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France: Macron calls for 'unity' after COVID protests


DW
Sun, 25 Jul 2021 00:00 UTC
Macron Protest
© Gonzalo Fuentes/Jocard/AFP/Getty Images/KJN
French President Emanuel Macron • Protesters oppose mandatory vaccine
Thousands of protesters across France have rebelled against plans for COVID-19 passes to enter restaurants and mandatory vaccinations for health workers. However, three-quarters of the population support the idea.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday called for "unity" in the country against a fresh COVID surge by asking citizens to get vaccinated after mass protests against his measures a day earlier.

About 160,000 people rallied in Paris and around the country to demonstrate against a bill that would require citizens who work in healthcare to get vaccinated, while introducing COVID passes for entry to restaurants and cultural venues. Similar protests last weekend attracted more than 100,000 people.


Comment: More like 1-to-3 million people protested across France - and that just on Saturday. Protests are taking place in hundreds of towns and cities nationwide on a daily basis.


Comment: Macron doubles down with more condescending, biased and medically unproven rhetoric:
French President Emmanuel Macron argued on Sunday that refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 is not "freedom" because anti-vaxxers infect and kill others through their "irresponsibility" and "egoism." Macron said during a visit to French Polynesia that though "everyone is free to express themselves," there is "no such thing as freedom where I owe nothing to anyone."

Similar massive protests against vaccine passports and lockdown restrictions have also been held in the UK, Italy, and Australia.

London protesters held signs that read "No to forced testing" and "No to forced vaccination" during a "Freedom Rally" of thousands on Saturday after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last Monday that proof of vaccination would soon be required to enter nightclubs and other establishments.

Following the news that Italy planned to introduce a similar vaccine passport system, thousands of Italian protesters marched across the country, including Rome and Turin, with some comparing Prime Minister Mario Draghi to Adolf Hitler.

Though a vaccine passport system has not yet been introduced in Australia, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Sydney on Saturday to campaign against the city's strict lockdown restrictions.
See also:

People power! Protesters & police clash in Paris as tens of thousands rally against Covid certs, vax mandates in France

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Attention

The REAL disinformation dozen

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Sat, 24 Jul 2021 18:58 UTC
Disinfo Dozen
© Corbett Report
Have you heard of "The Disinformation Dozen" yet? They're the twelve people that, according to The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), "are responsible for almost two-thirds of anti-vaccine content circulating on social media platforms."

You see, you might think that it is well-documented research about the known short-term effects and unknown long-term effects of the unapproved gene therapy injections that are making people hesitant about sticking the COVID "vaccines" in their arms. But you'd be wrong.

According to the CCDH's super serious and rigorously researched report on the subject, it is in fact this small group of dedicated disinformationists who have single-handedly warped the minds of millions of poor, innocent social media users. These loathsome liars and avid anti-science activists are, the CCDH informs us, the true source of the public's misgivings about the jab.

Don't trust your lying eyes! Believe our good old friends at the mysterious CCDH (who studiously avoid the question of where they get their own fund in the "About" section of their website) when they tell you that it's this handful of cranks and charlatans who are creating hordes of tinfoil anti-vaxxers with their cunningly crafted tweets and their perfectly persuasive Instagram posts.

So, who are these online gurus, exactly? Who are the social media Svengalis leading the online hordes off of the digital cliffs? Who should we as a society be living in mortal fear of? Why, THESE people, of course!
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Bizarro Earth

Sajid Javid apologises for saying it was time to stop 'cowering' from Covid

Heather Stewart
The Guardian
Sun, 25 Jul 2021 18:52 UTC

Comment: Presumably then, the blue-label Twitterati who berated him into self-censorship WANTS the population to cower...


Sajid Javid london mayor covid
© Henry Nicholls/Reuters
Sajid Javid caused offence as he announced his recovery from Covid.
Sajid Javid has apologised for saying it was time to stop "cowering" from Covid, after an outcry from families bereaved by the virus.

On Saturday, the health secretary said on Twitter that he had recovered from coronavirus - which he contracted despite having had two doses of the vaccine. "Please - if you haven't yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus," he said.

His use of the word "cower" led some to accuse him of failing to understand the concerns of those whose underlying conditions make them particularly vulnerable to the virus - or who have lost loved ones.

Comment: What ever happened to "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself"? The world is truly upside down when a leader must grovel for saying something not only right and reasonable for the majority of the population, but based on his own experience.

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SOTT Logo Radio

NewsReal: Governments Everywhere Mandate Vaccines! But Will People Resist?


Sott.net
Sun, 25 Jul 2021 14:00 UTC
vaccine passports newsreal protests
© Sott.net
Following the French government's announcement July 12th that all healthcare workers must accept an American-made mRNA jab by end September - and that everyone else would be financially and socially pressured into accepting one too - governments around the world have followed suit, in 'lockstep', it seems, with orders coming from God-knows-where.

In reaction to this draconian move, mass protests have erupted everywhere, with the media either not reporting on them or misreporting their scale.

This week on NewsReal, Joe and Niall take stock of the global upheaval caused by this desperate effort to 'jab everyone now!'

Join them LIVE from 4pm CET / 10am US Eastern / 2pm UTC


Running Time: 01:30:30

Download: MP3 — 65.4 MB


Comment: Watch this podcast on the NewsReal Rumble channel:



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Card - VISA

'Britcoin' to replace cash in 'biggest upheaval in the monetary system for centuries' - UK Chancellor

Glen Owen
Daily Mail
Sat, 24 Jul 2021 22:29 UTC
Bank of England

The Bank of England would establish a direct digital equivalent to physical money and take control of it in the same way as sterling
Cash in people's pockets would be superseded by a new 'Britcoin' digital currency in a plan being pushed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

In what Treasury insiders say would be the biggest upheaval in the monetary system for centuries, the Bank of England would establish a direct digital equivalent to physical money and take control of it in the same way as sterling.

Its supporters in the Treasury say that it would allow the Bank to give the economy a boost in times of financial crisis by paying the 'Britcoins' directly into people's bank accounts.


Comment: One of the benefits to the establishment is that they will be better able to 'manage' financial crises, as well as to more easily coerce the population through direct control of people's wealth. And, as the banking crash of 2008, the subsequent bailouts by governments using taxpayers money, and the resulting decade of brutal austerity measures have shown, the establishment do not have the best interests of the average person in mind.


Comment: As with most technologies, digital and crypto currencies can be used for good or ill, and the outcome tends to depend on the operator. However, there are a number of pitfalls involved in digital and cryptocurrencies, particularly for the general public, and more so if physical cash was to be removed from circulation altogether, and yet, despite this, much of the planet is rather hurriedly making moves towards introducing them:

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USA

Biden admin disavows CRT material originally included in official school reopening guidance

Libby Emmons
The Post Millennial
Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:19 UTC
abolitionist teaching network psaki
After the Biden administration's Department of Education was forced to walk back guidance on schools reopening that included counsel from critical race theory purveyors Abolitionist Teaching Network, the White House disavowed the group in a press briefing on Thursday.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki took a question on the retraction from the Department of Education from Fox News' correspondent Peter Doocy.

"Now that the education department admits that they made a mistake in their guidance for reopening — "

Comment: See also:

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Laptop

Why Israel is more concerned about Ben & Jerry's than the Pegasus revelations

Dahlia Scheindlin
The Guardian
Thu, 22 Jul 2021 15:00 UTC
israel ben and jerrys
© Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli soldiers eat at the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Be’er Tuvia on Wednesday.
After extraordinary revelations that the Israeli company NSO Group's mercenary cyber-surveillance tool, Pegasus, was allegedly used to target political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists and politicians around the world, Israel should be asking itself a few questions. Does its groundbreaking hi-tech industry have a dark side? Do the actors involved in exporting lucrative surveillance products - including the defence ministry, which must approve such sales, or perhaps the top levels of the previous government - bear responsibility?

While top Israeli officials are taking the revelations seriously, Israelis appear neither shamed nor shaken. The day after the NSO story broke, there was an announcement from another company that would eclipse talk of the rogue use of surveillance spyware. Ben & Jerry's announced that it would cease the sale of its products in the "occupied Palestinian territories". By midweek one had to squint to find NSO in the Israeli media, as the ice cream incident was dominating headlines. Persecution of human rights defenders, sabotaging freedom of the press, surveillance of political opposition and possible links to grisly murder all took second place, while a non-violent political protest by a single private company, set to begin a year and a half from now (when Ben and Jerry's licensing deal runs out), overshadowed everything.

The ensuing ice cream fever offers a penetrating view into Israel's public priorities. Orna Barbivai, Israel's minister of economy, made a video of her dumping Ben & Jerry's containers in the bin, while former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote a cheeky tweet supporting a counter-boycott. Foreign minister and alternate prime minster Yair Lapid called Ben and Jerry's move a "shameful surrender to antisemitism". Channel 13's US-based correspondent raced to the company's home state of Vermont to cover breaking developments, and Israel's president called it "a new kind of terrorism".

