirmed late Wednesday afternoon that James Harris, 33, from Windsor, is charged with ''explosion/disregard for human life, intend to cause explosion likely to cause serious bodily harm or death and intend to cause explosion likely to cause serious damage to property.''
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None of the allegations against Harris have been proven in a court of law.
Windsor police use a robot to assist in the search of a residence on the 1700 block of Drouillard Road on Nov. 17, 2021. Photo by Dax Melmer / Windsor StarWindsor police said the Emergency Services Unit arrested him around 8:30 a.m. in the 1700 block of Drouillard Road.
Investigators also executed a search warrant Wednesday at a residence located in the 1700 block of Drouillard. Police did not confirm any other details.
Harris was reportedly a custodian at the plant and a member of Unifor Local 195, but was suspended the Monday following the explosion.
Unifor Local 444 president Dave Cassidy, who represents autoworkers, said a wave of relief went through the plant as word spread of the individual's arrest.
Windsor officers are shown in the 1700 block of Drouillard Road on Wednesday, November 17, 2021 where a man was arrested in connection with a bomb incident at the Windsor Assembly Plant recently. Photo by Dan Janisse / Windsor Star''After it happened there was a lot of apprehension among members,'' he said Wednesday. ''Today I received so many messages of relief. Since the arrest was announced, there's been a big sigh of relief in the facility. There's been a lot of anger, absolutely. People were pissed about what happened.''
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Cassidy said he's unaware of any changes to security protocols at the plant since the incident. He said the relationship between Unifor and the company also remains unchanged.
''Everything has been status quo,'' he said.
Shortly after the incident, Cassidy issued a sternly worded message to his members on Facebook, condemning the act and saying there had been some incidents at the plant based on anxieties. Some tensions stemmed from a new company vaccine mandate and Stellantis's announcement it will eliminate the plant's second shift in April.
More On This Topic Police believe Windsor Assembly explosion a deliberate act Windsor police investigating after explosion reported at Windsor Assembly Plant ''I know we have had some hard news as of late, but any lashing out in the facilities cannot and will not be accepted and needs to stop,'' he wrote in the post.
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Article content''All our livelihoods depend on the future of the plant.''
Officers were called to the auto plant around 5:45 p.m. on Nov. 4. The explosion went off in a second floor storage area on the west side of the plant. No one was hurt.
Windsor Assembly Plant was evacuated following the explosion and employees were sent home before officers arrived. Production resumed the following morning with Windsor police on site.
From the beginning, police called the explosion an ''intentional act'' after finding ''suspicious items'' at the scene.
The Windsor police Explosive Disposal Unit (EDU), K-9 Unit, Forensic Identification Unit and Arson Unit were all involved in the initial stages of the investigation at Windsor Assembly Plant.
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Article content Windsor police use a robot to assist in the search of a residence on the 1700 block of Drouillard Road on Nov. 17, 2021. Photo by Dax Melmer / Windsor StarPolice said shortly after the explosion that the probe included testing remnants of the package found at the site.
Sources with knowledge of the situation told the Star the explosive device was a homemade bomb set on a timer, using acetylene in a bag as the accelerant.
Police did not confirm that, or that it was Harris who made it.
Investigators spent most of the day Wednesday at the suspect's home in the 1700 block of Drouillard Road.
There was a large police presence there with cruisers and yellow police tape blocking off Drouillard between Alice and Milloy streets.
Police asked the public to avoid the area. Despite that, small groups of people gathered at the cordoned off intersections to get a glimpse of the activity.
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Article content A Windsor officer is shown in the 1700 block of Drouillard Road on Wednesday, November 17, 2021 where a man was arrested in connection with a bomb incident at the Windsor Assembly Plant recently. Photo by Dan Janisse / Windsor StarThere were several police units on scene including the explosives unit, which sent a bomb robot into the multi-unit building.
Maisonneuve said it was Harris's home that police were searching.
''His girlfriend called me and said he was arrested this morning at the store,'' she said.
Maisonneuve had not been able to speak to her son several hours after the arrest Wednesday morning. But she said she knew he had been under investigation ''about the bomb.''
''It's bogus, it's not true,'' she said. ''A really well-mannered kid. Quiet, other than when he's protesting. Other than that he's a great kid. Everybody liked him. He's innocent.''
She said her son has been a vocal protestor against COVID-19 vaccines.
He worked at the plant for about five years, she said.
''He was going to lose his job anyway, because he ain't getting his vaccine,'' said Maisonneuve.
Windsor police ask anyone with more information to call the Major Crime Unit 519-255-6700 ext. 4830, or ext. 4000 after hours. You can also provide anonymous tips through Crime Stoppers by calling 519-258-8477 (TIPS) or going to catchcrooks.com.
'-- with files from Dave Waddell
twilhelm@postmedia.com
There will be police presence in the 1700 block of Drouillard Road in relation to an active investigation. Police are asking that the public avoid the area at this time. Drouillard will be closed between Milloy St. and Alice St. pic.twitter.com/yY3XXtgbtu '-- Windsor Police (@WindsorPolice) November 17, 2021 Sign up to receive daily headline news from the Windsor Star, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
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Turkey or Tofurkey? | FRED Blog
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 05:28
This is the time of the year to give thanks, and the FRED Blog is thankful for the rich variety of data series and data sources available in FRED. In years past, we've tapped data from the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Eurostat to assemble tasty graphs showing the price of traditional Thanksgiving meals. Today, we compare a poultry-based meal with a plant-based meal.
Let's start with a data literacy appetizer. The FRED graph above plots the quarterly global prices of poultry (including turkey) in orange and soybeans (the main ingredient in tofu) in green, as reported by the International Monetary Fund. Savor the fact that the units of each series are different: poultry prices are reported in U.S. cents per pound of meat (on the left axis), and soybean prices are reported in U.S. dollars per metric ton (on the right axis).
Also, notice how relatively stable the prices of both commodities are from quarter to quarter. Even though the data are not seasonally adjusted, the prices do not regularly increase or decrease during a calendar year. We can thank the global supply of both commodities for the lack of seasonality in prices.
Now for the main course: turkey (i.e., poultry) or tofurkey (i.e., soybeans)? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, roasted turkey has almost 3 times the caloric value and 1.5 times the protein value of an equivalent serving of fried tofu by weight. Between 1990 and the time of this writing, the average global price of poultry has been 6 times higher than the price of soybeans.
As of the third quarter of 2021, a hearty Thanksgiving dinner serving of turkey costs $1.42. A tofurkey (soybean) dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs $0.66 and provides almost twice as much protein. Keep in mind that this plant-based meal would be almost 3 times larger by weight than the poultry-based meal and may either keep you at the dinner table longer or provide you with more leftovers. Of course, our calculations here don't include the time value, energy costs, and additional ingredients required to cook the meals.
How these graphs were created:Global prices (the graph shown here). Search for and select ''Global price of Poultry.'' From the ''Edit Graph'' panel, use the ''Add Line'' tab to search for and select ''Global price of Soybeans.'' To change the line color, mark types, and Y-axis position of the series, use the ''Format'' panel.Relative prices (the first linked graph). Search for and select ''Global price of Poultry.'' From the ''Edit Graph'' panel, use the ''Edit Line 1'' tab to customize the data by searching for and selecting ''Global price of Soybeans.'' Last, create a custom formula to combine the series to make them comparable pound for pound and dollar for dollar by typing in (a/100)/(b/2204.62) and clicking ''Apply.''Cost of caloric-equivalent meal (the second linked graph). Search for and select ''Global price of Poultry.'' From the ''Edit Graph'' panel, use the ''Edit Line'' tab to customize the data by applying the formula a/100. Next, from the ''Edit Graph'' panel, use the ''Add Line'' tab to search for and select ''Global price of Soybeans.'' Next, use the ''Edit Line 2'' tab to customize the data by applying the formula (a/2204.62)*2.93. Salt and flavor the graphs to taste by using the ''Format'' panel.
Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.
FDA Produces the First 91+ pages of Documents from Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine File - by Aaron Siri - Injecting Freedom
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 05:24
Two months and one day after it was sued, and close to 3 months since it licensed Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine, the FDA released the first round of documents it reviewed before licensing this product. The production consisted of 91 pdf pages, one xpt file, and one txt file. You can download them here.
While it is for the scientists to properly analyze, let me share one observation. One of the documents produced is a Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports of [the Vaccine] Received Through 28-Feb-2021, which is a mere 2 ½ months after the vaccine received emergency use authorization (EUA). This document reflects adverse events following vaccination that have completed Pfizer's ''workflow cycle,'' both in and outside the U.S., up to February 28, 2021.
Pfizer explains, on page 6, that ''Due to the large numbers of spontaneous adverse event reports received for the product, [Pfizer] has prioritised the processing of serious cases'...'' and that Pfizer ''has also taken a [sic] multiple actions to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports'' including ''increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues'' and ''has onboarded approximately [REDACTED] additional fulltime employees (FTEs).'' Query why it is proprietary to share how many people Pfizer had to hire to track all of the adverse events being reported shortly after launching its product.
As for the volume of reports, in the 2 ½ months following EUA, Pfizer received a total of 42,086 reports containing 158,893 ''events.'' Most of these reports were from the U.S. and disproportionately involved women (29,914 vs. 9,182 provided by men) and those between 31 and 50 years old (13,886 vs 21,325 for all other age groups combined, with another 6,876 whose ages were unknown). Also, 25,957 of the events were classified as ''Nervous system disorders''
Females between the ages of 30 and 51. Nervous system disorders. That sounds familiar. As a matter of fact, that sounds similar to the concerns raised by some of the women testifying or described in the videos below.
But no cause for alarm since Pfizer explains to the FDA: ''The findings of these signal detection analyses are consistent with the known safety profile of the vaccine.'' So if they knew these issues were going to arise, then why didn't they appear to have enough staff to process this expected volume of reports? The grand conclusion by Pfizer to the FDA: ''The data do not reveal any novel safety concerns or risks requiring label changes and support a favorable benefit risk profile of to the BNT162b2 vaccine.''
Nothing to see here. Just ask all those women.
Brianne Dressen Part 1 and 2 - Describing Group Inured by Various COVID-19 Vaccines
Kellai Rodriguez
Suzanna Newell
Aaron Siri - Describing Group of Physicians Injured by Various COVID-19 Vaccines
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Sweden's ''Vaccine Passes'' should teach us an important lesson. '' OffGuardian
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 04:28
Kit KnightlySweden was praised for ''flattening the curve'' without lockdowns'...was that all a set up?
Audio Version New Feature! The Swedish Public Health Agency (PHA) has announced that, starting next month, gatherings of more than 100 people will require ''Covid passes'' showing vaccination status.
Unlike similar schemes in other countries, a negative test will not be accepted as a substitute '' either you're vaccinated, or you can't enter the venue.
There's no talk yet of including restaurants, bars or cafes in this'...but it is still early.
The PHA published a press release yesterday, detailing the plans. Quoted in The Local, Sweden's culture minister Amanda Lind said:
Being able to use vaccination certificates is something the government has been preparing for a long time. You have previously heard me talk about vaccination certificates as a ''plan B''. Now that situation is here,''
The vaccination pass comes on the heels of announcing the re-introduction of other ''anti-COVID'' measures, including limitations on mass indoor gatherings. The pass is being described as a way to get around these restrictions by ''guaranteeing that participants are vaccinated''.
'...and so Sweden falls.
From the beginning of the ''pandemic'' Sweden has been almost an outlier. Their refusal to lockdown was held up as an example of irresponsible laissez-faire libertarianism in the mainstream press, but made it an important touchstone for lockdown sceptics who viewed it as a bastion of common sense.
It turns out neither is true.
While Germany, Austria, New Zealand, Canada (and others) have gone full fascist brutally suddenly, Sweden is taking the scenic route. Rather than refusing to comply with the narrative, Sweden is simply using a looser net to catch the stragglers.
Those championing Sweden's approach to Covid have just been caught in a supranational game of ''good cop, bad cop''.
It shouldn't really come as a surprise, the warning signs were all there.
For starters, the sheer amount of coverage given to the ''Swedish approach'' should have tipped people off.
Let's take a moment to remind ourselves that the countries that have really rejected the Covid narrative in its entirety '' such as Belarus '' are never in the news.
In fact the governments that genuinely refused to play ball all had colour revolutions (or attempted ones at least), or saw their presidents die of sudden heart attacks.
Sweden suffered no such bad luck. Because it was playing its part.
For over a year and a half, Sweden has been portrayed as the calm voice in a room of panicking hysterics. They 'refused' to lockdown, and their ''covid deaths'' never reached the disastrous predictions of the modellers, whilst their economy suffered markedly less than the rest of Europe.
Playing that level-headed role has bought them credibility in Lockdown-sceptic circles, which can now be parlayed into an argument for vaccine passes: ''Oh you hate vaccine passports? Well you love Sweden and they have them there!''
It's all about manipulation '' getting the doubters to concede to your narratives bit by bit without realizing they are doing so.
By supporting Sweden's no lockdown approach, because it seems relatively sane, you concede, without fully realizing it, that there is a pandemic, and it does require some kind of intervention.
The same can be said for the ''alternate therapies'' and ''pre-existing immunity'' arguments.
Although both seem to have scientific evidence supporting them, the argument is built on a priori assumptions which concede the basic reality of the pandemic narrative.
And you will never win if you play by those rules. This is their pandemic and they can reinvent it in any way they choose.
Think promoting ivermectin is a good way of opposing the vaxx without alienating the believers? No!
You have to follow rules. They don't. They can just invent a new ''variant'' out of wholecloth. One that is ''resistant to ivermectin''.
And then what do you do?
It's a simple and important lesson, hopefully, forced home by now:
Don't part-accept irrationality in an effort to be reasonable. Don't try and meet insanity in the middle. Deal only in what you can research and observe yourself.
Don't attempt to compromise with the establishment, because they will never compromise back. There is no middle way.
Never, EVER, accept part of their narrative on trust.
Sweden should teach us never to pick sides in the Covid game, because it's all rigged and the only way to win is not to play.
Final Rule - Phasedown of Hydrofluorocarbons: Establishing the Allowance Allocation and Trading Program under the AIM Act | US EPA
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 04:20
The AIM Act, which was included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, directs EPA to phase down production and consumption of HFCs in the United States by 85 percent over the next 15 years. A global HFC phasedown is expected to avoid up to 0.5° Celsius of global warming by 2100.
This final rule is the first regulation under the AIM Act to address HFCs, which are potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigerators, air conditioners, and other applications. This final rule sets the HFC production and consumption baseline levels from which reductions will be made, establishes an initial methodology for allocating and trading HFC allowances for 2022 and 2023, and creates a robust, agile, and innovative compliance and enforcement system.
Information on the final rule and allowance allocations can be found below.
Federal Register link to HFC Allocation Final RuleFederal Register link to HFC Allowance Allocations for 2022Phasedown of HFCs: Issuing Allowance Allocations HFC Allocation Final Rule Fact Sheet (pdf) HFC Allocation Final Rule FAQ (pdf) Press Release on HFC Allocation Final Rule Regulatory Impact Analysis for Phasing Down Production and Consumption of Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) (pdf) Overview of Application-Specific Program Fact Sheet (pdf) Overview of Set-aside Allowances under the AIM Act (pdf) Overview of Allowances and Exchange Values (pdf) Overview of Requirements for Importers of Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) (pdf) Contact Us to ask a question, provide feedback, or report a problem.
How Activist Teachers Recruit Kids - by Abigail Shrier - The Truth Fairy
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 03:57
Incensed parents now make news almost daily, objecting to radical material taught in their children's public schools. But little insight has been provided into the mindset and tactics of activist teachers themselves. That may now be changing, thanks to leaked audio from a meeting of California's largest teacher's union.
Last month, the California Teachers Association (CTA) held a conference advising teachers on best practices for subverting parents, conservative communities and school principals on issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. Speakers went so far as to tout their surveillance of students' Google searches, internet activity, and hallway conversations in order to target sixth graders for personal invitations to LGBTQ clubs, while actively concealing these clubs' membership rolls from participants' parents.
Documents and audio files recently sent to me, and authenticated by three conference participants, permitted a rare insight into the CTA's sold-out event in Palm Springs, held from October 29-31, 2021. The ''2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference, Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities,'' provided best practices workshops that encouraged teachers to ''have the courage to create a safe environment that fosters bravery to explore sexual orientation, gender identity and expression,'' according to the precis of a talk given by fifth grade teacher, C. Scott Miller
''How We Run a 'GSA' in Conservative Communities'' Several of the workshops advised teachers on the creation of middle school LGBTQ clubs (commonly known as ''Gay-Straight Alliance'' clubs or ''GSA''). One workshop'--''Queering in the Middle'''--focused ''on what practices have worked for successful middle school GSAs and children at this age developmentally.''
But what makes for a successful LGBTQ middle school club? What to do about meddlesome parents who don't want their middle schoolers participating in such a club? What if parents ask a club leader'--point blank'--if their child is a member?
''Because we are not official'--we have no club rosters, we keep no records,'' Buena Vista Middle School teacher and LGBTQ-club leader, Lori Caldeira, states on an audio clip sent to me by a conference attendee. ''In fact, sometimes we don't really want to keep records because if parents get upset that their kids are coming? We're like, 'Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they came?' You know, we would never want a kid to get in trouble for attending if their parents are upset.''
The advice to those who run middle school LGBTQ clubs is: keep no records, so you can plead ignorance of the membership with the members' parents. In fact, middle school teacher Kelly Baraki can be heard in the same session describing having named her club ''the Equity Club,'' and then, ''You be You,'' rather than the more ubiquitous ''GSA.''
Caldeira and Baraki '' both middle school teachers '' led a workshop titled: ''How we run a 'GSA' in Conservative Communities.'' The audio recording of their lecture was sent to me by a conference attendee. In that address, the speakers describe the challenges for activist teachers working in the context of a politically mixed community in Central California with many conservative parents.
''We miss them when they don't join us.''The teacher leaders of the LGBTQ club apparently faced a constant problem: How to keep the middle school kids coming back to their group? ''We have LGBTQ kids who come to us, and they come and spend a year with us and they get all the love and the affirmation that they need,'' Caldeira can be heard to say. ''And we give them tools to be powerful and brave and bold'' but then they ''go hang with their friends at lunch. And they do their things. And we love them for that, but we miss them when they don't join us. So we saw our membership numbers start to decline.''
''We totally stalked what they were doing on Google'...''Middle school kids, apparently, did not have endless interest in sitting around with their teachers during lunch discussing their sexual orientations and gender identities. ''So we started to brainstorm at the end of the 2020 school year, what are we going to do? We got to see some kids in-person at the end of last year, not many but a few. So we started to try and identify kids. When we were doing our virtual learning '' we totally stalked what they were doing on Google, when they weren't doing school work. One of them was googling 'Trans Day of Visibility.' And we're like, 'Check.' We're going to invite that kid when we get back on campus. Whenever they follow the Google Doodle links or whatever, right, we make note of those kids and the things that they bring up with each other in chats or email or whatever,'' Baraki can be heard to say. Beyond electronic surveillance of kids' internet use, ''we use our observations of kids in the classroom'--conversations that we hear'--to personally invite students. Because that's really the way we kinda get the bodies in the door. Right? They need sort of a little bit of an invitation,'' Baraki says in the clip.
For those paying attention, the educators who guide California teachers in the creation of middle school LGBTQ clubs asserted the following: they struggle to maintain student participation in the clubs; many parents oppose the clubs; teachers surveil students electronically to ferret out students who might be interested, after which the identified student is recruited to the club via a personal invitation.
