Society's ChildS


Russian Flag

'Game-changing machine': Russian military get first batch of modernized T-90M tanks

Russia's T-90M tank
© Sputnik / Pavel GerasimovRussia's T-90M tank
With better protected turret, more powerful engine and a sighting system that guarantees high precision in nighttime, the modernized T-90M tank has now made it into the Russian army.

The first batch of the new war machines, called 'Proryv' (breakthrough) has been delivered to the elite Taman Armored Division near Moscow.

The arrival to their place of basing has been filmed by the Defense Ministry's Zvezda channel and featured the sad trend of the current time, as servicemen were seen wearing protective masks over the raging and deadly Covid-19 pandemic.

Eye 1

'The UK is dead': Near-unanimous disgust after British police threaten to 'appear from shadows' to bust rural picnics

uk police
© AFP / Oli Scarff
Central Bedfordshire police have triggered an avalanche of social media scorn after warning residents that their scenic picnics would be ambushed by eagle-eyed law enforcement tasked with supervising Covid-19 lockdown measures.

The police force, which serves a rural area of eastern England, took to Twitter to announce that they would be on the prowl for unruly locals trying to enjoy the nice weather outside.

"If you think that by going for a picnic in a rural location no one will find you, don't be surprised if an officer appears from the shadows! We are covering the whole county," they wrote, including a photograph illustrating the discreet nature of their personnel.

Red Flag

From nanny choppers to police break-ins: Top absurd crackdowns during COVID-19

Covid-19 crackdowns
© Twitter/@velocirapture23
As coronavirus lockdowns go on without an end in sight, local authorities are testing the limits of their captive populations — from sending helicopters to break up football games, to recording license plates of rogue worshipers.

The coronavirus epidemic has most of the world going stir-crazy under lockdown — except for the police who've been given unprecedented powers to enforce a tempting slate of new laws — and a few rules that they seem to be making up as they go along. Here are some of the silliest — and most disturbing.

Helicopter parenting

Tunisia, already on the map for sending robotic quarantine-enforcers through the streets of Tunis to check people's papers, has stepped up its police-state game. Over the weekend, a military helicopter was sent in to break up a youth soccer game that violated the nation's lockdown order. Video posted to social media of the bizarre intrusion shows the aircraft hovering low enough to kick up huge clouds of dust and make game-play impossible. Sure, we've seen this with drones in other countries, but a military helicopter?!


Star of David

Apartheid gains momentum in the time of corona

Bennet
© TwitterNaftali Bennet, Israeli defense minister, visits an ultraorthodox community with soldiers.
I have to disagree with Dr. Azmi Bishara. Trying to defend the disastrously late response of western capitalist states to the pandemic, he claimed in Arab 48, that governments should not be assessed by their conduct at emergencies. I find just the opposite to be the case. We have seen, in many cases, that in normal times a country can just about manage itself without a functioning government. But a major crisis exposes abruptly many things about the nature of each regime, exactly at the time that we desperately need a good government to protect us, and everybody is taking note.

The Economist reports that in the United States, lifesaving PPE (personal protective equipment) that is imported by the government (through FEMA) is given to private distributers to make a buck at the expense of the lives of medical staff on the frontline. We have seen all rich countries stop exporting essential medical goods and outbidding everybody else to get whatever is on the market. When Italy was at the worst of the crisis, Germany banned export of medical supply, but when China sent needed life-saving equipment EU leaders warned that China was doing so "for propaganda purposes".

Reading the local Corona news in Israel is yet a very different story. Israel's Apartheid regime is showing itself to be absurdly abnormal even in the most abnormal of times. Here are some heart-breaking examples of what Apartheid looks like at the time of Corona.

Beaker

Nearly 30% of Americans think COVID-19 was created in lab - Pew poll

Pharma lab
© Peter Steffen | dpa via AP
What is the origin of the new coronavirus? It is an alarming topic. Still, a notable portion of the public — particularly conservatives — believes that the virus emerged from a laboratory rather than nature, according to a new poll released on Wednesday.

Three-in-10 (29%) say it most likely was created in a lab — 23% believe the current strain of the coronavirus was developed intentionally in a laboratory; another 6% say it was most likely made accidentally in a lab, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.

A plurality of the respondents — 43% — said the virus came about naturally while a quarter say they aren't sure where the virus originated.

Bad Guys

The coronavirus is inspiring little tyrants all over the United States

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer michigan
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
There's nothing like a crisis to bring clarity. The response of some mayors and governors to the coronavirus pandemic in recent days has made it clear they think they have unlimited and arbitrary power over their fellow citizens, that they can order them to do or not do just about anything under the guise of protecting public health.

We've now witnessed local and state governments issue decrees about what people can and cannot buy in stores, arrest parents playing with their children in public parks, yank people off public buses at random, remove basketball rims along with private property, ticket churchgoers, and in one case try — and fail — to chase down a lone runner on an empty beach. All of this, we're told, is for our own good.

Some Authorities Are Targeting Christians

The most egregious example of this outpouring of authoritarianism was an attempt by Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Greg Fischer to ban drive-in church services on Easter. On Holy Thursday, one day before Christians were to begin their most important religious celebrations of the year, Fischer declared that drive-in Easter services would be illegal.

House

Nearly half a billion people may end up in poverty due to coronavirus crisis: report

poverty lockdown consequence
© REUTERS/Prashant WaydandeMigrants workers rest inside a workshop after it was shut due to the 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Mumbai, India, April 7, 2020.
The fallout from the coronavirus spread that has killed more than 83,000 people and wreaked havoc on economies around the world could push around half a billion people into poverty, Oxfam said on Thursday.

The report released by the Nairobi-based charity ahead of next week's International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank annual meeting calculated the impact of the crisis on global poverty due to shrinking household incomes or consumption.

"The economic crisis that is rapidly unfolding is deeper than the 2008 global financial crisis," the report found.

Comment: Never forget that the consequences of this lockdown are completely manufactured. Locking down the entire planet for a virus no more severe than the flu was a completely unnecessary overreaction. This makes the consequences all the more infuriating.

See also:


Magnify

SOTT Focus: Swiss Propaganda Research: Facts About Covid-19

Coronavirus globe graphic
© BioWorld MedTech
Fully referenced facts about Covid-19, provided by experts in the field, to help our readers make a realistic risk assessment. (Regular updates below)
"The only means to fight the plague is honesty." Albert Camus, The Plague (1947)
Overview
  1. According to data from the best-studied countries such as South Korea, Iceland, Germany and Denmark, the overall lethality of Covid19 is in the lower per mille range and thus up to twenty times lower than initially assumed by the WHO.
  2. A study in Nature Medicine comes to a similar conclusion even for the Chinese city of Wuhan. The initially significantly higher values for Wuhan were obtained because a many people with mild or no symptoms were not recorded.
  3. 50% to 80% of test-positive individuals remain symptom-free. Even among the 70 to 79 year old persons about 60% remain symptom-free, many more show only mild symptoms.
  4. The median age of the deceased in most countries (including Italy) is over 80 years and only about 1% of the deceased had no serious previous illnesses. The age and risk profile of deaths thus essentially corresponds to normal mortality.
  5. Many media reports of young and healthy people dying from Covid19 have proven to be false upon closer inspection. Many of these people either did not die from Covid19 or they in fact had serious preconditions (such as undiagnosed leukaemia).
  6. Normal overall mortality in the US is about 8000 people per day, in Germany about 2600 people and in Italy about 1800 people per day. Influenza mortality in the US is up to 80,000, in Germany and Italy up to 25,000, and in Switzerland up to 1500 people per winter.

Comment: Older updates can be found here.


Brick Wall

'Infect the young and isolate those at risk' - One German scientist's plan to end the lockdown

Alexander Kekulé

Comment: The professor cited below is notable only insofar as he recommends ending the lockdown and letting the young acquire the virus. Other than that, he seems to totally fall in line with the lies about the danger posed by the coronavirus. If the authorities and media ignored this 'pandemic' from the outset, just as they do with the flu, it would have made zero impact on the planet.


A leading German epidemiologist who predicted the coronavirus crisis in Europe is now calling for governments to end the lockdown.

Prof Alexander Kekulé warned the virus was about to engulf Europe and publicly urged Angela Merkel's government to start screening international travellers as early as January.

But he now believes the lockdown is in danger of going on too long and causing more damage than the virus, and has drawn up a plan for how it can be safely lifted.

Comment: If you read between the lines, the good professor is basically telling us that we should be treating this virus like it's the flu - isolate the vulnerable (as they do with the flu in hospitals and nursing homes) and let everybody else get it as with every other flu season. The only real difference is saying people who are coming into contact with a lot of people should be adopting more protective measures like masks, which is debatable.


Propaganda

Assange's mother fact-checks media as story of her son's previously hidden family published

Assange
© AFP / Luis Gene
Julian Assange's mother has gone on the offensive against slanted reporting after her son's legal adviser revealed having two children with the WikiLeaks co-founder.

Stella Morris, a South African-born lawyer who helped Assange work on a legal bid to end extradition threats against him, revealed that the journalist fathered two sons with her during his years of political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

In a video statement, Morris said she was coming forward because their lives were "on the brink" and she feared Assange could die in prison as he awaits a ruling over his extradition to the United States. There is growing concern that Covid-19 could endanger Assange in Belmarsh Prison, where he is currently being held.

Comment: See also: Assange's trial and detention is a travesty of justice