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Wed, 29 Sep 2021
The World for People who Think


Blue Planet

Great Barrier Reef experiencing 'record high' levels of coral coverage


Sky News
Sun, 26 Sep 2021 13:31 UTC
great barrier reef
Former JCU Marine Physicist Peter Ridd says the Great Barrier Reef is now experiencing "record high coral cover".

"This is data that's been accumulated over a little while now and it shows ... it's actually at record high coral cover," he told Sky News Australia. "We've got more coral on the Great Barrier Reef now than we did when records began in 1985.

"We've got twice as much coral as we had after huge cyclones went through the reef in about 2011 and 2012, and this record-high coral cover is despite supposedly having three catastrophic unprecedented bleaching events in just the last five years.

"So you've just got to wonder were those bleaching events maybe as catastrophic as these experts supposedly claimed."

Comment: What ever happened to the Great Barrier Reef being on the verge of collapse? Previously:

Scientists warn Great Barrier Reef in Australia is undergoing a complete ecosystem collapse

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Eye 1

Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA's secret war plans against WikiLeaks

Zach Dorfman, Sean D. Naylor and Michael Isikoff
Yahoo! News
Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:00 UTC
assange window curtain
In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation.

Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request "sketches" or "options" for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred "at the highest levels" of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. "There seemed to be no boundaries."

The conversations were part of an unprecedented CIA campaign directed against WikiLeaks and its founder. The agency's multipronged plans also included extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group's members, and stealing their electronic devices.
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No Entry

Lavrov: EU foreign policy head told him to STAY OUT of 'our' Africa, as he denies Moscow's role in mercenaries invited to Mali


RT
Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:44 UTC
Lavrov and Borrell
© Mikhail Voskresenskiy/Sputnik/AP/Brittany Newman/KJN
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov • EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell
With the terrorist-fighting government of Mali in talks with a private Russian military firm, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov to bluntly stay out of Africa, allegedly calling it "our place."

The modern EU bureaucracy may seem light years away from the rapacious colonial powers of olden Europe, but geopolitics seemingly still reigns in Brussels, with the fight this time over influence in the troubled West African nation of Mali. With Mali's military-ruled government struggling to quell a wave of jihadism, and France on the cusp of withdrawing its forces from the region, the country is now reportedly looking to hire as many as 1,000 private mercenaries from the controversial Russian Wagner Group to bolster its own forces.

The deal led to a wave of condemnation from the West, with officials in the US and Europe viewing it as an effort by Moscow to muscle into African affairs. An American official said on Friday:
"We continue to be concerned about the rise... of malign influences on the continent."
Lavrov has dismissed accusations of Russian government involvement, saying on Saturday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York that the Kremlin had "nothing to do with" the deal, which was negotiated between Mali's government and a "private military contractor."
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Eye 2

Tony Blair Says Govt Should Vaccinate Nursery-Age Children

Kurt Zindulka
newsbinding
Sun, 19 Sep 2021 07:43 UTC
Tony Blair
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that the British government should begin vaccinating nursery age children and begin imposing vaccine passports in order to supposedly prevent another lockdown in the winter.

In written comments in the foreword to a coronavirus report from the Tony Blair Institute, which has been attempting to steer decision-making in the United Kingdom and across the world from the outset of the pandemic, the former Prime Minister argued children are becoming a significant source of the spread of the virus.

While the government's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) did not recommend vaccinating children on health grounds, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has decided to push forward with vaccinating children over the age of 12-years-old, even without parental consent in some cases.


Comment: Tony Blair "Institute" has received millions of dollars back in 2018 for advising Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's modernization program under a "not for profit" arrangement. This "institute" enabled so-called "progressive reforms" in Saudi Arabia under which women can get their heads chopped off, even for supporting political protests.

Just follow the money, not the science if you want to see the real face of this harsh reality and all ugly creatures from the swamp which thrive on people's suffering and pain.


Comment: See also:

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Bizarro Earth

40 days to save the planet? Boris' green act is yet another unprincipled U-turn from a serial flip flopper

Paul A. Nuttall
RT
Thu, 23 Sep 2021 06:53 UTC
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
© AP Photo / Eduardo Munoz
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson addresses the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021, at U.N. headquarters.
The British prime minister is seeking to fashion himself as a switched-on leader on climate change - but isn't it all just more hot air and bluster from one of the world's biggest confidence tricksters?

Boris Johnson was doing his best Greta Thunberg impression at the United Nations yesterday.

According to BoJo, we have been acting like a 16-year-old and "it's time for humanity to grow up." Interestingly, Greta was only 16 when she told the UN that "you have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," and yet for some reason, everyone listened to her.

Boris also said that the world has just 40 days "to come to Glasgow to make the commitments necessary" to save the planet. And if we don't, "our grandchildren will know that we are the culprits ... and that we missed our cue, and they will ask what kind of people we were to be so selfish and so short-sighted."

If he carries on making alarmist statements like this, he'll end up gluing himself to the M25 or peppering the City of London with red paint.

Comment: See also:

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Bullseye

The AUKUS issue is not over

Andrei Martyanov
Reminiscence of the Future...
Sat, 18 Sep 2021 12:00 UTC
submarine
© CC0
Alfa Class Submarine
Well, then I might as well address it. I am talking about this whole AUKUS affair and France losing huge contact on submarines for Royal Australian Navy. At this stage I am not interested in technical minutiae of this whole scandal, because it is useless anyway to concentrate on technical details of something which may change many times before, and if, it comes to fruition. I am, however, as always, interested in fundamental factors defining the framework. Le Drian and anyone in France' political top can express their frustration and play geopolitical games whatever they want, such as running to India:
On Friday, France recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra after Australia scrapped a major submarine program with France in favor of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the US and UK. Paris furiously protested the new arrangement between Australia, the US and UK, known as AUKUS. Le Drian called the ditching of French-Australian submarine program "a stab in the back."

Comment: See also:

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Network

Tehran's in a tough position with the Taliban

Andrew Korybko
The Alt World
Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:00 UTC
Iran taliban
The Taliban's lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan last month put Iran in a very difficult position. On the one hand, the Islamic Republic has traditionally been opposed to the self-declared "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" (IEA), especially after some of its members killed Iranian diplomats in 1998 and the group's prior rule of the country saw it oppressing the Shiite minority. On the other hand, however, Iran has little choice but to acknowledge the group's de facto leadership of Afghanistan and thus pragmatically engage with it in the interests of peace, security, and development.

Tehran cannot realistically extend military support to anti-Taliban elements there like it did during their prior period of rule from 1996-2001 because the Taliban controls all of the country's international borders for the first time in its history. The modern-day iteration of this movement also claimed to have changed its ways by moderating its previously strict policies in light of changed domestic and international conditions even though observers have yet to see many tangible manifestations of this. Nevertheless, these promises add credibility to those countries like Iran that are pragmatically engaging with the Taliban in the hopes that it'll keep its word.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:


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Hiliter

9/11 and Afghanistan post-mortems: Lessons in safe logic

Edward Curtin
Off Guardian
Sun, 19 Sep 2021 00:00 UTC
9-11 memorial
© AdobeStock
In the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the 20th anniversary of the mass murders of September 11, 2001, the corporate mainstream and alternative media have been replete with articles analyzing the consequences of 9/11 that resulted in the US invasion of Afghanistan and its alleged withdrawal after two decades of war.

These critiques have ranged from mild to harsh, and have covered issues from the loss of civil liberties due to The Patriot Act and government spying through all the wars "on terror" in so many countries with their disastrous consequences and killing fields.

Many of these articles have emphasized how, as a result of the Bush administration's response to 9/11, the US has lost its footing and brought on the demise of the American empire and its standing in the world. Some writers celebrate this and others bemoan it. Most seem to consider this inevitable.

This flood of articles has been authored by writers from across the political spectrum from the left through the center to the right.

All were outraged in their own ways, as such dramatic events typically manage to elicit much spilled ink informed by the writers' various ideological positions in a media world where the categories of left and right have become meaningless.
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Seismograph

Amidst erupting lockdown protests, strongest earthquake on record strikes Melbourne, Australia

Alice Klein
New Scientist
Wed, 22 Sep 2021 10:56 UTC
Emergency workers survey damage in Melbourne, Australia, where debris is scattered after part of a wall fell from a building
© James Ross
Emergency workers survey damage in Melbourne, Australia, where debris is scattered after part of a wall fell from a building
The state of Victoria, Australia, was shaken by its biggest onshore earthquake in recorded history on 22 September. Some buildings were damaged but no one was seriously hurt.

The magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck at 9:15am local time, according to Geoscience Australia. The epicentre was in the Alpine National Park about 120 kilometres east of Melbourne, at a shallow depth of around 10 kilometres.

People in Melbourne, who are currently in a covid-19 lockdown, reported feeling the ground shake for 15 to 20 seconds. Tremors were also felt in Canberra, just over 300 kilometres north-east of the epicentre.

A small number of buildings in Melbourne partially collapsed and power outages occurred in some parts of the city, but no major damage or serious injuries have been reported.


Comment: The timing of this unusually strong earthquake is notable because, after many months of increasingly oppressive lockdown restrictions, just a few days ago Australia saw an eruption of protests ignited by the enforcement of vaccine mandates: Melbourne police fire pepper balls at thousands of protesters amidst growing discontent over vaccine mandates & endless lockdowns

The pattern of significant phenomena such as earthquakes, record rainfalls, meteor fireball events, and so on, amidst peaks of societal upheaval is becoming ever more apparent.

To further illustrate the point: about 15 days ago there was a significant M7.1 earthquake in Mexico that just happened to be the anniversary of an even larger M8.2 that rocked the country on the same date in 2017. In the run-up to the day many Mexicans reported feeling anxiety that a similarly large and devastating quake might occur; thankfully for them, the quake was not as destructive. A similar sequence was noted with the M8.0 quake on September 19th 1985 which was echoed in an M7.1 on the same date in 2017:

Rocks the size of small houses break off during landslide near Mexico City, 1 dead, 10 missing

For more on Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection, check out SOTT radio's: As well as Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk's book the subject: Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection

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Eye 2

If Australia's brutal response to lockdown protests was happening anywhere else, hypocritical Canberra would be demanding sanctions

Damian Wilson
RT
Tue, 21 Sep 2021 17:49 UTC
melbourne protest lockdown forced vaccine police
© AFP / William WEST
Police tackle protesters in Melbourne during an anti-lockdown rally.
The world is watching in horror as Covid chaos unfolds on the streets Down Under, with heavy-handed elite police piling in on lockdown protestors using an arsenal of weapons that would be the envy of any authoritarian regime.

The online images are all too familiar: helmeted and masked police in body armour with batons held high, clubbing protestors lying on the ground as incapacitating pepper smoke burns their eyes and chokes their breath.

Meanwhile, mobs of rowdy protestors take over city streets, blocking traffic and disrupting the working week as they throw projectiles at 'whoop-whooping' police cars. Mayhem reigns.

Comment: Canberra has awakened a sleeping giant.







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