''I'm the teacher who runs our morning announcements,'' Caldeira can be heard to volunteer. ''That's another type of strategy I can give you. I'm the one who controls the messaging. Everybody says, 'Oh, Ms. Caldeira, you're so sweet, you volunteered to do that.' Of course I'm so sweet that I volunteered to do that. Because then I control the information that goes home. And for the first time, this year, students have been allowed to put openly LGBT content into our morning announcement slides.''
Caldeira gushes about the student ''team'' she assembled to help with the announcements: ''Three of the kids on the team, two of them are non-binary, and the other one is just very fluid in every way'--she's fabulous. So it's actually a nice group. And the principal, she may flinch, but she [flinches] privately.''
But if students aren't especially interested in attending an LGBTQ club, if the leaders have trouble maintaining membership, if parents oppose them and schools, as Caldeira complains, often fail to support them'--why on earth are teachers pushing them? ''For those of you that are running or are thinking of running your own GSA or GSA-type club, always remember that youth are the drivers of change,'' Caldeira offers. If you want to bring a new world into existence, it seems'--a good place to start is with other people's kids.
''Next year, we're going to do just a little mind-trick on our sixth graders.''On the audio recording, Baraki and Caldeira explain that they give an anti-bullying school presentation every year. ''Let me assure you that the presentation that we gave was 100 percent age appropriate. Literally, definitions: 'If someone is gay, it is a man who is attracted to another man.' Right? 'If somebody is a lesbian, it is a female attracted to another female.' Literally, gave them definitions. We also covered religious differences, race, cultural backgrounds, family status poverty'--everything that is listed in the Parents' Rights handbook, we covered. That is not what kids went home and told their parents, though,'' Caldeira said.
There was parent backlash; Caldeira and Baraki learned from the experience: ''Next year, we're going to do just a little mind-trick on our sixth graders. They were last to go through this presentation and the gender stuff was the last thing we talked about. So next year, they'll be going first with this presentation and the gender stuff will be the first thing they are about. Hopefully to mitigate, you know, these kind of responses, right?'' Baraki can be heard telling the teacher audience. Parents who oppose this material being taught to their sixth graders will find that their objections arrive too late.
A conference attendee told me that Baraki then directed the participants' attention to a parent email objecting to the presentation. The parent had written that she had not intended to have a conversation with her middle schooler about sexual orientation and gender identity, but the school presentation forced her hand. Baraki mocked the parent to her audience: ''I know, so sad, right? Sorry for you, you had to do something hard! Honestly, your twelve-year-old probably knew all that, right?''
One parent objected so strenuously that the principal ''invited them to take their child to a private school that more aligns with them,'' Caldeira can be heard to say. ''So that was a win, right? We count that as a win.'' Then, Caldeira added: ''Plus, I hate to say this, but thank you CTA'--but I have tenure! You can't fire me for running a GSA. And so, you can be mad, but you can't fire me for it. CTA has made it very clear that they are devoted to human rights and equity. They provide us with these sources, these resources and tools.''
Despite the use of these sundry tactics, Caldeira insists to her audience of educators: ''You should know, we've also acted with great integrity in the past several years that we have run [a GSA]. We never crossed a line,'' she says. ''We've wanted to, but we never have.''
I have no reason to believe that these activist educators are part of the gay or transgender communities themselves. For decades, gay Americans lived under the shadow of a vicious calumny that'--if granted full inclusion in society'--they would 'recruit' children. This was, and remains, a lie'--one that was used to justify bigotry, even violence. But taking advantage of Americans' current desire for LGBTQ inclusiveness, California's largest teachers' union seems, perversely, to have perceived the opportunity to coach teachers in student-recruiting tactics.
''What happens in this room, stays in this room.''Caldeira is an award-winning teacher and the leader of her school's Equity Club. She has shared her views publicly before. In a podcast interview on November 5, 2020, Caldeira said much the same: ''And so our Equity Club, we have dealt with issues of race, we have dealt with issues of different religious belief systems. We deal a lot with sexual orientation and gender identity,'' she explains. ''As middle schoolers, that's the age where they are asserting their identity and defining themselves as a separate entity from their parents. And so they are looking, I think, for some guidance on: Is this OK? Can I do this? What does this mean? And so we talk about that.''
As Caldeira said on that podcast, that topics for her Equity Club are selected by her middle schoolers: ''So the kids come, they have something on their mind they want to talk about it and then we have some structures in place for how to have those kind of complicated conversations. And you know, they include those group norms about respect: What happens in this room, stays in this room.'' That might lead parents to an obvious follow-up: Does a middle school child talking to her parents about the content of these meetings constitute a violation of the ''group norms?''
I reached out to Spreckels Union School District'--at which both Caldeira and Baraki teach'--for comment. Neither Superintendent Eric Tarallo nor Buena Vista Middle School Principal Katelyn Pagaran nor Baraki or Caldeira replied to my requests for comment.
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Scientists mystified, wary, as Africa avoids COVID disaster
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 03:42
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) '-- At a busy market in a poor township outside Harare this week, Nyasha Ndou kept his mask in his pocket, as hundreds of other people, mostly unmasked, jostled to buy and sell fruit and vegetables displayed on wooden tables and plastic sheets. As in much of Zimbabwe, here the coronavirus is quickly being relegated to the past, as political rallies, concerts and home gatherings have returned.
''COVID-19 is gone, when did you last hear of anyone who has died of COVID-19?'' Ndou said. ''The mask is to protect my pocket,'' he said. ''The police demand bribes so I lose money if I don't move around with a mask.'' Earlier this week, Zimbabwe recorded just 33 new COVID-19 cases and zero deaths, in line with a recent fall in the disease across the continent, where World Health Organization data show that infections have been dropping since July.
When the coronavirus first emerged last year, health officials feared the pandemic would sweep across Africa, killing millions. Although it's still unclear what COVID-19's ultimate toll will be, that catastrophic scenario has yet to materialize in Zimbabwe or much of the continent.
Scientists emphasize that obtaining accurate COVID-19 data, particularly in African countries with patchy surveillance, is extremely difficult, and warn that declining coronavirus trends could easily be reversed.
But there is something ''mysterious'' going on in Africa that is puzzling scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, chair of global health at Columbia University. ''Africa doesn't have the vaccines and the resources to fight COVID-19 that they have in Europe and the U.S., but somehow they seem to be doing better,'' she said.
Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as ''one of the least affected regions in the world'' in its weekly pandemic reports.
Some researchers say the continent's younger population -- the average age is 20 versus about 43 in Western Europe '-- in addition to their lower rates of urbanization and tendency to spend time outdoors, may have spared it the more lethal effects of the virus so far. Several studies are probing whether there might be other explanations, including genetic reasons or past infection with parasitic diseases.
On Friday, researchers working in Uganda said they found COVID-19 patients with high rates of exposure to malaria were less likely to suffer severe disease or death than people with little history of the disease.
''We went into this project thinking we would see a higher rate of negative outcomes in people with a history of malaria infections because that's what was seen in patients co-infected with malaria and Ebola,'' said Jane Achan, a senior research advisor at the Malaria Consortium and a co-author of the study. ''We were actually quite surprised to see the opposite '-- that malaria may have a protective effect.''
Achan said this may suggest that past infection with malaria could ''blunt'' the tendency of people's immune systems to go into overdrive when they are infected with COVID-19. The research was presented Friday at a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Christian Happi, director of the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Redeemer's University in Nigeria, said authorities are used to curbing outbreaks even without vaccines and credited the extensive networks of community health workers.
''It's not always about how much money you have or how sophisticated your hospitals are,'' he said.
Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, said African leaders haven't gotten the credit they deserve for acting quickly, citing Mali's decision to close its borders before COVID-19 even arrived.
''I think there's a different cultural approach in Africa, where these countries have approached COVID with a sense of humility because they've experienced things like Ebola, polio and malaria,'' Sridhar said.
In past months, the coronavirus has pummeled South Africa and is estimated to have killed more than 89,000 people there, by far the most deaths on the continent. But for now, African authorities, while acknowledging that there could be gaps, are not reporting huge numbers of unexpected fatalities that might be COVID-related. WHO data show that deaths in Africa make up just 3% of the global total. In comparison, deaths in the Americas and Europe account for 46% and 29%.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, the government has recorded nearly 3,000 deaths so far among its 200 million population. The U.S. records that many deaths every two or three days.
The low numbers have Nigerians like Opemipo Are, a 23-year-old in Abuja, feeling relieved. ''They said there will be dead bodies on the streets and all that, but nothing like that happened,'' she said.
On Friday, Nigerian authorities began a campaign to significantly expand the West African nation's coronavirus immunization. Officials are aiming to inoculate half the population before February, a target they think will help them achieve herd immunity.
Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist who sits on several WHO advisory groups, suggested Africa might not even need as many vaccines as the West. It's an idea that, while controversial, he says is being seriously discussed among African scientists '-- and is reminiscent of the proposal British officials made last March to let COVID-19 freely infect the population to build up immunity.
That doesn't mean, however, that vaccines aren't needed in Africa.
''We need to be vaccinating all out to prepare for the next wave,'' said Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal, who previously advised the South African government on COVID-19. ''Looking at what's happening in Europe, the likelihood of more cases spilling over here is very high.''
The impact of the coronavirus has also been relatively muted beyond Africa in poor countries like Afghanistan, where experts predicted outbreaks amid ongoing conflict would prove disastrous.
Hashmat Arifi, a 23-year-old student in Kabul, said he hadn't seen anyone wearing a mask in months, including at a recent wedding he attended alongside hundreds of guests. In his university classes, more than 20 students routinely sit unmasked in close quarters.
''I haven't seen any cases of corona lately,'' Arifi said. So far, Afghanistan has recorded about 7,200 deaths among its 39 million people, although little testing was done amid the conflict and the actual numbers of cases and deaths are unknown.
Back in Zimbabwe, doctors were grateful for the respite from COVID-19 '-- but feared it was only temporary.
''People should remain very vigilant,'' warned Dr. Johannes Marisa, president of the Medical and Dental Private Practitioners of Zimbabwe Association. He fears that another coronavirus wave would hit Zimbabwe next month. ''Complacency is what is going to destroy us because we may be caught unaware.''
___
Cheng reported from London. Rahim Faiez in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Chinedu Asadu in Lagos contributed to this report.
Farm laws: India PM Narendra Modi repeals controversial reforms - BBC News
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 03:40
Media caption, Farmers celebrating the repeal of controversial laws
Indian PM Narendra Modi has announced the repeal of three controversial farm laws after a year of protests.
Thousands of farmers had camped at Delhi's borders since last November and dozens died from heat, cold and Covid.
Farmers say the laws will allow the entry of private players in farming and that will hurt their income.
Friday's surprise announcement marks a major U-turn as the government had not taken any initiative to talk to farmers in recent months.
And Mr Modi's ministers have been steadfastly insisting that the laws were good for farmers and there was no question of taking them back.
Farm unions are seeing this as a huge victory. But experts say the upcoming state elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh - both have a huge base of farmers - may have forced the decision.
The announcement on Friday morning came on a day Sikhs - the dominant community in Punjab - are celebrating the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.
In his nationally-televised address, Mr Modi said the farm laws were meant to strengthen the small farmers. "But despite several attempts to explain the benefits to the farmers, we have failed. On the occasion of Guru Purab, the government has decided to repeal the three farm laws," he added.
What did the laws offer?
Taken together, they loosened rules around sale, pricing and storage of farm produce - rules that have protected India's farmers from the free market for decades.
One of the biggest changes was that farmers were allowed to sell their produce at a market price directly to private players - agricultural businesses, supermarket chains and online grocers. Most Indian farmers currently sell the majority of their produce at government-controlled wholesale markets or mandis at assured floor prices (also known as minimum support price or MSP).
Image source, Reuters
Image caption, The farmers were protesting on motorways connecting Delhi to other states
The laws allowed private buyers to hoard food like rice, wheat and pulses for future sales, which only government-authorised agents could do earlier.
The reforms, at least on paper, gave farmers the option of selling outside of this so-called "mandi system". But the protesters said the laws would weaken the farmers and allow private players to dictate prices and control their fate. They said the MSP was keeping many farmers going and without it, many of them will struggle to survive.
They said India's stringent laws around the sale of agricultural produce and high subsidies had protected farmers from market forces for decades and there was no need to change that.
But the government argued that it was time to make farming profitable for even small farmers and the new laws were going to achieve that.
What has the reaction been?
Farmers in Punjab and Haryana are celebrating the news, raising flags of victory and distributing sweets. But they say the fight is not over.
"We have no faith in a verbal promise. Unless we see it in writing that the laws have actually been repealed, we will stay here," Raj Singh Chaudhary, a 99-year-old protester, told the BBC's Salman Ravi.
Image caption, Farmers celebrating at the Delhi-Singhu border
Mr Chaudhary is among hundreds of farmers who have been striking at the Delhi-Ghazipur border for a year.
His view was echoed by Rakesh Tikait, a prominent farmer leader who said they would call off the protest only after the laws were repealed in the winter session of parliament.
Another farmer leader said they needed additional promises from the government around assured prices for their crops to end their protest.
The announcement has stunned political observers as well as those who both support and oppose the laws - many tweeted saying it was a huge victory for the farmers and a "major climbdown" for Mr Modi.
But some farm leaders and economists who saw merit in the laws have expressed disappointment over their repeal. Anil Ghanwat, head of a farmers' union in western India, said it was an "unfortunate" decision driven by political considerations.
Opposition parties welcomed the decision, with Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi calling it "a win against injustice". And West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, took to social media to praise farmers and congratulate them.
BJP members said the decision to repeal the laws had nothing to do with the polls and the decision was taken to end the protest. They did not say if there were plans to bring back the laws in another form later.
Narendra Modi's decision to repeal the contentious farm laws is, at once, a strategic and political move and a belated admission of the government's haste and high-handedness.
The laws had whipped up an unprecedented firestorm of protests in the states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh and posed a real challenge to Mr Modi. They had mobilised farmers and civil society in Sikh-majority Punjab and spread to parts of Uttar Pradesh, states which will see key elections early next year.
By repealing the laws, Mr Modi hopes to regain the confidence of the farmers in general and Sikhs in particular. It would also boost the BJP's chances in the polls.
Click here to read the full analysis.
What led to the repeal?
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella group of some 40 farmers' unions, had refused to back down despite appeals from the government to end their protest.
Farmers continued to block motorways to Delhi through harsh winter and summer months and even through deadly Covid waves. They called for strikes across the country and dozens of them even died due to cold, heat and Covid.
The government initially engaged with them and offered to put the laws in abeyance for two years. But after farmers rejected their overtures, the authorities retreated, preferring to go with the wait-and-watch attitude.
Image source, Reuters
Image caption, Farmers have set up camps on motorways
But two things changed in the last few months.
First, the son of a federal minister allegedly drove his car into a group of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur in Uttar Pradesh in early October. He denied the allegation, but was arrested. Eight people, including four farmers and a journalist, were killed in the incident which sparked outrage across the country and put the government on the back foot.
Second, PM Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is up against strong regional parties in the upcoming elections in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the government knows that angry farmers would hurt the BJP's chances of winning the crucial polls.
Media caption, Protesting India farmers brave cold, heat and Covid
Palmer slaughterhouse under new ownership
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 03:33
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A Palmer slaughterhouse will fully function once again and help increase food security in Alaska, now that a couple from North Pole have become its new owners.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources issued a press release on Friday detailing the sale of Mt. McKinley Meat and Sausage to Todd and Sherrie Elsberry of North Pole, who are the largest producers of pork in the state. Alaska Meat Packers Incorporated, doing business as Alaska Meat, purchased the facility. The Elsberrys are joined by High Caliber Realty and Bill Borden as investors to purchase the slaughterhouse that was established decades ago.
According to the release, only three slaughterhouse facilities exist in Alaska that are approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It is the largest of the three, and the only one capable of serving commercial customers.
Commissioner Corri Feige gave credit to former owner Greg Giannulis, Division of Agriculture Director David Schade and Borden for helping bring the sale to completion.
''This is tremendous news for Alaskans, for many different reasons,'' Feige said in the press release. ''It will help grow a strong ranching industry, provide a secure source of meat, preserve private sector jobs and support investment in our agriculture, shipping, retail, and hospitality sectors. I commend the Elsberry's for stepping up to maintain this vital part of the state economy.''
Feige also said that the facility in Palmer will play a critical role for the agriculture industry. The facility was established as part of the colony in the Matanuska-Susitna region in 1930s, according to the press release, until it was abandoned in 1986. The state of Alaska operated the slaughterhouse until it was again sold to a private owner in 2016, who operated it for four years.
According to Borden, there were was a several month gap between the time the previous owner ceased operation and this new purchase. He noted that the previous owner did start the facility back up a few weeks ago to process some animals, and everything appears to be working fine. Todd and Sherrie Elsberry will officially reopen the slaughterhouse under the new business next week, Borden said.
''Supply disruptions and interstate commerce slowdowns of the past year have made it increasingly clear that Alaskans must look out for ourselves when it comes to protecting our vital food supply chain,'' Gov. Mike Dunleavy is quoted as saying in the press release. ''Maintaining an Alaska-owned, U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved slaughterhouse and meat packing facility of this size is essential to making sure Alaskans can continue to grow, process and enjoy fresh, healthy food.''
Todd Elsberry said he wants to make sure people know that, while he and his wife will use the slaughterhouse to sustain their own business, the facility will be open to anyone who needs it for animal slaughter. All people have to do is call to get on the schedule.
''I want to make sure everybody knows it will be open to the public '-- a USDA slaughter facility and processing '-- open to everyone as it always has been,'' he said.
While the Elsberrys will remain based in North Pole, Alaska Meat will have an on-site manager.
Copyright 2021 KTUU. All rights reserved.
(20) B/R Football on Twitter: "Sergio Ag¼ero will retire from football due to his heart condition, reports @gerardromero. There will be a press conference next week to announce his retirement. What a career ð https://t.co/jW9TFGskyQ" / Twitter
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 03:24
B/R Football : Sergio Ag¼ero will retire from football due to his heart condition, reports @gerardromero.There will be a press c'... https://t.co/2MfF6ihonH
Sat Nov 20 16:40:00 +0000 2021
November ice extent in Chukchi Sea is well above average of past 30 years
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 03:16
By Davis Hovey, KNOM Updated: 1 day ago Published: 1 day ago
Sea ice and open water north of Unalakleet in March 2018. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This article originally appeared at KNOM.org and is republished here with permission.
--------
Through the weekend of Nov. 13, ice extent in the Chukchi Sea was well above the month's average of the last 30 years.
''So far, Chukchi Sea ice is developing much quicker this year than it has in all recent years,'' climatologist Rick Thoman said.
Thoman, with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, has Chukchi Sea ice data going back to 1979. Current sea ice extent in northern Alaska waters is the highest it's been in November since 2001, according to the Sea Ice Index from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
As of Nov. 13, the main ice pack had already reached the northern coast of the Seward Peninsula, Thoman said.
''What we have right now is fairly typical in the sense that ice tends to start to grow out from the Alaska and the Chukotka coast. This year it's actually kind of met down towards the Bering Strait so there's really no open water now just north of the Bering Strait, between Chukotka and the Alaska side,'' Thoman said.
Thoman suspects the rest of open water in the Chukchi Sea could be ice-covered by the end of November.
As of Nov. 17, sea ice in the Bering Sea has covered much of the Eastern Norton Sound, along the coastline of the Seward Peninsula except for an area in front of Nome, and started forming on the southern edge of St. Lawrence Island.
This is much more favorable for Western Alaska compared to the sea ice conditions the region experienced last year. The last couple winters in the Bering and Chukchi seas have featured record low sea ice extents.
All the pieces for sea ice growth, like colder surface temperatures and sustained northern winds, came together this year in the Bering Strait region, Thoman said.
''Really since early October we've been in a persistently cold pattern. Not quite every day was below normal, but most days below normal (temperatures). And so we didn't have our thumbs on the scales with very warm waters that had to be extracted out, and we've had a weather pattern that has been conducive for ice formation.''
Based on current forecast models, the entire Norton Sound could be covered in ice by the end of November. There's also a good chance of sea ice extending all the way south to the Pribilof Islands this winter, which hasn't happened in recent years, according to Thoman.
(20) amber ruffin on Twitter: "In case you needed to be reminded of this after today's verdict. https://t.co/CufF7l3vtw" / Twitter
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 03:00
amber ruffin : In case you needed to be reminded of this after today's verdict. https://t.co/CufF7l3vtw
Sat Nov 20 01:32:47 +0000 2021
Revithd : @ambermruffin @JenAshleyWright Ya but everything you just said was factually wrong. If you watch any of the videos'... https://t.co/APIE0tPFcg
Sun Nov 21 03:00:11 +0000 2021
Joey : @ambermruffin Liberalism is mental disorder'.....
Sun Nov 21 03:00:06 +0000 2021
MorseCoded : @ambermruffin Man this is 100% pure crazy. This is the pga of crazy. I am drunk on how crazy this is. Congratulations whew.
Sun Nov 21 02:59:38 +0000 2021
mojave : @ambermruffin It's also not okay to get the facts wrong, amber.
Sun Nov 21 02:59:01 +0000 2021
Ed Weck : @ambermruffin You are just another person who did not know the facts of the case. You need to do better. Read the facts.
Sun Nov 21 02:58:48 +0000 2021
Matthew Ù : @ambermruffin Countries are built on laws. Not the tears of irrational women.
Sun Nov 21 02:58:40 +0000 2021
TheSadScientist : @ambermruffin She needs acting classes
Sun Nov 21 02:57:32 +0000 2021
Hospitals are busier than ever '-- but not because of COVID - The Boston Globe
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 02:48
Here and across the state, hospitals are busier than at any time during the pandemic. In the emergency department at Massachusetts General Hospital, every bed and hallway are often full and dozens of patients wait to be admitted '-- a situation known as ''capacity disaster.'' Hospitals in the Beth Israel Lahey Health system are postponing some scheduled surgeries to open beds for patients with more urgent needs. In many hospitals, patients are staying longer because they are sicker.
Little of this surge is driven by COVID infections, even as cases rise across the state. Instead, patients are flooding hospitals with every kind of problem '-- heart attacks, strokes, drug overdoses, suicidal thoughts, broken bones, infections, and COVID. Many had put off medical care during the pandemic and came to the hospital only when they could no longer bear to stay home.
As much as hospital leaders had strategized and prepared for the pandemic, they didn't foresee this.
''We didn't quite appreciate how much the delays of care would impact the acuity of illness for patients now,'' said Dr. Ravin Davidoff, chief medical officer at Boston Medical Center. ''We probably underestimated the magnitude of that impact and the volume that we're seeing now.''
Paramedics Ronald Trudeau (left) and Paul Gomes arrive with a patient at the emergency department at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff The soaring need is putting unprecedented stress on hospitals and health care workers who have been contending with the pandemic for 20 months and are already suffering from staffing shortages.
''Virtually every stage of patient care delivery is stressed or near collapse,'' said Dr. Richard Nesto, chief medical officer at Beth Israel Lahey Health.
A combination of factors is fueling the crisis. Many patients had to skip routine medical appointments during the pandemic, and their chronic illnesses, such as heart conditions and diabetes, have worsened. Some were scheduled to have surgery in 2020 but were forced to wait in pain because hospitals canceled their procedures to free up beds for the surge of COVID patients. Some have avoided going to the hospital even with a heart problem, because they've been afraid of exposure to COVID.
Mary Nzuki of Worcester was scheduled to have spine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in April 2020. But her procedure, along with many others, was canceled as hospitals focused on the still-new coronavirus. Bad memories from a previous bout with a life-threatening respiratory infection at first kept Nzuki from rescheduling.
Eventually, the pain in her back became so bad that she could barely get out of bed. She called the Brigham and finally had surgery in August '-- a year and a half after she had initially planned it.
''I was actually well on my way to paralysis if I didn't get the surgery at that point,'' she said.
The long delay hampered her return to good health, she said. She has resumed activities such as cooking, but has to sit to chop vegetables and needs help lifting heavy pots off the stove. Walking can be difficult.
''I'm still limited,'' said Nzuki, 55. ''It's a long process.''
Hospitals are also seeing record numbers of adults and children suffering from mental health conditions '-- a crisis that worsened during the pandemic '-- and hundreds are waiting in emergency departments for psychiatric treatment beds.
The rise in very sick patients is putting as much or more stress on hospitals than the COVID surges, said Nesto, of Beth Israel Lahey. ''What we're going through now is something that's not going to go away,'' he said.
RN Renee Baril prepares to see a patient in the emergency department at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Dr. David F.M. Brown, president of Massachusetts General Hospital, sees two concerning trends among patients now coming to MGH.
One is that some patients who suffered serious health problems, such as heart attacks, initially avoided seeking care because of fears about COVID. These patients survived, but they're living with weaker hearts. So if they face another illness now '--for example, pneumonia '--their treatment may be more intense and recovery more complicated.
Also, because many patients delayed seeing doctors until only recently, they are being diagnosed with illnesses such as cancer that are at more advanced stages, or their chronic conditions have become worse.
''These things were all put off for months and months, and some of them we're still catching up on,'' Brown said. ''As a result, the burden of disease on the population is a little higher. The patients are just sicker than they were two years ago, pre-pandemic.''
During the initial wave of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, hundreds of COVID patients filled MGH's beds. Now, the number is just a fraction of that. But, Brown noted, ''It's not a small number when that means an entire floor of the hospital is dedicated to taking care of a disease that two years ago nobody knew existed.''
Because patients are coming to the hospital sicker, they often stay longer. The average length of stay for MGH patients has increased over the past two years from about seven days to about eight days. This is creating bottlenecks; when one patient stays an extra day, other patients must wait longer for beds.
Dr. Ali S. Raja, interim chair of the emergency department, said patients sometimes wait two or three days in the ER for an inpatient bed. Many spend hours in hallways. There are few opportunities to transfer patients to other hospitals because they, too, are full '-- or close to it.
''We just don't have any other place to put them right now,'' he said.
Dr. David C. Ayers, orthopedist-in-chief at UMass Memorial, said several patients have delayed joint replacement surgeries, reluctant to come to the hospital because of worries about the Delta variant. Now when they do come in, they are in more severe pain and have limited mobility. In one day earlier this month, Ayers operated on two patients who originally planned their procedures for the spring of 2020.
''Some people are still quarantining,'' Ayers said. ''Many people say, 'This is my first time out.'''
He warned that patients shouldn't wait too long to have surgery. ''If you're in so much pain that you stop doing things, that can affect your recovery,'' he said.
Doctors and hospital leaders don't yet know when this rush of sick patients will begin to subside.
RN Nicole Kariko checks a patient's records in the emergency department at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff In the emergency department at UMass Memorial, even with help from temporary workers, the staff is struggling to keep up.
Nurse Nicole Kariko arrives at 7 a.m. for her 8-hour shift, but at least once a week she stays an extra four hours because her colleagues need the help. She eats her lunch quickly while working at her computer, before going back to her patients.
''There's really no breaks here,'' she said. ''You're on your feet for the entire shift.''
Priyanka Dayal McCluskey can be reached at priyanka.mccluskey@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @priyanka_dayal.
COVID-19: stigmatising the unvaccinated is not justified - The Lancet
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 02:46
In the USA and Germany, high-level officials have used the term pandemic of the unvaccinated, suggesting that people who have been vaccinated are not relevant in the epidemiology of COVID-19. Officials' use of this phrase might have encouraged one scientist to claim that ''the unvaccinated threaten the vaccinated for COVID-19''.
1Goldman E How the unvaccinated threaten the vaccinated for COVID-19: a Darwinian perspective.
But this view is far too simple.
There is increasing evidence that vaccinated individuals continue to have a relevant role in transmission. In Massachusetts, USA, a total of 469 new COVID-19 cases were detected during various events in July, 2021, and 346 (74%) of these cases were in people who were fully or partly vaccinated, 274 (79%) of whom were symptomatic. Cycle threshold values were similarly low between people who were fully vaccinated (median 22·8) and people who were unvaccinated, not fully vaccinated, or whose vaccination status was unknown (median 21·5), indicating a high viral load even among people who were fully vaccinated.
2Brown CM Vostok J Johnson H et al.Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infections, including COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections, associated with large public gatherings'--Barnstable County, Massachusetts, July 2021.
In the USA, a total of 10'262 COVID-19 cases were reported in vaccinated people by April 30, 2021, of whom 2725 (26·6%) were asymptomatic, 995 (9·7%) were hospitalised, and 160 (1·6%) died.
3 US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigations TeamCOVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections reported to CDC'--United States, January 1''April 30, 2021.
In Germany, 55·4% of symptomatic COVID-19 cases in patients aged 60 years or older were in fully vaccinated individuals,
4 Robert Koch InstitutW¶chentlicher Lagebericht des RKI zur Coronavirus-Krankheit-2019 (COVID-19)'--14·10·2021'--aktualisierter Stand f¼r Deutschland.
and this proportion is increasing each week. In M¼nster, Germany, new cases of COVID-19 occurred in at least 85 (22%) of 380 people who were fully vaccinated or who had recovered from COVID-19 and who attended a nightclub.
5Von Dolle F M¼nster: Inzwischen 85 Infizierte nach 2G-Party im Club.
People who are vaccinated have a lower risk of severe disease but are still a relevant part of the pandemic. It is therefore wrong and dangerous to speak of a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Historically, both the USA and Germany have engendered negative experiences by stigmatising parts of the population for their skin colour or religion. I call on high-level officials and scientists to stop the inappropriate stigmatisation of unvaccinated people, who include our patients, colleagues, and other fellow citizens, and to put extra effort into bringing society together.
I declare no competing interests.
References 1. Goldman E How the unvaccinated threaten the vaccinated for COVID-19: a Darwinian perspective.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2021;
118 e2114279118 2. Brown CM Vostok J Johnson H et al.Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infections, including COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections, associated with large public gatherings'--Barnstable County, Massachusetts, July 2021.
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2021;
70 : 1059-1062 3. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigations TeamCOVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections reported to CDC'--United States, January 1''April 30, 2021.
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2021;
70 : 792-793 4. Robert Koch InstitutW¶chentlicher Lagebericht des RKI zur Coronavirus-Krankheit-2019 (COVID-19)'--14·10·2021'--aktualisierter Stand f¼r Deutschland.
5. Von Dolle F M¼nster: Inzwischen 85 Infizierte nach 2G-Party im Club.
Article InfoPublication HistoryPublished: 20 November 2021
IdentificationDOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02243-1
Copyright(C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirectAccess this article on ScienceDirect
De Europese coronacheck is een blijvertje, maar blijven twee vaccinaties genoeg? | Trouw
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 01:55
Hij zou tijdelijk zijn, een jaar, maar nu lijkt hij toch te blijven. De Europese Commissie werkt aan een permanent coronacertificaat. Hij moet ook anders: twee vaccinaties zijn waarschijnlijk niet genoeg om een QR-code te behouden.
Romana Abels 20 november 2021 , 10:42 Het is de trots van Ursula von der Leyen, het paradepaardje van de Europese Unie. Bijna iedere dag zegt de Europese Commissie wel ergens dat het digitale covidcertificaat, de QR-code die vertelt hoeveel vaccinaties iemand heeft gehad, een eclatant succes is. ''Het is de standaard geworden voor de wereld'', zei de Europese directeur-generaal voor gezondheidszaken Ana Gallego Torres donderdag nog tegen het Europees Parlement.
Ze riep in herinnering dat het certificaat de Europese burgers de mogelijkheid heeft gegeven om in 2021 op zomervakantie te gaan. Dat de QR-code van vitaal belang is geweest om de Europese interne markt tijdens de pandemie overeind te houden. Ze zei dat 49 landen er gebruik van maken, veel meer dus dan alleen de 27 Europese lidstaten, dat het certificaat makkelijk te gebruiken is en veilig met gegevens omgaat.
Lappendeken aan verschillende regels Maar het is de vraag hoe lang Brussel dat succesverhaal nog overeind kan houden, nu steeds meer landen extra eisen gaan stellen. In de meeste landen gaan die extra eisen over binnenlands gebruik van de codes - daar mogen Europese landen zelf over beslissen. Maar een lappendeken aan verschillende regels ondermijnt wel het idee achter een uniform covidcertificaat. Gallego Torres kondigde daarom aan dat binnenkort aanpassingen van het certificaat zullen komen.
Het ligt in de lijn der verwachtingen dat een booster verplicht gaat worden om het certificaat geldig te houden. De huidige digitale certificaten zijn (C)(C)n jaar geldig, tot in juni 2022. Toen dat werd bedacht, was er nog niet zoveel bekend over de afnemende werkzaamheid van het vaccin bij de verschillende varianten van het virus.
De Griekse premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis drong donderdag op de nationale televisie al aan op aanpassing van de QR-codes. Volgens hem moet de code na zes maanden verlopen, tenzij iemand een vaccinatie-booster heeft gehaald. Met zo'n derde prik kan een burger weer een half jaar langer door de EU reizen. ''Op die manier kunnen we de scheur in de muur van immuniteit die nu op ons continent is ontstaan, voortaan voorkomen.''
Beeld EPA
Verversing van de regels Mitsotakis heeft zijn voorstel naar Europees Commissievoorzitter Ursula von der Leyen gestuurd. In 2020 was hij ook de eerste Europese leider die een universeel coronapaspoort voor de EU voorstelde. Dat is later het digitale covidcertificaat geworden, in Nederland bekend als de coronacheck.
''We kijken naar verversing van de regels'', zei een woordvoerder van de Europese Commissie eerder deze week al. De website Euractiv tekende van een anonieme bron op dat de Commissie de lidstaten gaat voorstellen om het certificaat een jaar na de laatste vaccinatie te laten vervallen. Misschien wordt onder Griekse druk die periode korter: naar alle waarschijnlijkheid zullen de Europese lidstaten daar op een top half december over gaan beslissen.
In het Europees Parlement, dat volgende week in Straatsburg opnieuw over deze kwestie praat, leven intussen veel vragen over de ethische en praktische kanten van het certificaat, als dat langer dan gepland in het leven van Europeanen zal blijven.
Herstel lijkt langduriger bescherming te bieden Zo wil Jeroen Lenaers (CDA) weten of ook de certificaten van mensen die zijn hersteld van een Covid-19-infectie zullen vervallen, of dat die certificaten langer geldig kunnen blijven. ''Herstel lijkt langduriger bescherming te bieden dan een vaccin'', zei hij.
Tineke Strik van de Europese Groenen wil weten of het zetten van boosters betekent dat landen waar mensen nog amper vaccins hebben gekregen, nog langer moeten wachten op hun prik.
Lees ook: Europa kijkt bij elkaar af voor beste recept tegen corona: 3G, 2G of toch verplicht vaccineren? Oostenrijk gaat als eerste EU-lid vaccinatie verplichten voor de hele bevolking. Maar ook andere Europese landen voeren de druk op ongevaccineerden op.
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Three in hospital after police fire on Dutch COVID-19 protesters | Reuters
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 01:42
Register now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.comTHE HAGUE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Three people were being treated in hospital in Rotterdam on Saturday after they were seriously injured when Dutch police fired shots during a violent protest against COVID-19 measures, authorities said.
Crowds of several hundred rioters torched cars, set off fireworks and threw rocks at police during the protests on Friday evening. Police responded with warning shots and water canons.
Rotterdam police posted on Twitter on Saturday that 51 people had been arrested, half of whom were under 18.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.com"Three rioters were wounded when they were hit by bullets, they remain in hospital," police added, in an update after earlier reporting two wounded.
Authorities are investigating the shootings including whether the wounded people where hit by police bullets, they added.
The city's mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, said the protest had turned into "an orgy of violence."
"Police were forced to draw their weapons and even fire direct shots," he told a news conference early on Saturday.
Dutch Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said in a statement the "extreme violence" against police and firefighters in Rotterdam was "repulsive."
People protest during demonstrations against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) measures in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 20, 2021. REUTERS/Eva Plevier
"The right to protest is very important in our society but what we saw last night was simply criminal behaviour," Grapperhaus said.
Protesters had gathered to voice opposition to government plans to restrict access to indoor venues to people who have a "corona pass," showing they have been vaccinated or have already recovered from an infection.
The pass is also available to people who have not been vaccinated, but have proof of a negative test.
In several towns in the Netherlands on Saturday evening there were small pockets of unrest as youths clashed with police.
In The Hague, riot police used water canons to clear part of the central Schilderswijk area after rioters threw fireworks at police and damaged traffic lights, local police said on Twitter.
There was a heavy police presence in several other major towns after social media calls to riot followed the Rotterdam clashes, but any further violence was largely contained, with only a handful of arrests, Dutch media reported.
Organisers of a protest that had been planned in Amsterdam on Saturday against the coronavirus measures said they had canceled the event after Friday's violence.
Even so, several thousand protesters showed up for a march around the city's central Dam square. The march remained peaceful, monitored by a heavy police presence.
The Netherlands reimposed some lockdown measures last weekend for an initial three weeks in an effort to slow a resurgence of coronavirus contagion, but daily infections have remained at their highest levels since the start of the pandemic. read more
Register now for FREE unlimited access to reuters.com Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg in The Hague and Anthony Deutsch in AmsterdamEditing by Jonathan Oatis and Matthew Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
App outage locks hundreds of Tesla drivers out of cars | Tesla | The Guardian
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 23:09
Show caption Elon Musk said Tesla was taking measures to ensure the problem does not happen again. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images
TeslaDozen of motorists report error as company's CEO, Elon Musk, apologises on Twitter
Reuters
Sat 20 Nov 2021 12.38 EST
Hundreds of Tesla drivers were locked out of their cars at the start of the weekend after the manufacturer's mobile app suffered an outage '' and dozens voiced their complaints on social media.
Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive, said on Friday that the company's mobile application was coming back online after the app server outage. Musk was responding to a Tesla owner's tweet, who said that he was experiencing a ''500 server error'' to connect his Model 3 through the iOS app in Seoul, South Korea.
Should be coming back online now. Looks like we may have accidentally increased verbosity of network traffic.Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn't happen again.
'-- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2021 ''Should be coming back online now. Looks like we may have accidentally increased verbosity of network traffic,'' Musk said.
The outage was first reported by specialist electric vehicle website Electrek, which started receiving reports from Tesla owners in the US and Canada, then from Europe and Asia.
About 500 users reported they faced an error at about 4.40pm ET (9.40pm GMT), according to outage monitoring website Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from a series of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. There were just over 60 reports by about 9.20pm ET.
''Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn't happen again,'' Musk said on Twitter.
According to Electek, Tesla's systems rarely have outages, though the website said that, in September 2020, the company had experienced a complete outage of both its customer-facing servers and internal system for several hours.
Stuart Masson, editor of the Car Expert website, told the BBC that Tesla drivers were not entirely reliant on the app. ''There will be a secondary mechanism to get in or out of the car beyond the app, the difficulty will come for drivers if they are not carrying it,'' he said.
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150 Arrested in Operation Dark HunTor, Millions in Drugs, Weapons, and Trafficked Currency Seized
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 23:00
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team joined Europol to arrest 150 people worldwide in Operation Dark HunTor, an effort that seized weapons, drugs and more than $31 million in currencies.
Operation Dark HunTor included arrests across three continents, taking into custody alleged perpetrators across the United States, Australia, and Europe.
