Puppet Masters
"The French government has officially sanctioned prescriptions of chloroquine to treat certain coronavirus patients," France 24 English reported Saturday.
"This ensures continued treatment of patients who have been treated for several years for a chronic condition with this drug, but also allows a temporary authorization to allow certain patients with coronavirus to benefit from this therapeutic route," said France's director general of health Jérôme Salomon.
On January 3rd, China reported a total of 44 suspected patients, after, two days earlier, having closed the Huanan seafood market, suspected to be the source of the mystery disease, as some of the patients presenting with the pneumonia-like illness were dealers or vendors at the market. On January 7th, China identified a new coronavirus as cause of the outbreak.
Since then, the media hysteria and chaotic actions of governments around the world have put the globe into state of a constant crisis. Governments are imposing lockdowns and limit freedoms of their citizens. The situation is further fueled by the economic crisis and the dramatic fall of oil prices. MSM media outlets release daily reports counting confirmed COVID-19 cases and associated deaths (that are in fact less than from the seasonal influenza illnesses).
However, I insist that this assumption may have become threadbare, and that there may well be a power struggle going on in the Kremlin today which Vladimir Vladimirovich no longer controls. Indeed, it appears he is receiving his script now from the stronger of the contenders around him and is not comfortable with his lines.
I hinted at this three days ago in my analysis of his address to the nation on the coronavirus, saying that perhaps "Putin's command of the situation is faltering."
In statement published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Monday, an unnamed North Korean diplomat in charge of the talks with the US warned that the country will continue working on "our important planned projects aimed to repay the US with actual horror and unrest for the sufferings it has inflicted upon our people."
"We will go our own way. We want the US not to bother us," the official said.
Iran's Foreign Ministry has taken a rather creative approach to lament the US economic pressure on the country in general and to condemn US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in particular.
In a tweet, the ministry posted a picture calling to "stop aiding war crimes" and "obeying immoral and illegal US sanctions" with the word "sanction" written in the middle of the image. However, the letter "O" was stylised as the coronavirus with a translucent Mike Pompeo emerging from it.
Comment: Pompeo and the US war-making class like to speak out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand they "offer" medical aid and assistance to Iran, and on the other, make economic conditions on the ground so oppressive for Iranians that they have far greater difficulties just taking care of themselves.
See also: 'Not a time for political war': Rouhani slams US anti-Iranian sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic - as well as:
- US puts NEW sanctions on Iran, despite calls for relief amid massive coronavirus outbreak
- Top US general resists Trump administration's efforts to provoke war with Iran
- US sanctions on Iran are making its coronavirus crisis worse. Ilhan Omar is calling for them to be suspended
- Washington targets firms linked to Iran's national oil company with fresh sanctions
- The Pompeo and Netanyahu conspiracy to push Trump into declaring war with Iran failed - but try, try again
1, Benny Gantz may have betrayed the Israeli center that wanted to dethrone Netanyahu, but as Netanyahu's partner he will prevent the Israeli government from annexing the West Bank over the next 10 months.
2, The mainstreaming of Palestinian lawmakers as players in the Israeli discourse has been "huge" and would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, said that the next ten months are "critical" for right wing Israeli advocates of annexation. "After corona [crisis ends], they will try and seize that victory and the land, before a Biden government comes in."
Comment: Interesting. Why are they so certain that there will be a "Biden government"? Does the J Street organization know something we don't? Or are they just making a rather dumb assumption - like the way most predicted Killary would win the 2016 election?
Yael Patir, the head of J Street's Israeli arm, said annexation has been set back: "Everything we thought about and were worried about in terms of the fast pace in which annexation can be... implemented... is on hold... It's not on the table right now." Trump can't OK Israeli annexation because he's too enmeshed in the coronavirus crisis and the reelection campaign.
