Friday, November 20, 2020

China and Israel: Canadian Media Fails on the Fair and Balanced Front

Double standard blatant on Israel and China ‘foreign influence’ in Canada

by Yves Engler

November 20, 2020

Foreign influence in Canada is bad if it comes from China, but not even worth mentioning if it comes from Israel. That seems to be the position of the Globe and Mail.

Canada’s ‘paper of record’ is so gripped with anti-Chinese fervor that it is blind to a blatant double standard. Contrasting the Globe and Mail’s reporting on Canadian groups close to China and Israel highlights the xenophobic nature of their coverage.

A FAIR Investigation of Vaccine Infrastructure

Ravi Gupta on Vaccine Infrastructure

by FAIR

November 20, 2020

This week on CounterSpin: It isn’t only the death toll—more than a million people around the world, a quarter of a million in the US alone—but the emerging list of other harms from the coronavirus, to the lungs, heart and brain, that make a vaccine seem like the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. 

(photo: Christian Emmer)

Whether our need would be so desperate had we taken strong, early societal measures is a different question; whether we should imagine vaccines as coming like cavalry to save us from human-impact-driven illness going forward, still another.

 

Dealing with the Vaccine Hesitant: A Primer on Social Engineering

How To Deal With Vocal Vaccine Deniers

by The Corbett Report - #PropagandaWatch

Aug 18, 2020

The WHO has made a handy-dandy guide on how to debate vaccine deniers. Today on #PropagandaWatch, James delves into the document and examines its ideas.

 

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Courts Reassert State's Right to Assassinate Americans

Justice Department attorney tells appeals court the government can kill US citizens without judicial review

by Harvey Simpkins - WSWS

November 17, 2020

On Monday, an attorney with the Justice Department asserted in federal appeals court in Washington D.C. that the government can kill US citizens without judicial review on the basis of the “state secrets” privilege.

Bilal Abdul Kareem (Image credit: Screen capture)

Attorney Bradley Hinshelwood was arguing before the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a case brought by Bilal Abdul Kareem, a US citizen, and Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, a Pakistani-Syrian. The two journalists are challenging their placement on the US “kill list,” compiled by the government at least since the early years of the Obama administration, to carry out extrajudicial political assassinations. 

A Business Case for the Next Global War

A Washington Echo Chamber for a New Cold War: A Rising China Lifts All Boats (Submarines, Aircraft Carriers, and Surface Ships), Not to Speak of Fighter Planes, in the Military-Industrial Complex

by Cassandra Stimpson and Holly Zhang - TomDispatch

 
November 19, 2020
 
War: what is it good for? Apparently, in Washington’s world of think tanks, the answer is: the bottom line.

In fact, as the Biden presidency approaches, an era of great-power competition between the United States and China is already taken for granted inside the Washington Beltway. Much less well known are the financial incentives that lurk behind so many of the voices clamoring for an ever-more-militarized response to China in the Pacific. 
 

We’re talking about groups that carefully avoid the problems such an approach will provoke when it comes to the real security of the United States or the planet. A new cold war is likely to be dangerous and costly in an America gripped by a pandemic, its infrastructure weakened, and so many of its citizens in dire economic straits. Still, for foreign lobbyists, Pentagon contractors, and Washington’s many influential think tanks, a “rising China” means only one thing: rising profits. 

 

Controlling the Narrative: EcoHealth Alliance and Covid's Beginnings

EcoHealth Alliance Orchestrated Key Scientists’ Statement on “natural origin” of SARS-CoV-2

by Sainath Suryanarayanan - U.S. Right to Know

Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know show that a statement in The Lancet authored by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” was organized by employees of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit group that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Peter Daszak of Ecohealth Alliance

The emails obtained via public records requests show that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak drafted the Lancet statement, and that he intended it to “not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person” but rather to be seen as “simply a letter from leading scientists”.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

On the Origins of Sars-Cov-2: Plumbing Italy's Sewers for Evidence of Pre-China Incidents of Covid-19 Pandemic

Unexpected detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the prepandemic period in Italy

First Published November 11, 2020 

There are no robust data on the real onset of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and spread in the prepandemic period worldwide. We investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)–specific antibodies in blood samples of 959 asymptomatic individuals enrolled in a prospective lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 to track the date of onset, frequency, and temporal and geographic variations across the Italian regions. 

SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific antibodies were detected in 111 of 959 (11.6%) individuals, starting from September 2019 (14%), with a cluster of positive cases (>30%) in the second week of February 2020 and the highest number (53.2%) in Lombardy. 
 

This study shows an unexpected very early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 among asymptomatic individuals in Italy several months before the first patient was identified, and clarifies the onset and spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Finding SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in asymptomatic people before the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy may reshape the history of pandemic.

Costa Rica Breaking Faith with and Failing to Protect Indigenous Peoples

"I fear for my life": How Costa Rica's government fails to protect indigenous peoples

via Forest Peoples Programme

November 2020

More than half a decade ago, on 30 April 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) granted precautionary measures (MC 321-12) in favour of the Brörán peoples of Térraba and the Bribri peoples of Salitre. This exceptional measure, the only one of its kind in Costa Rica, was granted in response to the serious danger that the indigenous communities found themselves in, and the total lack of protection by the state authorities.


Five years on, none of the urgent measures required by the IACHR have been adopted, and the State has consistently failed to comply with its treaty obligations to protect and guarantee the rights of the communities.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Jeffrey Smith, Selam Gebremeskel, Moges Kebede, Janine Bandcroft November 19th, 2020

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

November 19, 2020 

 

Saturday, the uneasy truce between Morocco and the Saharawi people of Western Sahara cracked. The New York Times reports, the Western Sahara pro-independence organization, Polisario Front has declared war, breaking a thirty years-old, UN-brokered ceasefire agreement between Morocco and the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Dr. Jeffrey Smith is a Canadian law academic and lawyer who’s written extensively on Western Sahara human rights and environmental protections under international law. 

Smith's also served as legal advisor to the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic for more than a decade.

Jeffrey Smith in the first half.

 

Listen. Hear.

And; two weeks ago, the federal government in Ethiopia launched military attacks against the restive northern province of Tigray. Today, thousands are fleeing the fighting of the internal conflict outside observors say could become “the Libya of East Africa”.

 Selamawit Gebremeskel and Moges Kebede are Ethiopian emigres, living in Canada for nearly thirty years. Selam is a health care professional and UVic grad calling Victoria home now.

Selam Gebremeskel and Moges Kebede anxiously watching developments in Ethiopia in the second half.

And; Victoria broadcaster and host of CFUV’s Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town, and virtually too, in the coming week.

But first, Jeffery Smith and breaking a bad peace in Western Sahara.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/


Monday, November 16, 2020

Forty-five Years in the Desert: The Forgotten People of Western Sahara

The Silence of the International Community on Western Sahara

by Enguiya Mohamed Lahu - via IPS

November 16, 2020

For my entire life, I have been forgotten. I am a Sahrawi refugee, born and raised in the Algerian desert, where my people have remained displaced for 45 years, awaiting the moment when we can finally return to our homeland, Western Sahara.

For 45 years, Sahrawi refugees have been displaced to five refugee camps in the Algerian Sahara, where temperatures soar to 50 degrees Celsius in summer, water is scarce, and produce is incredibly difficult to grow, leaving refugees dependent on humanitarian aid for survival. Credit: Adad Ammi via Oxfam International 

As we wait, we endure living conditions unimaginable to most – temperatures here soar above 50 degrees Celsius in summer and drop below zero in winter. Water is scarce, delivered to us irregularly by trucks or through deteriorating hosepipes. 

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Morocco Sends Military into UN Buffer Zone with Western Sahara

Morocco intervenes militarily to re-open its plunder corridor

by WSRW

November 13, 2020

Tension in Western Sahara has not been this high for years. 

The picture above is shot this morning near Guerguerat. It is unclear to WSRW what the picture depicts. From what WSRW deduces, it must be a little settlement erected by civilian Saharawis that is on fire. 

War Against Moroccan Occupation and Independence for Sahrawi Republic Declared

Ceasefire in El Guerguerat: Morocco distorts facts to cover its violations

by Sahara Press Service

November 15, 2020

Bir Lahlou (Liberated Territories) - Sahrawi Foreign Ministry accused on Friday Morocco of distortion of facts to cover its violations of cease-fire in El Guerguerat, south-western Western Sahara.

"The language and positions used by the Moroccan occupier are all based on untruth and falsification," said the Sahrawi Ministry in a statement, recalling that "Morocco acts and communicates as if Western Sahara is part of its national territory, while this is a clear lie and a well-known frame-up to the international community."