A statement from the DOJ noted 65 arrests in the United States, one in Bulgaria, three in France, 47 in Germany, four in the Netherlands, 24 in the United Kingdom, four in Italy, and two in Switzerland.
''This 10-month massive international law enforcement operation spanned across three continents and involved dozens of U.S. and international law enforcement agencies to send one clear message to those hiding on the Darknet peddling illegal drugs: there is no dark internet. We can and we will shine a light,'' Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said.
''Operation Dark HunTor prevented countless lives from being lost to this dangerous trade in illicit and counterfeit drugs, because one pill can kill. The Department of Justice with our international partners will continue to crack down on lethal counterfeit opioids purchased on the Darknet,'' she added.
The emphasis in the operation was to decrease the flow of illegal drugs internationally. The results included $31.6 million in both cash and virtual currencies; approximately 234 kilograms (kg) of drugs worldwide including 152.1 kg of amphetamine, 21.6 kg of cocaine, 26.9 kg of opioids, and 32.5 kg of MDMA, in addition to more than 200,000 ecstasy, fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methamphetamine pills, and counterfeit medicine; and 45 firearms, according to the statement.
''The men and women of the department's Criminal Division, in close collaboration with our team of interagency and international partners, stand ready to leverage all our resources to protect our communities through the pursuit of those who profit from addiction, under the false belief that they are anonymous on the Darknet,'' Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said.
''Only through a whole of government and, in this case, global approach to tackling cyber-enabled drug trafficking can we hope to achieve the significant results illustrated in Operation Dark HunTor,'' he added.
FBI Director Christopher Wray also commented on the widespread, multi-national operation and its impact.
''The FBI'¯continues to identify and bring to justice drug dealers who believe they can hide their illegal activity through the Darknet,'' Wray said in the statement.
''Criminal Darknet markets exist so drug dealers can profit at the expense of others' safety. The FBI is committed to working with our'¯ JCODE and'¯EUROPOL '¯law enforcement'¯partners to disrupt those markets and the'¯borderless, worldwide trade in illicit drugs they enable,'' he added.
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Christopher Burroughs reports on breaking news for The Epoch Times.
Biden's Bounty on Your Life: Hospitals' Incentive Payments for COVID-19 - AAPS | Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 22:56
By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. and Ali Shultz, J.D. '' https://www.truthforhealth.org/
Upon admission to a once-trusted hospital, American patients with COVID-19 become virtual prisoners, subjected to a rigid treatment protocol with roots in Ezekiel Emanuel's ''Complete Lives System'' for rationing medical care in those over age 50. They have a shockingly high mortality rate. How and why is this happening, and what can be done about it?
As exposed in audio recordings, hospital executives in Arizona admitted meeting several times a week to lower standards of care, with coordinated restrictions on visitation rights. Most COVID-19 patients' families are deliberately kept in the dark about what is really being done to their loved ones.
The combination that enables this tragic and avoidable loss of hundreds of thousands of lives includes (1) The CARES Act, which provides hospitals with bonus incentive payments for all things related to COVID-19 (testing, diagnosing, admitting to hospital, use of remdesivir and ventilators, reporting COVID-19 deaths, and vaccinations) and (2) waivers of customary and long-standing patient rights by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
In 2020, the Texas Hospital Association submitted requests for waivers to CMS. According to Texas attorney Jerri Ward, ''CMS has granted 'waivers' of federal law regarding patient rights. Specifically, CMS purports to allow hospitals to violate the rights of patients or their surrogates with regard to medical record access, to have patient visitation, and to be free from seclusion.'' She notes that ''rights do not come from the hospital or CMS and cannot be waived, as that is the antithesis of a 'right.' The purported waivers are meant to isolate and gain total control over the patient and to deny patient and patient's decision-maker the ability to exercise informed consent.''
Creating a ''National Pandemic Emergency'' provided justification for such sweeping actions that override individual physician medical decision-making and patients' rights. The CARES Act provides incentives for hospitals to use treatments dictated solely by the federal government under the auspices of the NIH. These ''bounties'' must paid back if not ''earned'' by making the COVID-19 diagnosis and following the COVID-19 protocol.
The hospital payments include:
A ''free'' required PCR test in the Emergency Room or upon admission for every patient, with government-paid fee to hospital.Added bonus payment for each positive COVID-19 diagnosis.Another bonus for a COVID-19 admission to the hospital.A 20 percent ''boost'' bonus payment from Medicare on the entire hospital bill for use of remdesivir instead of medicines such as Ivermectin.Another and larger bonus payment to the hospital if a COVID-19 patient is mechanically ventilated.More money to the hospital if cause of death is listed as COVID-19, even if patient did not die directly of COVID-19.A COVID-19 diagnosis also provides extra payments to coroners.CMS implemented ''value-based'' payment programs that track data such as how many workers at a healthcare facility receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Now we see why many hospitals implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates. They are paid more.
Outside hospitals, physician MIPS quality metrics link doctors' income to performance-based pay for treating patients with COVID-19 EUA drugs. Failure to report information to CMS can cost the physician 4% of reimbursement.
Because of obfuscation with medical coding and legal jargon, we cannot be certain of the actual amount each hospital receives per COVID-19 patient. But Attorney Thomas Renz and CMS whistleblowers have calculated a total payment of at least $100,000 per patient.
What does this mean for your health and safety as a patient in the hospital?
There are deaths from the government-directed COVID treatments. For remdesivir, studies show that 71''75 percent of patients suffer an adverse effect, and the drug often had to be stopped after five to ten days because of these effects, such as kidney and liver damage, and death. Remdesivir trials during the 2018 West African Ebola outbreak had to be discontinued because death rate exceeded 50%. Yet, in 2020, Anthony Fauci directed that remdesivir was to be the drug hospitals use to treat COVID-19, even when the COVID clinical trials of remdesivir showed similar adverse effects.
In ventilated patients, the death toll is staggering. A National Library of Medicine January 2021 report of 69 studies involving more than 57,000 patients concluded that fatality rates were 45 percent in COVID-19 patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation, increasing to 84 percent in older patients. Renz announced at a Truth for Health Foundation Press Conference that CMS data showed that in Texas hospitals, 84.9% percent of all patients died after more than 96 hours on a ventilator.
Then there are deaths from restrictions on effective treatments for hospitalized patients. Renz and a team of data analysts have estimated that more than 800,000 deaths in America's hospitals, in COVID-19 and other patients, have been caused by approaches restricting fluids, nutrition, antibiotics, effective antivirals, anti-inflammatories, and therapeutic doses of anti-coagulants.
We now see government-dictated medical care at its worst in our history since the federal government mandated these ineffective and dangerous treatments for COVID-19, and then created financial incentives for hospitals and doctors to use only those ''approved'' (and paid for) approaches.
Our formerly trusted medical community of hospitals and hospital-employed medical staff have effectively become ''bounty hunters'' for your life. Patients need to now take unprecedented steps to avoid going into the hospital for COVID-19.
Patients need to take active steps to plan before getting sick to use early home-based treatment of COVID-19 that can help you save your life.
Texas could repeat its electricity crisis if extreme weather hits this winter - CNN
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:52
Mark Majkrzak gives out water bottles to people in Austin, Texas, on Friday, February 19. Majkrzak, the founder of Rain Pure Mountain Spring Water, said he drove from Georgia to deliver the water.
Brendan Waldon repairs a utility pole in Odessa, Texas, on Thursday, February 18.
Deloris Sanchez and Mallissa Lee sit on a couch while taking shelter at a Gallery Furniture store that was serving as a warming station in Houston.
Vehicles are at a standstill Thursday on Interstate 35 in Killeen, Texas.
City workers repair a busted water main in McComb, Mississippi, on Thursday.
Metropolitan Transit Authority workers shovel the stairs of a subway station in New York City on Thursday.
Emanuale Small walks up to a bus station in Roanoke, Virginia, on Thursday. Small had to make it to a doctor's appointment, and he was told they would push the time back a little for him so he could still make it despite the icy conditions.
People take refuge at a shelter in Galveston, Texas, on Thursday.
Cars drive slowly on an icy road in Washington, DC, on Thursday.
Jose Blanco fills a cooler with water from a public park spigot in Houston on Thursday. Houston and several surrounding cities were under a boil-water notice.
Snow falls in New York's Times Square on Thursday.
Snow is plowed outside the US Capitol on Thursday.
Jonathan Callahan expresses his gratitude after being referred to the warming shelter at the Johnnie Champion Community Center in Jackson, Mississippi, on Wednesday, February 17. Some people staying at the shelter had lost power, water and heat at their homes following the winter storms. Others were homeless. Food, blankets and cots were provided.
Charles Andrews walks home through his neighborhood in Waco, Texas, on Wednesday. Millions of people were still without power.
Nathan Halaney and Katherine Pena help their neighbor, Brenda Davis, from the scene of a nearby structure fire in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday.
Eric Traugott warms up his young son, Eric Jr., beside a fire made from a discarded wooden armoire outside of their apartment in Austin on Wednesday.
Downed and broken trees are seen over a rest stop in Huntington, West Virginia, on Wednesday.
Sara Castillo loads firewood into her car in Dallas on Wednesday. Castillo's family lost their power on Sunday.
Customers wait outside a Home Depot to buy supplies in Pearland, Texas, on Wednesday. The store would let only one person in at a time because it had no power.
A family in Austin melts snow on their stove so that they could have water to flush toilets and wash dishes on Wednesday. Their electricity had been restored, but they still didn't have running water.
Kendra Clements visits dog owner Billy Madden -- with his dogs Leroy Brown and Underdog -- at Tribe Gym, an Oklahoma City gym that has been turned into a temporary homeless shelter.
Manessa Grady adjusts an oil lamp while spending time with her sons Zechariah and Noah at their home in Austin on Tuesday, February 16.
Maria Patterson breastfeeds her infant daughter Tuesday at their home in Austin, which hadn't had power since Sunday night.
Electric service trucks line up in Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday.
Karla Perez and Esperanza Gonzalez warm up by a barbecue grill after their power was knocked out in Houston on Tuesday.
Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon stands on his kitchen counter to warm his feet over his gas stove in Austin.
Sunlight filters through steam in Omaha, Nebraska, where temperatures dropped below zero on Tuesday.
Camilla Swindle sits in a shopping cart as she and her boyfriend wait in a long line to enter a grocery store in Austin on Tuesday.
Brett Archibad entertains his family as they try to stay warm in their home in Pflugerville, Texas, on Tuesday.
Residents clear snow from a sidewalk in Chicago on Tuesday.
Customers use light from a cell phone as they shop for meat at a grocery store in Dallas on Tuesday. Even though the store lost power, it was open for cash-only sales.
A United Airlines jet is de-iced at the George Bush International Airport in Houston.
A snow plow clears a parking lot in Columbus, Ohio, early on Tuesday.
City worker Kaleb Love works to clear ice from a water fountain in Richardson, Texas, on Tuesday.
Steam rises off the frozen Missouri River in Kansas City.
Bethany Fischer washes her face as her husband, Nic, lies on a mattress at a church in Houston on Tuesday. The couple lost power to their home.
Homes in the Westbury neighborhood of Houston are covered in snow on Monday, February 15.
James Derrick, who is homeless, peeks out of his tent in Oklahoma City on Monday. The city had gone a record five days without climbing over 20 degrees, and it wasn't expected to top that temperature until Thursday.
Motorists take it slow in Indianapolis on Monday.
A city employee clears sidewalks in South Bend, Indiana, on Monday.
Austin, Texas, is blanketed in snow on Monday.
Eithan Colindres wears a winter coat inside after his family's apartment lost power in Houston on Monday.
Two women cross Main Street as snow falls in Bowling Green, Ohio, on Monday.
A boy feeds his pigs in St. Joe, Arkansas, on Monday.
Ice coats a road sign in Midland, Texas, on Monday.
Kirk Caudill shovels snow in Louisville, Kentucky.
Vehicles clear ice at the international airport in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday.
Crews unload snow that they removed from city streets in Oklahoma City.
People help a stuck motorist in Oklahoma City on Monday.
People walk on a snowy road in Austin on Monday.
Men shovel ice and snow in front of shops in Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday.
A few cars drive in San Angelo, Texas, on Sunday, February 14.
People enter a Covid-19 testing site in Seattle on Saturday, February 13. Seattle reported more than 11 inches of snow over the weekend, its most since January 1972.
Harrison Walsh skis by Seattle's Pike Place Market on Saturday.
Cars drive along Interstate 705 as snow falls in Tacoma, Washington, on Saturday.
Big fuss about alleged farewell letter from Chemnitz clinic boss | DAY24
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:44
Der Tod des Chemnitzer Klinikum-Gesch¤ftsf¼hrers wird im Netz offenbar von Impfgegnern f¼r piet¤tlose Unterstellungen und Spekulationen missbraucht.
Chemnitz - Vor etwa zwei Wochen ersch¼tterte der tragische Tod Dr. Thomas Jendges (' 55) ganz Chemnitz. Der Chef des Chemnitzer Klinikums st¼rzte sich laut TAG24-Informationen vom Krankenhaus-Geb¤ude an der Flemmingstrae. Er starb vor Ort an seinen schweren Verletzungen. Nun sorgt ein angeblicher Abschiedsbrief im Netz f¼r m¤chtig Wirbel.
Dr. Thomas Jendges (' 55) war erst seit dem 1. Oktober 2021 alleiniger Gesch¤ftsf¼hrer des Chemnitzer Klinikums. Etwa ein Monat sp¤ter starb er nach einem Sprung vom Klinik-Geb¤ude. (C) Klinikum ChemnitzSeit Tagen geistern Berichte ¼ber einen angeblichen Abschiedsbrief durch s¤mtliche Online-Plattformen.
Die zentrale Aussage: Der verstorbene 55-J¤hrige habe sich umgebracht, um ein Zeichen gegen die Corona-Impfungen zu setzen. Diese seien "Biokampfstoffe", so heit es in den Postings. Auch soll er die Vakzine in seinem Brief als V¶lkermord und Verbrechen an der Menschlichkeit bezeichnet haben.
Weiterhin wird behauptet, dass Oberb¼rgermeister Sven Schulze (50, SPD) dem Klinik-Chef mit einer K¼ndigung gedroht habe, "wenn er im Krankenhaus Impfungen nicht an Patienten durchf¼hren sollte". Zudem soll der Oberb¼rgermeister die Ver¶ffentlichung des Abschiedsbriefs bisher verhindert haben, heit es.
Alles falsch! Denn einen solchen Abschiedsbrief soll es nicht gegeben haben. Auf Nachfrage der dpa best¤tigte ein Sprecher des B¼rgermeisters diese Woche: "Nein, uns ist kein Abschiedsbrief bekannt."
Auch die Polizei best¤tigte diese Woche, dass ihnen kein Abschiedsbrief bekannt sei.
Die Einsatzkr¤fte r¼ckten am 2. November zum Chemnitzer Klinikum aus. Dr. Thomas Jendges war zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits tot. (C) Haertelpress Diese Meldung geistert seit Tagen durchs Netz. (C) Screenshot/Telegram Klinik-Chef sprach sich f¼r Corona-Impfungen aus Der Klinik-Chef sprach sich Ende August ¶ffentlich f¼r die Corona-Impfungen aus (Symbolbild). (C) Nicolas Armer/dpaAuerdem hatte sich der Klinik-Chef vor seinem Tod sogar ¶ffentlich f¼r die Corona-Impfungen ausgesprochen.
Ende August, zur geplanten Er¶ffnung einer zentralen Impfstelle am Klinikum, sagte Jendges: "Mit dem Impfangebot wollen wir gemeinsam mit der Stadt die Corona-Pandemie weiter eind¤mmen. Impfen reduziert die Gefahr einer Infektion und einer schweren Erkrankung an SARS-CoV-2 ganz erheblich."
Und weiter: "Deshalb bieten wir diese niedrigschwellige M¶glichkeit zur Impfung gern an."
Die Online-Berichte ¼ber den angeblichen Abschiedsbrief sind damit widerlegt worden. Offenbar kam die Fake-News von Impfgegnern, die den Tod des Klinik-Chefs f¼r ihre Impf-Hetze missbrauchten - piet¤tlos!
Auch die Website "mimikama.at", die Fake-Meldungen entlarvt, kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass es sich zum eine "unbewiesene Behauptung" handelt.
So ¤uerte sich die Stadt Chemnitz Anfang November zum Tod von Dr. Thomas Jendges'ber den tragischen Tod des Gesch¤ftsf¼hrers des Klinikums Chemnitz war Oberb¼rgermeister Sven Schulze tief betroffen: "Meine Gedanken und mein tiefstes Mitgef¼hl sind in diesen Minuten bei seiner Familie und seinen Freunden."
Gleichzeitig versicherte er dem Klinikum Unterst¼tzung seitens der Stadt in dieser kritischen Situation.
Normalerweise berichtet TAG24 nicht ¼ber Suizide. Da sich der Vorfall aber im ¶ffentlichen Raum abgespielt hat und es sich um eine Pers¶nlichkeit des ¶ffentlichen Lebens handelt, hat sich die Redaktion entschieden, ihn doch zu thematisieren.Solltet Ihr selbst von Selbstt¶tungsgedanken betroffen sein, findet Ihr bei der Telefonseelsorge rund um die Uhr Ansprechpartner, nat¼rlich auch anonym. Telefonseelsorge: 08001110111 oder 08001110222 oder 08001110116123.
Mehr zum Thema Chemnitz Lokal:
Als Chemnitzer f¼r Radio DT64 k¤mpften Coronavirus in Chemnitz: Inzidenz in Stadt steigt auf 700,5 Chemnitzer Schlobergmuseum zeigt Sammlungs-Sch¤tzchen
Germany | Dr Thomas Jendges Head of Clinic, Commits Suicide ''COVID-19 Vaccine Is a Genocide'' | STESS News
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:42
I picked up a dose of a viral infection the day before yesterday, it might have been when I was out shopping or at the doctor's surgery '' I have NOT had the vaccine and won't if I can avoid it ''here''
I had the peppery feeling in my nose, which usually suggests a cold, so I did my salt water sniffle, which I repeat below, and had a slight reaction to the salt, so I did my salt water treatment again, straight afterwards and this time I had a strong reaction to the salt, from my left nostril right up into my hair line '' I would describe it best if I could have split my head in two equal halves, the left half was the sore side, in my brain and to the top of my skull the right half was clear '' I have NEVER had that experience previously with my salt water sniffle.
I left the salt in my head for another couple of hours and I had a slight head-achy feel at the top part of my head, which another salt water cure erased and afterwards I blew out my nose and flushed away, washing my hands afterwards.
This morning I had my salt water sniffle and no reaction at all to it, which means I had cleared the viral infection and just to be sure I had another salt water sniffle a couple of hours ago and still OK, so I have passed the virus '' killed it dead in my head and of course I won't get Covid anything '' bearing in mind that the virus could have been for any viral illness, Alzheimers, Chicken Pox, Legionnaires Disease, The Flu or Coronavirus relating to Covid or just about anything '' have to see if any ''new'' viral infection is reported locally over the next few days or so.
My point being that if you think you have even the slightest reason to think you have picked up a viral infection, do my free salt water cure and stay healthy and safe, because this works and why I never get sick from viruses these past 27 years and I never have vaccines for Flu or Coronavirus type illnesses '' because I remain well and am never ill, so what is the point?
The assumption is that the only way to deal with Covid, is after it arrives as Covid in your body, after the initial cold infection, in your head, some 20 days earlier
.Why is that?
Kill the Flu or Coronavirus in the head, soon after getting the virus in the nasal passages inside the head, the brain bulb and brain stem, etc, with my free salt water cure, which flushes out the nasal passages (so no Long Covid) and kills off the Coronavirus infection, immediately, or during the 10 to 14 days of self isolation.
No infection in the head, no Covid '' it is as simple as that.
Then the purpose and functions of the vaccines, ceases to be a problem and you simply can't get sick and won't ever get Covid.
Mix one heaped teaspoon of ''iodine'' table or sea salt in a mug of warm or cold ''clean'' water, cup a hand and pour some of the solution in, then sniff or snort that mugful up into your nose, spitting out everything which comes down into your mouth, from the back of your throat, by so doing, you flush out your nasal cavity, where Coronavirus lives.
If you get a burning sensation (which lasts for 2-3 minutes) then you have a Coronavirus infection.
When the soreness goes away, blow out your head with toilet paper and flush away, washing your hands afterwards and continue doing my salt clean water nasal cavity flush cure, morning, noon and night, or more often, if you want, until, when you do my free salt water cure, you don't experience any soreness at all in your nasal cavity inside your head.
While you are at it, swallow a couple of mouthfuls and if you get a burning sensation in your chest, then you are killing the Covid/Pneumonia there too, so keep it up, each time you do a salt water sniffle, until the soreness in your head and lungs goes away '' job done.
When you flush your head with the salt water remedy, it should feel like you are flushing your head with water '' no reaction felt at all.
I have been doing this for 27 years and I am never ill from viruses and there is no reason for anyone else to be either and of course, I never have vaccines '' what is the point?
You don't need to be tested to see if you have a head infection, you will know instantly if you have or not, with my free salt water cure
We will need a cure for Coronavirus or the Flu, which everyone will get sooner or later and this is it '' my Covid Crusher.
Pass it around to everyone and take credit for it yourself, if you want.
Richard.
Covid is not ever going away, it is just going to get stronger and more effective in killing you and like the latest variant R.30, it overpowers vaccines easy, it is not a matter of how, but when, it, or something similar, decides to kill YOU.''Endemic'' is a polite way of washing hands of the situation and passing the buck to you, the job has been done, everyone is vaccinated (not me) '' now we have to find out why?What it means to have a Covid jab '' never been used in humans before, never been tested in lab animals, not known what the outcome will be, not responsible for whatever it does, your health and financial issues your problem, once in can't take out, might kill you sooner or later, possibly give you life threatening injuries which will kill you eventually and it lasts for 2-6 months and then you have to have booster shots, for as long as it lets you live and it took a couple of hours to design on a home computer AND you are ordered to take it, bullied, threatened and isolated by your government if you don't.Now you have a cure for all viruses, which is free and costs nothing to do, which works 100% and it has not killed or injured anyone, over the past 27 years I/We have been doing it and you can't ever get Covid or viruses, anything, because that is a physical impossibility AND it is the only way to stop the ''Coronavirus'' pandemic dead, long before it gets to be Covid AND for free!!Covid Crusher: Mix one heaped teaspoon of Iodine table or sea salt in a mug of warm clean water, cup a hand and sniff or snort the entire mugful up your nose, spitting out anything which comes down into your mouth. If sore, then you have a virus, so continue morning noon and night, or more often if you want, until the soreness goes away (2-3 minutes) then blow out your nose and flush away, washing your hands afterwards, until when you do my simple cure, you don't have any soreness at all, when you flush '' job done. Also swallow a couple of mouthfuls of salt water and if you have burning in your lungs, salt killing virus and pneumonia there too.My simple salt water cure, kills all Coronaviruses and viruses, as soon as you think you have an infection, or while self isolating, before the viruses mutate into the disease in your head and body, for which there is no cure.In another life, I am a jumper too, lucky for me, I had an out of body experience before I jumped, otherwise I would not be ''here'' now!!Richard
Mike Lindell announces election lawsuit will be brought to Supreme Court on November 23 '' Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN)
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:38
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell announced that multiple state attorneys general will bring an election fraud lawsuit before the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday, Nov. 23.
Lindell told RSBN in September that he planned to bring the case before the nation's highest court by Thanksgiving, hoping that the court would then completely nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Mike Lindell stated that he hopes the U.S. Supreme Court nullifies the results of the 2020 presidential election, hoping that the court ousts President Joe Biden from the White House and reinstate President Donald Trump.Lindell revealed that rather than suing on behalf of himself, the states involved in the lawsuit will be considered ''plaintiffs,'' and he wanted as many state attorneys general as possible involved in the lawsuit to put pressure on the court.
According to the MyPillow CEO, at least six state attorneys general are on board with the lawsuit, although he said that he could possibly get support from as many as 30. Lindell also explained that he would not reveal the names of those attorneys general currently on board because he feared they would be attacked by the news media.
Lindell told the HuffPost earlier this month that all of the attorneys general would sign the lawsuit together on November 23 before officially filing it with the U.S. Supreme Court at 9:00 a.m. Lindell told RSBN that he believed the court would vote unanimously to examine at the lawsuit.
''I believe it'll be voted nine to zero'--that they're going to vote to look at it,'' Lindell told RSBN. ''If we don't get rid of these [Dominion Voting Systems] machines and fix 2020 first, we don't ever have another election again.''
The U.S. Supreme Court had previously rejected a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in December of 2020 after he called for the court to invalidate the election results from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which reportedly made last-minute changes to their election laws, citing the pandemic, violating their constitutions. The Supreme Court tossed out the lawsuit, citing that Texas did not have legal standing to challenge election protocols from other states.
If the Supreme Court strikes down his lawsuit, Lindell told RSBN that he had other lawsuits lined up that he would announce shortly after the court's decision.
Canadian airlines say new travel rules 'create confusion' | News | Flight Global
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:25
Canadian airlines are calling the government's new coronavirus rules for inbound travellers ''piecemeal'' and ''narrow'', and warning the measures will further confuse air passengers looking to enter Canada.
On 19 November, the government of prime minister Justin Trudeau said it will scrap, at the end of the month, a PCR-test requirement for citizens and permanent residents returning to the country if they were abroad less than 72h.
The pre-departure test will remain mandatory for travellers who spent more than three days outside the country prior to returning, the government said.
''We are somewhat encouraged by today's announcement,'' says Mike McNaney, chief executive of National Airlines Council of Canada (NACC), on 19 November.
''PCR tests are expensive and unduly increase the cost of travel, in particular for families,'' he adds. ''But, by only focusing on short trips and Canadian travellers, government has taken a piecemeal approach that is not justified nor based on science.''
No other country has taken ''such a narrow approach'', and the costly molecular test is ''no longer justified'' for fully vaccinated travellers, McNaney says. ''Today's announcement will continue to create confusion for consumers.''
The government of Canada earlier in the day said only travellers ''who depart and re-enter by land or by air and can demonstrate that they have been away from Canada for less than 72h'' will be exempt from the test requirement.
That said, the country already requires that all travellers entering Canada must show proof they are fully immunised with one of several vaccines approved by the World Health Organization. On 30 November, the country will expand that list to include the Sinopharm, Sinovac and COVAXIN vaccines, in addition to those developed by Pfizer/Biontech, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
''As we restart many aspects of our economy, including travel, vaccination will continue to play an important role in keeping each other and our transportation systems safe and secure,'' Canada's Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra said. ''No matter the final destination, ensuring travellers are vaccinated against Covid-19 protects travellers and transportation workers.''
In a further change, the government said that as of 15 January 2022 certain travellers now exempt from the vaccine requirement (including professional sports teams, essential service providers like truck drivers, and international students) will need to be vaccinated to enter the country.
Vaccinated English adults under 60 are dying at twice the rate of unvaccinated people the same age - by Alex Berenson - Unreported Truths
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:17
The brown line represents weekly deaths from all causes of vaccinated people aged 10-59, per 100,000 people.
The blue line represents weekly deaths from all causes of unvaccinated people per 100,000 in the same age range.
I have checked the underlying dataset myself and this graph is correct. Vaccinated people under 60 are twice as likely to die as unvaccinated people. And overall deaths in Britain are running well above normal.
I don't know how to explain this other than vaccine-caused mortality.
The basic data is available here, download the Excel file and see table 4:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsbyvaccinationstatusengland
Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict and Open Carry, Concealed Carry Gun Laws
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:08
The verdict in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse is the beginning of something, not the end. In all likelihood, it's at least a milestone on a journey into the deep and the dark that even the most astute observers of the American experiment in its 246th year probably cannot yet fully grasp. But rather than focus on the verdict's merits, we could, as a nation, take this opportunity to reevaluate whether random citizens should be carrying highly powerful weapons in the street. The gun issue is finished in America, at least in terms of ownership. There are more guns in private possession than people in this country, and nothing will be done about that. It's over. But we could decide to draw a line somewhere. Keep your guns, but keep them in your house, say. Defend your castle, but the rules are different when you're out in the public square.
Because you can talk all you want about defense'--of yourself or of someone else's business or whatever'--but that is not the purpose of carrying an AR-15 around in the street. We got proof of that outside the courtroom in Kenosha this week, when some all-American winner showed up in military cosplay carrying a rifle. Was he there to defend the courthouse? Seems like there were plenty of actual law-enforcement personnel around'--you know, the people whom we as a collective polity have deputized and entrusted with the authority to wield deadly force. Did they need backup from "Maserati Mike"? Well, to be fair, he merely said he was there to exercise his constitutional rights. So he was there to show off his gun. At least he's honest. That is the purpose of open carry: to communicate the threat of violent force in the public square. It is about projecting power. Thankfully, actual violence in these situations has been rare. But the point is to plant the idea in other people's minds. I could do it, you know.
Nothing like making political demands while communicating the threat of force. SOPA Images Getty Images
There is a reason that courts in England and the United States have upheld the authority of governments to regulate arms in the public square for 700 years. Along the way, human beings have realized that when random people congregate armed in public, the results are not good. (One of the men Rittenhouse shot was also armed with a pistol. The presence of all these deadly weapons does not seem to have ameliorated the situation on that Kenosha street.) But for some time now, the American right and the gun lobby have embraced a vision where the power to continually communicate the threat of violent force is no longer reserved for agents of the state to whom we've all agreed to hand over this authority. This power has been spread around, including, it seems, to a teenager who cannot yet legally drink and only recently secured the privilege of operating an automobile. We have fairly strict rules around using cars because they're dangerous, but they also serve a purpose other than maiming and killing living things. The same cannot be said for guns, and yet the rules can be far fewer for firearms in many jurisdictions. Forget a driver's test. In some states, you don't even need a permit to carry a gun around in the street. Some states have invited citizens to bring their guns into bars.
It is, in aggregate, an injection of disorder into our society on the part of the same people who consider themselves the defenders of law and order. The sense of impending chaos this inspires is also useful in that it might convince more people that they themselves need guns. I mean, it's crazy out there! And this, in turn, will lead to more gun sales. Which will lead to more gun sales. Because there is no indication this is going to stop. The Supreme Court's conservatives look likely to dismantle a 110-year-old New York law that severely restricts who can concealed-carry guns in public within the state. You can say concealed carry is less nakedly threatening than open carry, but it still offers the prospect of injecting deadly weapons into quotidian encounters. There is no established precedent for the constitutional right to bear arms in public. Your rights are less expansive outside the home because yours are bumping up against the rights of other people. But the conservative Supremes may throw the law out, along with similar policies in other states, and establish that right at a time when the American right wing has embraced Kyle Rittenhouse as a folk hero. Like I said, this is, unfortunately, very likely the beginning of something.
Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
NIH taps Mologic COVID-19 nasal-swab self test for RADx initiative funding | Federal Labs
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:44
April 14, 2021
Mologic, a UK-based developer of lateral flow and rapid diagnostic technologies, announced on April 9 that its rapid antigen self-test for COVID-19 has been selected by the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative launched by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Mologic's easy-to-use nasal-swab test is intended for use by non-health professionals at home and accurately indicates the presence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein in approximately 20 minutes.
Mologic's independently verified COVID-19 lateral flow technology combines all reagents in a unique design, and integrates reporting of results. The self-test can be used by a person without medical training at the point-of-need, including home, workplace, education and travel settings. Limit of detection and analytical sensitivity have been independently assessed by researchers at St Georges' University of London, led by Dr Elisabetta Groppelli.
Accurate, fast, easy-to-use, and widely accessible testing is required before the world can safely return to normal life. To meet this challenge, with the support of the NIH RADx initiative, Mologic will accelerate development and clinical validation of its COVID-19 self-test, with guidance provided on US regulatory approvals (Emergency Use Authorization, or EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The initiative aims to speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing.
Following successful completion of Phase 1 (development phase) of the initiative, Mologic's self-test is continuing into Phase 2 (scale-up and manufacturing) intended for projects at an advanced stage of readiness.
Mologic aims to ensure affordable access to its COVID-19 diagnostics across all health systems, with low-income countries being given access to tests at cost through commercial and distribution partnerships. This will help to improve early detection and contact tracing in places with weaker health systems and vulnerable populations. Mologic has a long-standing partnership with the Institut Pasteur de Dakar on its flagship manufacturing facility, diaTROPiX, focused to provide quality diagnostics at cost for the African continent.
Mologic is also making this unique self-test design available to its customers and partners across a broad range of self-test applications, through the company's contract research & manufacturing programme.
"We often hear that viruses are invisible, but we simply need the right technology to see them. So far, testing technologies have existed in diagnostic and research laboratories, but it is now crucial that testing becomes more accessible," said Groppelli, Virologist and Lecturer in Global Health and Medical Research Foundation Fellow at St George's. "Our work in the research laboratory at St Georges' University of London shows that the new home tests developed by Mologic offer the high-quality specifications that are needed to see the virus, but without the requirement for a laboratory or specialist expertise. This is fantastic news because, if we can see the viral enemy, we will be able to tackle it much more effectively.''
This project is being funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. 75N92021C00010.
Read more: https://www.labbulletin.com/articles/mologics-covid19-rapid-antigen-self...
Mark Meadows Advised Democrat-Allied, CCP-Tied Non Profit Once Run By Jeffrey Epstein's Brother - National File
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:37
Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has ties to a Democrat-allied, Chinese Communist Party-tied think tank known as the Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI). This group was once headed by Mark Epstein, the brother of the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The Humpty Dumpty Institute, once run by the brother of late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has managed to stay largely out of the news despite its ties to the United Nations, US State Department, several members of Congress, global elite, and Chinese Communist Party. Jeffrey's brother, Mark Epstein, was listed as a Director and main financier according to the most recently listed IRS form from 2018.
National File has learned that Mark Meadows, the former Republican House Freedom Caucus Leader and former Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump, was appointed to the HDI Congressional Advisory Board in 2013, and served in this role as recently as April 2019.
According to public records, it appears HDI has not made its filings available since fiscal year 2018, when Mark Epstein was still listed as a Director and financier. Epstein's name was recently been removed from the website's board of directors, however, through an internet archive, National File has discovered that Epstein was listed on the site as recently as December 20, 2020. It is unclear if Epstein is still involved in HDI.
Interestingly, it appears that Meadows was the only Republican member of Congress to have served on the board during this period. In 2018, Meadows was the sole Republican listed alongside 28 Democrat Representatives, including Reps. Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Al Green, Bennie Thompson, Jim Himes, Frederica Wilson, Hank Johnson, and others.
High-level HDI members and prominent US officials, powerful DemocratsIn August of 2019, the Daily Caller published a report on the institute revealing that the HDI advisory board included Democrat Representatives Adam Schiff, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxine Waters, and ''only four Republicans.''
While the conservative website attempted to tie Schiff, Wasserman Schultz, Waters, and others to Jeffrey Epstein via their relationship with HDI, the Daily Caller failed to mention that Meadows had so recently been involved with the institute, despite Meadows' already longtime involvement with HDI when the article was published.
Mark Meadows served on the HDI Advisory Board from 2013 to 2019On June 22, 2021, the current Chairman of the HDI, Dr. Al Khalafalla, reposted a photo to Twitter that showed him alongside Meadows and Epstein on Twitter. Khalafalla did not add a caption or context to the image, and the same photo was first posted on September 16, 2014.
Further evidence of Meadows' seemingly ongoing relationship with the HDI and Al Khalafalla is seen in this photograph posted to Twitter on September 6, 2020, which shows Meadows alongside Al Khalafalla and his wife Debbie Meadows. President Trump has repeatedly touted Debbie Meadows as a strong ally of his America First agenda.
Dr. Al Khalafalla (far left) with Mark Meadows (center left) and Mark Epstein (far right)Mark Meadows (center) with his wife Debbie Meadows (left) and Dr. Al Khalafalla (right)For unknown reasons, as of July 19, 2020, all of Dr. Khalafalla's tweets have been marked saying ''The following media contains potentially sensitive content.''
What could perhaps be the most unreported and concerning aspect of the HDI would be the strong links to their Beijing-headquartered partner, the Taihe Institute, a think tank whose key figures include multiple high-level Chinese Communist Party members, globalist elites and transhumanist corporate technocrats.
Among these are Former Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Commissar and Major General Lei Zhitian, Former CPPCC National Committee member Gu Boping, former World Military and China Army Editor-in-Chief Chen Hu, World Economic Forum (WEF) Associate Director Thorsten Jelinek, PLA Air Force (PLAAF) Group Captain Wang Haili, Graduate School at National Defence University of People's Liberation Army Associate Dean Quan Yong, China Research Society of Sun Tzu's Art of War Executive Director Xue Guoan, 12th CPPCC National Committee member Yu Hongjun, Former Xinhua North America Regional Bureau Director Zeng Hu, Perfect World Group Founder and Chairman Chi Yufeng, and Cyberspace Administration of China Vice Director (CAC) Peng Bo.
Top row from left to right: Lei Zhitian, Gu Boping, Chen Hu, Thorsten Jelinek, Wang Haili, Quan Yong Bottom row from left to right: Xue Guoan, Yu Hongjun, Zeng Hu, Chi Yufeng, Peng BoThe People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military force for the People's Republic of China, but it ultimately answers to the CCP. It is also the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party, and the largest military in the world.
Because the PLA does not ultimately owe its allegiance to a government, instead owing its loyalties to the CCP, it has been described as the armed branch of the CCP that follows a Communist doctrine affirming that ''the Party commands the gun.'' They are not at the behest of any state or constitution; their sole allegiance is to the CCP itself.
Zhitian, a former Major General in the PLA, is a Taihe Institute Senior Fellow. While not much is known about Zhitian, his former role as a PLA Commissar suggests that he was tasked with bolstering the absolute leadership of the CCP over the Chinese armed forces, ensuring that the military branch organizations were in line with the party.
Haili, a prominent People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Group Captain, worked in the Harbin Flight Academy and the PLAAF Command College and served as an instructor and headed the teaching and research section of the PLAAFCC, according to the Taihe Institute website, which celebrated his joining of the institute by holding a ceremony in which photographs were taken behind CCP flags and alongside multiple party members. The institute noted that Haili would ''strengthen'' their research capacity ''in the fields of 'national security and military strategy.'''
Wang Haili is ceremoniously welcomed into the Taihe InstituteWang Haili (center right) alongside Taihe Institute members in between two Chinese Communist flagsBoping, a frequently photographed Senior Fellow at the institute, was a former member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the political advisory body of the PRC and a central player of the CCP's Front System.
The body consists of CCP delegates, loyal CCP political parties, nominally independent members, and what could be front organizations.
Gu Boping (right) ceremoniously celebrated by the Taihe Institute in July 2018Along with various high-level CCP members, Perfect World Group Founder and Chairman Yufeng is among those on the list of Taihe Institute Senior Fellows. Yufeng originally founded a company called Perfect World Games in 2004, which served as a Beijing-based entertainment industry group that developed and published video games.
After being delisted from NASDAQ in 2015, Perfect World merged with Perfect World Pictures in 2016, began trading on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and was ultimately renamed Perfect World. In 2013, Perfect World Investment & Holding Group was founded and now holds controlling interest in Perfect World.
Jelinek, another notable Senior Fellow at the Taihe Institute, is an Associate Director of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF, headed by Klaus Schwab, is best known for leading the effort into a global dystopian mega-corporate future dubbed the ''Great Reset'' by many.
As National File previously reported, the WEF's ''Great Reset'' plan involves a collaboration between national governments and international bodies to ''reset capitalism'' with an integrated transnational technocratic welfare/surveillance state by the year 2030. The World Economic Forum is best known for its annual Davos Summit, where thousands of members of the world's corporate and political elite meet under extreme hi-tech security to discuss global collaboration.
In February, Jelinek tweeted a bizarre statement in which he said ''It is not #5G, #IOT, #ArtificialIntelligence but human behavior that perpetuates the current downward spiral of history,'' adding that in order to ''change #technology we must change humanity.'' In the tweet, Jelinek included a strange photo of a digitized human face with what appears to be a circuit board or a microchip where the brain would otherwise be located.
Strange photo tweeted by WEF Associate Director Thorsten Jelinek on February 14, 2020Similarly to Al Khalafalla, many of Jelinek's tweets are marked as potentially containing ''sensitive content.''
The HDI was present at all four ''Taihe Civilizations Forums'' located in Beijing in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Former Mission to US Embassy to the Holy See Deputy Chief and HDI Executive Director Joseph Merante, as well as HDI Associate Director Morgan DeNicola were photographed at the 2017 Taihe Global Civilizations Forum.
DeNicola's set of photographs highlight what appears to be a tightly-knit relationship between the HDI, Perfect World, and Taihe organizations, who supposedly ''gathered to discuss major issues concerning human civilization and harmonious development, explore root causes as well as possible solutions to facilitate inter-civilizational communication and arrive at a sustainable development of common value.''
HDI's Morgan DeNicola boasts about going to the Communist Chinese ''Taihe Civilizations Forums'' in 2017 with online photosetTaihe Civilizations Forum 2017 Morgan DeNicola alongside Binge from Perfect World GroupThe following is a transhumanist promotion video for the CCP, WEF, and HDI-affiliated Taihe Institute during their 2018 Civilizations Forum, where HDI Executive Director Merante was listed as a speaker on page 3 of their website.
The video tackles bizarre questions such as ''What kind of individual rights can we grant to human-like robots in the future?,'' ''Will artificial intelligence replace human labor?,'' ''Will human thought be captured in the future?,'' ''What does it mean to be human in the future?,'' and ''Can I live forever?''
Merante is photographed several times at the 2019 Taihe Civilizations Forum, as revealed on the HDI official website.
HDI Executive Director Joseph Merante and Leon Wang New York Director of China Construction Bank at the 2019 Taihe Civilizations ForumTaihe Civilizations Forum 2019Perfect World representatives Robert Hong Xiao and Ruby Wang, as was the case with Mark Epstein, were removed from the HDI website for reasons unknown, though the two are listed along with Epstein as Directors on the 7th page of the HDI's most recent IRS filing Form 990.
Wang is pictured alongside World Economic Forum Associate Director Thorsten Jelinek at the 2019 Taihe Civilizations Forum.
HDI Director Ruby Wang, Taihe Institute Executive Director Vicky He alongside World Economic Forum's Thorsten JelinekOn February 27, 2019, the HDI celebrated the Taihe Institute's report on the Chinese Communist Belt and Road Initiative, an overreaching global infrastructure plan aimed to solidify Chinese economic hegemony that many have viewed as a threat to the US. The HDI posted a second press release regarding the BRI on April 29, 2019:
The overarching BRI objective is to develop a global infrastructure controlled by China, with the various ''roads'' serving as spokes in a wheel that service the hub (mainland China). Another analogy would be a spider's web expanding ever outward, with Beijing (the ''Spider Dragon'') at the center of the web. The infrastructure elements are largely focused on the development of transportation assets that can later be exploited by Beijing to transport the resources and raw materials needed to fuel Chinese manufacturing concerns, as well as support the exportation of finished Chinese goods to overseas markets around the world, including roads, ports, railroads, bridges, etc.
Jelinek is also appears to be an avid supporter of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. He attended Beijing's BRF in 2019 and took photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping and WEF Founder Klaus Schwab.
Thorsten Jelinek smiles for the cameras as Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at the 2019 Belt and Road InitiativeOn March 22, 2021, the CCP-tied HDI Board of Directors issued a press release regarding the ''Stop Asian Hate'' movement, outlining how they were ''shocked and and dismayed'' with the ''rise in violence directed at Asians in the United States.''
Around this time, mainstream media outlets were attempting to obscure the fact that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China, branding the term ''Chinese Virus'' '' a phrase employed by President Trump '' as ''racist.''
More compelling evidence of the HDI's ties to the CCP could be ascertained through an examination of a series of tweets posted by Al Khalafalla on December 5, 2020 at precisely 10:18 a.m., of which were also subsequently masked by Twitter for containing ''potentially sensitive content.''
In the tweets, Al Khalafalla and Merante are described in Arabic as being ''in front of the house where Leader Mao was born in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, accompanied by Chinese State Councilor Zhang, Chinese businessman Michael Shi, and Mayor of Shushan. The invitation to visit China was thanked [sic] by Councilor Zhang after our Institute [HDI] arranged for him to visit US Congress.''
Al Khalafalla deleted the tweets a few weeks later, but National File has obtained a screenshot, which depict Al Khalafalla and Merante alongside the aforementioned Chinese individuals.
HDI Chairman Al Khalafalla alongside CCP officials in what is now a deleted picture from his Twitter accountIn addition, other previous State-level, red-carpet, Chinese Communist military parade-welcomes for the two HDI directors have been observed.
HDI directors Al Khalafalla and Merente stand alongside Communist Chinese officials before a tall statue of Mao ZedongHDI directors welcomed by Communist Chinese officials with red carpetNational File attempted to contact Mark Meadows multiple times with the goal of obtaining a statement about his past participation in HDI, and to ask whether Meadows is still involved with the organization. Meadows did not return more than 7 phone calls to his staff, his book publisher, or to him personally made over the course of multiple weeks.
Thor & Woodbird research firm contributed to this report.
US Gov. Buys $113 Million Dollars Worth of Smallpox Vaccines
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:22
Is the US Government preparing for a bioterror attack involving smallpox?
A new report shows that the US government purchased $113 million dollars worth of TPOXX from SIGA Technologies.
TPOXX is a an antiviral drug that is taken orally to fight human smallpox.
The financial report was released just days after Bill Gates announced that a potential bioterror attack by smallpox could be coming soon.
Why is the United States buying $113M worth of smallpox vaccine? Ran into this accidentally '' now wondering'... https://t.co/6ribhe5ZDI
'-- Tolerance Exceeded (@CentsSocial) November 16, 2021
Why is our government buying $113 million worth of a new smallpox vaccine ??
Smallpox was eradicated 40 years ago
'-- ðºð¸'¸Little Miss Sunshine'¸ðºð¸ (@KymC1019) November 17, 2021
Market Screener broke the story:
SIGA Technologies, Inc. (SIGA) (NASDAQ: SIGA), a commercial-stage pharmaceutical company, today reported financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2021.
''Looking forward to the fourth quarter of 2021, we are coordinating with our supply chain to deliver up to approximately $113 million in total of oral TPOXX® to the U.S. government, almost 30% of which was delivered in October. This progress highlights the strong and growing revenue base of TPOXX, as well as its continuing importance in orthopox health security preparedness.''
Over the past decade, the U.S. government has procured, or has current orders for, approximately $705 million of TPOXX for national preparedness. The oral formulation of TPOXX was approved by the FDA for the treatment of smallpox in 2018.
There are no coincidences!!!
FBI & CDC investigating vials labeled ''smallpox'' found in lab (Merck) near Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates warns of ''smallpox'' terror attack as he seeks funding. https://t.co/4mBKYZIVsjhttps://t.co/RqgZUoAAs7 pic.twitter.com/ahy44CWzgd
'-- ð¤'--¸Destiny'--¸ð¤ (@RN_Destiny) November 17, 2021
Here's the video of Gates warning world leaders about a potential bioterror attack involving smallpox.
"Bill Gates warns of Smallpox Terror attacks"
Source: https://t.co/rHMYV35Rae pic.twitter.com/1q05SJWSKs
'-- Mark. (@Questionm4rk_) November 18, 2021
Independent had more to say about Gate's warning to the world:
Bill Gates has warned governments to prepare for smallpox terror attacks and future pandemics by investing billions into research and development.
Mr Gates made the comments in a Policy Exchange interview with the chair of the health select committee Jeremy Hunt.
He said that countries like the US and the UK must spend ''tens of billions'' to fund the research adding that while it may be expensive, it could lead to the eradication of the flu and common cold.
''I'm hoping in five years, I can write a book called, 'We are ready for the next pandemic', but it'll take tens of billions in R&D '' the US and the UK will be part of that'', he said.
''It'll take probably about a billion a year for a pandemic Task Force at the WHO level, which is doing the surveillance and actually doing what I call 'germ games' where you practise.''
Disclose.tv on Twitter: "NEW - Hillary Clinton: #Bitcoin threatens US dollar as reserve currency. https://t.co/2voMmlf4LO" / Twitter
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 17:18
Disclose.tv : NEW - Hillary Clinton: #Bitcoin threatens US dollar as reserve currency.https://t.co/2voMmlf4LO
Fri Nov 19 12:46:24 +0000 2021
The_Ring_Lord : @disclosetv It's a bit of a non sequitur, but doesn't this woman eat children?
Fri Nov 19 17:17:35 +0000 2021
TRÎ--DÎ RUÐÐÎR : @disclosetv Cry me a fucking river.
Fri Nov 19 17:17:17 +0000 2021
Bitcoin Network [ð--] : @disclosetv <<< THIRTEEN YEARS LATE >>> . #Bitcoin
Fri Nov 19 17:17:08 +0000 2021
Lana Miles : @disclosetv Shall we do a welfare check on El Salvador? They must really be hurting.. @nayibbukele
Fri Nov 19 17:15:58 +0000 2021
David : @disclosetv Hope she's right
Fri Nov 19 17:15:29 +0000 2021
Î(C)''''K : @disclosetv undermining idiots
Fri Nov 19 17:14:45 +0000 2021
Delta Plus 'symptomless' variant driving Covid back to January levels
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 16:42
Coronavirus rates in England are similar to what they were in January this year, just after the peak of the second wave, new data suggests.
During mid-October to early-November 2021, the prevalence was 1.57% '¬'' the same as January '¬'' compared to 0.83% in September.
According to the data, prevalence increased between rounds 14 and 15 of Imperial College London'¬'s React-1 study across most age groups, and regions.
During round 15, which ran from October 19 to November 5, there was a fall in prevalence from a peak at around October 20 to 21.
Read More Related Articles Read More Related ArticlesSchool-aged children had the highest rates of infection with a prevalence of 4.95% in those aged 5 to 12 and 5.21% in those aged 13 to 17.
The data suggests all of the cases were the Delta variant or sub-lineages. The most prevalent was AY.4, which the scientists say is more likely to result in asymptomatic infection.
Christl Donnelly, professor of statistical epidemiology, Imperial College London, said: ''It is absolutely the case that if people are waiting for symptoms to do a test and to therefore identify that they are infected, and therefore cut back their contacts, being asymptomatic may facilitate transmission for example.
'¬Å'It is asymptomatic transmission that really can make the difference between what'¬'s relatively easily containable and what needs vaccination.'¬'
Read More Related Articles Read More Related ArticlesThe AY.4.2 mutation which officials are monitoring as a '¬Å'variant under investigation'¬' represented 11.8% of infections.
Researchers say the observational nature of survey data and the relatively small proportion of unvaccinated adults calls into question the comparability of vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.
However, they found that third vaccine doses for eligible adults and the vaccination of children aged 12 and over are associated with lower infection risk.
The researchers say they should therefore remain a high priority '¬'' with possible extension to children aged 5-12 years '¬'' and this should help reduce Covid transmission over the winter.
Read More Related Articles Read More Related Articles
PROOF: MSNBC Producer Deletes Tweets and Twitter Account After Reportedly Instructing Journalist James Morrison to Follow Rittenhouse Jury Bus
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 14:43
On Thursday morning the Kenosha Judge overseeing the Kyle Rittenhouse trial banned MSNBC From the trial AND the courthouse'...
VIDEO'--
full clip with info and msnbc banned pic.twitter.com/fKevXHQu6I
'-- oak_tree_upheaval (@oaktreeupheaval) November 18, 2021
TRENDING: UPDATE WITH VIDEO: MSNBC BANNED FROM RITTENHOUSE TRIAL AND COURTHOUSE! Reporter Taken Into Custody - Was Following, Stalking Jury Bus and Ran Red Light!!
Judge: ''I have instructed that no one from MSNBC will be allowed into this building for the duration of the trial.''
The Kenosha Police Department announced this morning that they took a suspect into custody last night.
The person was working for a national media outlet and was suspected of trying to photograph jurors.
There was no breach of security regarding the jury, nor were there any photographs obtained. This investigation remains active and open, no further information.
'-- Kenosha Police Dept. (@KenoshaPolice) November 18, 2021
The suspect was from MSNBC '-- what a shock.
The reporter's name is James Morrison and the MSNBC producer is named Irene Byon.
Irene is deleting her comments '-- She just deleted her account.She instructed Morrisson to follow the jury bus! And she was stupid enough to post it on Twitter.
But Twitter user CrabCrawler1 saved screengrabs
The producer alleged to have instructed James Morrison to follow the Jury bus'..... is said to be Irene Byon
Although their Twitter account is apparently gone? I archived Google Cache copy that confirms Irene Byon has been w/ NBC in some capacity. https://t.co/j3JH0R7Nj6 pic.twitter.com/ERaFQxHLz0
'-- crabcrawler (@crabcrawler1) November 18, 2021
Someone tweeted Irene's linkedin at me so there's that
According to that they got their NBC News New York job in August of this year pic.twitter.com/f3INLKsTjU
'-- crabcrawler (@crabcrawler1) November 18, 2021
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The Celebrity-Backed Green ''Fintech'' Company That Isn't as Green as It Seems '-- ProPublica
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 14:30
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You can save the planet with a swipe of your bank card. That's the enticing proposition made by a company called Aspiration, which promises to take the leftover change from customers' purchases and use it to plant trees around the world. Aspiration is on track to spend $149 million this year marketing that message, according to its financial documents, considerably more than the revenues the company expects to take in.
''Clean rich is the new filthy rich,'' Aspiration proclaims on billboards across New York, Texas and California. Other ads, ubiquitous on social media, feature images of Aspiration's debit card, which depicts a green treescape and is made from recycled plastic. The likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Robert Downey Jr. and Drake have invested in the company. Aspiration has received enthusiastic press coverage (with the exception of a critical dissection by New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway). And the company won further headlines in September for its reported $300 million, 23-year sponsorship deal with the Los Angeles Clippers, which will feature Aspiration's name on signs inside the Clippers' new arena, give the company a role in sustainability initiatives and put its logo on the jersey of every Clippers player.
Aspiration is part of a wave of digital companies promising to help the environment while providing convenient but otherwise mundane services like checking accounts and debit cards and the occasional investment account. Its claims seem to justify the ''green'' mantle: Aspiration has said it has planted 35 million trees over the past 12 months. And it touts its mutual fund, which it says is ''free'' of fossil fuels. Aspiration and its executives routinely make these claims and use these figures in their statements, in their marketing and advertising, and in some cases in federal regulatory filings.
But many of Aspiration's claims seem to fizzle somewhere between their marketing language and the footnotes in their own legal documents. For example, Aspiration boasts that it has ''5 million passionate members.'' But the fine print in an investor presentation prepared by the company explains that a ''member'' is defined as anyone who has ever signed the terms and conditions in preparation for opening an Aspiration account '-- even if that person never actually opened the account or deposited a penny in it. Aspiration's actual tally of active customer accounts was 592,148 as of June. That includes all checking, savings, credit card and investment accounts.
Aspiration's signature marketing claim '-- about its tree-planting program '-- turns out to be overblown upon closer examination. ''In the past year, the Aspiration community has planted over 35 million trees,'' CEO and co-founder Andrei Cherny said on an Aug. 18 webcast announcing that his company would go public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in what was billed as a $2.3 billion deal. He later added that the company now plants ''as many trees every day as there are in Central Park.'' (More broadly, Cherny said, ''Sustainability is our product. It is the business we are in. It is what we deliver to our customers whether they are individuals or businesses. It is our mission.'')
The footnote for one of Aspiration's two main tree programs presents a different picture than Cherny did: ''The advertised number of trees planted is the cumulative total of to-be planted trees...'' In other words, that 35 million figure included millions of trees that had not actually yet been planted.
After weeks of questions from ProPublica, during which the company declined to say how many seeds or saplings have actually been planted, Aspiration said the actual number is 12 million. In a written response for this article, Cherny said, ''The Aspiration community has supported the planting of more than 35 million trees, an amazing accomplishment we're really proud of. Over 12 million of those trees are already in the ground, with more being planted every day.'' He added that it can ''take up to 18 months'' for its partners to put a tree in the earth.
ProPublica attempted to confirm these figures with the three organizations Aspiration uses to plant trees. A spokesperson for Eden Reforestation Projects initially declined to provide any numbers, citing confidentiality restrictions, then later emailed and offered a higher figure than Aspiration provided: ''The current total of trees planted for all project sites that Aspiration sponsors is 16 million trees.'' A second Aspiration partner, Arbor Day Foundation, told ProPublica it planted 6,000 trees for Aspiration between early 2019 and Aug. 1 of this year. ''There are currently no agreements in place with them at this time,'' a spokesperson wrote in an email. A spokesperson for the third partner, One Tree Planted, confirmed that Aspiration ''supported one reforestation project with us so far,'' but declined to comment further, citing ''confidentiality/non-disclosure commitments.''
There's a second key footnote, one that appears in materials for Aspiration's signature ''Plant Your Change'' offering. That program lets consumers who use a debit or credit card '-- whether provided by Aspiration or an unrelated financial institution '-- choose to have every purchase rounded up to the nearest dollar, with the ''change'' used to plant a tree. It generally costs 10 cents to plant a tree, according to Eden, and Aspiration will fund one tree for each purchase. In other words, whether you bought an item that cost $9.89 or $9.09, the leftover change will be used to plant one tree. What happens to the remaining 81 cents in the second example? It goes to Aspiration, which says it uses it for ''administrative costs, marketing and promotion costs, third-party vendor fees, and other conditional costs.'' It also notes that ''Aspiration may retain, dependent upon the Service Fee for a particular transaction, the remainder.'' (Cherny responded, ''There is a lot more involved in a large-scale tree planting initiative than just the individual cost of the trees, and there is infrastructure that needs to be funded in a program of this size and scale.'')
The sorts of tree-planting programs Aspiration and its peers are engaged in have mixed reputations even when well-executed. ''It's easy to tie tree-planting to a transaction,'' said Forrest Fleischman, associate professor in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota. ''But if someone says they are planting a tree every time X happens, it doesn't really tell you they're doing a meaningful activity, and it very well could be a method of greenwashing.'' The process requires a long-term commitment, Fleischman said, adding that effectively growing a tree in a proper environment and making sure it survives is a 20-to-50-year proposition. ''This focus on the number of trees planted is not a meaningful measure of your impact on the ecosystem,'' he said.
Cherny countered: ''It's scientifically proven that trees take carbon out of the atmosphere, and the more trees we plant today, the more sustainable our planet will be for decades to come.''
Aspiration's investing arm also appears to be less environmentally friendly than the company's marketing suggests. It offers a mutual fund called Redwood, which Aspiration describes as a ''fossil-fuel-free fund investing in sustainable businesses that are leaders in their industry.'' The fund excludes stocks of companies with more than 5% of their sales in such industries as alcohol, tobacco, defense, nuclear power, gambling and pornography, and completely rules out shares of firearms issuers and companies within the oil and gas category, including companies that provide services to oil and gas companies. The formula, according to Aspiration's marketing language, adds up to ''the triple bottom line of profit, people, and the planet.''
But the mutual fund's latest shareholder report, filed with the SEC, reveals that it owns shares in multiple companies that are either huge users of fossil fuels or are in the industry itself. Shares of Southwest Airlines, whose airplanes and operations emitted 12.6 tons of greenhouse gases in 2020, make up almost 3% of the fund. That's more than the fund's holdings in sustainable energy stocks, which combine to make up 2.3% of the portfolio.
The Fund also owns a stake in MSA Safety, which sells safety equipment to the oil and gas industry, among others. In addition, the company that runs the mutual fund on Aspiration's behalf is the asset management arm of UBS, a giant bank that is on a list of the biggest fossil fuel financiers in the world that Aspiration cites on its website. ''We are proud that Redwood earned an A grade from the gold standard As You Sow, calling it a 100% fossil fuel free fund,'' Cherny said. (As You Sow is an independent organization that grades investments on various environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG, measures; it doesn't count industries that use large amounts of petroleum, such as airlines or shipping, as fossil fuel companies.)
''The problem we see with Aspiration is that they fall classically in that ESG space, and it is less bad,'' said Zach Stein, co-founder of Carbon Collective, an investment advisory firm that constructs portfolios with low climate impact. ''That does not mean it's good. There is a gap between those two.''
When it comes to Aspiration's claims about its own finances, here, too, it's worth reading closely. In large letters in its investor presentation, Aspiration declares the business ''cash flow positive''; beneath that, in smaller letters, are the words ''before marketing expense.'' Aspiration relies on a yardstick that most companies don't use: ''Adjusted EBITDAM.'' That stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and marketing.
Excluding spending on marketing from a calculation of its profitability '-- when marketing is both a routine cost and by far the company's biggest expenditure for the foreseeable future '-- is striking. ''It's very strange to represent your overall finances in that way,'' said Daniel McCarthy, a marketing professor at Emory University who specializes in customer-based corporate valuation. ''I haven't seen any other company do that before.''
Aspiration's Chief Financial Officer, Rojeh Avanesian, defended the use of EBITDAM in the August investor call, saying, ''We believe EBITDAM to be the appropriate profitability metric for us to use given the historic growth opportunity and lifetime-value to acquisition-cost ratio that we are experiencing,''
Aspiration's results certainly look better using the company's preferred metric. According to the investor presentation, as of October, Aspiration estimated its 2021 adjusted EBITDAM will be positive: $536,000. If you count the company's marketing expenditure by using the more traditional EBITDA, which Aspiration provides on the same page of the investor presentation, the result is a loss of $149 million.
ProPublica
One Major Reason the U.S. Hasn't Stopped Syphilis From Killing Babies
It does appear Aspiration will have plenty of cash on its balance sheet when it receives $412 million from the SPAC that is acquiring it in the transaction that will make Aspiration a public company. The press release described the merger as a $2.3 billion deal, a figure that refers to the ''implied equity value,'' an extrapolation based on the price paid by the SPAC for 23% of Aspiration's shares.
If you believe the company's projections, Aspiration has a very green future (in both the environmental and profit sense). But the fine print in the company's materials suggests it has a long way to go to get there.
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This form requires JavaScript to complete.Powered by Screendoor. ExpandUpdate, Nov. 17, 2021: An earlier version of this article stated that, according to the Redwood Fund's most recent report to the SEC, it held shares of Linde, an industrial gas company that sells a fracking technology, among other things. After this article was published, Aspiration sent a statement that ''Linde is not currently part of Redwood's portfolio.''
Monkeys Are Willing To 'Pay' for a Glimpse Of High-Status Apes - WSJ
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 14:19
Animals Surrender PerksTo Peek at PhotographsOf Dominant Simians
By
Marilyn Chase Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Feb. 11, 2005 12:01 am ETMonkeys will pay for a glimpse of power and beauty, scientists have found, much as people pay for magazines offering a peek at Donald Trump's wedding or Jennifer Lopez's Oscar gown.
In a study titled "Monkeys Pay Per View," neuroscientists at Duke University discovered that rhesus monkeys will give up a portion of hard-earned perks for a peek at pictures of the dominant leaders and nubile females in their troop. But they won't pony up to look at faces of subordinate simians.
Instead...
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Monkeys will pay for a glimpse of power and beauty, scientists have found, much as people pay for magazines offering a peek at Donald Trump's wedding or Jennifer Lopez's Oscar gown.
In a study titled "Monkeys Pay Per View," neuroscientists at Duke University discovered that rhesus monkeys will give up a portion of hard-earned perks for a peek at pictures of the dominant leaders and nubile females in their troop. But they won't pony up to look at faces of subordinate simians.
Instead of money, the simian unit of currency is cherry juice, a treat that scientists use to reward laboratory monkeys for doing tasks. Monkeys assigned the photos a precise value in swigs of the sweet fluid.
Published in the journal Current Biology, the study, by assistant neurobiology professor Michael Platt and postdoctoral research associate Robert Deaner, is part of a line of research into how the brain assigns value and makes decisions based on the cost and benefit of an action. The field, known as neuroeconomics, has fascinated biologists for a decade.
Supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Cure Autism Now Foundation, the study could advance understanding of autism, a developmental disorder marked by inability to look at others' faces, interpret their social significance or manage human interactions.
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In the jungle, such skills spell survival: Monitoring faces of powerful individuals who could beat you up or steal your food is a key to staying alive. Surveying readiness of potential mates is crucial to a successful reproductive strategy.
"You've got to know who's who, who's got the power, who might be a potential ally, potential foe or potential mate," Dr. Deaner said.
During the experiment, four monkeys named Wolfgang, Sherry, Dart and Niko were seated in chairs facing a computer monitor, as researchers electronically monitored their gazes. The monkeys watched a slide show featuring pairs of photos taken of their 12-member troop. Viewing a particular image triggered a squirt of juice.
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The monkeys' gazes showed a clear preference for power and beauty, no matter the cost. They chose to look at pictures of alpha monkeys of both sexes, and potential female mates, although they had to sacrifice -- or pay more for the view -- by accepting 10% less juice. The photos were of faces of male and female alphas, and, in keeping with how monkeys judge a potential mate's receptivity, the backsides of females.
When researchers displayed photos of subordinate or low-ranking monkeys, the study monkeys wouldn't pay or even accept a standard juice ration. Instead, they required a 5% juice bonus -- call it incentive pay -- before they would deign to look.
"It was a bit of a surprise," Dr. Platt admitted. "It was almost not worth the extra juice for them to look at low-ranking monkeys. It was actually worse than looking at a gray square," he said, referring to a sort of test pattern that preceded the slide show on the computer monitor.
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All this resembles the way that people's gaze follows those of high rank at parties or meetings, Dr. Deaner explained. "If one person has power and control, people will monitor them, whereas if people have no say in the meeting, people won't bother looking at them."
One interesting finding: Study monkeys would pay just as much juice to look at the faces of the high-ranked females as males, with no apparent gender discrimination.
But while monkeys would gaze as long as they could at female hindquarters, they quickly assessed mug shots of male and female power figures and then averted their gaze. In the wild, staring is a challenge that invites an aggressive response.
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The researchers plan future human studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure how people value visual input, and map the flow of such information to specific brain sites.
Paul Glimcher, associate professor of neural science and psychology at New York University, who mentored Dr. Platt while he was doing postdoctoral research at NYU, says monkey pay-per-view has taken the starch out of staid scientific meetings.
"It's hilarious," he said. "When they take this study and present it at conferences, people fall over laughing."
But the work is important, Dr. Glimcher said, because it offers a common conceptual framework for decision-making by humans and other primates. The research has "taken the issue of your wanting to be -- or be with -- an important monkey, and shown it seems to obey the same rules about monkeys working for juice or humans working for money."
All primates living in complex societies have evolved this drive to study what's around them, Dr. Glimcher explained. "People are willing to pay money to look at pictures of high-ranking human primates. When you fork out $3" for a celebrity gossip magazine, "you're doing exactly what the monkeys are doing.
"The difference between Michael's study and People magazine," he said, "is that the monkeys actually know the individuals in the picture."
Write to Marilyn Chase at marilyn.chase@wsj.com
New International Sustainability Standards Board to Develop Standards
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 13:31
Moving Beyond Direct Emissions to Address Biodiversity
There is growing recognition that climate risk is not only about emissions but also about protecting biodiversity and the associated environmental and financial risks stemming from biodiversity loss.
A key deal struck at the summit outset between more than 130 countries '-- including the US, the UK, China, Canada, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia '-- backs a plan to end deforestation and land degradation by 2030. This is important not only because reforestation helps with decarbonization, but also because the deal puts a spotlight on the use of natural resources in commercial activities. This will have implications for companies in related fields as they look to find viable alternatives, in a similar manner as fossil fuel phase outs have driven changes in other sectors.
In the spirit of ''what gets measured/reported gets managed'', the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosure (TNFD) is now up and running. (State Street is a member of the TNFD forum.) Experience from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) may help accelerate the development of disclosure standards related to natural capital.
Meanwhile other coalitions such as the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) '-- where State Street leads the asset owner and manager task force '-- are actively encouraging investments in natural capital.
Young viewers prefer TV subtitles, research suggests - BBC News
Thu, 18 Nov 2021 22:26
By Ian YoungsEntertainment & arts reporter
Image source, Evelien DOosje/Alamy Stock Photo
Young people are almost four times more likely than older viewers to watch TV shows with subtitles, despite having fewer hearing problems, according to research by a captioning charity.
Four out of five viewers aged 18-25 said they use subtitles all or part of the time, Stagetext's figures said.
Less than a quarter of those aged between 56 and 75 said they do so.
But people in that age bracket were almost twice as likely to say they are deaf or hard of hearing.
Originally intended to help those with hearing problems, subtitles have become an essential aid for following a show for many people - especially if other distractions and devices are competing for their attention.
Many have also got used to watching videos with subtitles on social media, while the success of programmes like South Korea's Squid Game shows they are no longer seen as an extra effort.
'More accepted'
"I think there's far more acceptance of subtitles by young people because it's the norm, whereas with an older age group, it isn't necessarily the norm," said Stagetext's chief executive Melanie Sharpe.
Older people often feel like subtitles require an "extra concentration level" when watching foreign-language productions, she said.
"Whereas I think young people can take in far more information quickly because they're used to it."
Source: Stagetext/Sapio Research
Stagetext provides captions for live and online events like theatre performances and talks.
The charity's research suggested an average of 31% of people would go to more live events and shows if more had captions on a screen in the venue. Among 18-25s, that figure was 45%, compared with 16% among over-56s.
Asked about events that moved online during lockdown, younger people were more likely to say captions helped them understand what was going on, whereas more older people said they were distracting.
The charity is calling for venues to continue to provide online performances with subtitles, and for more live shows to use captions.
"When Stagetext started, it was very much about putting the text on the side of the stage so somebody could read it at the same as a person hearing it," Ms Sharpe said.
Now, young directors and designers are increasingly creating plays with captions build into the sets as "an integral part of the artistic vision of a piece" she said. "And they're making it the norm."
More on this story
ALL CLIPS
VIDEO - (13) Aaron Ginn on Twitter: "From the WHO, the vaxx was not designed and doesn't prevent transmission, therefore vaxx mandates are utterly illogical. https://t.co/MaYoGVng6m" / Twitter
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 14:45
Aaron Ginn : From the WHO, the vaxx was not designed and doesn't prevent transmission, therefore vaxx mandates are utterly illog'... https://t.co/DPZacKGCgj
Thu Nov 18 22:49:15 +0000 2021
VIDEO - Poland must pay '¬1 million daily over judiciary reforms, ECJ rules | Euronews
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 13:42
Poland must pay daily fines of '¬1 million over its controversial judiciary reforms, the European Union's Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.
The penalty is believed to be the highest ever imposed on a member state.
The punitive measures will be in place until Warsaw agrees to comply with an ECJ ruling issued back in July that ordered the immediate suspension of the disciplinary chamber of judges of the Supreme Court and the reversal of the decisions it had already taken on the lifting of judicial immunity. The chamber can punish magistrates according to the content of their resolutions.
Brussels believes the controversial chamber is a threat to the country's judicial independence because it makes judges subject to political control.
Warsaw, however, insists it's an essential tool to eliminate the remains of the communist regime.
After repeated calls on Poland to comply with the July ruling were ignored, Brussels asked the ECJ to impose daily fines - the last and most radical step of its legal action.
The sanctions will be deducted from the EU funds that Poland periodically receives. The country is by far the biggest recipient of EU funds, having received more than '¬18 billion in 2020.
In Wednesday's ruling, the ECJ notes that Poland has not made the necessary changes to its legal order to deprive the disciplinary chamber of its powers, meaning it continues to function.
The dismantling is necessary "to avoid serious and irreparable harm to the legal order of the European Union and, consequently, to the rights which individuals derive from EU law and the values on which that Union is founded, in particular, that of the rule of law," the ECJ's vice-president wrote.
The vice-president added that Poland's "expressed intention to adopt, within a year, a series of measures intended to reform the Polish judicial system" is not enough to prevent the damage now.
Reacting to the ECJ's ruling, Piotr M¼ller, spokesperson of the Polish government, said regulating the judiciary was the "exclusive competence of member states".
"The way of punishments and blackmail towards our country is not the right way. This is not a model in which the European Union should function - a union of sovereign states," he wrote on Twitter.
Didier Reynders, European Commissioner for justice, welcomed the news without further elaborating.
Daniel Freund, a German MEP who sits with the Greens and is a prominent critic of the current Polish government, said there was a "very serious rule of law crisis" inside Poland.
"It's good now that the ECJ has ruled that this will now cost the Polish government real money every day. It's not an overly strong reaction, this is a very normal procedure if ECJ rulings are ignored," Freund told Euronews.
EU-Poland tensionsThe sanctions come at an extremely fraught moment in the relations between Warsaw and Brussels.
Earlier this month, the Polish Constitutional Court issued a verdict defying the primacy of EU law inside the country, a legal principle established in 1964, long before the country joined the bloc.
In a majority ruling, the tribunal openly rejected two key articles of the EU treaties: Article 1, which establishes the conferral of competencies from member states to the institutions, and Article 19, which sets up the EU's Court of Justice. The judges said these provisions were incompatible with the Polish constitution, an unprecedented conclusion in the bloc's history.
The judgement sent shockwaves across the continent, with many calling on the Commission to take decisive action and reassert EU law primacy. The executive has promised a firm response but is still assessing its next steps. The daily fines might influence the Commission's course of action.
Although Poland no longer recognises the ECJ's absolute authority, Brussels will ensure compliance with the new ruling by subtracting '¬1 million per day from the funds allocated to Poland under the bloc's multi-annual budget.
Poland is already subject to another raft of daily fines: in late September, the ECJ ordered Warsaw to pay '¬500,000-a-day over its failure to close a coal mine on the Polish-Czech border. Prague had previously filed an injunction saying the Turow open-cast lignite mine drains groundwater away from surrounding areas.
Making matters more complicated for the Polish treasury, the Commission is still withholding Poland's '¬36-billion COVID recovery fund. The executive has been trying to push Warsaw into agreeing to certain judicial reforms as a condition to release the coronavirus package but, after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, no breakthrough has been announced.
At the same time, the European Parliament is asking the Commission to activate a new conditionality mechanism that can completely freeze EU funds to countries suspected of breaching the bloc's laws and values. The executive said it is willing to trigger the instrument but will wait until a pending legal case before the ECJ is resolved in order to have total legal certainty.
'Poland will not be intimidated'October has seen relations between Brussels and Warsaw plummet to a historic low.
Last week, during a tense plenary session in Strasbourg, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said threats of financial penalties '' under the proposed conditionality mechanism '' amounted to "blackmail", "hazing" and "coercion".
"We say yes to European universalism and no to European centralism," he said. "Poland will not be intimidated".
Days later, during a two-day EU summit in Brussels, leaders agreed to maintain political dialogue to resolve the legal row, while keeping on the table the possibility of using other existing tools. The anger was palpable among several heads of government, who urged Poland to abide by the same rules and legal principles as any of the other members of the European Union do.
"I do believe Poland has gone too far," said Irish Prime Minister Michel Martin.
At the end of the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed that Warsaw has to comply with the ECJ verdict that ordered the dismantling of the disciplinary chamber and re-institute all the judges who have been unlawfully removed.
"We have a long road ahead of us," she said in a press conference.
"This road is a combination of dialogue, legal response and concrete action to restore the independence of the judiciary."
VIDEO - Children Are Dying '' Funeral Director John O'Looney
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:41
Rumble '-- John O'Looney joins us again with an update on what he is seeing in his profession, since the roll out of the vax to children. This is not a nice subject to cover, but it must be covered.
If you would like to reach out to John, he is happy to take calls during office hours.
The test you can get is a D-dirmer, to see if you are expected to get blood clots.
Support us at www.loucollins.uk/support-us-cryptoTelegram https://t.me/loucollinsrsFacebook https://www.facebook.com/LouCollinsR
VIDEO - Gillian McKeith on Twitter: "My goodness ... #Australian crime minister Scott Morrison must be going off script. He's now saying that govts need to take a step back. And that he's not in favour of mandatory jabs !!!! This is after subjecting h
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:30
Gillian McKeith : My goodness ... #Australian crime minister Scott Morrison must be going off script. He's now saying that govts nee'... https://t.co/BTzIB09ayc
Sat Nov 20 06:28:01 +0000 2021
VIDEO - Joe Biden, Unlike Trump, Didn't Take Cognitive Test in Annual Exam, Sanjay Gupta Says
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:05
President Joe Biden is considered perfectly fit for duty after a physical exam Friday, according to a report from the president's doctor, Kevin O'Connor.
Additionally, the president, unlike his immediate predecessor, did not undergo a test of his cognitive abilities, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said.
During an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Anderson Cooper 360, Gupta was asked if Biden had taken any type of exam to measure his mental state.
"There's been a lot of focus on his cognitive abilities, questions raised by opponents and others, and in 2018 the former president [Donald Trump] had a test that measured mental acuity, was that part of today's test?" Cooper asked Gupta.
"It doesn't seem like it," Gupta replied. "I read pretty carefully through the doctor's report and they mention neurological exam, but that was more in terms of testing motor strength and sensation and things like that."
"As far as we know, for President Biden, we didn't see any kind of test like that performed," Gupta added.
This news comes as a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll stated that 48 percent of Americans were reportedly concerned with Biden's cognition. The poll, which surveyed 1,998 registered voters, was conducted between November 13 and November 15 with a two percent margin error. It was released days prior to the president's public health report. Trump saw similar numbers in 2018.
The test Cooper was referring to is known as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and was taken by Trump when he was 72 years old amid concerns over his cognitive abilities. Gupta described the assessment as a screening test for dementia.
Trump passed the test, reportedly scoring a 30 out of 30, according to the White House.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said that President Joe Biden did not appear to undergo a cognitive test, and was deemed fit to serve. Here, Biden can be seen giving a speech on November 15. Mandel Ngan/GettyGupta, who is also an associate professor of neurosurgery at Emory University, added that some medical professionals have pushed for basic cognitive tests to be more readily done at age 65. President Biden turns 79 on Saturday and is the oldest serving president in U.S. history.
However, despite the concerns of some conservatives, Gupta corroborated Dr. O'Connor's report that the president was healthy and fit for office.
The six-page report went into more details on the president's condition, and stated that while he was fit to serve, he did have a number of minor issues that commonly afflict people his age.
This includes atrial fibrillation, gastric reflux, and seasonal allergies. The report also stated that Biden has a bit of a "stiffened gait," mostly as a result of a number of orthopedic injuries over the years and a broken foot in November 2020.
While no cognitive assessment was performed on the president, Dr. O'Connor said that he performed a detailed neurologic exam to check for central nervous disorders such as Parkinson's disease or a stroke. This exam did not reveal any significant findings, O'Connor added.
Physical examination results are typically released by presidents throughout their time in office.
In rating Biden's physical health for office over the last year, many respondents in the Politico/ Morning Consult poll didn't believe the president is healthy enough. Half disagreed with the statement that the president "is in good health" while 40 percent said they "somewhat" or "strongly agreed," according to the poll.
The survey also showed that 34 percent believed Biden was energetic, while 37 percent agreed that he was a clear communicator.
Many Republicans continue to call into question Biden's mental acuity, and some have mockingly called him Dementia Joe.
However, despite these concerns, a study from the University of Michigan found that only one in seven Americans over the age of 70 suffer from dementia, about 14 percent of that demographic.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House for comment.
VIDEO - (1) Viewspot on Twitter: "''Pauline Hanson will withhold support for all Government legislation unless the Prime Minister backs her bill to stop mandatory vaccination'...that legislation seeks to make it unlawful to discriminate against Australian
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 11:22
Viewspot : ''Pauline Hanson will withhold support for all Government legislation unless the Prime Minister backs her bill to st'... https://t.co/4In9xRIIJQ
Sun Nov 21 10:08:22 +0000 2021
Bors : @viewspotnz Pauline Hansen is the voice of reason.Christ this time line is wild.
Sun Nov 21 11:05:04 +0000 2021
ShaneParr ð...ðºð"ðð¬ð§ : @viewspotnz Saw @PaulineHansonOz playing pool in the Manly Steyne once. Around 1999 I reckon.
Sun Nov 21 10:50:31 +0000 2021
Epiphany : @viewspotnz @OneNationAus @UnitedAusParty @SenatorRennick @AdemSomyurek and Senator Alex Antic are political par'... https://t.co/qKBPkdmq22
Sun Nov 21 10:36:04 +0000 2021
C3 Consulting : @viewspotnz Ban the fakeccine. Arrest Scott Morrison #ArrestScottMorrison #StopTheJab
Sun Nov 21 10:32:01 +0000 2021
ilove coffee : @viewspotnz Wow go the Aussies.
Sun Nov 21 10:29:56 +0000 2021
The Party is Over : @viewspotnz https://t.co/43A4YoQBtn
Sun Nov 21 10:20:29 +0000 2021
Gabriel : @viewspotnz This will cause the leftists to double down, we don't want freedom, they will chant
Sun Nov 21 10:13:40 +0000 2021
Ash Tree ð± : @viewspotnz https://t.co/Al7Pc53m4w
Sun Nov 21 10:09:43 +0000 2021
VIDEO - COVID vaccine for pets coming soon; Honolulu zoo waiting on permits for experimental shot
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 05:40
HONOLULU (KHON2) '-- The death of the 13-year-old African male lion Ekundu at the Honolulu Zoo in mid-October has some people asking when the COVID vaccine will be available for their animals. With the number of pets contracting the virus on the mainland rising, pet owners can rest assured that a vaccine should be out soon.
For many people, pets are like members of the family, and keeping them healthy is very important. One expert said that a vaccine to protect pets and animals from getting COVID-19 could be available as early as January 2022.
Get Hawaii's latest morning news delivered to your inbox, sign up for News 2 You
So far there are no confirmed cases of pets with COVID in the Hawaiian islands.
''There have been some cases I guess that were suspicious,'' Kailua Animal Clinic Veterinarian Candice Denham explained. ''But, no, we don't have any documented cases testing positive in Hawaii.''
According to the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Agency, there have been 102 cat cases and 90 dog cases of SARS-CoV-2 '-- the virus that causes COVID '-- identified on the mainland.
Denham said almost all mammals are susceptible to the coronavirus, but cats seem to contract it more often. The virus is believed to be transmitted from human to animal; not the other way around. Denham added that a pet would likely exhibit symptoms similar to humans if they caught the virus.
''Probably lethargy, decreased appetite, maybe some sneezing, possibly some increased respiratory effort,'' Denham explained.
She also said she treated a dog early in the COVID pandemic '-- before there were tests '-- whose owner thought it might have COVID, but there was no way to check, and the dog died. For anyone who thinks their pet has COVID, Denham said to bring it to see a veterinarian so that they can conduct tests.
''Cats can be infected by a viral infection, unrelated to COVID-19 that can have very similar symptoms, not quite as severe,'' Denham stated. ''And dogs can have kennel cough, also which is similar but not as severe than what you'd see with COVID-19.''
Once other illnesses have been ruled out, the veterinarian would have to notify the state veterinarian about a possible COVID case and the test would be ordered. The good news is a vaccine for animals is in the works.
''There are some trials being done on vaccine for pets, mainly in cats, and that is expected to come out sometime at the end of this year, beginning of next year,'' Denham added.
There are also a number of other more exotic animals that caught the virus, according to the USDA: 35 lions, 32 tigers, 13 gorillas, 10 snow leopards, seven otters and 17 mink.
The Honolulu Zoo confirmed the only two positive cases of an animal with COVID-19 in Hawaii in October ''both were African lions. Ekundu, the 13-year-old male died from COVID. Moxy, the female lion, is doing fine.
The Honolulu Zoo Director Linda Santos said they ordered 72 doses of the experimental vaccine over the summer. of 2021 They hope it will arrive within the next seven weeks.
''We're just trying to get approval right now,'' Santos said. ''What that entails is a permit from USDA. We also have to notify the state veterinarian to get approval. We also have to give them a list of the exact animals we're going to be using it on.''
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Santos explained that it is taking a long time to get the vaccine because it is in high demand. There is limited supply and it has not been federally approved yet.
The zoo plans to give shots to exotic cats, dogs, non-human primates, as well as giraffes and other hooved animals.
VIDEO - Mass protests against lockdowns and vaccines in Prague, Rome, Amsterdam | Euronews
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 04:29
Thousands of protesters gathered in Vienna on Saturday after the Austrian government announced a nationwide lockdown to contain the quickly rising coronavirus infections in the country.
The far-right opposition Freedom Party was among those who have called for the protest and vowed to combat the new restrictions.
Demonstrations against virus measures also took place in Rome and were planned in Switzerland, Croatia and Italy.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters gathered in Rome's Circo Massimo on Saturday to demonstrate against COVID-19 vaccinations.
People were also protesting the use of the Green Pass, which is proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
In Italy, one must show their Green Pass in order to be allowed into several types of venues, such as cinemas.
On Friday night, Dutch police opened fire on protesters and seven people were injured in rioting that erupted in downtown Rotterdam around a demonstration against COVID-19 restrictions.
The Austrian lockdown will start early Monday and initially will last for 10 days, and will then be reevaluated. At the most it will last 20 days. Most stores will close, and cultural events will be canceled. People will be able to leave their homes only for certain specific reasons, including buying groceries, going to the doctor or exercising.
The Austrian government also said that starting Feb. 1, the country will make vaccinations mandatory.
As the march kicked off on Vienna's Heldenplatz, thousands of protesters gathered on the massive square. About 1,300 police officers were on duty. They used loudspeakers to tell protesters masks were required, but most didn't wear them.
Chanting ''resistance!'' and blowing whistles, protesters began to move slowly down the city's inner ring road. Many waved Austrian flags and carried signs mocking government leaders like Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg and Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein.
Some wore doctor's scrubs; others donned tinfoil hats. Most of the signs focused on the newly announced vaccine mandate: ''My Body, My Choice,'' read one. ''We're Standing Up for Our Kids!'' said another.
Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl, who announced earlier this week that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and had to stay in isolation at home, made an appearance via video. He denounced what he called ''totalitarian'' measures from a government ''that believes it should think and decide for us.''
Vaccinations in Austria have plateaued at one of the lowest rates in Western Europe and hospitals in heavily hit states have warned that their intensive care units are reaching capacity. Average daily deaths have tripled in recent weeks.
Not quite 66% of Austria's 8.9 million people are fully vaccinated, according to government figures.
Austrian Chancellor Schallenberg apologized to all vaccinated people on Friday night saying it wasn't fair they had to suffer under the renewed lockdown restrictions when they had done everything to help contain the virus.
''I'm sorry to take this drastic step,'' he said on public broadcaster ORF.
In France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin on Saturday condemned incidents in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, one of France's overseas territories, where violent demonstrations broke out this week over COVID-19 restrictions.
Darmanin said 29 people had been detained by police overnight. Authorities announced on Friday a decision to send 200 additional police officers on the island and a nightly curfew from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. to be imposed until Tuesday.
Protesters have staged road blockades and set street equipment and cars on fire. They denounce the COVID-19 health pass that is required to access restaurants and cafes, cultural venues, sport arenas and long-distance travel. They also protest mandatory vaccination for health care workers.
The pass shows that people are fully vaccinated, have had a recent negative test of proof of a recent COVID-19 recovery.
VIDEO - Liberty Media chairman on potential Discovery-Warner Media merger
Sun, 21 Nov 2021 04:06
Squawk on the StreetJohn Malone, Liberty Media chairman, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss merger opportunities Malone sees for the company.
04:28
Thu, Nov 18 2021 11:12 AM EST
VIDEO - Abby Martin Confronts Nancy Pelosi Over Pentagon Spending at COP26 - YouTube
VIDEO - (22) Acyn on Twitter: "Ingraham and Arroyo, enjoying that their bit went viral, reenact it https://t.co/V1xgygnzyq" / Twitter
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 15:28
Acyn : Ingraham and Arroyo, enjoying that their bit went viral, reenact it https://t.co/V1xgygnzyq
Thu Nov 18 03:47:48 +0000 2021
VIDEO - Riots in Rotterdam, the Netherlands - 9GAG
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:54
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VIDEO - (20) Jack Posobiec '''¸ on Twitter: "Joy Reid is in a hotel room melting down on air, compares Kyle Rittenhouse to a slave-catcher https://t.co/CMcIcZeaiG" / Twitter
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:49
Jack Posobiec '''¸ : Joy Reid is in a hotel room melting down on air, compares Kyle Rittenhouse to a slave-catcher https://t.co/CMcIcZeaiG
Sat Nov 20 02:09:07 +0000 2021
VIDEO - (41) Jack Posobiec '''¸ on Twitter: "Malcolm Nance: White supremacist militias are planning to have 'designated Kyle Rittenhouses' that commit massacres of 'race traitors' in Antifa and BLM https://t.co/D5XeBT2lLC" / Twitter
Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:48
Jack Posobiec '''¸ : Malcolm Nance: White supremacist militias are planning to have 'designated Kyle Rittenhouses' that commit massacres'... https://t.co/K5Z971dsG6
Sat Nov 20 02:16:47 +0000 2021
VIDEO - This Christmas, Nothing's Stopping Us l Tesco #NothingsStoppingUs - YouTube
VIDEO - How to deal with unvaccinated family members this Christmas | 7NEWS - YouTube
VIDEO - Premarket stocks: Oil prices are finally falling. Thank China and Joe Biden - CNN
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 14:27
A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business' Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.London (CNN Business)The price of oil has shot up this fall, boosting profits for major producers but hurting the wallets of drivers who need to fill up their tanks. Just a few days back, gas prices in California hit their highest level ever. This week, however, some of the pressure has started to lift.
What's happening: West Texas Intermediate futures, the US benchmark for oil prices, and Brent futures, the global benchmark, are now trading at their lowest levels in six weeks on signals that supply constraints could begin to ease soon.
In the United States, prices fell sharply Wednesday after oil inventories at a key hub in Cushing, Oklahoma rose for the first time in weeks.
But Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil markets at the consultancy Rystad Energy, told me that the biggest factor driving prices right now is the expected release of strategic reserves from the United States and China.
According to the White House, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed the "importance of taking measures to address global energy supplies" during their virtual summit this week. That sparked chatter about a coordinated move initiated by the White House to put millions of barrels of oil on the market.
Thursday brought some signs that China is taking action.
Reuters reported that the country's state reserve bureau said it was working on a release, though the exact details remain murky.
A spokesperson for China's National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration told CNN on Friday that it was "pushing forward with crude oil release-related work at the moment," but declined to comment on whether it was in response to a US request to work together to tackle the supply crunch.
Based on current price moves, Tonhaugen said, investors are expecting between 20 million and 30 million barrels to come online in the next month. That could be from the United States and China together, or through broader action coordinated by the International Energy Agency.
He emphasized, however, that the release of strategic reserves won't change the overall picture for long.
"[Releasing] strategic reserves is not the same as getting more continuous production of oil online," Tonhaugen said.
But more lasting relief could be coming. The IEA said in a report this week that it expects global oil supplies to rise by 1.5 million barrels per day over November and December as some production in the United States picks up again.
"The world oil market remains tight by all measures, but a reprieve from the price rally could be on the horizon," the Paris-based agency said.
OPEC is also steadily ramping up output, but there are questions about whether supply gains will be enough to meet a surge in demand for fuel.
Watch this space: President Joe Biden, who is taking political heat from the spike in gasoline prices,
asked the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday to "immediately" investigate whether illegal activity by oil and gas companies is contributing to the problem.
The American Petroleum Institute
slammed the push and renewed its call for the federal government to encourage domestic oil and gas production even as it tries to fight the climate crisis.
"This is a distraction from the fundamental shift that is taking place and the ill-advised government decisions that are exacerbating this challenging situation," the group said in a statement.
Warren Buffett-backed Paytm stumbles in trading debut
One of the hottest companies to begin trading on India's stock market is
getting off to a rough start.
This just in: Paytm's stock launched in Mumbai on Thursday. Shares of the startup went live at $26 apiece, below the offer price. They finished down more than 27%, giving the firm a market value of under $14 billion.
The weak debut reflects analysts' fears about the digital payments company, my CNN Business colleague Diksha Madhok reports. Despite its buzz, it lost hundreds of millions of dollars last year and seems far from ready to turn a profit. It's also up against competition from some of the biggest technology firms in the world.
Its initial public offering still marks a milestone. The digital payments company raised $2.5 billion in its IPO '-- the largest ever in the country when measured in local currency.
With backing from investors such as Warren Buffett, Masayoshi Son and Alibaba, Paytm is one of India's best funded startups.
The company took off five years ago when Prime Minister Narendra Modi banned two of the country's biggest currency notes. The move was hugely disruptive for India's economy, but it helped Paytm grow at an explosive rate: The company signed 10 million new users within a month.
Paytm now has 337 million registered consumers and 22 million merchants. Yet the field is getting crowded. Facebook and Google also want a piece of the huge market and have launched their own mobile payments systems in the country.
The metaverse is bigger than just Facebook
Facebook ( FB ) (ahem, Meta Platforms)
isn't the only company planning to cash in on the metaverse.
The latest: Shares of
Nvidia
( NVDA ), the industry leader in graphics processors and AI chips, are up 9% in premarket trading on Thursday after the company reported record revenue and forecast better-than-expected earnings for its upcoming quarter.
Nvidia recently announced the formal launch of NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for simulating and designing virtual worlds. The company has said it hopes to tap into the 40 million 3D designers in the global market.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg of what's to come," said CEO Jensen Huang.
Chipmaker
Qualcomm
( QCOM ) also wants in on the action, telling investors it intends to be "the ticket to the metaverse." Companies ranging from the owner of Playboy to record label Warner Music Group and media giant Disney all discussed the metaverse in earnings calls during the past few weeks, my CNN Business colleague Paul R. La Monica has noted.
Then there's gaming platform Roblox, which lets users generate their own avatars and play games created by other players. Shares have soared almost 160% since they debuted on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told CNN in Seoul that the metaverse isn't going to be created by one company. "It will be created by millions of developers each building out their part of it," Sweeney said.
Step back: Facebook made a splash when it changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms as it pivots its focus to augmented reality and virtual worlds. But if its vision of the future pans out, it won't be alone in raking in profits.
Up next
Alibaba ( BABA ),
JD.com
( JD ),
Kohl's
( KSS ),
Macy's
( M ) and Petco report results before US markets open.
Ross Stores
( ROST ) and
Williams-Sonoma
( WSM ) follow after the close.
Also today: Initial US jobless claims for last week post at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Coming tomorrow:
Foot Locker
( FL ) earnings wrap up retail's big week.
VIDEO - Feds charge two Iranians with interference in U.S. election
Fri, 19 Nov 2021 14:20
The Justice Department announced charges Thursday against two Iranians who are accused of helping to orchestrate a cyber-enabled campaign to intimidate and influence American voters in the 2020 election.
The campaign, which U.S. intelligence officials first described in October 2020, involved emails to tens of thousands of registered voters purporting to be from the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys. The emails threatened the recipients with physical injury unless they switched parties and voted for President Donald Trump.
The indictment, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges that the two Iranian defendants tried to compromise voter registration websites in 11 states ''to create the appearance that election results could not be trusted'' by misrepresenting that the election web sites could accept fraudulent ballots, a senior Justice Department official told reporters on a conference call.
One attempt was successful, prosecutors say, and the pair got information about more than 100,000 voters. The targeted state wasn't identified.
The defendants were identified as Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi and Sajjad Kashian. The State Department's Rewards for Justice Program is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information about their activities, officials said.
The pair is also charged with creating and disseminating a video containing ''disinformation about purported election infrastructure vulnerabilities'' and with hacking into an unnamed U.S. media company's computer network, an attack that was thwarted before any false claims could be sent.
The campaign didn't work '-- no voter registrations were changed, officials said.
''This indictment details how two Iran-based actors waged a targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among Americans,'' said Matthew G. Olsen, the assistant attorney general for national security. ''The allegations illustrate how foreign disinformation campaigns operate and seek to influence the American public. The department is committed to exposing and disrupting malign foreign influence efforts using all available tools, including criminal charges.''
The Iranians aren't in custody, but the charges and the sanctions will hamper their travel.
The indictment doesn't attribute the campaign to the Iranian government, but intelligence officials have done so publicly.
The Justice Department identified Kazemi and Kashian as ''experienced Iran-based computer hackers who worked as contractors for an Iran-based company formerly known as Eeleyanet Gostar, and now known as Emennet Pasargad.''
Eeleyanet Gostar is known to have provided services to the Iranian government, the Justice Department said in a news release.
Kazemi and Kashian are both charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse, intimidate voters and transmit interstate threats, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of voter intimidation, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison; and one count of transmission of interstate threats, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Kazemi is also charged with one count of unauthorized computer intrusion, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and one count of knowingly damaging a protected computer, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The Justice Department statement said the Treasury Department separately imposed sanctions on Emennet Pasargad, Kazemi, Kashian and four other Iranian nationals who lead Emennet Pasargad.
Ken Dilanian is a correspondent covering intelligence and national security for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
VIDEO - PROOF: KIDS WILL DIE, PFIZER KNEW
Thu, 18 Nov 2021 22:40
Rumble '-- The vaccines haven't worked the way our leaders told us they would. Now, they need to force them into our children. It's a religious imperative for the left, in their new coronavirus death cult. The CEO of Pfizer is going around saying that people who question the official story on the vaccines are ''criminals.'' Karen Kingston joins Stew to discuss who the real criminals are, especially those involved in disabling and killing kids through vaccine trials.
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VIDEO - Newsday - Delhi ready for air pollution lockdown - BBC Sounds
Thu, 18 Nov 2021 22:29
From: Newsday Delhi ready for air pollution lockdown Delhi ready for air pollution lockdown
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