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Nearly 2 in 5 Americans won't buy Corona BEER over virus concerns — survey


RT
Fri, 28 Feb 2020 23:01 UTC
corona
© Reuters / Victor Ruiz Garcia / Antara Foto
Can YOU tell the difference?
Americans are ditching Corona beer in droves over concerns about the coronavirus epidemic, according to a pair of surveys, with as many as 38 percent of beer-drinkers supposedly forgoing the beverage in misguided germaphobia.

Eyes rolled and jaws hit the floor across America on Friday as social media users chanced upon an irresistible CNN headline "revealing" over a third of Americans "would not buy Corona under any circumstances now." Had nearly two in five US residents really sworn off the popular beer brand out of fear of succumbing to the much-hyped epidemic?!

The press release heralding the survey results merited a closer look, though the 38 percent number was — technically — true. 5W Public Relations found only 4 percent of habitual Corona drinkers were willing to put down their favorite beverage because of the virus, while an eyebrow-raising 14 percent would cease ordering it in public, perhaps concerned the next guy at the bar would think they were one of the infected. Some 16 percent of those surveyed were "confused about whether Corona beer is related to the coronavirus."


Comment: The 4% figure is a better indicator of how many beer-drinkers are dumb enough to associate Corona with coronavirus, along with the 14% who are confused. The 38% figure includes beer-drinkers who don't and won't drink Corona for any reason, e.g., they simply don't like it.

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NPC

NY Post reporter mocks veteran Indian journalist at Trump media briefing, Twitteratti furious


RT
Fri, 28 Feb 2020 22:47 UTC
Ebony Bowden
© Twitter / @WhiteHouse
A journalist for the New York Post has invoked the ire of Twitter after video footage went viral, in which she appears to mock an Indian reporter addressing US President Donald Trump at a formal event.

Journalist Ebony Bowden pulled faces, furrowed her brow in disbelief and rolled her eyes, before asking a colleague "Who is this guy?" during a press briefing at the White House earlier this week.

"This guy" was none other than Raghubir Goyal, editor of the India Globe and a White House reporter since the Carter administration. Goyal had asked Trump about India-US relations following his first visit to the country, but Bowden's playacting in the background of the feed is what grabbed many people's attention, leading some to claim she had "not a drop of self awareness."
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Health

WHO bumps coronavirus threat assessment to 'very high' global risk - and other recent developments


RT
Fri, 28 Feb 2020 22:09 UTC
who briefing coronavirus
© Reuters / Denis Balibouse
World Health Organization holds daily news briefing on coronavirus, in Geneva on February 28.
World Health Organization (WHO) is now worsening its risk assessment of the coronavirus to a "very high" on the global level. The virus has already spread to at least 48 countries besides its hotbed, China.

"We have now increased our assessment of the risk of spread and the risk of impact of COVID-19 to very high at global level," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told media at the agency's headquarters in Geneva.


As of Friday, 4,351 cases, including 67 deaths, have been registered across 48 countries outside of China. While several nations are experiencing "linked epidemics of COVID-19," the majority of the coronavirus cases "can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases."

"Since yesterday, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands and Nigeria have all reported their first cases. All these cases have links to Italy," Ghebreyesus said.

Comment: The infected Iranian officials include: "A vice president, a deputy health minister, a former envoy to the Vatican, the head of a medical university, and at least four parliament members". The Mongolian president and his delegation were all put into quarantine after a state visit to China. Eight of the 16 states bordering Russia have reported cases, which has extended its visa ban to South Korea and Iran. US stocks saw their worst week since 2008. And Britain saw its first virus-related death: a tourist on board the Diamond Princess.

See also:

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Attention

Assange defense team's chambers' connection to conman William Browder is cause for concern

Lucy Komisar
The Komisar Scoop
Tue, 25 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
Doughty Street Chambers
Edward Fitzgerald, QC, is on the defense team at the Julian Assange extradition hearings. He is co-head of London's Doughty Street Chambers and head of its Extradition section. Seems appropriate.

I wrote in November of my concern that several people connected to chambers with members working for Assange were also working for Assange's persecutor, the U.S. government. And that several were public supporters of a key U.S. asset in the promotion of Russiagate and Russophobia, the conman and fraudster William Browder.

I was lectured by social media posters on the fact that chambers are not law firms with direct involvement in cases, but rather like taxi dispatchers, matching lawyers with clients who call for services.

Now consider this Doughty Street publication from 2015. Fitzgerald's name is at the top. He writes, "Dear Colleague, Welcome to the first edition of the Doughty Street Chambers Extradition Bulletin." He explains this will provide useful information to British lawyers. So, this is presented not by an independent chambers lawyer, but by the chambers itself.

Up front is a dig at a useful enemy, and then we know where it is going: "Russia has always been a state which generates work for lawyers, and Malcolm Hawkes considers their use (or abuse?) of Interpol Red Notices. We hosted a seminar on this very topic last week." He is working on an issue, Russian "abuse" of red notices, that concerns Doughty Street Chambers enough to hold a seminar on it.

Comment: This Assange "trial" is a self-contradictory Kafkaesque nightmare

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Gear

Mali & France square off after French 'anti-terrorist' troops accused of rowdy behavior


RT
Fri, 28 Feb 2020 07:25 UTC
(FAMa) and French military Mali
© REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Troops from the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and members of a French military medical unit conduct an assistance operation for the local population during the Operation Barkhane in Ndaki, Mali, July 29, 2019.
A Malian envoy to France has accused French troops that form part of a counterterrorism force in the country of rowdy behavior in its capital city. Paris has dismissed the allegations as "not only false, but unacceptable."


Comment: Not only false! Can you imagine this ever happening with Russian troops in Syria?


The rebuff was issued by Defense Minister Florence Parly's office on Thursday. Branding remarks by Malian Ambassador Toumani Djime Diallo as "indecent," it argued that the French troops are risking their lives to protect the West African country from terrorism.

"Rather than channeling and spreading false accusations, we expect the ambassador of Mali to devote all his energy to... achieving success for everyone," the statement read, as cited by AFP.

The allegations concerning bad behavior by French troops - those attached to its fabled Foreign Legion in particular - were made by Diallo on Wednesday. Speaking during a public hearing alongside his colleagues from Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso, the diplomat claimed that some soldiers of the elite military force's parachutist regiment had gone wild, causing trouble in the country's capital, Bamako.

Comment: As France has done the opposite to halting the spread of Islamist militants, Malians are growing increasingly impatient:

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Pistol

Disgruntled employee shoots dead 5 co-workers, turns gun on himself, at Milwaukee Miller brewery

Meg Jones and Sophie Carson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Wed, 26 Feb 2020 14:43 UTC
Coors shooting
In one of the worst shootings in Wisconsin history, a gunman killed five people — and then himself — during a rampage Wednesday afternoon on the Milwaukee campus of Molson Coors.

The shooter was identified as a 51-year-old man who worked for the company, the home of Miller Brewery for more than a century.

All of the shooting victims died. There were no reports of injuries.

The identities of the victims and the shooter were not released Wednesday. Police did say, however, that the victims' families have been notified.

Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said at an early evening news conference that police were checking on the whereabouts of more than 1,000 employees. "We have to check off employees one by one," he said.

By 9:30 p.m., that had been done and all employees at the brewery had been allowed to go home, Morales said at a news conference.

"Milwaukee is grieving today," said the police chief.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett noted at the late evening news conference that the brewery has been a landmark in Miller Valley for 165 years. "It's the saddest day we have had" in that history, he said.

Comment: UPDATE February 28

The gunman has been identified as 51-year-old Anthony Ferrill, who was recently fired by the company and reportedly had quarreled with one of the electricians before the shooting.

A former co-worker claimed Ferrill had been showing signs of paranoia - he "believed he was being discriminated against because he was African American," and that he later became convinced that "brewery workers were coming into his home" and "bugging his computer."

Police and city officials have declined to say whether the shooting was racially-motivated as the investigation is in preliminary stages.

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Footprints

Mad Dog Erdogan opens borders to release stream of refugees towards central Europe


RT
Fri, 28 Feb 2020 01:27 UTC

Comment: And he's doing it ... just to spite Putin for not letting him blow Damascus to kingdom come.


Nizip camp
© Reuters/Umit Bektas
View of Nizip refugee camp near Turkish border in Gaziantep province, Turkey
Turkey is no longer able to contain millions of displaced Syrians and has reached "full capacity," Ankara's ruling AK party said in a fresh threat to open the floodgates into Europe as tensions over Idlib reach boiling point.

With Ankara vowing to go "all in" to halt a Syrian Army offensive to retake Idlib province from rebel militias, AKP spokesman Omer Celik suggested Turkey would soon allow hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees to pour into Europe, a threat repeatedly made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the past.

"Turkey can not bear the pressure of the new refugees, we now say that Turkey is at full capacity," Celik told CNNTurk early on Friday. While the spokesman noted Turkey's refugee policy remains "the same," he said "We are no longer in a position to hold refugees" amid an expected influx of newly displaced Syrians.

An earlier report at Reuters cited an unnamed Turkish official who said much the same, although the official went further in stating that police, coast guard and border security officers had been ordered to "stand down" and allow the refugees to cross into Europe.



Comment: Asylum-seekers begin trek to Europe as Turkey opens the floodgates
Turkey has announced it will no longer hold back people who wish to go to Europe and seek asylum there amid an escalation in Syria. Some have been quick to rush towards coasts and borders before Ankara changes its mind.

Would-be irregular immigrants have started trickling closer to Europe. The hopefuls are gathering in the Edirne province, which borders Greece and Bulgaria, as well as on Turkey's Aegean coast close to the Greek island of Lesbos, AFP reported.

Anadolu Agency posted drone footage of groups of people walking across a field in Edirne, presumably filmed in the early hours of Friday morning.


Scenes of people carrying backpacks and waving to the cameras were shown by the Turkish media and spread on social media.



The ability of the potential migrants to reach Europe is not guaranteed even if Turkey does not reverse its decision. Bulgaria and Greece have erected walls along their land borders with Turkey in response to the migrant crisis. The EU stepped up maritime patrols in the Mediterranean to stop people from reaching its territory via sea routes.


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Car Black

Israel builds new Jews-only bypass road on more stolen Palestinian land


Middle East Monitor
Tue, 25 Feb 2020 02:05 UTC
road equipment
© Ahmad Al-Bazz ActiveStills.
Israeli road building on Palestinian land.
Israel is building yet another bypass road for use by Jewish settlers only and, yet again, it is stealing Palestinian land to do so. The land in question is in Huwwara, to the south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

The 7-kilometre road will start from the village of Zaatara and pass through land owned by Palestinians in Huwwara, Beita and Odala. Until now, the access route in the area has been shared by Palestinians and Jewish settlers — whose presence is illegal under international law — who often use it to raid and terrorise the residents of the local villages.

Since the Israeli government decided to build the road last April, it has led to the seizure of more than 40 hectares of land from the surrounding Palestinian villages. According to Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official in charge of the settlements file in the northern West Bank, Israeli bulldozers have been razing everything on the land near a military checkpoint outside Huwwara.

The plans for the bypass of the village have been in the pipeline for years, although local activist Ghassan Najjar insists that the locals have been kept in the dark until a few days ago.

A 2019 report from settlement watchdog Peace Now said that the bypass is intended to serve four settlements — Yitzhar, Itamar, Har Brakha and Elon Moreh — which are home to a total of 7,132 settlers.

Comment: see also:

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Fire

Massive fire erupts near Paris train station Gare de Lyon; protesters at nearby Congolese concert suspected


RT
Fri, 28 Feb 2020 17:18 UTC
Fire Paris Gare de Lyon Feb 2020
© REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
A major fire has broken out in the vicinity of the iconic Paris train station, Gare de Lyon. The blaze prompted the evacuation of the station, while the public is advised to avoid the area.

The fire erupted near the station late on Friday. Footage from the scene shows open flames in the street outside the landmark, as well as a large plume of black smoke billowing over the area.
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Star of David

B'Tselem reports at least 19 Palestinians have lost an eye from Israeli fire during Gaza protests

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Thu, 27 Feb 2020 18:16 UTC
palestinian lose eye protests Gaza IDF Israel
© B'Tselem
Muhammad Abu Raidah, 10, with his mother Jihan.
Since the Great March of Return began in Gaza two years ago, an estimated 19 Palestinians have lost an eye as a result of Israeli fire, Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said in a new report this week.

B'Tselem collected testimony from three Palestinians who were injured in their eyes during the Great March of Return in order to highlight Israel's use of "crowd control" measures as lethal weapons.

The report details the cases of a 20-year-old young woman named Mai Abu Rawida, 10-year-old boy Muhammad Abu Raidah, and 28-year-old Saed Mahani, who all lost one of their eyes after being shot by Israeli forces in the face with "crowd dispersal" measures.

Comment:

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