COVID-19 was not dangerous enough to justify cutting short vaccine trials as the vaccine had to be "very safe", Chris Whitty advised the Government in the early weeks of the outbreak, it has emerged.

Writing on WhatsApp on February 29th 2020, the Chief Medical Officer told Government figures: "For a disease with a low (for the sake of argument 1%) mortality a vaccine has to be very safe so the safety studies can't be shortcut. So important for the long run."

The estimate of 1% turned out to be an overestimate, as the infection fatality rate in Europe and the Americas was found to be 0.3-0.4%.

Chief Scientist Patrick Vallance agreed with this advice and wrote that existing drugs should be relied on instead: "Agree, existing drugs best things to try for this outbreak. Accelerate vaccine testing where we have good candidates for future, and prepare for manufacturing capacity for longer term."

Truly sovereign states are no longer afraid of 'Western diktat,' Dmitry Medvedev says...

Russia is ready to help the world do away with the vestiges of a Western-dominated colonial past, former president Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. The official argued that as a nation "which has never had any colonies," Russia is well-placed to take part in this process.

In an article published on Monday, Medvedev claimed that "geopolitical turbulence has cut open an abscess of the old problems of our world." The ex-president and now deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, argued that:

the "malignant tumor of a colonial past" is a problem that calls for "international surgery."

"We, together with other countries, can now drive the final nail in the coffin of the Western world's neo-colonial aspirations," Medvedev proclaimed in the piece, posted on the United Russia party website. He noted that the Soviet Union played a major role in dismantling the colonial system of the 20th century.

Washington has ignored concerns over its "bio-military bases" both at home and abroad, Beijing said...

The World Health Organization (WHO) should launch a new investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in the United States, China has said, rejecting charges by Washington that the deadly pathogen escaped from a high-security virology lab in Wuhan.

Asked about recent comments by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - who called on China and other nations to be "transparent in sharing data" regarding the genesis of the health crisis - Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning insisted:

"Beijing has shared more data and research findings than any other country and contributed the most on origins-tracing. Tracing the origins of the virus is a matter of science. This study should be and can only be conducted jointly by scientists around the world."

Mao told reporters on Monday:

"The US government has only hampered those efforts by politicizing, weaponizing and instrumentalizing the issue. We hope the WHO Secretariat will take a science-based, objective and just position, not let politicization get in the way, and carry out the origins-tracing study in the US, among other countries, and play a positive role in science-based global origins-tracing."

Anonymous agents cited unspecified intelligence to deny US responsibility for the pipeline attack...

Unspecified new intelligence "suggests that a pro-Ukrianian group" was behind the September 2022 attack on Nord Stream pipelines, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, quoting anonymous US officials.

The Times' unnamed sources said they "believed the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two" and that "no American or British nationals were involved." They further said they had no evidence Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky or his "top lieutenants" were involved, or that the "any Ukrainian government officials" directed the attack.

The anonymous officials and said it was possible the attack "might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services."

The use of the century old Espionage Act in the Julian Assange case continues to set the chilling precedent of a bleak future in American journalism, a precedent that endangers even those outside US borders.

Carey Shenkman, attorney, author, and litigator specializing in civil and human rights, joins Robert Scheer for this week's Scheer Intelligence, where Shenkman offers a sobering analysis on one of the most chilling attacks on press freedom exhibited in the Julian Assange case. Using his recently published book, A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press, Shenkmen details the history of the Espionage Act and how civil liberties have continued to be eroded as a result of the existence of this law and the lack of revision.

Shenkman talks about the bipartisan disdain towards the Espionage Act in legal circles yet its continued use by bipartisan presidents brings the conversation to its flaws and disreputability:

"Over the decades, you have folks that are coming out with law review articles saying that it's vague, verbose, that it makes no sense, and that ambiguity in the law is being exploited now to go after Julian Assange, to go after government whistleblowers. So there have actually been serious calls for its reform and repeal in recent years."

Assange faces 175 years in a U.S. maximum security prison after being indicted with 17 charges relating to the Espionage Act. Going back to its inception during World War I, Shenkman explains what its true purpose was:

"Within the law you get a sense that this language of promoting disloyalty, of promoting opposition to the war, was actually used to go after conscientious objectors and folks that opposed entry into World War I. We tried to dig through the history to see if a publisher has ever been charged for anything like Julian Assange has been accused of. And the answer is no. This is the first case in U.S. history of its kind. And it would set a precedent that would open the floodgates for prosecuting the press.

"Assange is not a U.S. government employee. He's not even a U.S. citizen. And somehow the U.S. government says it has jurisdiction."