Comment: See also:

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Laptop

Signs of increasing cooperation? Since Biden's inauguration, Russia and US have held four discussions on cybersecurity

Jonny Tickle
RT
Fri, 23 Jul 2021 13:58 UTC
Cybertalk
© linkedin.com/KJN
Representatives from Russia and the US have already held four rounds of discussions over cybersecurity, it was revealed on Thursday. The topic was a focus of the meeting between the countries' presidents when they met last month.

On the topic of Russian-American dialogue on urgent nuclear issues, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov explained that Moscow has spoken to the new US administration four times about the subject, but he did not reveal any results.

The revelation came after Ryabkov was asked a question regarding a recent announcement that the two countries had made contact about the issue. However, according to the senior diplomat, Washington is only interested in discussing attacks on American infrastructure, and won't engage Moscow in discussions about other aspects.

Comment: Agreement or not, the US has no intention of truly cooperating, especially with integrity. Russia knows this like it knows the back of its hand.

See also:

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Cardboard Box

Biden's belief that Putin is conspiring with China to take down democracy betrays his complete ignorance of Russia's own politics

Paul Robinson
RT
Fri, 23 Jul 2021 09:12 UTC
BidenPutinXi
© Evelyn Hockstein/Sergey Guneev/Reuters/tibetanreview.net/KJN
US President Joe Biden • Russian President Vladimir Putin • Chinese President Xi Jinping
Russia and China are betting that autocracy will beat democracy. That's according to US President Joe Biden. But apart from generating headlines, his explosive claim seems to have little to do with the reality in either country.

Not only is lumping the two states together a mistake, so too is the act of contrasting the two ideologies. The language of political philosophy is, sadly, unsuited to the task of describing political realities. We bandy about words such as "liberalism," "socialism," and "fascism," as if we know what they mean. In fact, they are horribly loose categories that even the brightest political philosopher struggles to define, and confuse more often than they help.

Biden fits neatly within an American tradition that regards the United States as the natural leader of the "free" world, splitting countries neatly into two - democracies on the one hand, and everybody else on the other.

Regardless of the huge variety of differences between the nations in the "other" category, they tend to be lumped in together under a single heading: autocracy. There is no room for shades of gray. Thus, in the president's rhetoric, the world consists of two parts: democracies and autocracies.

Comment: Biden need not be accurate, relevant, nor account for his hubris - he is useful.

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Stop

US, EU call on Taliban to end offensive, engage in peace process, a joint communiqué states


Sputnik
Fri, 23 Jul 2021 22:45 UTC
Men on guard
© Reuters/Omar Sobhani
Armed men against the Taliban stand at their checkpost
Ghorband District, Parwan Province • June 29, 2021
The United States, the European Union, individual European states and NATO are urging the Taliban to stop its military offensive in Afghanistan and engage in peace talks, the US-Europe Communiqué on Afghanistan and Peace Efforts said on Friday.

"We call on the Taliban to end their military offensive, and on both the Islamic Republic and the Taliban to engage meaningfully in the peace process," said the joint communiqué, issued by the United States, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom and NATO.

Moreover, the US, European Union, NATO and several European states said in a joint statement that they welcome the group's commitments and openness to negotiating with Kabul as a mechanism for a representative government in Afghanistan.
"We welcome in particular the commitments made by the Taliban yesterday to inclusive governance, respecting human rights, including the rights of women and minorities, to abide by international law, including international humanitarian law, and to upholding counter-terrorism commitments."

Comment: US troops have almost all departed, but promises and obligations to Afghanistan are ramping up:
Ghani/Biden
© Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani • US President Joe Biden
"President Biden and President Ghani agreed that the Taliban's current offensive is in direct contradiction to the movement's claim to support a negotiated settlement of the conflict in a telephone conversation.

"They deplored the loss of innocent Afghan lives, including through continued targeted killings, as well as displacement of the civilian population, looting and burning of buildings, destruction of vital infrastructure, and damage to communication networks."
The Biden administration also submitted a 2022 budget request of $3.3 billion to Congress for the Afghan Security Forces Fund, according to the readout. This comes as Biden on Friday announced that up to $100 million will be allocated for unexpected and urgent refugee needs among Afghan victims of the conflict, including Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants to reside in the United States.
On 25 June, Biden and Ghani met at the White House, where the US president urged a stop to what he called the senseless violence in Afghanistan, but acknowledged that achieving that goal would be difficult.


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