France Struggles With ‘Chilling’ COVID-19 Data From Nursing Homes; Italy Considers How to Move on After Coronavirus Peak

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By Politico. Even though older people are most at risk of developing COVID-19, French health authorities have struggled to get data on the spread of the coronavirus from a key source: nursing homes.

Weeks into the epidemic and shortly after a new reporting system was implemented, health officials raised concerns with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s office about the difficulties they face with private care facilities for the elderly, according to internal emails seen by POLITICO.

At least 3,237 people have died from COVID-19 in the country’s nursing homes since early March, according to the most recent official statistics published Tuesday. That was an increase of 820 from the day before and brings France’s death toll to over 10,000. . .

The number of deaths in nursing homes is “objectively chilling,” said Benoît Ribadeau-Dumas, the prime minister’s head of Cabinet, in an email dated Sunday to Aurélien Rousseau, head of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) for the Paris region. (Read more from “France Struggles With ‘Chilling’ COVID-19 Data From Nursing Homes” HERE)

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Phase Two: Italy Considers How to Move on After Coronavirus Peak

By Al Jazeera. Nearly a month after a nationwide lockdown was implemented to prevent the spread of the virus that was ravaging through Italy’s north, there are government discussions and public debate about moving to “phase two” – a period during which citizens will have to learn to live with the virus and one which could risk another outbreak.

Italy is in the unfortunate position of being two to three weeks ahead of other European countries in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

While figures suggest that the measures have achieved some level of success in slowing the rate of infection, it is likely they will remain in place over the coming Easter period, usually a time for gathering and celebration. . .

The Italian civil protection agency said the number of new infections had begun to decrease. But the daily recorded death toll remains high, 604 on Tuesday.

“Comforting data include the number of people who are admitted to hospital, which gives us a more accurate indication of how the epidemic is evolving compared with other data,” Matteo Villa, who has been crunching statistics for the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, told Al Jazeera. (Read more from “Phase Two: Italy Considers How to Move on After Coronavirus Peak” HERE)

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New Wuhan Horror: Witness Claims Coronavirus Victims Burned Alive!; Time to Put China on Lockdown for Its Dishonesty Amid Coronavirus Crisis

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By WND. Coronavirus patients in the Chinese city where the pandemic originated, Wuhan, were put in body bags and burned alive at a funeral home, Radio Free Asia reported.

A source close to the funeral industry surnamed Ma claimed that some crematories have stopped working after running day and night, sometimes cremating several bodies at once.

Ma said reports have emerged of people restrained and forced into body bags when they were still moving.

“One old lady was saying that they put one guy into … a body bag when he wasn’t even dead yet, and took him off to the crematorium because there was no way of saving him,” the source said.

“Some people are saying that … there are video clips of screams coming from funeral homes, from inside the furnaces … which tells us that some people were taken to the funeral homes while they were still alive.” (Read more from “New Wuhan Horror: Witness Claims Coronavirus Victims Burned Alive!” HERE)

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Time to Put China on Lockdown for Its Dishonesty Amid Coronavirus Crisis

By USA Today. There are many lessons to be learned from the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. But one is already clear: China needs to be isolated from the civilized world until its behavior improves. We are in the current situation, with deaths and economic devastation worldwide, because China handled this outbreak with its trademark mixture of dishonesty, incompetence and thuggery. Were China a more civilized nation, this outbreak would have been stopped early, and with far less harm, inside and outside of China. . .

But wherever the virus came from, China’s response was inept, dishonest and utterly inconsiderate of the rest of the world. A competent, honest response would have placed the world on notice much earlier. A China that cared about the rest of the world would have halted flights abroad while this disease was spreading, instead of allowing its citizens to spread willy-nilly around the globe. (As Brian Kennedy writes: “China seems to have taken the position that if they were to suffer the coronavirus, so too was the United States and the rest of the world. What else is to explain the continuation of flights from China to the United States at the rate of some 20,000 passengers a day, until President Trump wisely shut them down?”) . . .

This calls for a response.

The response needs to be harsh enough to teach the Chinese government a lesson, which means pretty harsh, as they appear to still think they can brazen this out. Among other things, the United States — and ideally the world community at large — need to sharply reduce economic relations with China. In particular, no one should be relying on them for medicines, medical equipment and other vital goods. (China’s state news service threatened to plunge America into a “mighty sea” of coronavirus by withholding critical medications.) Chinese scientists should no longer have easy access to Western laboratories or universities. Chinese political leaders should no longer find it easy to travel the world. (Read more from “Time to Put China on Lockdown for Its Dishonesty Amid Coronavirus Crisis” HERE)

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COVID-19: How the Chinese Communist Party Criminally Orchestrated a Global Pandemic Holocaust

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The pandemic spread of COVID-19 has been guided by the Chinese Communist Party since the first cases emerged in China in early November; not December. The number of COVID-19 cases that China reported to the WHO (82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths) amounts to one of the greatest criminal deceptions in history. The true number of deaths in China from the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak is likely up in the hundreds of thousands; if not millions. However, even before China begin erecting make-shift hospitals in Wuhan at the height of the outbreak, it was already attempting to rewrite the COVID-19 narrative that it had the epidemic well under control – despite the fact that it had detained and executed whistle-blowers who spoke out against the regime’s handling of the crisis. And despite the fact that the CCP had also let 5 million potentially-infected people slip out of Wuhan China before enforcing the lock-down. None of these people were screened for SARS-CoV-2 according to the Wall Street Journal.

But China’s criminal negligence with this outbreak goes even beyond this. The Chinese Communist Party sent it agents all over the globe to scour the world for face masks beginning in late December and January. Their goal was to buy up all the face masks they could find in bulk in Western nations and ship them back to China. This directive left Western nations vulnerable and basically defenseless – even woefully unprepared whenever the virus struck in full force. PPE procurement by China and Chinese nationals was happening all over the US, while most Americans were sound asleep or too busy engrossed in social media or sports to even notice what was transpiring around them. (Read more from “COVID-19: How the Chinese Communist Party Criminally Orchestrated a Global Pandemic Holocaust” HERE)

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China Outraged After Brazil Minister Suggests COVID-19 Is Part of ‘Plan for World Domination’

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China has demanded an explanation from Brazil after the far-right government’s education minister linked the coronavirus pandemic to Beijing’s “plan for world domination”, in a tweet imitating a Chinese accent.

In the latest incident to strain ties between the two nations, minister Abraham Weintraub insinuated China was behind the global health crisis.

“Geopolitically, who will come out stronger from this global crisis?” he wrote on Twitter Saturday. “Who in Brazil is allied with this infallible plan for world domination?”

In the original Portuguese, his tweet substituted the letter “r” with capital “L” – “BLazil” instead of “Brazil,” for example – in a style commonly used to mock a Chinese accent.

China’s embassy in Brazil condemned Weintraub’s “absurd and despicable” tweet, calling it “highly racist”. “The Chinese government expects an official explanation from Brazil,” tweeted ambassador Yang Wanming. (Read more from “China Outraged After Brazil Minister Suggests COVID-19 Is Part of ‘Plan for World Domination'” HERE)

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Food Prices Are Surging After Virus Upends Supply Chains

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By Northwest Georgia News. As the coronavirus pandemic penetrates more deeply into global supply chains, prices for key staples are starting to soar in some parts of the world.

Rice and wheat — crops that account for about a third of the world’s calories — have been making rapid climbs in spot and futures markets. For countries that rely on imports, this is creating an added financial burden just as the pandemic shatters their economies and erodes their purchasing power. In Nigeria, for example, the cost of rice in retail markets soared by more than 30% in the last four days of March alone.

It’s unclear what the biggest drivers were for the retail prices, whether it was a trickle-down effect from grain futures or local logistical choke points or panic buying, or a combination. . .

There are also signs that price gains could be making their way to consumers for some foods in the U.S. Wholesale egg prices rose to a record as grocers boosted orders by as much as six times normal volumes. Beef also surged, though some of the gains have eased in the last week.

Wheat and rice are the world’s most consumed food crops. Staple-crop prices have a long history of fueling political instability. During the spikes of 2011 and 2008, there were food riots in more than 30 nations across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. (Read more from “Food Prices Are Surging After Virus Upends Supply Chains” HERE)

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As COVID-19 Spreads, Commodity Markets Rumble

By Mongabay. . .Across the world, countries are virtually shutting down in hopes that severe restrictions on movement and commercial activity inside their borders will slow the spread of the disease. The economic impact of these measures has already led some economists to predict a crisis to follow that could rival the 2008 recession — or worse.

Commodity markets are already starting to feel the squeeze, as producers anticipate an economic downturn that could last for months or longer. And economists say it may only be the beginning.

“It is obviously a little early to tell,” Sven Wunder, principal scientist at the European Forest Institute, said in an email to Mongabay. “Just one month ago, we were still at all-time US stock markets highs. But we could well see a game-changing 1929 type of watershed moment for the world economy.”

Economic crises have historically had a major impact on the environment. Reduced demand for commodities like timber, vegetable oil, and beef can alleviate pressure on forests, and extractive industries are less likely to invest in exploration or new projects during a recession. The precipitous decline in oil prices this year, for example, has already cut exploration budgets in Brazil by 20%.

So far, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on commodity markets have been mixed. The price of timber dropped by nearly half in March on expectations of a slowdown in construction, and palm oil is down by nearly 15% since the beginning of 2020, partly due to a dramatic decline in oil prices that has reduced demand for biofuels. On April 2, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said that food prices have dropped overall, including a 12% decline in the vegetable oil price index. (Read more from “As COVID-19 Spreads, Commodity Markets Rumble” HERE)

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China’s First Confirmed COVID-19 Case Traced Back to November

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The first case of someone in China suffering from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, can be traced back to November 17, according to government data seen by the South China Morning Post.

Chinese authorities have so far identified at least 266 people who were infected last year, all of whom came under medical surveillance at some point.

Some of the cases were likely backdated after health authorities had tested specimens taken from suspected patients.
Interviews with whistle-blowers from the medical community suggest Chinese doctors only realized they were dealing with a new disease in late December. . .

According to the government data seen by the Post, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19 on November 17.

From that date onwards, one to five new cases were reported each day. By December 15, the total number of infections stood at 27 – the first double-digit daily rise was reported on December 17 – and by December 20, the total number of confirmed cases had reached 60. (Read more from “China’s First Confirmed COVID-19 Case Traced Back to November” HERE)

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Austria Says Migrant Redistribution ‘Has Failed’, Refuses Asylum Seekers

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Austria’s Europe minister has said that the EU’s compulsory migrant redistribution scheme “has failed” and member-states should be able to choose whether to accept migrants or not.

While some 150 non-governmental organisations have put pressure on Austria to accept Middle Eastern migrants stuck in Greece because of the worsening coronavirus pandemic, two government spokesmen have said that Austria will maintain its current policy and not accept any more asylum seekers.

“It remains a no,” confirmed Claudia Türtscher, the spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), according to Kronen Zeitung.

Ms Türtscher referred the media back to Chancellor Kurz’s remarks from last month when he warned against the European Union transferring any migrants from Greece and attempting to redistribute them across the political bloc.

“If the European Union allows these people to enter, millions will be on their way,” the 33-year-old Austrian premier said last month, insisting that the best course of action for his country is “to support Greece as best as possible and to send a clear message as an EU”.

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Iranian Citizen Accused of Trying to Sneak U.S. Military ‘Sensitive Parts’ to Iran

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A 38-year-old Iranian citizen has been taken to Texas after his arrest in Georgia to face federal charges for a scheme to obtain “military sensitive parts” and ship them to Iran. . .

The military parts that Merdad Ansari is accused of trying to send to Iran “had dual-use military and civilian capability and could be used in such systems as: nuclear weapons, missile guidance and development, secure tactical radio communications, offensive electronic warfare, military electronic countermeasures (radio jamming), and radar warning and surveillance systems,” authorities said.

“As alleged, the defendant helped Iran to develop its weapons programs by obtaining military parts in violation of the Iranian Trade Embargo,” Demers said.

Ansari and co-defendant Mehrdad Foomanie of Iran are charged in a federal grand jury indictment with conspiracy to violate the Iranian Transactions Regulations, conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. . .

“According to the indictment, Foomanie also bought or attempted to buy items in the U.S. and arranged to have them unlawfully shipped to Iran through his companies in Iran (Morvarid Shargh Co. Ltd.); in Hong Kong (Panda Semiconductor and Foang Tech Inc., aka Ofogh Electronics Co.); and, in China (Ninehead Bird Semiconductor). The indictment also alleges that Ansari attempted to transship and transshipped cargo obtained from the U.S. by Yip and Foomanie using Ansari’s company, Gulf Gate Sea Cargo L.L.C., located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates,” prosecutors explained. (Read more from “Iranian Citizen Accused of Trying to Sneak U.S. Military ‘Sensitive Parts’ to Iran” HERE)

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Why Russia Fears Sweden’s Deadly Submarines

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For decades, submarines came in two discrete flavors: traditional diesel-electric submarines that need to surface every day or two to recharge their noisy, air-breathing diesel engines, and nuclear-powered submarines that could quietly hum along under the sea at relatively high speeds for months at a time thanks to their nuclear reactors.

The downside to the nuclear-powered variety, of course, is that they cost many times the price of a comparable diesel submarines and require nuclear propulsion technology, which may not be worth the trouble for a country only interested in defending its coastal waters. A diesel submarine may also run more quietly than a nuclear submarine by turning off its engines and running on batteries—but only for a very short amount of time. Still, there remains a performance gap in stealth and endurance that many countries would like to bridge at an affordable price.

One such country was Sweden, which happens to be in a busy neighborhood opposite to Russian naval bases on the Baltic Sea. Though Sweden is not a member of NATO, Moscow has made clear it might take measures to ‘eliminate the threat,’ as Putin put it, if Stockholm decides to join or support the alliance. After a Soviet Whiskey-class submarine ran aground just six miles away from a Swedish naval base in 1981, Swedish ships opened fire on suspected Soviet submarines on several occasions throughout the rest of the 1980s. More recently, Russia has run an exercise simulating a nuclear attack on Sweden and likely infiltrated Swedish territorial waters with least one submarine in 2014. . .

The Swedish firm has unveiled concept art depicting a submarine with a ‘chinned’ sail, X-shaped tail fins for greater maneuverability in rocky Baltic waters, and four 533-millimeter torpedo tubes can fire both heavyweight torpedoes, back up by two 400-millimeter tubes, all of which would use wire-guided torpedoes. The vessel’s four Stirling engines apparently allow allowing for higher sustainable underwater cruising speed of 6 to 10 knots. . .

Sweden’s two A26s should be completed between 2022 and 2024, at which point it will be possible to gauge whether they can meet their ambitious performance parameters. In general, advancements to AIP submarines are allowing countries across the globe to acquire capable short and medium-range submarines at an affordable price. (Read more from “Why Russia Fears Sweden’s Deadly Submarines” HERE)

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Report: Videos Show China Using Slave Laborers to Kickstart Economy

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China apparently is turning to slave labor to kickstart its economy, following the catastrophe created by the coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan.

Videos from Xianjiang province distributed by the social media platforms TikTok and DouYin in the past two weeks confirm fears that the communist government is using members of the Muslim Uyghur minority and other Turkic youth as slave laborers, reports Bitter Winter, an online magazine that focuses on religious liberty and human rights in the country.

The report says: “Given that the nation is only just getting back on its feet after months of lockdown, and experts still have yet to give the all clear regarding the virus, the clips showing hundreds of corona-masked Uyghurs being amassed at transport hubs around the region with marching orders to work in factories in inner China, are giving Uyghur activists deep concern.”

Videos on the Chinese video-sharing site DouYin Chinese have been collected by Uyghur exile Alip Erking, who posts them on his Twitter feed called Uyghur Bulletin.

They also are appearing on Radio Free Asia, where Alim Seytoff noted the “mass movement of young people out of the province coincided with China’s widespread coronavirus lockdown, when other Chinese were forbidden to leave their homes.” (Read more from “Report: Videos Show China Using Slave Laborers to Kickstart Economy” HERE)

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