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Covid-19: Occasion for the global political project

Thierry Meyssan
Voltairenet.org
Tue, 05 May 2020 00:00 UTC
Bush 1&2
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
A couple of Bushes pretending they have hearts...
The inept reactions of European governments to Covid-19 were dictated by former advisers to Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush. Contrary to public rhetoric, they make no medical claims. Far from responding to the reality of the epidemic, they aim to transform European societies in order to integrate them into their political and financial project.

Regardless of whether the Covid-19 epidemic is natural or has been provoked, it offers an opportunity for a transnational group to suddenly impose its political project without discussion or even exposure.

Within a few weeks we have seen so-called democratic states suspend fundamental freedoms: prohibiting people from leaving their homes, participating in meetings and demonstrations, under threat of fines or imprisonment. Compulsory schooling for under-16s has been provisionally abolished. Millions of workers have been deprived of employment and automatically placed out of work. Hundreds of thousands of businesses have been forced to close down and will no longer be able to reopen.

Without preparation, governments encouraged companies to telework. All communications via the Internet were immediately recorded by the Echelon system. This means that the "Five Eyes" (Australia/Canada/New Zealand/United Kingdom/USA) have in their archives the means to unlock the secrets of almost all European manufacturers. For that, it is already too late.

Comment: There is still time to react? Reaction at this point - without a 20-year, unified, head start - may become a global purge. Worth trying? Up to you, and you, and you...

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Life Preserver

Heroic failure? Nine Covid-19 emergency hospitals were built with no clear need for them

Rob Lyons
RT
Tue, 05 May 2020 13:57 UTC
NHS Nightingale
© AFP/POOL/Stefan Rousseau
NHS Nightingale Hospital, an ExCel center field hospital, London, March 30, 2020.
The Nightingale Hospital in London is being mothballed after treating fewer than 60 patients, and the others around the country are likely to follow suit. It's all been a typically badly planned, costly cock-up.

It was announced on Monday that the Nightingale Hospital in London is to stop admitting new patients, probably from next week. In truth, patients have been thin on the ground from the start. Despite the claims of NHS bosses and politicians, the whole exercise has been an heroic failure - and a misguided waste of money.

The hospital was announced with great fanfare by the secretary of state for health, Matt Hancock, on March 24. The field hospital, housed at the ExCeL London exhibition centre, was planned to have 500 beds, with the capacity for 4,000-5,000 beds across its two wards if necessary. Working with the British Armed Forces and architects BDP, the hospital was formally opened on April 3 and accepted its first patients on April 7. Everyone seemed to agree it was an astonishing logistical feat.

However, it soon became apparent that the hospital wasn't really needed. Before the UK epidemic took off, London had around 770 intensive care beds across all its hospitals. This increased by the Easter weekend to 1,555, with around 80 percent of them occupied. Wards in other hospitals had been cleared of other patients, so there was plenty of capacity for those suffering from Covid-19.
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Fire

Technofascism: Digital book-burning and censorship in a totalitarian age

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Tue, 05 May 2020 19:41 UTC
"Those who created this country chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices — taking advantage of our freedom of speech — who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot do." — Nat Hentoff
Digital Book Burning
© Writers Weekly
We are fast becoming a nation — nay, a world — of book burners.

While on paper, we are technically free to speak — at least according to the U.S. Constitution — in reality, however, we are only as free to speak as the government and its corporate partners such as Facebook, Google or YouTube may allow.

That's not a whole lot of freedom. Especially if you're inclined to voice opinions that may be construed as conspiratorial or dangerous.

Take David Icke, for example.

Icke, a popular commentator and author often labeled a conspiracy theorist by his detractors, recently had his Facebook page and YouTube channel (owned by Google) deleted for violating site policies by "spreading coronavirus disinformation."

The Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which has been vocal about calling for Icke's de-platforming, is also pushing for the removal of all other sites and individuals who promote Icke's content in an effort to supposedly "save lives."

Translation: the CCDH evidently believes the public is too dumb to think for itself and must be protected from dangerous ideas.

This is the goosestepping Nanny State trying to protect us from ourselves.

In the long run, this "safety" control (the censorship and shadowbanning of anyone who challenges a mainstream narrative) will be far worse than merely allowing people to think for themselves.

Journalist Matt Taibbi gets its: "The people who want to add a censorship regime to a health crisis are more dangerous and more stupid by leaps and bounds than a president who tells people to inject disinfectant."

Don't fall for the propaganda.
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Jet3

Watch alleged footage of US choppers swooping down on Syrian town, picking up unknown persons


Sputnik
Tue, 05 May 2020 19:20 UTC
black hawk helicopters
© AFP 2020 / JOSEPH EID
The US established a military presence in oil-rich northeastern Syria in 2017 after Syrian Kurdish militias backed by US airpower drove the Daesh (ISIS)* terrorists from the region. Damascus has repeatedly demanded that Washington relinquish its presence and return control over the area to Syria's internationally recognized government.

US troops in two helicopters, flanked by six vehicles and Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces militia forces carried out an operation in northeast Hasakah governorate on Monday, kidnapping two civilians and leaving the area, the Syrian Arab News Agency has reported, citing local civilian sources.
US and SDF forces were said to have targeted a house in Quraish, a village about 1 km from the Iraqi border, on Monday night. One of the persons kidnapped is thought to be an Iraqi national.
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Eye 1

Five Eyes network sources contradict theory Covid-19 leaked from Chinese lab

Dan Sabbagh
The Guardian
Mon, 04 May 2020 18:45 UTC
Wuhan Institute of Virology lab
© Héctor Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology; ‘P4’ indicates that it is cleared to handle dangerous Class 4 pathogens.
No current evidence to suggest coronavirus leaked from Wuhan research lab, agencies say

There is no current evidence to suggest that coronavirus leaked from a Chinese research laboratory, intelligence sources have told the Guardian, contradicting recent White House claims that there is growing proof this is how the pandemic began.

The sources also insisted that a "15-page dossier" highlighted by the Australian Daily Telegraph which accused China of a deadly cover up was not culled from intelligence from the Five Eyes network, an alliance between the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

British and other Five Eyes agencies do believe that Beijing has not necessarily been open about how coronavirus initially spread in Wuhan at the turn of the year. But they are nervous about getting involved in an escalating international situation.

Comment: The Five Eyes group seems to be engaged in a little back-handed truth-telling. While not admitting the virus likely was engineered at Fort Detrick and brought to Wuhan by soldiers from that base, they are still taking some heat off the Wuhan lab. What the deeper game is, is still unclear for now.

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Propaganda

White House exposes NYT fake news warning over projected flare up of COVID-19 deaths

Alex Wayne
Bloomberg
Mon, 04 May 2020 18:43 UTC
coronavirus test street drive up clinic
© Juan Arredondo / The New York Times
An internal U.S. government projection shows the nation's coronavirus outbreak vastly accelerating by June to more than 200,000 new cases and 2,500 deaths per day -- far more than the country is currently experiencing.

The White House disclaimed the projection, calling it an "internal CDC document" but saying it had not been presented to President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force and didn't comport with the task force's own analysis and projections.

It isn't clear who produced the document, obtained and published earlier by the New York Times, or what assumptions underlie the forecasts. The projections, on two slides of a 19-slide deck, are dated May 1 and attributed to a "data and analytics task force." The document carries the seal of both the Health and Human Services Department and the Homeland Security Department.

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Putin

Prague 'spy thriller': Western activists rail against 'fake news', but will believe anything if it villainizes Russia

Johnny Tickle
RT
Tue, 05 May 2020 17:58 UTC
kremlin
© Getty Images / walrusmail
It is well known that some people always believe what they want to believe. Despite a lack of evidence and no coherent narrative, there are those who will accept anything which aligns with their already-held worldview.

A bizarre 'story' from Czechia is the latest installment in the 'blame Russia' game; a sort of 'faith-based' mass psychosis. If you pranked a friend with a fictitious anecdote, you'd label them 'gullible'. But what do we call it when a group of highly influential and well-published scholars, journalists, and commentators does the same?

For Russia analysts, this phenomenon is age-old. There are many within the Western journalism, activism, and think-thank communities who will believe ANYTHING negative about Russia. Evidence, proof, data, or documentation be damned - if it's about Russia and it's bad, it's automatically true.

Last week, it happened again. A report published in Czech news magazine Respekt, based on "anonymous intelligence sources" and presented with no supporting evidence, stated that a Russian agent carrying the highly potent toxin ricin arrived in Czechia to assassinate Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and two others.

Social media went into a frenzy, accusing Moscow of lethal force. Some suggested that the 'murder attempt' was in retaliation for Prague renaming the square in front of the Russian Embassy after Boris Nemtsov, a murdered former Russian deputy prime minister. Others mooted that the removal of a statue of Marshal Ivan Konev, the man who liberated the city from the Nazis, had riled up the Kremlin so much that it was driven to deadly revenge.

But there's a problem: the story is dubiously sourced, missing essential details, and completely unproven. The would-be assassin is not named, and there is no circumstantial evidence - never mind concrete proof.

Comment: See also:

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Airplane

Macron announces international travel probably won't resume until after July


France 24
Tue, 05 May 2020 16:49 UTC
macron
© Ian Langsdon/Pool/AFP
"Finish him!"
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that it was unlikely that French people would be able to undertake major foreign trips this summer and that even trips within Europe may have to be limited in order to reduce the risk of a resurgence of the coronavirus epidemic.

"It is too soon to say whether we can take holidays. What I can say is that we will limit major international travel, even during the summer holidays. We will stay among Europeans and, depending on how the epidemic evolves, we might have to reduce that a little more. We will know early June," Macron told reporters during a visit to a school outside Paris.

France is set to end its lockdown on May 11, when people will be allowed to move up to 100 kilometres (60 miles) around their residence without a justification form. Movement beyond 100 kms will still need a justification form.

Caution in the green zone

Macron called for caution and "pragmatism" regarding travel outside the 100-kilometre zone to avoid accelerating the spread of the virus into low infection zones.

France released a colour-coded map last week, dividing the country into zones ranging from red, for high infection areas, to green for low infection zones. The map is designed to serve as a reference for lockdown easing measures.

Comment: See also:

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Snakes in Suits

Hypocrite: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a #MeToo leader, to headline 'Biden for Women' event

Magan Crane
Bloomberg
Sun, 03 May 2020 16:47 UTC
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
© Al Drago/Bloomberg
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will headline a national "Women for Biden" call hosted by Joe Biden's campaign for president on Thursday.

Gillibrand was a leading voice in the 2018 effort to push fellow Democratic Senator Al Franken out of office after several women accused him of touching them and making them feel uncomfortable. Biden is now facing his own allegation from Tara Reade who said he sexually assaulted her when she worked for his Senate office in 1993. Biden has denied the claims and called on the National Archives and Senate to release any relevant documents.
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Bad Guys

US efforts to extend Iran arms embargo is 'illegitimate' - Iranian FM


i24NEWS
Mon, 04 May 2020 10:24 UTC
Mousavi
© AP / Vahid Salemi
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi speaks at a media conference in Tehran, Iran on May 28, 2019
'Iran's reaction to America's illegal measures will be firm,' an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman dismissed Monday, the US's "illegitimate" efforts to extend the United Nations (UN) Security Council's arms embargo on Tehran.

"Iran is not seeking to exit the 2015 nuclear deal with six powers... America's move is illegitimate and our reaction will be proportionate," Abbas Mousavi said in a televised news briefing as quoted by Reuters.

"The United States is not a member of the nuclear deal anymore... Iran's reaction to America's illegal measures will be firm," Mousavi said.

Comment: See also: US hopes sanctions & Covid-19 in Iran will force regime change - but it's a mass murder that will only strengthen Tehran govt

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