Shenkman says if Assange is extradited, it will make his case a law school case for all the wrong reasons. Despite all the concern surrounding the overreaching power of the United States, this case could also open the door to countries around the world to extradite citizens from foreign countries for exposing their wrongdoings.

Transcript

Pyongyang said any American efforts to interfere with its weapons tests would be considered a "clear declaration of war".

North Korea has vowed to respond with "overwhelming" force should the US military attempt to intercept missiles fired during test launches. The warning came hours after Washington and Seoul carried out their latest round of air drills in the region, which involved at least one nuclear-capable bomber.

In a statement on Tuesday, Kim Yo-jong - the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a senior figure in the ruling Workers' Party - responded to a recent press report citing a high ranking US military official, who said the Pentagon would immediately intercept any long-range missile fired into the Pacific by the DPRK.

In comments carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), she said:

"If a military response such as an interception follows our strategic weapons test, which is conducted without any harm to the safety of neighboring countries in the high seas and airspace not under the jurisdiction of the United States, this will undoubtedly be regarded as a clear declaration of war."

She added that the North would be closely watching all military movements by the US and the "South Korean puppet army," declaring Pyongyang is prepared to respond with "striking, swift and overwhelming action at any time."

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is demanding Elon Musk turn over internal Twitter documents, including a list of the journalists who were behind the viral "Twitter Files."

The Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday about more than a dozen letters the FTC sent to Twitter and its legal counsel as part of a probe looking into Musk's 2022 takeover of the tech giant.

The information ordered by the FTC included a demand to "identify all journalists" who were granted access to the company's archives, turn over anything involving the massive layoffs and the Twitter Blue subscription service, provide all internal communications related to Musk, and explain why Twitter fired its deputy general counsel and former FBI lawyer Jim Baker.

Details of the letters emerged from an interim staff report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government which accused the government agency led by FTC chairwoman Lina Khan of overreaching to harass Twitter.

Does rotting Western Civilisation has any hope of resuscitation and survival?
The infamous Carl Rove (we shall not bother with an explanatory note, whoever remembers this cowboy and is still interested may look him up) twenty and some years ago articulated the gist of the empire's swaggering ideology:

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

Students of "empire" must wonder indeed how this foolish man, if he is still around, would now comment his erstwhile utterance. The empire in whose name Rove arrogantly spoke a quarter of a century ago lies in shambles; its reality-producing powers seem notably diminished. If the pretentious nincompoop Rove had any notion of history, he would probably acknowledge that the lifespan of his empire had been even shorter than Assyria's, its ephemeral prototype from antiquity.

The crude vulgarity of Rove's boasting should not, however, obscure the fact that a similar disdain for reality was articulated before him by Lord Bertrand Russell, by any measure a genuinely substantial figure. In his 1953 treatise "The Impact of Science on Society," the sophisticated intellectual Russell wrote up a much more polished and cynical version of Rove's plebeian ranting:

The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of schoolchildren on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black (Page 33).

The effort to invert reality and produce just such an unshakable conviction is in full operation in the terminally sick community of nations Dostoevsky charitably referred to as "the precious graveyard," now known also as the Collective West.

The West's newest ideological fad is reality inversion. Another way of putting it is that the most compelling expression of fealty to the West's values consists of vociferously denying the evidence of one's senses.

A Texas state lawmaker filed a bill on Monday that would set a referendum for voters to decide whether the state should explore the possibility of seceding from the United States.

If the measure — known as the TEXIT Referendum Act — passes, a referendum on whether Texas "should reassert its status as an independent nation" would be scheduled for the next general election on Nov. 7, 2023. The bill would also require potential plans to be presented to the state legislature.

"The Texas Constitution is clear that all political power resides in the people," Rep. Bryan Slaton (R) wrote in a statement. "After decades of continuous abuse of our rights and liberties by the federal government, it is time to let the people of Texas make their voices heard."

Alexander Lukashenko used harsh words to describe his Ukrainian counterpart's actions amid the conflict with Russia

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has lashed out at his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky, accusing him of attempting to drag Belarus into Kiev's conflict with Moscow.

On Tuesday, Lukashenko told the media that a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft sustained minor damage in a drone attack on the Machulishchy air base in Belarus last week, adding that the assault had been carried out by a "terrorist" recruit of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU).

"There can be only one conclusion... President Zelensky is just scum. Just scum, as such operations are never carried out without the consent of the head of state and the commander-in-chief. I am telling you this as a president," the Belarusian leader said.