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WHO Virologists Would Say That Salvatore Babones

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/03/who-virologists-would-say-that/

In August 1967, a viral haemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola hit the quiet university town of Marburg in what was then West Germany. The case fatality rate of over 20 per cent wasn’t quite on a par with the Black Death, but it was bad enough. Luckily, the initial outbreak affected only twenty-five people and was quickly contained, so total cases were limited to thirty-one and total deaths to seven. Germans, it seems, have a healthy aversion to contact with the body fluids of dying relatives, and hospitals were sufficiently well-equipped to safely handle infectious patients oozing their insides out. One laboratory technician did however fall sick after he cut himself during an autopsy on a patient who had died of the disease. Accidents will happen, even to Germans.

The mystery illness came to be known as Marburg Disease, back in the days when it was still socially acceptable to name diseases after the places where they first appeared. Its source was traced to a batch of African green monkeys that had been shipped from Uganda for use in polio research. At the time, it was uncertain whether Marburg Disease had originated in Uganda, or the monkeys had become infected en route. That’s because the monkeys had flown to Germany via Heathrow, and thus their trip was inevitably held up by strike action. During their involuntary two-day layover, they came into contact with animals from around the world, their British handlers, and the local rats, raising the possibility of cross-infection. Consider that the next time you fly through Heathrow.

The Lancet was the first medical journal to publish a paper identifying the cause of Marburg Disease, going to press with an explanation just three months after the first victims fell ill. True to form, they got it wrong, blaming a bacterial agent. Slower, more careful research revealed that the real cause was a virus.

What was known at the time, and has now been known for more than half a century, is that Marburg Disease escaped from a biological laboratory. But you wouldn’t know that from the World Health Organisation website entry for Marburg Disease, or even from the Wikipedia page. The Australian Department of Health is more forthcoming, noting that the laboratory workers had been exposed to tissue samples from monkeys, but draws no particular conclusions from that fact. And why should they? Question the safety of one laboratory, and you question the safety of all.

China Calling for Civilizational War Against America and the West by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17196/china-civilizational-war

“Gunpowder” is one of those words Beijing uses when it wants others to know war is on its mind. The term is, more worryingly, also especially emotion-packed, a word Chinese propagandists use when they want to rile mainland Chinese audiences…. China’s Communist Party, therefore, is now trying to whip up nationalist sentiment, rallying the Chinese people, perhaps readying them for war.

More fundamentally, Beijing is… trying to divide the world along racial lines and form a global anti-white coalition….

Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s mostly pragmatic successor, counseled China to “hide capabilities, bide time.” Xi, however, believes China’s time has come in part because, he feels, America is in terminal decline.

Xi is serious. In January, he told his fast-expanding military it must be ready to fight “at any second.” That month, the Party’s Central Military Commission took from the civilian State Council the power to mobilize all of society for war. Militant states rarely prepare for conflict and then back down.

There was a “strong smell of gunpowder” when American and Chinese diplomats met in Anchorage beginning March 18. That’s according to Zhao Lijian of China’s foreign ministry, speaking just hours after the first day of U.S.-China talks concluded.

“Gunpowder” is one of those words Beijing uses when it wants others to know war is on its mind.

The term is, more worryingly, also especially emotion-packed, a word Chinese propagandists use when they want to rile mainland Chinese audiences by reminding them of foreign — British and white — exploitation of China in the Opium War period of the 19th century. China’s Communist Party, therefore, is now trying to whip up nationalist sentiment, rallying the Chinese people, perhaps readying them for war.

More fundamentally, Beijing is, with the gunpowder reference and others, trying to divide the world along racial lines and form a global anti-white coalition.

There was more than just a whiff of gunpowder in Alaska. The foreign ministry’s Zhao blamed the U.S. side for exceeding the agreed time limit for opening remarks from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Blinken and Sullivan overran their allotted four minutes by… 44 seconds.

The Party’s Global Times called the two presentations “seriously overtime.” The foreign ministry’s Zhao said the overrun prompted the Chinese side to launch into its two presentations, which lasted 20 minutes and 23 seconds, well over their allotted four minutes.

Beheading Children in Mozambique by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17194/mozambique-beheading-children

“I was at home with my four children,” one mother told Save the Children. “We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed too.” — Telegraph, March 13, 2021.

The jihadists are known in the area as al-Shabaab, but unlike the al-Shabaab that operates in Somalia, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda, the Mozambique group, also known as Ansar al-Sunna, is affiliated with Islamic State (ISIS).

The terrorist insurgency threatens not only Mozambique and its people, in addition to neighboring Tanzania, which is fighting jihadists on the border; some analysts estimate that “the insurgency in Mozambique has the potential to destabilise Southern Africa and embolden Islamists throughout the region.”

Al-Shabaab… made a far more significant breakthrough in August 2020, when the group seized a key port in the province, Mocimboa da Praia, near the country’s burgeoning natural gas field developments…. The gas field developments…. are worth an estimated $60 billion….

Al-Shabaab jihadists leading an insurgency in Cabo Delgado, the northernmost province of Mozambique, are now beheading children as young as 11. Military and humanitarian personnel working in the area reportedly say that they have never seen anything like the brutality that the terrorists have unleashed on the region with people “often hacked to death and mutilated with machetes” as well as “mass Islamic State-style beheadings”.

“That night our village was attacked and houses were burned. When it all started, I was at home with my four children,” one mother told Save the Children. “We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed too.”

“After my 11-year-old son was killed, we understood that it was no longer safe to stay in my village,” said another mother, who was forced to flee with her remaining three children. “We fled to my father’s house in another village, but a few days later the attacks started there too.”

“I saw my daughter trying to run to the boat with two other children. The people from al-Shabab chased them. They took my daughter and many others. Then they set fire to our village,” said Fatima Abdul, a 43-year-old woman who fled and is now homeless, living on a beach.

China: What to Do About It? by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17191/china-what-to-do-about-it

Amendments to China’s National Defense Law, effective the beginning of this year, take away sweeping powers from the State Council, which leads China’s civilian government, and give it to the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission. These powers include the power to mobilize all of society for war.

Everything they do, whether it is seemingly innocuous, such as measuring a mountain or putting a rover on Mars, is a means of claiming sovereignty, of enlarging the People’s Republic. Now, of course, there are, in addition to these incursions, China’s militant, hostile, belligerent acts…. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

China will land a Rover, its Rover, on Mars in either May or June…. China’s officials have been talking about moon and Mars as if they are sovereign Chinese territory — part of the People’s Republic.

They look at near heavenly bodies the same way they do the South China Sea, something that should be theirs. This means that if they get there, China believes it has the right to exclude other nations.

Today let’s focus on three things that China is doing relating to genetics. First, China is collecting the world’s DNA. Second, China is genetically engineering the Chinese to become a superhuman race, in other words, eugenics. Third, Chinese researchers are working on pathogens, new pathogens, artificial ones, to create the world’s next pandemic.

The story here is that we allowed the Chinese to plunder our society for data.

This whole subject was brought to the attention of the American public by John Ratcliffe, then director of National Intelligence, when he wrote that China was trying to grow super‑soldiers. Ratcliffe mentioned that China is already conducting experiments on people in the People’s Liberation Army to enhance their abilities, to create, as he called it, “biologically enhanced capabilities.”

The Chinese regime does not have ethics or morality. It is not restrained by law. It does not have a sense of restraint. The regime is trying to create the perfect communist. China has the ability and the will to do this, which means that the world has got to prevent this experimentation.

China can become number one in two ways. It can enhance its own CNP ranking by becoming stronger, or it can decrease the CNP rankings of other countries. That’s where pathogens come in. This notion of decreasing CNP of others meant that China had no inhibitions about spreading the coronavirus around the world.

Now, China’s ranking of CNP will increase dramatically, of course, if the next disease leaves the Chinese alone and sickens only foreigners.

The spreading of the coronavirus is indeed an application of unrestricted warfare. Many analysts have said that biological warfare does not work. I can understand why they say that, but unfortunately we have just seen a disease kill about 2.4 million people as well as hobble societies across the world.

COVID-19 is the ultimate proof that biological weapons work. If Chinese scientists actually succeed in developing viruses that attack only foreigners, China could end up as the only viable society in the world. This is communist China’s weapon against the world and against the United States as well.

[O]n January 20 — just hours after taking the oath of office — Biden issued an executive order that repealed President Trump’s executive order of May 1st, 2020, preventing grid operators in the US from buying Chinese equipment. This means China is now free to sell sabotaged equipment to the US.

[W]e should impose costs on China for spreading COVID‑19. Recently, we passed that grim milestone of more than 500,000 deaths. This pathogen is not finished with us yet. We have to impose these costs on China to convince Xi Jinping that he cannot spread the next disease beyond his borders.

[W]e need to have the President of the United States impose costs on China for what it’s doing in Hong Kong. President Trump started imposing costs but did not do enough. I hope that Biden, who ran on a campaign of trying to help the people of Hong Kong, will do so.

Right now, the Chinese economy may be growing, but it did not grow at the 2.3 percent that Beijing announced for 2020. It is probably just a smidgen over zero, if it is zero.

We are approaching a point where ‑‑ this will be critical ‑‑ where Biden will have to decide whether to run to the rescue of China’s regime. We know that Nixon in 1972, George H.W. Bush in 1989, and Bill Clinton in 1999 rescued Chinese communism. I hope Biden does not do that a fourth time.

[T]he Biden team — and they have talked about this in public — they say, “We will impose costs on China for those things which are unacceptable, we will criticize them on others, and we will cooperate where there are common interests.” I don’t think we can do that because I do not see that we have common interests with a country that’s trying to overthrow our government. My message is: understand the fundamental nature, the hostility, and the maliciousness of China, and remember one other thing. That is, China deliberately released the disease that has killed more than 500,000 Americans. That alone means there can be no cooperation with China.

We need to say this to France, to Germany, to everybody else, that this is a zero‑sum game. You either work with the US or we do not consider you to be our friend. I think Israel would choose the right side. I am not so sure about some of the other countries mentioned…. [T]his is something where American presidents have not communicated to our friends, allies, and partners how we feel about China. I say we should no longer support China’s Communist regime.. We consider it to be an enemy, and we will act to protect ourselves in an appropriate fashion. Just tell Biden, in May 2019, People’s Daily ran a piece that declared a “people’s war on the US.” That is all Biden should need to know.

We know the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and others are dying in these facilities. The only thing that separates the People’s Republic of China and the Third Reich is that China has not gone to mass exterminations — yet. This meets the definition of “genocide” in the Genocide Convention of 1948. If Biden needs another message, this is not just a policy choice for him. We are a party to that Genocide Convention, which requires signatories to “prevent and punish” acts of genocide.

“What should Biden do?” One of the things Secretary Pompeo said that really unnerved the Chinese was talking about in‑person diplomacy, talking to the Chinese people directly. ….Biden needs to do the same thing. Not every solution is military. As a matter of fact, our solutions with China are not military. It really starts with talking to the Chinese people.

What does China really want?

Middle East Reality Welcomes President Biden Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

 https://bit.ly/2P1wNbk

 US policy in the Middle East

Since the 7th century, the Middle East has been one of the most tempestuous epicenters of domestic, regional and global wars and terrorism. The Middle East has frustrated US policy-makers, whose genuine attempts to promote peaceful-coexistence, human rights, democracy and international law have – too often – fueled social and political disintegration, repression, domestic and regional wars and global terrorism. 

For example, in 1978/79, the US intent to advance the cause of human rights and democracy in Iran, led to the embrace of Ayatollah Khomeini (an old religious leader in exile….) and betrayal of the Shah, providing the tailwind for the transformation of Iran from the American Policeman of the Gulf to the worst enemy of the US and all its Arab allies, a major proliferator of terrorism, wars and ballistic capabilities.

In 1990, the US considered Saddam Hussein an ally (the enemy of my enemy is my friend….), unintentionally providing a “green light” to his invasion of Kuwait (during Saddam’s meeting with US Ambassador April Glaspie).

In 2003, the US toppled Saddam Hussein, crushed Iraq’s Sunni dominance of Iraq and empowered the Iran-backed Shiites, which unleashed a ferocious civil war and intensified Islamic terrorism.

In 2009, the US spurned the pro-US President Mubarak and courted Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – aiming to advance the cause of human rights and democracy – which catapulted the Brotherhood to power in 2012/13, and energized their attempts to terrorize and topple every pro-US Arab regimes. 

How Arabs Discriminate Against Palestinians by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17097/arabs-discrimination-palestinians

“Palestinians have effectively been stripped of their identity and travel documents by successive Iraqi governments,” according to another report by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

In 2003 alone, 344 Palestinian families were forcibly expelled from their homes [in Iraq] by militias. Between 2003 and 2016, an estimated 300 Palestinian refugees were killed by these militias…. Palestinians have been demonized even in social media posts as potential ‘terrorists’ by accounts linked to the [Iraqi] interior ministry.” — Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

In 2017, Iraqi President Fuad Masum approved a law that stripped Palestinian refugees living in Iraq of their rights and classified them as foreigners.

The international reaction would, of course, have been completely different if Israel taken such measures against Palestinians. Evidently, no one really does care about the plight of the Palestinians. They are only cared about if they can be made to appear as victims of Israel, never of an Arab country.

Palestinian leaders are much too busy attacking Israel and demanding that the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecute Israelis for alleged “war crimes” against the Palestinians to notice the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of an Arab country.

The ICC, which appears obsessed with Israel, is unlikely to launch an investigation into Iraq’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Likewise, the United Nations Security Council is unlikely to hold an emergency session to denounce Iraq for its discriminatory measures against the Palestinians. The international media, for its part, will also continue their usually venomous — and usually unjustified — attacks on Israel, while ignoring the horrendous treatment the Palestinians receive from their Arab brothers.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has invited Iraq to send observers to monitor the Palestinian parliamentary elections, if and when they are held on May 22. The invitation was extended to Mohamed al-Halbousi, Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq, by the PA ambassador to Iraq, Ahmed Akl, during a meeting in Baghdad.

It is not clear whether the Iraqis have accepted the invitation. What is clear, however, is that Iraq is among the many Arab countries where Palestinians continue to face discriminatory measures and laws.

Worse, it seems the Iraqi authorities are carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing against the few thousand Palestinians who still live in Iraq.

ISIS in Mozambique ‘beheading’ children, reports say “One mother told the agency she had had to watch as her 12-year-old son was killed in this way close to where she was hiding with her other children.”

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/isis-in-mozambique-beheading-children-reports-

ISIS-linked extremists are reportedly beheading children in Mozambique, the BBC claimed on Wednesday.

The global jihadist movement has largely been defeated in the Middle East, but the genocidal Islamist extremism that it once sought to bring to Iraq and Syria is now being carried out in areas in Africa. For many years, various groups linked to Al Qaeda or Islamist extremists percolated across the Sahel and in Somalia. They have now spread down to Mozambique and its Cabo Delgado region.

When claims of ISIS extremists infiltrating and taking root in Mozambique first appeared years ago, some scoffed at the notion. This was the same narrative that cast doubt on Boko Haram in Nigeria. In 2012 an article at The New York Times claimed that there was no proof that a “well-organized, ideologically coherent terrorist group called Boko Haram even exists.”

“Kill Them; Kill Them All”: The War against Police in France by Yves Mamou

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17105/france-war-against-police

In January, the statistical services of the Ministry of the Interior recorded 2,288 such “kill them all” incidents, based on information from police reports.

The media’s suspicion of the illegitimate use of violence by the police is so intense that officers under attack do not even feel permitted to use their weapon

The indictment of the police by the media and the entertainment industry — actors, singers and so on — is also fueled by academics.

Judicial cowards, of course, also side with the chic mob against the police.

If the police cannot investigate or protect the public because officers are afraid of being called racists, the security of the citizens is in danger.

On January 25 in Pantin, a suburb of Paris, on February 4 in Carcassonne in the south of France, and on February 13 in Poissy in Yvelines, organized groups of “young people” — according to the established media vocabulary to avoid any ethnic designation — lured police forces into their neighborhoods to ambush them. To the shouts of “Kill them; kill them all”, police patrols were attacked with explosives and pyrotechnic devices used as urban guerrilla weapons. Each time, videos of the attack were broadcast on social networks.

Between March 17 and May 5, 2020, French police were subjected to 79 ambushes, based on statistics from the Ministry of the Interior published by Le Figaro. In October 2020, Le Figaro counted at least ten attacks on police precincts since the beginning of the year, and more than 85 incidents of “violence against persons in positions of public authority” were recorded daily throughout the country by the national police, according to Le Monde. In January, the statistical services of the Ministry of the Interior recorded 2,288 such “kill them all” incidents, based on information from police reports.

Israel and the China Dilemma Are the opportunities greater than the risks? Joseph Puder

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/israel-and-china-dilemma-joseph-puder/

In the late spring of 2020, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israel. His visit came after Israel formed a coalition government between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party. Pompeo, while endorsing Israel’s rights to Judea and Samaria, had a blunt message for his Israeli friends: “Beware of China.” Pompeo added, “We don’t want the Chinese Communist Party to have access to Israeli infrastructure, Israeli communication networks, and the kind of things that endanger the Israeli people and the ability of the US to cooperate with Israel.”

Pompeo’s gently expressed admonition to Israeli officials was not new. In the 1990’s, the US pressed Israel to cancel a deal to sell the Phalcon Intelligence surveillance aircraft to China. Israel backed down, and was compelled to return the $250 million to Beijing that the Chinese had invested in the project.

For Israel, the situation was terribly uncomfortable. It was forced to choose between its closest and most trusted ally – the US, and a great business opportunity with China. There was little hesitation however, on Israel’s part. The US will always be Israel’s top priority.

In fact, almost immediately following Pompeo’s warning, the Israeli government decided to pass on a bid by the Israeli affiliate of the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchinson, to build a $1.5 billion water desalination plant in southern Israel. The contract was awarded instead to a local Israeli company named IDE Technologies.

American culture is so pervasive in Israel that many Israelis might quip that Israel is the 51st state of the United States. Every American fad and fashion is almost immediately adopted in Israel. Thankfully for Israel, the US and Israeli interests in the region, although not identical, they come as close as two countries can be. Israel moreover, has voted with the US more often than practically any other country.

Russia Recalls Its Ambassador to the U.S. for Consultations Moscow’s move follows a critical U.S. intelligence report about Russian efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-recalls-its-ambassador-to-the-u-s-for-consultations-11616011568

By Jessica Donati and Ann M. Simmons

The Russian ambassador to the U.S. has been summoned to Moscow for consultations, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman said, as the Kremlin determines the next steps in relations with the U.S. under the Biden administration.

The announcement that Anatoly Antonov had been summoned to Moscow came a day after a U.S. intelligence report for the first time directly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering a wide-ranging influence operation to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election, intending to hurt President Biden’s campaign.

U.S. intelligence agencies previously have said Moscow tried to interfere in the 2016 election and that it was doing so again last year but hadn’t explicitly linked Mr. Putin to allegations of 2020 meddling. Russian officials have repeatedly denied any effort to influence the outcome of U.S. elections.

A statement by the Russian foreign ministry said the most important thing for Moscow was to identify ways to rectify the relationship, blaming Washington for bringing relations between the two countries to “a blind alley.”