Recent Study Suggests COVID-19 Was Spreading in August

/0 Comments/in , /by

Coronavirus may have been present and spreading in Wuhan as early as August last year, according to a study that analysed satellite imagery of car parks outside major hospitals and search engine data.

The study, by researchers from Harvard medical school, Boston University of Public Health and Boston children’s hospital, looked at images captured between January 2018 and April 2020 and found a “steep increase” in vehicle counts starting in August 2019 and peaking in December 2019. Between September and October, five of the six hospitals observed had their highest daily volume of cars in the period analysed.

China’s foreign ministry rejected the study, calling it “extremely absurd”.

According to the study, the increase in vehicle volume coincided with a rise in queries on the Chinese search engine Baidu for “cough” and “diarrhoea”, about three weeks before the confirmed rise in coronavirus cases in early 2020. The researchers noted that while queries for cough coincided with the influenza season, diarrhoea is a symptom specific to Covid-19. . .

The origins of Covid-19, which was first detected in a cluster of cases associated with the Huanan seafood market in late December, has become an increasingly sensitive question as China fights off accusations that it should be blamed for the pandemic, which has killed more than 400,000 people around the world. (Read more from “Recent Study Suggests COVID-19 Was Spreading in August” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

‘Determined for War’: China Orders Fighter Jets

/0 Comments/in , /by

Several Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets and a U.S. military transport plane flew in Taiwan’s airspace Tuesday morning, Focus Taiwan reported.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) confirmed the activity in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, saying: “[S]everal Chinese Su-30s briefly entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone southwest of Taiwan, and Taiwan’s Air Force responded with radio warnings and monitored their movements until they flew off.”

Focus Taiwan described China’s fighter jet activity as an “intrusion” into Taiwan’s airspace, while the U.S. C-40A transport plane that flew through Taiwan’s airspace earlier on Tuesday was described by the MND as having done so with Taiwan’s permission. . .

Chinese military “experts” commented on the PLA fighter jets’ flight through Taiwan’s airspace Tuesday in an article published by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper Global Times on Wednesday:

The U.S. warplane’s rare flight over Taiwan showed the increasing collaboration between the U.S. military and Taiwan secessionists, and the Chinese mainland’s fighter jet sorties and approaches sent them a powerful warning and demonstrated how much the PLA was determined and prepared for war.

(Read more from “‘Determined for War’: China Orders Fighter Jets” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

China’s Exports and Imports Fall Amid Coronavirus

/0 Comments/in , /by

China’s exports and imports both fell in May as the coronavirus and trade tensions with the U.S. weighed on demand at home and abroad.

Exports fell 3.3 percent compared to a year earlier to $206.8 billion and imports dropped 16.7 percent to $143.9 billion, the Chinese customs agency said Sunday. . .

The fall in exports came after a surprise 3.5 percent rise the previous month. Analysts were expecting the decline, attributing April’s rise to orders placed before virus restrictions hit overseas economies and predicting that American and European customers would also cancel other orders. (Read more from “China’s Exports and Imports Fall Amid Coronavirus” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Iran, Russia, China, Turkey Celebrate ‘Collapse’ of U.S.

/0 Comments/in , /by

Authoritarian regimes throughout the world are pushing narratives that appear to gloat over and celebrate that chaos unfolding in the United States. On Monday, Iran’s media pushed stories that highlighted the “collapse,” while quoting Russian sources portraying that the US is flailing about as its world order comes crashing down.

The US became the world’s most powerful country, a global hegemonic superpower, after the Soviet Union and its client states fell apart in 1989. However, Russia, China, Iran and increasingly Turkey have all awaited the period when the world would become multi-polar again. They have sought to work more closely together, and they have sat frequently at global forums that the US does not attend.

To coordinate efforts against the US, these countries all have state media that is well funded, such as RT, TRT, Iran’s Tasnim and Fars News and numerous Chinese media outlets. The policies of these countries are to slowly undermine the US and wait for moments of US weakness to push their agendas.

The leadership in Turkey and Iran view their goal as undermining the US through a more religious lens linked with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Muslim Brotherhood that influences Tehran and Ankara respectively. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sought to capitalize on the recent riots in the US, claiming that America is part of an “unjust order” in the world.

Iran’s former president made similar comments about the declining US “order.” This is a reference to the concept of the “axis of resistance” in Iran, and the defeat of US “arrogance.” Ever since the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979, there had been a call for a third way between the US and Soviet Union in the 1980s that would bring about the defeat of Western systems and the rise of political Islam rooted in Tehran and then in Ankara. (Read more from “Iran, Russia, China, Turkey Celebrate ‘Collapse’ of U.S.” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

China Threatens the UK After Boris Johnson Offers 3 Million Hong Kong Citizens Refuge

/0 Comments/in , /by

China on Wednesday told Britain to “step back from the brink” and “stop interfering” in China’s affairs after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would offer 3 million Hong Kong citizens the right to come live in the UK. . .

“Today about 350,000 people hold British Nationals (Overseas) passports and another 2.5 million people would be eligible to apply for them. At present these passports allow for visa-free access for up to six months,” Johnson said.

“If China imposes its national security law, the British government will change its immigration rules and allow any holder of these passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and be given further immigration rights including the right to work which would place them on the route to citizenship.” . . .

China hit back, telling Johnson that his intervention would “backfire.”

“We advise the UK to step back from the brink, abandon their Cold War mentality and colonial mindset, and recognise and respect the fact that Hong Kong has returned” to China, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said at a briefing, according to Agence France-Presse. (Read more from “China Threatens the UK After Boris Johnson Offers 3 Million Hong Kong Citizens Refuge” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Leaked Documents Reveal China Withheld Crucial Information About the Coronavirus at the Start of the Outbreak

/0 Comments/in , /by

China withheld key information about the coronavirus for weeks after it first emerged in January, delaying the international response to the outbreak, a new investigation has revealed.

Chinese officials failed to share the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for over a week after first decoding it and failed to reveal that the virus could be transmitted between humans for a further two weeks, according to internal World Health Organization documents and testimony obtained by the Associated Press.

The AP reported on Tuesday that while scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology decoded the virus on January 2, Chinese health officials did not publish the details of their findings until over a week later, on January 12.

It wasn’t until January 20 that the Chinese state alerted the World Health Organization and other governments that the virus could pass between people, according to the Associated Press investigation.

This was only after a laboratory in Shanghai led by scientist Zhang Yongzhen published the information a day earlier. (Read more from “Leaked Documents Reveal China Withheld Crucial Information About the Coronavirus at the Start of the Outbreak” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Will You Believe Them This Time? Scientists Say Half the World May Die From Chicken Virus

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Mass chicken farming is leaving humans vulnerable to a killer virus which could wipe out half of the world’s population, a scientist claims.

American nutritionist Dr Michael Greger says that diseases harboured by poultry pose an even greater risk to mankind than coronavirus. . .

But Dr Greger, who made the grim prediction in his new book “How To Survive A Pandemic”, says intensive chicken farming could be an even greater threat to the world as we know it. . .

The doctor argues that raising poultry in smaller flocks, allowing them to roam in less crowded and more hygienic spaces will help to slow the spread of viruses.

However, the doctor also warns that even this may not be enough to prevent disaster, as a viral link between chickens and humans will still exist. (Read more from “Will You Believe Them This Time? Scientists Say Half the World May Die From Chicken Virus” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Congo Is Battling Coronavirus, Measles and a New Ebola Outbreak

/0 Comments/in , /by

Health officials have confirmed a second Ebola outbreak in Congo, the World Health Organization said Monday, adding yet another health crisis for a country already battling COVID-19 and the world’s largest measles outbreak.

Congo also has yet to declare an official end to Ebola in its troubled east, where at least 2,243 people have died since an epidemic began there in August 2018.

Now Congolese health authorities have identified six cases including four fatalities in the north near Mbandaka, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. . .

This announcement marks the 11th time that Ebola has hit the province since the virus was first discovered in Congo in 1976. Just two years ago an outbreak killed 33 people before the disease was brought under control in a matter of months. . .

While Ebola and COVID-19 have drawn far more international attention, measles has killed more Congolese than those diseases combined. WHO said there have been 369,520 measles cases and 6,779 deaths since 2019. (Read more from “Congo Is Battling Coronavirus, Measles and a New Ebola Outbreak” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Forget Israel — Americans Should Start a ‘BDS’ Movement Against China ASAP

/0 Comments/in , /by

. . .So what would a BDS movement against China look like?

First would be a leveling of sanctions against all companies with ties to China’s military, to weapons of mass destruction, and to its persecution of Uyghurs and other minorities. . .

Sanctioning alone is not enough, however. Divestment must follow. We must ensure that America’s pension funds, college endowments and personal savings are not used by China’s proliferators and human-rights violators to continue doing business.

Here I have some good news to report. Forty percent of Americans now say they will never again buy a product “Made in China.” Like me, they would prefer to “use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without,” rather than fatten the coffers of the regime that has unleashed so much havoc across the world.

The other half of America needs to join in as well. Do it for the millions imprisoned in re-education camps by the CCP, for the tens of millions it murdered over its 71-year history, or for the hundreds of millions of women it forcibly aborted in the one-child policy. (Read more from “Forget Israel — Americans Should Start a ‘BDS’ Movement Against China ASAP” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Chinese Scientists Say Wuhan Market Isn’t Where Coronavirus Began

/0 Comments/in , /by

Chinese scientists say the coronavirus didn’t originate at a live animal market or a laboratory in Wuhan, pushing back against US officials over where the pandemic began, according to a report.

China’s top epidemiologist, Gao Fu, said samples taken from the wholesale market — where the deadly virus was reportedly first passed to humans — failed to show links between animals sold there and the pathogen, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“It now turns out that the market is one of the victims,” Gao told state-run media Tuesday.

The director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wang Yanyi, also shot down accusations that the facility had unleashed the virus during a lab accident. (Read more from “Chinese Scientists Say Wuhan Market Isn’t Where Coronavirus Began” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE