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Mon, 27 Sep 2021
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French face 6 months in jail for entering a bar or restaurant without a COVID pass

macron mask
People in France who enter a bar or restaurant without a COVID pass face 6 months in jail, while business owners who fail to check their status face a 1 year prison sentence and a €45,000 fine.

Yes, really.

The punishments are part of a draconian effort by the French government to force citizens to get the coronavirus jab amidst multiple unruly protests across numerous major cities.

President Emmanuel Macron announced earlier this week that those unable to prove they're vaccinated or a negative COVID test (at their own cost) will be banned from using public transport, entering a cinema, shopping mall, bar, cafe, restaurant and other venues from August 1st.

"People unable to present a valid health pass risk up to six months in prison and a fine of up to €10,000 (£8,500), according to the draft text of the law, while owners of "establishments welcoming the public" who fail to check patrons' passes could go to jail for a year and be hit with a €45,000 fine," reports the Guardian.


The sanctions represent the most authoritarian move to force vaccine compliance in the west, and probably outstrip a lot of actual dictatorships in other parts of the world.

Comment: Macron the Mitey strikes again:


Newspaper

Risk of Afghan instability 'overflowing' across region, Russian FM says, as Taliban insurgents gain ground following US withdrawal

Taliban
© REUTERS/Abdul Khaliq Achakzai
People on vehicles, holding Taliban flags, gather near the Friendship Gate crossing point in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border July 14, 2021.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that intense fighting in Afghanistan risks destabilizing neighboring nations in Central Asia, as American troops pull out of the country and the Taliban take yet more territory.

Addressing a regional security conference on Friday, Moscow's top diplomat said that "the uncertainty of the development of the military-political situation in this country and around it has increased."

"Unfortunately, in recent days we have witnessed a rapid degradation of the situation in Afghanistan ... It is obvious that in the current conditions there are real risks of an overflow of instability to neighboring states, the threat of such a scenario is a serious obstacle to the involvement of Afghanistan in regional cooperation," he added.

Comment: It's notable that Sidorov of the CSTO states that there's no signs of aggression on the Taliban side, because Pepe Escobar recently reported similarly, that the current Kabul administration is mistrusted by a great many and that the Taliban hasn't taken areas by force, they were welcomed:
Mohammad Suhail Shaheen is the quite articulate spokesman for the Taliban political office. He's adamant that "taking Afghanistan by military force is not our policy. Our policy is to find a political solution to the Afghan issue, which is continuing in Doha." Bottom line: "We confirmed our commitment to a political solution here in Moscow once more."

That's absolutely correct. The Taliban don't want a bloodbath. They want to be embraced. As Shaheen has stressed, it would be easy to conquer major cities - but there would be blood. Meanwhile, the Taliban already control virtually the whole border with Tajikistan.

The 2021 Taliban have little in common with their 2001 pre-war on terror incarnation. The movement has evolved from a largely Ghilzai Pashtun rural guerrilla insurgency to a more inter-ethnic arrangement, incorporating Tajiks, Uzbeks and even Shi'ite Hazaras - a group that was mercilessly persecuted during the 1996-2001 years of Taliban power.

[...]

Shaheen points out that "it's not possible to take 150 districts in just six weeks by fighting," which connects to the fact that the security forces "do not trust the Kabul administration." In all districts that have been conquered, he swears, " the forces came to the Taliban voluntarily."
See also:


Chess

New Great Game gets back to basics

Shah
© Wikipedia
The Great Game: This lithograph by British Lieutenant James Rattray shows Shah Shuja in 1839 after his enthronement as Emir of Afghanistan in the Bala Hissar (fort) of Kabul. Rattray wrote: 'A year later the sanctity of the scene was bloodily violated: Shah Shuja was murdered.'
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on a Central Asian loop all through the week. He's visiting Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The last two are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded 20 years ago.

The SCO heavyweights are of course China and Russia. They are joined by four Central Asian "stans" (all but Turkmenistan), India and Pakistan. Crucially, Afghanistan and Iran are observers, alongside Belarus and Mongolia.