Comment: Considering the pathological drive and immense power that the racist and imperialist class of politicians in Israeli society now have, it seems highly unlikely that the "centrist" and more "progressive" forces in the US and Israel will have any significant say, or influence, on the Zionist state's current trajectory. See also:
- In process, won't take long: Israel maps areas of West Bank subject to extension of its sovereignty
- US forces Israel to backpedal on early annexation of West Bank
- Israel largest political party, Netanyahu's Lukid, proposes bill to execute Palestinian prisoners
- Israel builds new Jews-only bypass road on more stolen Palestinian land
- Israel plans 9,000 settler homes despite Trump's plan for Palestinian 'tourism center'
- US-Israel is predictably behind Turkish aggression in Syria
- Israel threatens to remove Iran from Syria in next 12 months
- The war scenario between Israel and Hezbollah
The Justice Department has reportedly opened a probe into U.S. senators selling stocks just before financial markets plunge as the coronavirus spread around the world.
The FBI has contacted at least one of the four senators identified in the selloff, Sen. Richard Burr, chairman the Senate Intelligence Committee, CNN reported Sunday.
Burr, a North Carolina Republican, on February 13, sold $628,000 to $1.7 million in stocks. Burr says the trade decisions were based on information accessible to the public. In early March, the senator requested that the Senate Ethics Committee review his trades.
The question becomes whether the lawmakers conducted trades based on information they received in non-public briefings about the novel coronavirus. Of now, there is no indication that Burr, or any of the other lawmakers, broke the law or any Senate rules. It is common for the FBI and SEC to open probes into trades that have caused a public question of their appropriateness.
President Xi Jinping has insisted China will meet its economic and social developments goals this year, including eradicating poverty and building up a "moderately well-off society", despite the virus outbreak sending the economy into free fall in the first two months of the year and increasing evidence of a global recession.The government has recently strengthened its rhetoric about the resilience of China's economy, and a number of Chinese economists still believe gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year could be close to the 6 per cent target range that was expected to be announced in March.
But on Monday, the China International Capital Corporation (CICC) - seen by many as the country's most highest-profile brokerage - stunned many in Chinese financial circles by sharply cutting its real GDP growth forecast for 2020 to a record low of 2.6 per cent, from 6.1 per cent in January.
Comment: Indeed, it isn't really important how well the casino markets believe the real economy is doing; what's important is keeping people employed and fed.
He's going to tax the rich.
It's a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren't asked. Instead, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package for which the American taxpayer will be held entirely responsible. Even worse, the new legislation contains a $500 billion allocation (another corporate giveaway) that the Federal Reserve will use as a capital base for borrowing $4.5 trillion. That massive sum of money will be used to buy toxic bonds in the corporate bond market. Just as Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) were used to fleece millions of investors out of their hard-earned savings in the run-up to the 2008 Financial Crisis, so too, "toxic" corporate bonds were the weapon of choice that was used to pilfer trillions of dollars from investors in the run-up to today's crisis. (Same scam, different instrument) The virus was merely the proximate cause that tipped the sector into meltdown. The problem had been festering for years and everyone in the financial community (Including the Fed, the BIS and the IMF) knew that it was only a matter of time before the market would blow sky-high. Which it did.
What every American needs to know is that our crooked bought-and-paid-for Congress just passed a bill that transfers the credit risk for $4.5 trillion of corporate sludge onto the National Debt. A bailout of this magnitude could impact the nation's credit rating (Fitch has already issued a warning), send interest rates to the moon, dampen economic activity for years to come, and pave the way for a long and painful slump. The much ballyhooed $1,200 checks for unemployed workers are merely a tactical diversion that's being used to conceal the giant ripoff that is taking place right under our noses.
The spokesman was quoted as saying by the Almasirah news channel that Saturday night attacks aimed at "sensitive sites" in the capital as well as at military and economic targets in Jazan, Najran and Asir.
The attacks were launched in retaliation for air strikes by the Saudi-led military coalition on Houthi positions in Yemen's capital Sana and areas close to the southern Saudi border.















Comment: Big Pharma polishes its image with some charity PR. Call it cynical but it's probably meant to smooth the way for the next round of toxic vaccines they intend to push on the public: