Feb 182020
 
 February 18, 2020  Posted by at 9:11 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Jack Delano Entrance to colored drivers’ lunchroom at truck service station on U.S. 1 (New York Avenue) 1940

 

338 Americans Flown Home From Cruise Ship, Including 14 With Coronavirus (R.)
US Breaks Cruise Ship Quarantine (ZH)
Virus Kills Chinese Film Director and Family in Wuhan (Chow)
Disease Modelers See The Future Of COVID-19 (STAT)
China Faces Back To Work Concerns As Firms Report Coronavirus Infections (SCMP)
Apple Unlikely To Meet Revenue Guidance Due To Coronavirus Impact (R.)
American Factories In China Unable To Staff Production Lines (SCMP)
At Stake (Jim Kunstler)
Senate Braces For Fight Over Impeachment Whistleblower Testimony (Hill)
NYC Taxpayers Spend Millions on Cyber Center with Ties to Israeli Intel (Webb)
WikiLeaks Locked Out of Twitter Account One Week Before Assange Hearing (GP)
Doctors Call For End Of Assange ‘Torture’ (AAP)
Julian Assange Must Be Freed, Not Betrayed (John Pilger)
Amazon’s Bezos Pledges $10 Billion To Climate Change Fight (R.)

 

 

Actually saw a Reuters headline that said “Coronavirus Infections Slow In China…”, and I thought: why would you say that, the number of new cases is still above 2,000, in spite of all the measures and containment and quarantines in the country.

But it was probably because of the second part of the headline that said “…As Apple Warns Of iPhone Shortages”. That’s what it took for people to take notice, though iPhones are a poor indicator of the economic consequences of the virus; the Big Hurt won’t be in the biggest firms. Look around your home and your stores and see how much stuff come from China. iPhones are but a blip on that radar.

Obviously, another matter people notice is the evacuation of Americans and other people from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama. If only because it allows CNN and BBC to endlessly lament the “terrible ordeal” their compatriots have endured. As entire families in Wuhan have been wiped out, and people are banned from any social activities.

 

• Cases 73,433 (+ 2,103 from yesterday)

• Deaths 1,873 (+ 98 from yesterday)

 

 

 

 

The Westerdam cruise ship unwind is even crazier than the Diamond Princess, and that’s saying something.

338 Americans Flown Home From Cruise Ship, Including 14 With Coronavirus (R.)

More than 300 Americans who had been stuck on a cruise ship affected by the coronavirus were back in the United States on Monday, flown to U.S. military bases for two more weeks of quarantine after spending the previous 14 days docked in Japan. Among those repatriated on a pair of U.S.-chartered jets were 14 people who tested positive for the fast-spreading virus, seven on each plane. The Diamond Princess cruise ship held by far the largest cluster of cases outside China, with more than 400 people infected out of some 3,700 on board. The coronavirus outbreak has killed 1,770 people in China and five elsewhere, with Chinese officials reporting another 2,048 cases on Monday, raising the total to 70,548.

Washington previously flew hundreds of Americans from China to military bases in the United States, and then arranged to bring back the 338 cruise ship passengers once their 14-day quarantines on board had expired. Another 60 Americans remained in Japan for monitoring, State Department officials said. A further 200 U.S. citizens were stuck in Cambodia, among them 92 still on board another cruise ship, the Westerdam, that was also affected by the virus. The Diamond Princess was ordered to stay under quarantine at Yokohama port on Feb. 3 after an 80-year-old Hong Kong man, who was on board from Jan. 20 to Jan. 25, developed the virus. U.S. officials previously pledged to keep infected Americans in Japan for treatment. But they said they were forced to change plans after the passengers disembarked and were on their way to the airport when Japanese officials informed them that 14 of those in transit had tested positive.

“It was only when they were loaded onto these buses that we were made aware these positive results had come back from the government of Japan,” Dr. William Walters, a senior medical official for the State Department, told a news briefing. “They were then taken off the bus, moved into the aircraft and that dedicated isolation area, which was the safest place for them to get away from the rest of the passengers and give us time to make decisions,” Walters said. The infected passengers were isolated in specialized containment areas aboard the two chartered jets. They were exposed to other passengers for about 40 minutes during the bus ride.

Read more …

The US accuses Japan of utter failure, but never in those words. Main ally.

US Breaks Cruise Ship Quarantine (ZH)

[..] the Princess Cruises ship was carrying 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew when it set sail and was quarantined after 10 cases of coronavirus were reported Feb. 4. Since then the number of cases on board has exploded, and on Monday alone, Japan announced an additional 99 infections on the Diamond Princess, raising the ship’s total number of cases to 454. And since most of the people on the ship have yet to be tested, the real number of infections may not be known for days. Where things gets problematic, is that whereas until now most of those on board the cruise ship had remained in isolation, the self-imposed quarantine is now over, and on Sunday, fourteen evacuees from the Diamond Princess were allowed to fly back to the United States Sunday despite testing positive for coronavirus, the U.S. State Department and Health and Human Services said in a joint statement.


Why were they released? Because supposedly they were not symptomatic, and in a very ominous twist, they had tested negative initially! “These individuals were moved in the most expeditious and safe manner to a specialized containment area on the evacuation aircraft to isolate them in accordance with standard protocols,” the statement, published Sunday, read. The State Department was unaware the individuals had coronavirus when they were being removed from the ship; they had tested negative just a few days before, Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, said on a phone call with reporters. “If those results had come back four hours earlier before we’d started to disembark the ship and before these people were evacuees within an evacuation system, then it would’ve been a different discussion.” Dr. William Walters, director of operational medicine at the U.S. Department of State, said on the call.

In other words, the quarantine that had isolated the biggest incubator of coronavirus cases outside of Wuhan was broken simply because an initial test had given a false negative, and subsequents test confirmed that at least 14 indeed had the coronavirus. Kadlec said that individuals received multiple screenings when moving from ship to bus to plane and a more extensive medical assessment upon arrival. In any case, the Diamond Princess quarantine is now broken, and two charter flights carrying at least 14 infected passengers landed at military bases in California and Texas overnight, starting the clock on a 14-day quarantine period to ensure those passengers don’t have coronavirus. In total, approximately 380 Americans were on board the Diamond Princess ship for the duration of the cruise and quarantine at sea.


[..] Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told the USA TODAY editorial board and reporters Monday that the original idea to keep people safely quarantined on the ship wasn’t unreasonable. Yet where the entire story falls on its face is that even with the quarantine process on the ship, virus transmission still occurred. One can only hope that there are proper precaution pathways in place to prevent transmission now that at least 13 infected cruise passengers are now on US soil. “ The quarantine process failed,” Fauci said. “I’d like to sugarcoat it and try to be diplomatic about it, but it failed. People were getting infected on that ship. Something went awry in the process of the quarantining on that ship. I don’t know what it was, but a lot of people got infected on that ship.”

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Mild? Mildly contagious? One wonders.

Virus Kills Chinese Film Director and Family in Wuhan (Chow)

A Chinese film director and his entire family have died from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Chang Kai, a film director and an external communications officer at a Hubei Film Studio subsidiary, died in hospital on Feb. 14 from the virus now called COVID-19, according to a statement from the studio. He was 55. But Chang’s death was not the first in his family—the Chinese media reported that Chang’s father and mother were infected and died one after the other. Chang and his sister, who looked after their parents at home, were both infected with the virus as a result. His sister died just hours later. Chang’s wife is also infected, still alive, and is still battling the virus in an intensive care unit.


A note written by Chang, said to be his last words, has gone viral on the Chinese Internet. Chang wrote that his father succumbed to the illness on the first day of the Lunar New Year (January 25). “My father had a fever, cough and trouble breathing. [We] tried to send him to the hospital but none of the hospitals we visited took him, because they had no more beds,” he wrote. Instead, Chang brought his father home where ha died a few days later, having passed on the virus to the other family members. Chang’s note said that he and his wife were denied the opportunity to be treated early. Wuhan built a new hospital in six days, but capacity to handle the virus remains strained. Chang bade farewell to his family, friends and his son, who is reportedly studying in the U.K.

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Too many unknowns. Too easily lost in various favorite interpretations.

Disease Modelers See The Future Of COVID-19 (STAT)

At least 550,000 cases. Maybe 4.4 million. Or something in between. Like weather forecasters, researchers who use mathematical equations to project how bad a disease outbreak might become are used to uncertainties and incomplete data, and Covid-19, the disease caused by the new-to-humans coronavirus that began circulating in Wuhan, China, late last year, has those everywhere you look. That can make the mathematical models of outbreaks, with their wide range of forecasts, seem like guesswork gussied up with differential equations; the eightfold difference in projected Covid-19 cases in Wuhan, calculated by a team from the U.S. and Canada, isn’t unusual for the early weeks of an outbreak of a never-before-seen illness.

But infectious-disease models have been approximating reality better and better in recent years, thanks to a better understanding of everything from how germs behave to how much time people spend on buses. “Year by year there have been improvements in forecasting models and the way they are combined to provide forecasts,” said physicist Alessandro Vespignani of Northeastern University, a leading infectious-disease modeler. That’s not to say there’s not room for improvement. The key variables of most models are mostly the same ones epidemiologists have used for decades to predict the course of outbreaks. But with greater computer power now at their disposal, modelers are incorporating more fine-grained data to better reflect the reality of how people live their lives and interact in the modern world — from commuting to work to jetting around the world.

These more detailed models can take weeks to spit out their conclusions, but they can better inform public health officials on the likely impact of disease-control measures. Models are not intended to be scare machines, projecting worst-case possibilities. (Modelers prefer “project” to “predict,” to indicate that the outcomes they describe are predicated on numerous assumptions.) The idea is to calculate numerous what-ifs: What if schools and workplaces closed? What if public transit stopped? What if there were a 90% effective vaccine and half the population received it in a month?

“Our overarching goal is to minimize the spread and burden of infectious disease,” said Sara Del Valle, an applied mathematician and disease modeler at Los Alamos National Laboratory. By calculating the effects of countermeasures such as social isolation, travel bans, vaccination, and using face masks, modelers can “understand what’s going on and inform policymakers,” she said.

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Said it a few times before: factories become petri dishes too, the virus loves those.

China Faces Back To Work Concerns As Firms Report Coronavirus Infections (SCMP)

Cracks have appeared in China’s eagerness to resume economic activities amid the coronavirus outbreak, with a number of work-related cases reported. Gree Electric, the country’s biggest air-conditioner manufacturer located in the city of Zhuhai in Guangdong province, was forced to take emergency action last week to check and quarantine its employees after a bus driver was found to have had close contact with a suspected case, according to a notice published by the company’s labour union on its social media account. The contracted driver, surnamed Feng, had been driving employees to and from work last week until Saturday, with Gree now “intensely” checking the condition of employees who had travelled on the bus.

In addition, Feng was found to have had a meal with three colleagues last week, which was against his company’s policy concerning coronavirus control. According to the statement, Gree recommended that the contractor sack all four drivers despite the quartet, plus Feng’s son, later testing negative. The Gree statement, which was later removed, did not provide details on how many workers have been placed under quarantine. Gree was one of the first to resume production in Guangdong, with provincial party secretary Li Xi visiting the plant last week, two days after 11,000 workers – around one third of the total workforce – resumed operations, according to a report by the official Nanfang Daily.

In another case in Chongqing, more than 130 employees of Chongqing Titanium Industry, a unit of Pangang Group, had to be quarantined and the factory was again forced to halt production after two members of staff were confirmed as being infected at the start of last week, according to a notice by the local industrial estate where the plant is based. In Guangzhou, an employee tested positive for coronavirus, forcing the company to quarantine its remaining members of staff since Friday.

Read more …

This sinks the “markets”. And shows how dumb the people in them are.

Apple Unlikely To Meet Revenue Guidance Due To Coronavirus Impact (R.)

Apple warned on Monday it was unlikely to meet a sales target set just three weeks ago amid lost production and weakening demand in China from the coronavirus outbreak. The illness has killed 1,770 in China and stricken some 70,500 people, with millions of others confined to their homes and factories slow to reopen after the Chinese New Year holiday break was extended due to the virus. Manufacturing facilities in China that produce Apple’s iPhone and other electronics have begun to reopen, but they are ramping up more slowly than expected, Apple said. That will mean fewer iPhones available for sale around the world, making Apple one of the largest Western firms to be hurt by the outbreak.


Some of its retail stores in the country remain closed or are operating at reduced hours, which will hurt sales this quarter. China accounted for 15% of Apple’s revenue, or $13.6 billion, last quarter, and supplied 18% of revenue in the year-ago quarter. In late January, Apple had forecast $63 billion to $67 billion in revenue for the quarter ending in March. It did not offer a new revenue estimate nor provide a profit forecast on Monday. “The magnitude of this impact to miss its revenue guidance midway through February is clearly worse than feared,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a note. Apple’s stock is expected to face a knee-jerk reaction on Tuesday, when Wall Street reopens after the Presidents Day holiday, Ives said.

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It’s irresponsible to open most of these factories.

American Factories In China Unable To Staff Production Lines (SCMP)

As China tries to put its economy back to work amid a novel coronavirus outbreak that has left swathes of the country on lockdown, American manufacturers have warned that they do not have enough staff to man their production lines. The Lunar New Year holiday was officially extended until February 10 in a bid to stem contagion, but factories begun reopening last week across the country, with differing rules applying across China’s almost 3,000 counties.
A survey of 109 companies in the manufacturing powerhouse of the Shanghai region found that while two-thirds of factories were up and running by the end of last week, 78 per cent did not have enough workers to kick-start full production. Almost half, meanwhile, said that their global operations have already been hit by the spread of the coronavirus.


Companies in the area, which includes Suzhou, Nanjing and the wider Yangtze River Delta, had to apply for permission to reopen, and of those that were granted a licence, just 58 per cent were permitted to open all of their production lines, according to the survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Shanghai between February 11 and 14. “The biggest problem is lack of workers as they are subjected to travel restrictions and quarantines, the number one and number two problems identified in the survey. Anyone coming from outside the immediate area undergoes a 14 day quarantine,” said Ker Gibbs, AmCham Shanghai president. “Therefore, most factories have a severe shortage of workers, even after they are allowed to open. This is going to have a severe impact on global supply chains that is only beginning to show up.

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A convenient list of names.

At Stake (Jim Kunstler)

I have a theory about the McCabe case: The Attorney General has taken the rinky-dink “lying to the FBI” charge off the table. It has become a liability, virtually the emblem for government misconduct, and Mr. Barr is getting rid of it in these matters. It has already caused too much mischief, insulted Americans’ sense of justice, and damaged the DOJ’s standing. Note, Andrew McCabe has been let off only on this charge, stemming from only one particular IG referral; he may well yet be liable for more serious charges-to-come. From here on, there will be no more rinky-dink lying charges against any of those implicated in the coup, only the most serious charges, and only those that add up to a solid case.

The coup has been so broad, deep, and thick that I predict cases will have to be brought under the RICO statutes in batches for different groups in separate agencies and branches of government. For instance, there is the Intel Mob, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intel (DNI) James Clapper, current Intel IG Michael Atkinson, so-called whistleblower (he that cannot be named, E*** C**********) and International Man of Mystery Joseph Mifsud. There is gang from the State Department who helped engineer UkraineGate, including former Ambassador Marie Yovanovich, former Sec’y of State John Kerry, and others. There is that big herd of rogue lawyers in the DOJ and its stepchild, the FBI, the names widely disseminated by now, Comey, Strzok, Baker, Boente, Carlin, Clinesmith, et. al.

There’s Robert Mueller and his henchpersons, Andrew Weissmann, Jeannie Rhee, et. al. There’s another a band of seditionists in Congress that includes Mark Warner of the Senate Intel Committee, the now notorious idiot Adam Schiff over in the House, and staffers who worked for both. There’s a bunch in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment that paid over a million dollars to Alternate International Man of Mystery (actually, CIA asset) Stefan Halper to run entrapment schemes against people working for Mr. Trump. There’s a swarm from Barack Obama’s White House, including Valarie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, Alexandra Chalupa, former Vice-President Joe Biden and the former President himself.

And finally, there is the 800-pound-gorilla over in the Democratic Party thicket, namely Hillary Clinton, and those connected to her and her charity fraud, the Clinton Foundation, which is the real and actual predicate for the whole sordid affair — a list that includes Viktor Vekselberg of Russia’s Skolkovo Project, $25-million donor Russian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, and Dmitri Alperovich of CrowdStrike, (Russian collusion, anyone?) as well as rascally freelancers such as Christopher Steele, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, lawyer / Lobbyist Adam Waldman, and Hillary errand boys Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer. The stories behind those names are all over the web, in case you want to hjedify yourself.

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The networks are bent in a strange pretzel to justify keeping the long known identity “secret”. It’s not about the identity, it’s about having an excuse not to let him testify.

Senate Braces For Fight Over Impeachment Whistleblower Testimony (Hill)

Senators are reviving the fight over the whistleblower complaint at the center of the months-long impeachment effort against President Trump. With Trump’s trial in the rearview mirror, the Senate Intelligence Committee is quietly shifting its attention back to its investigation into the complaint process after hitting pause on the inquiry as the impeachment effort consumed Washington. The probe will force senators to decide if, and how, they speak with the whistleblower — a controversial call that could test the bipartisan reputation the Intelligence panel has maintained even amid deeply partisan fights in Congress. Asked by The Hill if he was willing to formally compel and subpoena the whistleblower to testify, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) didn’t rule out the possibility.

“I think you can rest assured that I’m prepared to do whatever we have to to interview the whistleblower,” Burr said. The renewed interest in speaking with the whistleblower comes after committee staff and lawyers for the individual hit a stalemate late last year over potential questioning. Lawyers for the individual made offers at the time to both the House and Senate Intelligence committees that their client was willing to provide written answers under oath, but Burr rejected that offer. The North Carolina senator indicated no progress had been made since then in trying to reach a deal on testimony and that while he hadn’t spoken recently with Mark Zaid, one of the whistleblower’s lawyers, his plan is “an interview with committee staff.”

[..] A Democratic committee source said that protecting the whistleblower’s safety and anonymity “is a top priority.” “We do not expect to be asked to cooperate with any effort that might endanger his or her safety,” the source said. The prospect of calling the whistleblower to speak with the committee has been talked up most recently not by a member of the panel but by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close ally of the president. “The Senate Intel Committee under Richard Burr has told us that we will call the whistleblower,” Graham said earlier this month during a Fox News interview. He added in a subsequent interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the “whistleblower episode needs to be investigated by Richard Burr” and in an interview with Fox News Radio that “the Intel Committee should be looking at whether or not the whistleblower had a bias.”

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Whitney with a new angle. Includes some Epstein.

NYC Taxpayers Spend Millions on Cyber Center with Ties to Israeli Intel (Webb)

Early last week, the city of New York launched — with little media scrutiny — one of two new massive cybersecurity centers that will be run by private Israeli firms with close ties to Israel’s government, the so-called “Mega Group” tied to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations operating in the United States. The centers were first announced in 2018 as was the identity of the firms who would run them: Israel-based Jerusalem Venture Partners and SOSA. As MintPress has reported on several occasions, all three of these entities have a history of aggressively spying on the U.S. federal government and/or blackmailing top American politicians, raising concerns regarding why these companies were chosen to run the new centers in the heart of Manhattan.

The news also comes as Israeli cybersecurity companies tied to Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 were revealed to have access to the U.S. government’s most classified systems and simulating the cancellation of the upcoming 2020 presidential election. The new cybersecurity centers are part of a new New York City public-private partnership called “CyberNYC” that is valued at over $100 million and officially aims to “spur the creation of 10,000 cybersecurity jobs and make New York City a global leader in cyber innovation.” CyberNYC is an initiative of New York City’s Economic Development Corporation. However, the companies that will be responsible for creating those cybersecurity jobs will benefit foreign companies, namely Israeli and most of the jobs to be created will go to foreigners as well, as media reports on the partnership have quietly noted.

Those reports also stated that, while the stated purpose of the centers is to create new jobs, the Israeli firms chosen to run them — Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) and SOSA — view it as an opportunity to provide Israeli cybersecurity companies with a foothold into the American market and to see Israeli cybersecurity products adopted by both small and medium-sized American businesses, not just large corporations and government agencies. [..] the founder of JVP and former Knesset member, Erel Margalit, told the Jerusalem Post that “the center we are setting up [in New York] will assist Israeli hi-tech companies in collaborating with customers and companies in the US and around the world.”

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I think I saw it’s been restored. Twitter saying it had been compromised or something like that.

WikiLeaks Locked Out of Twitter Account One Week Before Assange Hearing (GP)

WikiLeaks has been locked out of their Twitter account just one week before Julian Assange’s extradition hearing is scheduled to begin in the UK. WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson tweeted on Monday that “all attempts to get it reopened via regular channels have been unsuccessful. It has been impossible to reach a human at twitter to resolve the issue.” A source familiar with the situation explained to the Gateway Pundit that WikiLeaks social media admins received an automated email on February 9 saying that they needed to reset their password to regain access, but were not able to do so. They were unsure about the reason for the email in the first place — whether it was a glitch from Twitter, a targeted effort, or a hack.

The source said that when the WikiLeaks admins attempted to change the password and log in they received responses from Twitter saying that they were unable to verify them as the owner of the account and that the email on file did not match the one that they were using. WikiLeaks maintains that they are indeed using the same email that has been associated with the account for years. Efforts by WikiLeaks to reach someone at Twitter, since the 9th, have been unsuccessful. Assange’s extradition hearing is scheduled to begin on February 24 at Belmarsh Magistrates Courts, which is a court under the jurisdiction of South London Magistrates Courts.

Assange faces charges under the Espionage Act in the United States for his publication of the Iraq and Afghan War Logs. If extradited and convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of 175 years for the “crime” of publishing material that the US government did not want the public to know. On Monday evening, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed to The Gateway Pundit that the “account was locked due to indicators it was compromised.”

Read more …

February 14 is the next hearing.

Doctors Call For End Of Assange ‘Torture’ (AAP)

A group of 117 doctors and psychologists has called for an end to what it calls “the psychological torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange”. WikiLeaks founder Assange is being held in London’s Belmarsh Prison awaiting a hearing on February 24 which could see him extradited to the US. In a 1200-word letter published in the medical journal The Lancet, the Doctors For Assange group expresses concern over his fitness for the legal proceedings. The letter says that “Assange is in a dire state of health due to the effects of prolonged psychological torture in both the Ecuadorian embassy in London and Belmarsh Prison, where he has been arbitrarily detained according to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

“Should Assange die in a UK prison, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (Nils Melzer) has warned, he will have effectively been tortured to death,” the letter states. “Much of that torture will have taken place in a prison medical ward, on doctors’ watch. The medical profession cannot afford to stand silently by, on the wrong side of torture and the wrong side of history, while such a travesty unfolds.” The first hearing into the United States’ request for Assange’s extradition was held on May 2, 2019. When asked by the judge if he consented to the extradition, Assange said: “I do not wish to surrender myself for extradition for doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many people.”

A copy of the Doctors For Assange letter has been sent to the Australian minister for Foreign Affairs, Marise Payne, following up on a previous letter sent on December 16, calling on Ms Payne to bring Assange home to Australia for urgent medical care. A copy has also been sent to the UK Government, which the doctors accuse of violating Assange’s human right to health. The letter condemns what it calls the “torture” of Assange and “the denial of his fundamental right to appropriate healthcare”. It adds: “Politics cannot be allowed to interfere with the right to health and the practice of medicine.

“Abuse by politically motivated medical neglect sets a dangerous precedent, ultimately undermining our profession’s impartiality, commitment to health for all, and obligation to do no harm. “Our appeals are simple: we are calling upon governments to end the torture of Mr Assange and ensure his access to the best available healthcare, before it is too late.” The letter is signed by Stephen Frost, Lissa Johnson, Jill Stein and William Frost on behalf of 117 signatories.

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“..the “damage done personally to you” by Julian Assange.”

Julian Assange Must Be Freed, Not Betrayed (John Pilger)

WikiLeaks has informed us how illegal wars are fabricated, how governments are overthrown and violence is used in our name, how we are spied upon through our phones and screens. The true lies of presidents, ambassadors, political candidates, generals, proxies, political fraudsters have been exposed. One by one, these would-be emperors have realised they have no clothes. It has been an unprecedented public service; above all, it is authentic journalism, whose value can be judged by the degree of apoplexy of the corrupt and their apologists. For example, in 2016, WikiLeaks published the leaked emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, which revealed a direct connection between Clinton, the foundation she shares with her husband and the funding of organised jihadism in the Middle East — terrorism.


One email disclosed that Islamic State (ISIS) was bankrolled by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, from which Clinton accepted huge “donations”. Moreover, as U.S. Secretary of State, she approved the world’s biggest ever arms sale to her Saudi benefactors, worth more than $80 billion. Thanks to her, U.S. arms sales to the world — for use in stricken countries like Yemen — doubled.

[..] Revealed by WikiLeaks and published in The New York Times, the Podesta emails triggered a vituperative campaign against editor-in-chief Julian Assange, bereft of evidence. He was an “agent of Russia working to elect Trump”; the nonsensical “Russiagate” followed. That WikiLeaks had also published more than 800,000 frequently damning documents from Russia was ignored. On an Australian Broadcasting Corporation programme, Four Corners, in 2017, Clinton was interviewed by Sarah Ferguson, who began: “No one could fail to be moved by the pain on your face at [the moment of Donald Trump’s inauguration] … Do you remember how visceral it was for you?” Having established Clinton’s visceral suffering, the fawning Ferguson described “Russia’s role” and the “damage done personally to you” by Julian Assange.


Clinton replied, “He [Assange] is very clearly a tool of Russian intelligence. And he has done their bidding.” Ferguson said to Clinton, “Lots of people, including in Australia, think that Assange is a martyr of free speech and freedom of information. How would you describe him?” Again, Clinton was allowed to defame Assange — a “nihilist” in the service of “dictators” — while Ferguson assured her interviewee she was “the icon of your generation”. There was no mention of a leaked document, revealed by WikiLeaks, called Libya Tick Tock, prepared for Hillary Clinton, which described her as the central figure driving the destruction of the Libyan state in 2011. This resulted in 40,000 deaths, the arrival of ISIS in North Africa and the European refugee and migrant crisis.

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1) Be as destructive as you can and get rich off your efforts. 2) Spend 1-2% of your dirty wealth and expect to be hailed as a philantropist.

Amazon’s Bezos Pledges $10 Billion To Climate Change Fight (R.)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will commit $10 billion to fund scientists, activists, nonprofits and other groups fighting to protect the environment and counter the effects of climate change, he said on Monday. Cutting emissions will be challenging for Amazon. The e-commerce company delivers 10 billion items a year, has a massive transportation and data center footprint, and has faced criticism from within its own workforce. Bezos, the world’s richest man, is among a growing list of billionaires to dedicate substantial funds to battling the impact of global warming. “Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” Bezos said in an Instagram post. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.”


The Bezos Earth Fund will begin issuing grants this summer as part of the initiative. “It’s going to take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals,” Bezos said. Counteracting climate change has become a popular cause for U.S. billionaires in recent years, with Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and hedge fund manager Tom Steyer counted among the world’s wealthiest environmental philanthropists. Last year, Bezos pledged to make online retailer Amazon net carbon neutral by 2040 – the first major corporation to announce such a goal – and to buy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from U.S. vehicle design and manufacturing startup Rivian Automotive.

Read more …

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle February 18 2020

Viewing 19 posts - 1 through 19 (of 19 total)
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  • #54068

    Jack Delano Entrance to colored drivers’ lunchroom at truck service station on U.S. 1 (New York Avenue) 1940   • 338 Americans Flown Home From Cr
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 18 2020]

    #54069
    oxymoron
    Participant

    Any of these philanthropists are absolutely morally bankrupt. How can you be in the business of destroying huge parts/components/regions of the environment and then say you are making an attempt to save it? It is by definition insanity. I really want to have compassion for these people who are literally, clinically insane but they make me angry. I think of indigenous elders and chiefs just looking at the invaders taking down 3000 year old trees or damming rivers and I can see the same case. It is looking at an insane person and having compassion but knowing they will ultimately kill you and the world you love. It is the great plains with more than 60 million bison to 540 animals in 100 years. It really pisses me off.

    #54070
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Mercy! What a statement!
    Jack Delano Entrance to colored drivers’ lunchroom at truck service station on U.S. 1 (New York Avenue) 1940

    America’s legacy to this day…

    oxymoron
    It really pisses me off!

    Ya sure, you betcha; me too, in spades!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    #54071

    oxy,

    If Bezos is insane, what are those who praise him for establishing his Bezos Earth Fund?.

    Note: according to Charles Mann in his books 1491/1493, the number of bison/buffalo was much lower in 1500 than in 1700/1800. It took the mass extinction of native Americans to create the space for the huge herds. Prior to that, there were simply too many people living on the continent, and the land was used for farming.

    #54072
    VisionHawk
    Participant

    oxymoron….. thank you!
    Amen.
    We are what we believe…..

    #54073
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Bloomberg demonstrates far better than I ever could how to create the next Holodomor and kill the next ten million people with his “expert” policies. “”You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn,” Uh-huh. I vote to put him on an island with 100 seeds of corn and see how he does. I’ll even pre-dig the holes! He’d be dead in 6 months. But that would be only him. If he gets in charge, we’ll ALL be dead in 6 years with his genius expert help. Just ask FDR, the LAST expert who helped hunger in America by pouring out milk and plowing crops under. #Winning! Just like we won the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs!

    Bezos, the next “expert” “helping” us all to death, says “Jeff Bezos Launches $10 Billion “Bezos Earth Fund” to Fight Climate Change” which he could do far more simply by NOT blizzard-shipping goods worldwide TO then from China, and would also employ U.S. workers not in murderous sweatshops with ambulances parked outside. Don’t hold your breath.

    People never get tired of it. Even when they’re immolated by their “expert” “Genius” lithium powered car, “helping” the environment by cutting down forests, paving the topsoil for 1,000 years, mining lithium, then setting it on fire. That’s a plan so good, we should subsidize it!

    Ah #Government, doing what they do best: killing people. And charging them for the privilege.

    “338 Americans Flown Home from Cruise Ship, Including 14 with Coronavirus (R.)”

    They were testing quarantine on these guys, and I don’t exactly blame them. Newsflash: it failed. So that tells us that common procedures are inadequate to contain it, and only exceptional, heroic (and expensive and/or impossible) measures will contain it. …So basically kiss it goodbye, everybody is getting this thing. Also no picture page of the victims, as often happens, and no tallies of deaths in China vs out.
    The NY Times admits – only because the Chinese ‘government’ appears to have admitted – that there was indeed a breach at the Wuhan lab. You know, the one across the street from the fish market? (Good planning). The worker quarantined himself responsibly for 14 days. …Buuuuut the incubation period may be at least 28. Why bring this up? EVERY OTHER MEDIA OUTLET IS STILL DENYING THIS AS A CONSPIRACY THEORY. Yes, AFTER it’s essentially been confirmed by the Chinese government itself, no doubt with a bitter fight.

    Okay, folks: if you didn’t realize it when you got your Press Pass, in journalism NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED YET, that’s why they call it NEWS. It just happened or is still happening. It’s YOUR job to take the facts, use your head, and try to tell the public what did or might have happened first. That means there are various theories as to how or why (Ah, but who uses even ONE of the 5 W’s anymore?) and those questions may persist, you know, FOREVER. As in, “so and so was accused of murder and went to court, and there is evidence, but claims he’s innocent.” Is he guilty? Today’s Non…or actually #ANTIJournalists…would decide #Truth according to what is popular with their friends on Twitter, call no one for a statement, and not open this neat thing called “Google” that would have this neat thing called “information” to check.

    Did it happen? Was it a release? An accident? A Bioweapon? Who the heck knows? Because I am, you know, a man, who is you know, alive, I’ll suppose it did for many reasons, but that’s just my conclusion from the facts and you can draw another. I’ll say that for you so you can run away screaming like a little girl. The point is that NO ONE KNOWS. That means asking (and printing) questions is YOUR JOB. Yet they will print that theories are de-facto fake, because they exist, because they don’t prefer them, without asking any questions, calling anyone, smearing everyone, because a hostile foreign government that runs open concentration camps says so, AND are proving a negative to boot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proving_a_negative But they’re from Yale, so be sure to fasten their helmets to the short bus, and drag us all along, tossing our IQs down a well, with all America. #DumbestEver. Hey, a strange and suspicious new supervirus was first discovered 300 feet from China’s biggest bio-lab, and unlike all other viruses, is killing everyone on earth. Whaddya think? Related?

    P.S. about the cruise ships, I love how they describe that separating one husband and one wife, in quarantine, is the real tragedy here. Because they’re rich guys from the West, I guess? Hey reporter: maybe to get any cred in your job you might want to go somewhere, you know, — not a safe space — and witness, I dunno, “News” where people actually die of life? Being in the U.S. I can do that right here at home, down the street from my house, so you might want to try it. Millions of people, billions, maybe even most people ever, have died of infection and fever and stopped breathing at home in their beds with their families. Most everybody ever before 1900. You might have heard of it, it’s in “books” made of “history.” Try it sometime. Now it’s our turn. Clue: being two rich peoples, alive, under tremendous medical intervention, and just in two different rooms communicating by radio cell phone does NOT happen to be the greatest tragedy on earth today. But if you “called” the individuals on the “phone” for a “statement”, instead of sitting in Brooklyn on Twitter, you might learn that. I imagine the elderly couple would tell you themselves. If you asked.

    “One email disclosed that Islamic State (ISIS) was bankrolled by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, from which Clinton accepted huge “donations”.”

    Part or a lot of the plan is to divert focus from the leaks – which have never been proven false, have never once been contested – to Wikileaks, Assange, etc. That way they all escape with thousands of bitter, mass-murdering, unconstitutional crimes of power and personal profit. And it’s working great! No one’s even talking about the worldwide robbery and mass-murder campaign they were running.

    The shut down indicates they are about to release some juicy new information that will ALSO be true and uncontested, so they’re shutting down 60 Minutes, ZeroHedge, and anybody else they can find.

    All boring.

    So Redacted pointed out why they have 21 candidates in the race. It’s election arcana: a DNC needs 1,990 votes to be the automatic candidate. So the FIRST order of business, back last year, was to stop that. I mean, we don’t want a candidate the DNC voters prefer, think of what could happen! So with 21 (24?) candidates, each might get, one vote, even Patrick, which happened several times in Iowa, bleeding off critical votes to ‘accidentally’ cause Bernie to be one vote short. Works! And it’s working even today. They probably didn’t expect it be this bad, but the people hate the Neo-Libs Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!! And they’ve sniffed out that Cheatin’ Pete is one, which would take 60 seconds on “Google”. So because of election arcana, without a set candidate, it goes to “Contested”, where then the insiders can use their much-detested undemocratic “Superdelegates” (some animals are more equal), combine hated Bloomberg with pointless, uninspired Klobuchar, or CIA-puppet Pete with Hillary…whatever works! And obviously screw Bernie, lock out the party, and prevent democracy. Of course! Laissez le bon temps rouler! Mo’ money, Mo’ money, mo’ war, mo’ circular kickbacks from Lockheed and Ukraine, from Planned Parenthood and tens-billion$$$ of “stimulus” money that got 25 jobs created.

    Oh wait, did I say ‘so boring’? So boring. Problem is, when they screw their base, like 55% of them, they’re not going to turn out to vote and you lose all. But if there’s a quarantine in the election, we can contest the general and try that beautiful civil war again. But when you’re #AntiLogos by religion, this is your goal, your nirvana, this is what you do.

    If it were me — and I’m trying to help here — you could pick a candidate the people want and elect them against the easiest opponent ever, and you know, steal a wee leeetle bit less, maybe only as much as the multi-trillion thefts of the 2000’s? Nope!

    Do not understand. But that’s good. It’s better if they lose and therby lose the opportunity to murder and steal. And the Civil War in Virginia is on hold for now. Actually showing up and getting involved worked. The hazard of an election loss – and against the fear of the people justly shooting you in the streets – finally got through to them and they conceded, “You know, creating laws the people won’t follow and we can’t enforce and the whole enforcement arm will quit over actually ISN’T a wise thing.” Aha! Lightbulb finally goes off, and they didn’t have to use the clue-by-four on the back of the cranium at all, just remind them it exists and we wield it, like that old document I posted yesterday said. But I wouldn’t get saucy, they’ll be back, again and again, forever and ever, trying ever-again to have unelected, unaccountable government run roughshod boots on the face of…you know, everyone…forever, just as that guy once said.

    Just another Tuesday.

    #54074
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “The new cybersecurity centers are part of a new New York City public-private partnership called “CyberNYC” that is valued at over $100 million and officially aims to “spur the creation of 10,000 cybersecurity jobs and make New York City a global leader in cyber innovation.” ”

    Tangential observation: jobs, no matter how high-paying, that pay cyber-cops to protect data, are resource-drainers. High-paid cyber-cop still gets to exchange his $$ for food grown by real workers somewhere cooked by energy resources mined by someone somewhere… exchagning less-than-nothing for something.

    As China goes into quarantine shutdown, the world feels it: China makes real stuff. As USA goes into quarantine shutdown, the world will mostly feel growing relief from oppression, intimidation, burden.

    #54075
    neoh
    Participant

    Be careful for what you wish for bosco.
    People kill people. Doesn’t matter what color or nationality they are. The current top dog gets the blame but is soon replaced by the next top dog.
    Eliminating “white people” or a nation only results in a new oppressor. Native Americans were slaughtering each other before the Europeans arrived and slaughtered them. African tribes sold other tribes to Europeans for slaves.
    People are not responsible for what somebody did hundreds of years ago because everybody was doing the same thing. All we can do is try to be is individually compassionate today. We are not responsible for what people did hundreds of years ago, or for that matter, how they behave hundreds of years from now.

    #54076
    zerosum
    Participant

    no vaccines

    Yesterday I posted links of the mfg and also a technical paper that highlight the procedure needed to get a vaccine approved.

    https://www.who.int/influenza/Influenza_vaccine_manufacturers2009_05.pdf
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6107316/

    Also, a comparison of the old a new flue for this year.

    https://www.contagionlive.com/news/flu-cases-surpass-22-million-as-13th-coronavirus-case-is-confirmed-in-us
    Flu Cases Surpass 22 Million as 13th Coronavirus Case is Confirmed in US
    FEB 11, 2020 | MICHAELA FLEMING
    Now here is the latest update
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/japan-confirms-88-more-cases-aboard-diamond-princess-one-day-quarantine-set-end

    In a recent study, China’s CCDC found that the virus’s fatality rate – 14.8% – is for people aged 80 or older with co-occurring medical conditions. Young and healthy people, meanwhile, typically experience much more mild symptoms, according to the BBC. Along those same lines, the WHO confirmed on Tuesday that the virus manifests as only a minor infection in four out of five people who contract it, according to the Guardian.
    For everybody still saying that the virus is no more dangerous than the annual flu outbreak, here’s some food for thought: An analysis of 44,672 coronavirus patients in China whose diagnoses were confirmed by laboratory testing has found that 1,023 had died by Feb. 11, a fatality rate of 2.3%. That’s far higher than the mortality rate for the seasonal flu.

    Pay attention:
    A person cannot die twice. Those who are most likely to die are from the same pool of people. ( for people aged 80 or older with co-occurring medical conditions.)
    Therefore, lets keep comparing the number of death from both flue. I expect that the total number of people dying will not be much different than historical averages.
    Let’s wait. Its not time to panic.

    #54077
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    Slippery slope to say we are not responsible for what was done previously. Borders for countries, constitutions were built in some cases 100s of years ago. Can we just ignore all that? Usually there is some selectivity in what elements of the past should be attended to and those we are supposed to ignore. When in Canada there is talk of compensating indigenous people for land that was stolen from them, this is typically the moment when people talk about not being able to right the wrongs of the past.

    Modern pharmaceuticals have been as corrupted by greed as every other aspect of our lives. The largest share of the money goes to the drugs that make the most money. Antibiotics are not on the list
    In Canada most of drug testing is done by pharma companies. Results are reviewed by government, on a timeline that includes penalties for the government should the reviews take too long. Recently rules have been put in place whereby all drug trials have to be registered. Previously pharma companies could run 10 trials, have 9 fail, and only the one successful one would see the light of day.

    #54078
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Be careful for what you wish for bosco.”

    What, exactly, have I “wished for”? I’m not seeing it. Here’s what I wish for: people would adress theuir resp[onses to a remark, not a void.

    #54079
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Let’s wait. Its not time to panic.”

    It’s not something one schedules.

    #54080
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    As for this:

    “People kill people. Doesn’t matter what color or nationality they are. The current top dog gets the blame but is soon replaced by the next top dog.
    Eliminating “white people” or a nation only results in a new oppressor. Native Americans were slaughtering each other before the Europeans arrived and slaughtered them. African tribes sold other tribes to Europeans for slaves.
    People are not responsible for what somebody did hundreds of years ago because everybody was doing the same thing. All we can do is try to be is individually compassionate today. We are not responsible for what people did hundreds of years ago, or for that matter, how they behave hundreds of years from now.”

    Please tell us something we don’t already know. Lord have mercy.

    #54081
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    CAN AMAZON SURVIVE THE VIRUS?

    If infections take off in any country Amazon operates in then what will be the effect?

    – Can you be sure the warehouse people are not leaving viruses on the packaging
    – The same applies to delivery drivers [If delivery services still exists]
    – Can the goods themselves be contaminated

    Also I feel that people in fear of infection will be less inclined to consume except out of necessity, such as food.

    Online retail could be as badly affected as traditional retail.

    #54082
    WES
    Participant

    Bosco:. Well now you have gone and done it! I am not exactly sure what you have done, but whatever you have done, you need to stop it! Carry on as usual!

    As near as I can figure mini Mike Bloomberg is running so he can do an end run around Democrat party rules on campaign financing. By running he can spend as much of his own money as he likes!

    Now speaking of being liked, I can’t think of any voters mini Mike likes! He seems to dispise all the little people equally! And this from a little guy too!

    Somehow I think mini Mike is just running interference for Hillary! He isn’t running the same way as all the other candidates are running! He is walking!

    I think the DNC club has everything under control! I like how the DNC are running Nevada’s causcus over 3 days so they can count the votes more slowly while screwing Bernie again! Bernie doesn’t seem to mind!

    After reading a bit more on the so called quarantine of the Diamond Princess, I can see many reasons why this quarantine helped spread the coronavirus instead of containing it! None of the ship’s crew were quarantined! They continued to share quarters and work together! Passengers in on balcony rooms continued to walk the decks everyday! Then there is the common air conditioning system! All of this ensured that the virus continued to spread! Oh well, live and learn the hard way!

    The only way to stop the virus spread on this ship is to remove passengers and quarantine them in smaller groups spread out so that they are truly quarantined!

    Yesterday, I finally learned the real reason why the Allies used over 1000 bombers to totally bomb and fire bomb the city of Dresden, which is located directly south of Berlin in south eastern Germany.

    First, I had not realized that Dresden was so far east in Germany, thinking it was more in western Germany.

    Once I had Dresden properly located, I then suddenly understood for the first time that the Allies were really sending a very strong message to Stalin and his advancing Red army! And the message wasn’t, keep up the good work boys!

    It had nothing to do with what the people of Dresden had done in the war to deserve this! They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time! I am sure the Russian army was quite shocked at the total destruction they saw when they first entered Dresden!

    I also discovered a second reason the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. Again it had nothing to do with what those poor Japanese in those two hapless cities did!

    Again, it was to send an even stronger message to Stalin and his armies then sweeping through Manchuria and Korea. Hence South Korea and the 38th parallel north! This time Stalin was shocked.

    Would the victims of these 3 cities feel any better knowing the real reason why they had to die? Sadly, I suspect the opposite.

    #54083
    zerosum
    Participant

    every delegate that mini mike gets can be given to who he favors
    the man behind the throne

    #54084
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    China did about all a government can do. Industry is restarting after the lunar holiday extension. It is too soon to tell if Chinese manufacturing will recover. But the failed Diamond Princess quarantine shows that face masks and keeping your distance from others won’t succeed in the workplace. The real question is how long will It take to reconstitute factory floors with trained survivors.

    Elsewhere, only extreme measures will prevent the spread of the contagion. Throughout the world there will be pockets where the virus gets loose in the population. The remnants of the Public Health System will be overwhelmed by the poor, elderly and ill dying. The Post Office and Amazon should be required to sanitize all mail and packages. Utility, transport and food preparation and delivery workers must be provided with adequate Personnel Protective Equipment.

    As soon as deplorable Westerners recognize that their neo-aristocratic governments aren’t going to spend any money to keep their families alive; society will disintegrate. If 50% of the population becomes infected and 2% die, the death of 3.3 million Americans due to the greed of the oligarchs will not go unnoticed.

    #54085
    zerosum
    Participant

    “If 50% of the population becomes infected and 2% die, the death of 3.3 million Americans ”

    You got to think positive.
    Wealth transfer from the elderly.
    Job opportunity.
    LOWER HOUSING COST DUE TO THE INCREASED VOLUME
    INCREASE WAGES.
    Debt jubilee.
    Saving of pension plans because there will be less people getting payment
    etc.

    #54086
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    As soon as deplorable Westerners recognize that their neo-aristocratic governments aren’t going to spend any money to keep their families alive; society will disintegrate. If 50% of the population becomes infected and 2% die, the death of 3.3 million Americans due to the greed of the oligarchs will not go unnoticed.

    There is an inertia of denial to overcome in the U.S.. Come hell and/or high water; the beat will go on…
    If anything were going to change in that very sick society; I believe it would have happened long ago…

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