And that leads us to what's happening this Wednesday in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital. The SCO will hold a 3 in 1: meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, and a conference titled "Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges and Opportunities."

At the same table, then, we will have Wang Yi, his very close strategic partner Sergey Lavrov and, most importantly, Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar. They'll be debating trials and tribulations after the hegemon's withdrawal and the miserable collapse of the myth of NATO "stabilizing" Afghanistan.

Attention

Dump the 'woke' or go broke: Will Dems finally heed strategist's warnings on left-wing madness?

biden
© Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein
US President Joe Biden
Famed strategist James Carville has told Democrats to disassociate themselves from the radical left-wing fringe of their party if they want to continue winning elections. But is it too late to cancel 'cancel culture'?

In the presidential debates against Donald Trump, then-Democrat candidate Joe Biden, in an effort to prove he was a predictable moderate who would not be manipulated by the radical left-wing progressives in his party, remarked, "I am the Democratic Party!" That comment has not aged well. In fact, he may as well have said something equally preposterous, like, "Read my lips, no new taxes!"

Despite early pledges that he would keep the left-wing impulses of the Democratic Party in check, each day brings more proof that Biden is powerless to stop the weird social justice movement that has swept the nation like a pandemic. Yet as James Carville has warned - and not for the first time - unless Biden tames these 'woke' social experiments, the Democrats will continue to alienate their political base.

Comment: Distractions are manipulations set in motion to impede our ability to focus on the reality taking place. Washington DC has utilized this practice to its advantage for decades.


Footprints

Iran FM insists prisoner swap deal agreed with US, says ready to proceed 'today'

Khatibzadeh
© AFP
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh
Iran insisted on Sunday that a prisoner swap deal has been agreed with the United States, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said, a day after Washington denied such an agreement had been reached.

"'Outrageous' - the US denying simple fact that there IS an agreed deal on the matter of the detainees. Even on how to announce it," Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a tweet.
"Humanitarian swap was agreed with US & UK in Vienna - separate from JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) - on release of 10 prisoners on all sides. Iran is ready to proceed TODAY."
The United States on Saturday accused Tehran of an "outrageous" effort to deflect blame for the impasse in the nuclear talks and denied that any deal had been reached on a prisoner swap.

Comment: Iran is right. The prisoner exchange should be completely separate from the nuclear deal conundrum.
On 18 July, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Abbas Araghchi accused Washington and London of holding prisoner exchange talks "hostage" after Tehran proposed to delay the nuclear talks until its new government comes into office in August.

According to Araghchi's tweet, the sides agreed on a humanitarian exchange, and 10 prisoners on all sides can be released on 18 July if the US and the UK fulfill their part of the deal.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price rejected the remarks as "an outrageous effort to deflect blame from the current impasse," saying there is no agreed deal yet.

Iran and the US, however, have admitted they are engaging in indirect talks brokered by Switzerland to finalise an exchange of prisoners. Both sides noted a progress in the negotiations last week.



Eye 1

Facebook propaganda says 85% of US users are pro-vaccine as it rejects Biden's criticism of 'killing people' with Covid-19 misinformation

vivek murthy covid facebook censor

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on companies to purge more pandemic posts.
Facebook has patted itself on the back for encouraging vaccine acceptance among its US users, noting an increase of 10-15% since January, while firing back at President Joe Biden's claim of subverting the rollout.

"The data shows that 85% of Facebook users in the US have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19," Facebook VP of Integrity Guy Rosen said in a blog post on Saturday, rejecting Biden's charge that social media was to blame for the lack of enthusiasm among Americans towards the Covid-19 jabs.

On Friday, Biden tore into social media platforms such as Facebook, accusing them of "killing people" by not cracking down on non-conventional opinions about vaccination fervently enough.

Comment:


Cult

Covid self-isolation ends in warp-speed U-turn as BoJo and Rishi Sunak realise just how bad trying to wiggle free from it looks

Boris Johnson  Rishi Sunak
© Reuters / Leon Neal / File
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak visit the headquarters of Octopus Energy, in London, Britain.
The bid by the PM and chancellor to use a pilot scheme exemption to avoid self-isolation after coming into contact with Covid-19 lasted 180 minutes - when it dawned on them how it looks if the rules "aren't the same for everyone."

The prime minister's horror show pandemic continues, as he was forced into a Fast & Furious-style handbrake turn - alongside Chancellor Rishi Sunak - over taking part in a Covid-19 pilot scheme that allows people to avoid self-isolation even after they come in contact with someone infected by the virus.

While nobody is pointing fingers at anyone, those high-level tete-a-tetes with Health Secretary Sajid Javid are probably responsible, after he announced on social media yesterday that he'd caught Covid-19 and was feeling "groggy."

Comment: A commendable essay except for the thing no one will say out loud: covid is a crock. It's a normal flu which has been ginned up with a mountain of false statistics into some monster threat to push the 'Great Reset' agenda. The fact that Boris and his cronies are having to suffer the consequences of the fraud is only just. He's only a bit player anyway.


Stormtrooper

Biden's Vaccine "Strike Force" Plan Stinks Of Desperation

Hazmat suited stormtroopers
If there is one rule liberty minded people need to remember, it is that the establishment does not like losing control of the narrative. And when they do, noticeably weird things start to happen. For example, it is becoming painfully obvious that the narrative on the experimental mRNA "vaccines" has slipped right through the fingers of the Biden Administration, and as a consequence they are now in a scramble to get millions of vaccines injected into as many skeptical arms as possible before the public organizes for a full push-back against the agenda. It seems to me that they are in a bit of a panic.

The issue became more evident since January when various government entities and the media began to openly complain about the number of vaccine doses that were being thrown in the garbage because of expiration. Why were the vaccines expiring before use? The media spin suggests that it was due to "government mismanagement", while officials at the state level have admitted that it has been due to a significant drop in demand.

In the meantime, Biden has shipped over 500 million covid vaccine doses overseas in June while at the same time claiming that the US was on track to meet his 70% vaccination goal by July 4th. Needless to say this never happened. The Biden admin now claims that the US population is now 67% vaccinated, and if this was actually true then it would be very close to meeting Anthony Fauci's original guidelines for herd immunity. So why all the frantic hype about unvaccinated people?

Evil Rays

Austria is working with US to investigate 'Havana syndrome' cases among American diplomats

US embassy vienna
© Wikipedia
FILE PHOTO: US embassy building is seen in Vienna, Austria.
Vienna has joined forces with Washington in a probe into the mysterious outbreak of the so-called 'Havana syndrome' among American diplomats in the Austrian capital.

"We take these reports very seriously and in line with our role as host state we are working with the US authorities on jointly getting to the bottom of this," the Austrian Foreign Ministry told various media in a short statement.

The mysterious illness first came to light back in 2016 at the American embassy in Cuba and has since been known as 'Havana syndrome'. It includes headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, hearing and vision impairment, vertigo and memory loss that apparently come as a result of some brain injuries of unknown origin.

Comment: It's well known that, over many decades, including up the present day, the US has performed all kinds of nefarious experiments on its personnel and its population, leaked documents have also shown that it has technologies that could induce these kinds of effects at its disposal, and now with the baseless story from the New Yorker attempting to smear Russia, the motivation behind these attacks may be starting to be revealed. Because, like the Skripal poisonings that hit the headlines back in 2018, to name but one, if the fruit of these attacks is that Russia (and/or China) are demonized by the West's propaganda apparatus, despite their being no solid evidence proving their involvement, then the question of 'who benefits?' seems to be the US and its allies:


SOTT Logo Radio

NewsReal: Is This What Totalitarianism Looks Like?

vaccines macron totalitarianism newsreal
© Sott.net
Dystopian new laws coercing people to accept mRNA Covid jabs were announced by many Western government leaders this week. Will these actually become law? And will they be enforceable?

In today's NewsReal podcast, live from 4pm CET / 10am US Eastern / 2pm UTC, Joe & Niall discuss the apparent 'quickening' towards totalitarianism - along with the extreme weather events in western Europe and elsewhere.


Running Time: 01:30:30

Download: MP3 — 75.4 MB


Comment: Here's the podcast on Rumble: