8:09 AM 9/10/2020 - Trump administration intends to end Covid-19 screenings of passengers arriving from overseas - Saved and Shared Stories In 50 Posts
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8:09 AM 9/10/2020 - Saved and Shared Stories In 50 Posts
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| mikenov on Twitter: Airport coronavirus screenings: Trump administration intends to end Covid-19 screenings of passengers arriving from overseas msn.com/en-us/news/us/ | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 07:22:06 -0400 Airport coronavirus screenings: Trump administration intends to end Covid-19 screenings of passengers arriving from overseas msn.com/en-us/news/us/ | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: By fostering crime, de Blasio has deepened the two New Yorks divide nypost.com/2020/09/09/by- | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 07:20:44 -0400 By fostering crime, de Blasio has deepened the two New Yorks divide nypost.com/2020/09/09/by- | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova being held on suspicion of state treason | The Independent independent.co.uk/news/world/eur | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 07:18:56 -0400 Belarusian opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova being held on suspicion of state treason | The Independent independent.co.uk/news/world/eur | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Robert Hadden, Ex-Doctor Accused Of Abusing Dozens Of Patients, Is Indicted : NPR npr.org/2020/09/09/911 | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 07:17:11 -0400 Robert Hadden, Ex-Doctor Accused Of Abusing Dozens Of Patients, Is Indicted : NPR npr.org/2020/09/09/911 | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: The massive West Coast wildfires have killed 7 and forced hundreds out of their homes - CNN cnn.com/2020/09/10/us/ | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 07:14:07 -0400 The massive West Coast wildfires have killed 7 and forced hundreds out of their homes - CNN cnn.com/2020/09/10/us/ | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: NewsOnABC's YouTube Videos: Red Flagged! | Media Bites | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 07:09:36 -0400 RED THREAT: Aussie journalists flee China leaving tensions at a new low. Plus, Sevens SAS show recruits D-grade celebs, ACMAs weak Sandilands slap, and a reporter gets a spray. #MediaBites #MediaWatch Subscribe now: http://ab.co/2y2hbGM  | |||||||
| Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks: itnnews's YouTube Videos: West Coast Wildfires: San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge Covered in Dramatic Orange Haze | |||||||
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 06:53:40 -0400
Unprecedented wildfires plunged San Franciscos Bay Bridge into an apocalyptic orange glow, as a cloud of smoke covered much of California. A record 2.3 million acres have been burned this year in the state since the start of the wildfire season. Over 14,000 firefighters are battling fires in California, but blazes have been reported across the the US Pacific Northwest. #CaliforniaFires #Wildfires #SanFrancisco Report by Gianluca Avagnina. Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/ODNsubs Twitter: https://twitter.com/ODN Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ODN/ If you wish to purchase any of our clips for commercial use, please visit: http://www.itnproductions.co.uk/news/  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: 1. US Security from Michael_Novakhov (87 sites): "us national security" - Google News: The Trump administration is considering moving U.S. Africa Command. It wont be cheap or easy. - Washington Post | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 06:52:53 -0400 The Trump administration is considering moving U.S. Africa Command. It wont be cheap or easy. Washington Post | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Donald Trump: Michael Cohen Makes Chilling Prediction About Trump And The Constitution If He Wins | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 06:47:39 -0400 The president's former attorney warned what Trump will start thinking of doing on "day number one" after victory.  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Top stories - Google News: How the Coronavirus Attacks the Brain - The New York Times | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:44:40 -0400 How the Coronavirus Attacks the Brain The New York Times | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: The National Interest: Did Donald Trump's Bob Woodward Interviews Just Cost Him the Presidency? | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:43:25 -0400 Jacob Heilbrunn Politics,  Trump gave Woodward no less than 18 interviews between July and December. The question is simple: why did he even give him a single one? Trump had to know going into the interviews that Woodward was hardly a friendly interlocutor. Yet he apparently spilled his guts to WoodwardPresident Donald J. Trump is right where he usually likes it—in the middle of a furor. Two stories erupted on Wednesday that added to the conflagration that always seems to be flickering around the edges of his presidency. The first is Bob Woodward’s release of his new book Rage and of audiotapes indicating that Trump deliberately sought to downplay the severity of the coronavirus pandemic. The second is the accusation by a former high-ranking Department of Homeland Security official named Brian Murphy that he was told by Acting Director Chad F. Wolf, among others, to cease reporting on assessments of Russian interference in the American 2020 elections. The Woodward audio tapes have Trump declaring, "I don't want to create panic, as you say, and certainly I'm not going to drive this country or the world into a frenzy. We want to show confidence. We can show strength.” Trump’s money quote: “I always wanted to play it down.” The one official who comes out well is national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien, informing Trump at the outset in late January that the coronavirus would be the greatest threat he would confront in his presidency: “this is going to be the roughest thing you face.” Trump gave Woodward no less than 18 interviews between July and December. The question is simple: why did he even give him a single one? Trump had to know going into the interviews that Woodward was hardly a friendly interlocutor. Yet he apparently spilled his guts to Woodward, telling him “this is deadly stuff”—even as he publicly proclaimed that the virus was no more harmful than the annual flu. Why openly sound so callous and indifferent to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans? At a campaign event in Michigan, former vice-president Joe Biden laced into Trump. At an event with autoworkers, Biden said, “He knew how deadly it was. It was much more deadly than the flu. He knew and purposely played it down. Worse, he lied to the American people. He knowingly and willingly lied about the threat it posed to the country for months.” This charge will be difficult for Trump to refute,--and is likely to play a central role in the first presidential debate on September 29. It also appears that Trump is refusing to prepare and going to wing it at the debates. The second story centering on the Department of Homeland Security is likely to be less damaging to Trump but will also distract from his campaign for reelection. Murphy alleges that he was instructed to focus on election interference from China and Iran but not Russia. Murphy complained to the DHS inspector general that he was, in essence, being asked to commit treason. In a sense, it’s déjà vu all over again. All the characters have reassumed their old roles. Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, stated that Murphy’s statement “outlines grave and disturbing allegations that senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically.” Given the miasma of accusations that surround Trump and Russia, it is unlikely that this is episode is going to have much more political effect than previous ones. Rather, it is the pandemic—a domestic crisis--that has crippled Trump’s presidency. His refusal to address it in a serious and systematic fashion accounts for much of the drop in his poll numbers, and they are unlikely to improve after the release of his latest musings to Woodward. The toll from the pandemic continues to increase. The death rate may reach 410,000 this December. Millions of jobs have been lost. No matter how much Trump enjoys political brawling, the truth is that the constant spate of controversies erupting around him are not damaging Biden. They center on Trump’s own record and statements. Many, if not most, are self-inflicted wounds. Every day that goes by with the attention on Trump’s deficiencies is another day that Biden can go on the attack and avoid any scrutiny of his own record and program. Today was supposed to be the day that Trump went on the offensive as he released his list of 20 new potential Supreme Court nominees during a second term. Instead, he is once more being overwhelmed by controversy. Deadly stuff indeed. Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest. | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Washington Free Beacon: U.N. Secretary General Blames Coronavirus on the Patriarchy | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:42:54 -0400
The United Nations secretary general said the global coronavirus pandemic was the result of "millennia of patriarchy." "The pandemic is only demonstrating what we all know: that millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone—women, men, girls, and boys," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in an August 31 speech shared by the official U.N. Twitter account this weekend. Recent Stories in National Security"We must also emerge from this crisis with women’s equal leadership and representation," Guterres added in his speech. "The past months have seen a growing recognition in the media and through academic research highlighting what we have known anecdotally for years: that women leaders are extremely effective. Women heads of state, ministers of health, health workers and community leaders are winning widespread recognition for their empathy, compassion, communication, and evidence-based decision-making." The United Nations and many of its subsidiary organizations support programs that benefit countries with long records of violating women's rights. China—a country that the U.N.'s World Health Organization defended vehemently in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic—is one of the worst abusers of women’s rights in the world. Women from minority ethnic groups in China have been subject to forced abortion, rape, and infanticide. And China’s one-child and two-child policies in recent decades have led to an en masse "gendercide," or the mass-scale abortion and elimination of female Chinese children. "There are tens of millions of missing girls in China today," Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.) said in a 2016 congressional hearing. "It is a predictable consequence of Beijing's cruel and barbaric child limitation policies and cultural preference for boys." Accordingly, China is a hotspot for serial sex and even bride trafficking of women, especially those abducted from neighboring parts of Southeast Asia. China faces a looming demographic crisis in which millions of young men will be unable to find a spouse. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFP)—which the Trump administration halted support for in 2017 and the Democratic platform calls for rejoining—assists in Chinese population control that disproportionately harms women. "The [UNFP] continues to partner with the [Chinese government] on family planning, and thus can be found to support, or participate in the management of China's coercive policies," a 2017 Department of State brief reads. The post U.N. Secretary General Blames Coronavirus on the Patriarchy appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.  | |||||||
| Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks: How the Coronavirus Attacks the Brain | |||||||
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:42:26 -0400
The coronavirus targets the lungs foremost, but also the kidneys, liver and blood vessels. Still, about half of patients report neurological symptoms, including headaches, confusion and delirium, suggesting the virus may also attack the brain. A new study offers the first clear evidence that, in some people, the coronavirus invades brain cells, hijacking them to make copies of itself. The virus also seems to suck up all of the oxygen nearby, starving neighboring cells to death. Its unclear how the virus gets to the brain or how often it sets off this trail of destruction. Infection of the brain is likely to be rare, but some people may be susceptible because of their genetic backgrounds, a high viral load or other reasons. If the brain does become infected, it could have a lethal consequence, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who led the work. The study was posted online on Wednesday and has not yet been vetted by experts for publication. But several researchers said it was careful and elegant, showing in multiple ways that the virus can infect brain cells. Scientists have had to rely on brain imaging and patient symptoms to infer effects on the brain, but we hadnt really seen much evidence that the virus can infect the brain, even though we knew it was a potential possibility, said Dr. Michael Zandi, consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Britain. This data just provides a little bit more evidence that it certainly can. Dr. Zandi and his colleagues published research in July showing that some patients with Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, develop serious neurological complications, including nerve damage. In the new study, Dr. Iwasaki and her colleagues documented brain infection in three ways: in brain tissue from a person who died of Covid-19, in a mouse model and in organoids clusters of brain cells in a lab dish meant to mimic the brains three-dimensional structure. Other pathogens including the Zika virus are known to infect brain cells. Immune cells then flood the damaged sites, trying to cleanse the brain by destroying infected cells. The coronavirus is much stealthier: It exploits the brain cells machinery to multiply, but doesnt destroy them. Instead, it chokes off oxygen to adjacent cells, causing them to wither and die. The researchers didnt find any evidence of an immune response to remedy this problem. Its kind of a silent infection, Dr. Iwasaki said. This virus has a lot of evasion mechanisms. Coronavirus Schools Briefing: Its back to school or is it? These findings are consistent with other observations in organoids infected with the coronavirus, said Alysson Muotri, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, who has also studied the Zika virus. The coronavirus seems to rapidly decrease the number of synapses, the connections between neurons. Days after infection, and we already see a dramatic reduction in the amount of synapses, Dr. Muotri said. We dont know yet if that is reversible or not. The virus infects a cell via a protein on its surface called ACE2. That protein appears throughout the body and especially in the lungs, explaining why they are favored targets of the virus. Previous studies have suggested, based on a proxy for protein levels, that the brain has very little ACE2 and is likely to be spared. But Dr. Iwasaki and her colleagues looked more closely and found that the virus could indeed enter brain cells using this doorway. Its pretty clear that it is expressed in the neurons and its required for entry, Dr. Iwasaki said. Her team then looked at two sets of mice one with the ACE2 receptor expressed only in the brain, and the other with the receptor only in the lungs. When researchers introduced the virus into these mice, the brain-infected mice rapidly lost weight and died within six days. The lung-infected mice did neither. Despite the caveats attached to mouse studies, the results still suggest that virus infection in the brain may be more lethal than respiratory infection, Dr. Iwasaki said. The virus may get to the brain through the olfactory bulb which regulates smell through the eyes or even from the bloodstream. Its unclear which route the pathogen is taking, and whether it does so often enough to explain the symptoms seen in people. I think this is a case where the scientific data is ahead of the clinical evidence, Dr. Muotri said. Researchers will need to analyze many autopsy samples to estimate how common brain infection is and whether it is present in people with milder disease or in so-called long-haulers, many of whom have a host of neurological symptoms. Forty percent to 60 percent of hospitalized Covid-19 patients experience neurological and psychiatric symptoms, said Dr. Robert Stevens, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University. But the symptoms may not all stem from the viruss invasion of brain cells. They may be the result of pervasive inflammation throughout the body. For example, inflammation in the lungs can release molecules that make the blood sticky and clog up blood vessels, leading to strokes. Theres no need for the brain cells themselves to be infected for that to occur, Dr. Zandi said. But in some people, he added, it may be low blood oxygen from infected brain cells that leads to strokes: Different groups of patients may be affected in different ways, he said. Its quite possible that youll see a combination of both. Some cognitive symptoms, like brain fog and delirium, might be harder to pick up in patients who are sedated and on ventilators. Doctors should plan to dial down sedatives once a day, if possible, in order to assess Covid-19 patients, Dr. Stevens said. | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Washington Free Beacon: Rule or Riot | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:42:23 -0400
If the idea of a November spent hunkered down at home with mass protests and violence again roiling the streets sounds appealing, don't worry: The left has a plan for that. A coalition of influential progressive groups—including the SEIU, AFT, Color of Change, Indivisible, MoveOn, and Demos—is organizing, the Daily Beast reports, for "mass public unrest": "Occupy shit, hold space, and shut things down, not just on Election Day but for weeks." Recent Stories in 2020 ElectionOnly a fool would think that this "nonviolent civil disobedience" will stay nonviolent after a summer that's seen over 500 riots across the nation. In 2000 we had the Brooks Brothers riot; in 2020, Democrats are promising the real deal. There's a reason these "secret" plans were revealed in painstaking detail to a sympathetic outlet, one that would repeat fever dreams about "MAGA violence after election day." It's the latest example of the left's campaign of extortion: If you want the protesting, rioting, and murder wave to end, all you have to do is hand Joe Biden a landslide. The organizations claim to be preparing for an election "without a clear outcome," or the possibility that President Donald Trump refuses to concede. Of course, they have also worked to assure an ambiguous election night by pressing for a massive, disorganized switch to mail-in voting, even as public health experts say in-person voting is as safe as grocery shopping. Both the promised unrest and the scaremongering over the possibility Trump will not concede are part of the same drumbeat that Democrats have marched to over the past four years: Trump, and indeed the entire GOP, are not just bad but illegitimate. That's why talking heads keep repeating the long-debunked claim that Russia handed Trump the White House; why prominent Democrats pretend Stacey Abrams is the governor of Georgia; why Biden-aligned postal unions invented a crisis at the Post Office; why Hillary Clinton has told Joe Biden not to concede. And of course it’s why Democrats are so invested in convincing voters that Trump and his white supremacist army are preparing a coup d'état, even as the Democrats involved in this ludicrous exercise plot just that—the story concludes with a hypothetical Biden campaign call for the secession of West Coast states should Trump prevail in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. That would be an act of treason just as surely as it was 160 years ago. The (vanishingly small) possibility that Trump refuses to leave the White House if he loses is irrelevant. The person that the Electoral College—or, in the event of a tie, the House of Representatives—selects as president will become the president. Should he lose the election, at noon on January 20, 2021, Trump would turn into a pest for the Secret Service to escort off the property. Our constitutional system is well-designed for such an orderly proceeding. But Democrats have every reason to gin up this and other "election day nightmares," because their electoral strategy is to use these as an excuse to threaten more rioting in the streets—whatever they need to do to retake power. Reasonable patriots should not be afraid to call this behavior what it is: a campaign by insurgent ideological groups to threaten and intimidate their way to victory. Such conduct, such a campaign to cow the populace into scared submission, is nothing less than electoral terrorism. And Americans should not bend an inch. The post Rule or Riot appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.  | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: How the Coronavirus Attacks the Brain - The New York Times nytimes.com/2020/09/09/hea | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:41:56 -0400 How the Coronavirus Attacks the Brain - The New York Times nytimes.com/2020/09/09/hea | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: "International Security" - Google News: The space industry receives a security directive from the White House amid attempted satellite hacks - Crypto Daily | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:41:36 -0400 The space industry receives a security directive from the White House amid attempted satellite hacks Crypto Daily | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: "fbi" - Google News: FBI adds iris recognition to its growing biometrics portfolio - Federal News Network | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:40:50 -0400 FBI adds iris recognition to its growing biometrics portfolio Federal News Network | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Washington Free Beacon: Arab League Refuses Palestinian Call to Rebuke UAE-Israel Deal | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:40:34 -0400
The Arab League denied Palestinian pleas to condemn the recent peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday. During a video meeting between league members, Palestinian Authority officials argued the normalization between the UAE and Israel violated previous agreements between the Arab states. No Arab country supported the position, however, and Arab League secretary-general Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the league remains committed to the organization's 2002 Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal. Recent Stories in National Security"The Arab Peace Initiative, which was adopted by the Arab summit in 2002, remains the basic plan and platform agreed upon by the Arabs to achieve a lasting, just, and comprehensive peace between Arabs and Israel," he said Wednesday. Palestinian officials expressed frustration with the growing distance between the Palestinian Authority and several other Arab states. "We have even become the troublemakers," said Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki. In the days before the meeting, Palestinian officials, fearing isolation over their hardline approach, reportedly toned down their hostility toward the peace agreement in their draft condemnation. The proposal "does not include a call to condemn, or act against, the Emirates over the U.S.-brokered deal," according to Reuters. Arab League member Bahrain is reportedly expected to sign its own Washington-brokered peace deal with Israel in the coming months, and Muslim-majority Kosovo moved to normalize relations with Israel last week. Trump administration officials are ultimately aiming for a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia to counter against Iran's destabilizing posture in the Middle East. The post Arab League Refuses Palestinian Call to Rebuke UAE-Israel Deal appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: National Security: Former DNI Daniel Coats criticizes suspension of in-person briefings to Congress on election security | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:40:18 -0400 Administration’s move to switch to written briefings undermines the intelligence community’s duty to keep Congress fully informed. | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: "us national security" - Google News: Trump National Security Adviser Never Sought to Dictate Intel Community's Focus - Spokeswoman - U.S. News & World Report | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:39:30 -0400 Trump National Security Adviser Never Sought to Dictate Intel Community's Focus - Spokeswoman U.S. News & World Report | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: "fbi" - Google News: FBI's Terror Hunters Turn to a Different Threat: Incels - The Daily Beast | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:39:00 -0400 FBI's Terror Hunters Turn to a Different Threat: Incels The Daily Beast | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: "fbi" - Google News: VERIFY: Ranking locations by crime rate is inherently misleading - KING5.com | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:38:46 -0400 VERIFY: Ranking locations by crime rate is inherently misleading KING5.com | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: The National Interest: The Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Has Been Put on Hold (That Is a Good Thing) | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:37:22 -0400 Nigel William Crawford Health, UK  This pause in the trials doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not safe. Rather, it indicates the testing is progressing as it should, with due consideration of safety.Only days after the federal government announced a A$1.7 billion vaccine deal to roll out COVID-19 vaccines to Australians in 2021, one of the two candidates has halted its phase 3 trials after a participant became ill. The AZD1222 vaccine, considered one of the frontrunners in the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine, was developed by the University of Oxford and has been undergoing testing with British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Melbourne-based biotechnology company CSL has committed to producing and supplying more than 30 million doses of the vaccine to Australians if it’s found to be safe and effective. But this pause in the trials doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not safe. Rather, it indicates the testing is progressing as it should, with due consideration of safety. What happened? There’s been no official statement on the nature of the incident that caused the trial to be halted. We only know it was a suspected adverse reaction in a participant in the UK. (Phase 3 trials for the AZD1222 vaccine have been taking place in several countries.) The New York Times has reported the participant was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, an inflammatory condition than affects the spinal cord and can be sparked by viral infections. Transverse myelitis is very rare, with between one and eight new cases per million people per year. Most people will recover, but may be left with some symptoms such as weakness. In the world of vaccine safety, transverse myelitis is one of several conditions collectively known as a serious acute neurological episode (SANE) temporally associated with vaccination. Others include Guillain-Barré syndrome and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis. “Temporal” suggests they occasionally occur some time after vaccination, but we don’t know whether the relationship is one of cause and effect. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to find what caused these conditions, and it’s important to look for other infections that may be associated with the diagnosis. There are a couple of things worth noting in this case. First, in the UK branch of the trial, not all participants were receiving the AZD1222 vaccine. To ascertain its effectiveness, researchers have given a control group a type of meningococcal vaccine (MenACWY) that has already been licensed. As the trial is double-blinded, we don’t yet know whether the affected participant received the COVID-19 vaccine. Second, AZD1222 is not a “live-attenuated” vaccine — it’s not made from live SARS-CoV-2 virus. (It does use a chimpanzee adenovirus vector, but this doesn’t replicate or cause disease in humans.) It’s not impossible the transverse myelitis — if confirmed as a diagnosis — was related to the vaccine. But it wouldn’t be possible for the vaccine to cause a COVID-19 infection, which could then spark the myelitis. Further, phase 2 and 3 trials involve much broader populations than the young, healthy adults who typically participate in early testing. The UK trial of AZD1222 includes people 70 years and older, which naturally increases the risk of temporally associated adverse events. So what next? AstraZeneca will already be investigating the incident, with input from external regulatory bodies such as the study’s data safety monitoring board, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These independent bodies will review all parts of the investigation, such as an MRI on the participant to confirm the diagnosis, and look at which of the groups the person was in (whether they received AZD1222 or the other vaccine). They will try to find out what caused the illness, but this may not be possible. It will be particularly hard to prove the vaccine caused the illness with only one case. Illnesses like transverse myelitis, although rare, have a “background rate” of occurrence already in the community. The World Health Organisation provides a framework to assess the cause of an adverse event following immunisation. AstraZeneca and the independent bodies monitoring their processes will follow this or similar frameworks to evaluate the event. Once they’ve reviewed the incident, they will decide whether to resume the trial. Given the impetus to move quickly with this, we’d expect this to happen in a matter of days. It’s not a bad thing This halt on the trial doesn’t indicate the vaccine isn’t safe — we’ll need to see further evidence before we can ascertain this. But it does reflect robust processes for a clinical trial. In a sense, this is what phase 2 and 3 clinical trials are designed for — to pick up any potential safety issues and investigate them further. These sort of things happen occasionally in other clinical trials too. We just don’t hear about it. There’s perhaps never been so much attention on a single clinical trial as there is on the trial of this and other potential COVID-19 vaccines. We’re not sacrificing safety for speed In the course of this pandemic, we’ve often heard that fast can’t be safe in the context of a vaccine. We don’t feel that’s the case here. The reason these trials are moving so fast is largely because recruitment is happening quickly. The phase 3 trials of AZD1222 will have 40,000-50,000 participants in total. Beyond the AZD1222 vaccine, we’re seeing open disclosure of processes and transparency around any issues. This includes a pledge from the major pharmaceutical companies to keep safety at the forefront when evaluating COVID-19 vaccines. Of course, there are exceptions to this — notably the Russian vaccine, which has published some phase 1 data but reportedly gone into widespread use before completing all of the standard safety and effectiveness checks. Read more: Whoever invents a coronavirus vaccine will control the patent – and, importantly, who gets to use it In Australia, we follow certain steps to assess the safety of new vaccines. If the trial of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine resumes and it proves safe and effective, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) will see the data and interact closely with regulatory bodies around the world to ensure it’s safe to use. The TGA is also responsible for post-marketing surveillance, which we regard as phase 4. When the vaccine is being rolled out, we continue to monitor for adverse events, and follow these up using both jurisdictional vaccine safety units, such as SAEFVIC in Victoria, and active surveillance systems, such as Smartvax and Vaxtracker.
Nigel William Crawford, Associate Professor, Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Jim Buttery, Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology, Monash University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Image: Reuters | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Washington Free Beacon: Top NYC Official Slams De Blasio Over Budget Cuts in Resignation Letter | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:36:50 -0400
A top official in New York City mayor Bill de Blasio's administration slammed the Democratic mayor's massive citywide budget cuts in a resignation letter Tuesday. Sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who has led the department since 2014, said de Blasio's decision to slash her department's budget by more than $100 million this summer was "unconscionable." "At a time when protecting public health service is of the essence, cutting basic sanitation services is unconscionable," Garcia said in her letter. "If, as is often said, budgets are a statement of values, my values require me to resign in the face of these cuts, which will harm New Yorkers." Recent Stories in DemocratsThe new budget, which took effect July 1, also cut 400 positions from Garcia's department and forced the sanitation department to reduce city trash can pickups by 60 percent. In June, the mayor also cut $1 billion in funding for the New York Police Department in response to protesters who have spent the summer pushing local governments to reform and defund the police. Garcia announced her resignation the same day as deputy mayor for health and human services Dr. Raul Perea-Henze, who told the Wall Street Journal that he's stepping down to spend more time with his family. Perea-Henze, an Obama administration alum, took a leading role in the city's response to the coronavirus pandemic, which began earlier this year. In a July op-ed in USA Today, Perea-Henze admitted the city was "caught off guard" by the onset of the pandemic and "lost valuable time" in fighting the virus. The post Top NYC Official Slams De Blasio Over Budget Cuts in Resignation Letter appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: The National Interest: Bob Woodward's Donald Trump North Korea Scoops: Are We Really Shocked? | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:36:35 -0400 Daniel R. DePetris Security, Asia  Sure, we get the actual behind-the-scenes details concerning Trump's North Korea policy in Woodward's new book. But are there really any new shockers?Bob Woodward’s most recent account of the Trump White House, entitled “Rage,” isn’t even on the shelves yet. But the legendary reporter and author has already busted the news cycle apart at the seams. Most of the coverage about the book has centered on Trump downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic in public while at the same time describing the disease to Woodward in private as “deadly stuff." Watching CNN and MSNBC in the hour after some of the excerpts were released, you could be pardoned for thinking the White House was on fire and Trump, already 7 points behind Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, threw away his re-election. But Woodward’s book doesn’t just focus on the health crisis. The veteran Washington Post journalist also delves into some aspects of Trump’s foreign policy over the previous two years, with former senior national security advisers and the president himself providing some behind-the-scenes flavor to the reader. Trump’s relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un comes in for special consideration—and what we learn, at least from the juicy nuggets fed to the public, is that the president was enchanted with his friend in Pyongyang. We also find out that, like many of us during the “fire and fury” days, even Trump’s own cabinet members were extremely concerned about the insults getting out of control. -Trump didn’t trust the CIA on North Korea—or any of his national security advisers for that matter: Trump told Woodward that the CIA had “no idea” how to manage North Korea. Why he would name-drop the CIA is a bit puzzling; the agency, after all, simply provides intelligence products to the National Security Council about the North’s technical weapons capability as well as the strategic intentions of its leadership. The spooks at Langley aren’t responsible for offering policy advice or recommending what the U.S. negotiating position should be. But one can surmise that Trump is probably using the CIA as a term to encompass his entire national security team, which wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of a one-on-one meeting with Kim and was highly skeptical that summitry would amount to anything productive. -Trump was unprepared when the summitry actually occurred: According to the Washington Post exclusive report on Woodward’s book, Trump largely saw the North Korean nuclear problem as a difficult real-estate deal. "Trump told Woodward he evaluates Kim and his nuclear arsenal like a real estate target: “It’s really like, you know, somebody that’s in love with a house and they just can’t sell it.” The theory of the case, in Trump’s frame of mind, was that Kim’s nuclear weapons deterrent was something Pyongyang would eventually trade away if the U.S. offered the right mixture of economic sanctions relief, political goodies, and security assurances in return. Yet it turns out eliminating the best source of negotiating leverage the North as ever had and pressuring the Kim dynasty to hand over the keys to its nuclear kingdom is not at all like convincing an owner to sell her beautiful house. If Trump bothered to read the assessment of his own intelligence community, he could have flown to Singapore and Hanoi with a more realistic idea of what was achievable in those negotiations. -Kim knew what he was doing with those letters: Trump and Kim have met one another three times, the last of which was a spur-of-the-moment handshake along the Demilitarized Zone in June 2019. Most of the communication between the two has come in the form of letters. Woodward got his hands on 27 of them. The letters in and of themselves don’t tell us much—in one, sent to the White House after the Singapore Summit, Kim wrote to Trump that he was “really, really offended” that U.S.-South Korea military drills were continuing. What they do show, however, is Kim’s clear intent: butter up Trump by heaping praise on him; using terms like “your excellency” to enhance his self-importance; persuade Trump of the uniqueness of their personal relationship; and feed Trump’s already outsized ego in the hope he would put something on the table he shouldn’t have. As Woodward would write, CIA analysts "marveled at the skill someone brought to finding the exact mixture of flattery while appealing to Trump's sense of grandiosity and being center stage in history.” The excerpts from “Rage” will inevitably produce a howl of righteous indignation on the pages of the Atlantic and on the Twittersphere about how Donald Trump was never up to the task of being commander in chief. Others will use them as proof of Trump’s inability to comprehend when he is being conned or duped. Robert Manning, a former senior official in the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff who is now with the Atlantic Council, tweeted that the sections on North Korea don’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. "Nice to have documented,” Manning wrote. "But c'mon we knew this. Narcissism uber alles. To Trump, must-see RealityTV of the Summit was enough. A deal would have been gravy.” Fair enough. But if Trump did make a mistake during his summitry with Kim Jong-un, it wasn’t his decision to meet with the North Korean leader, per se. The problem (or rather, problems) was that Trump was totally unprepared for the summits when they finally happened, went into them with a starry-eyed idealism about making history, and strongly believed he could schmooze Kim into giving up the one thing—a nuclear weapons deterrent—he was likely never prepared to give up in the first place. Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a contributor to the National Interest. | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Top stories - Google News: Whistleblower Alleges DHS Told Him To Stop Reporting On Russia Threat - NPR | |||||||
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:36:21 -0400
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| Saved Stories - None: Eurasia Review: Punctured Lung Affects 1 In 100 Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:35:49 -0400
As many as one in 100 patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 develop a pneumothorax - a 'punctured lung' - according to a study led by Cambridge researchers. Like the inner tube of bicycle or car tyre, damage to the lungs can lead to a puncture. As air leaks out, it builds up in the cavity between the lung and chest wall, causing the lung to collapse. Known as a pneumothorax, this condition typically affects very tall young men or older patients with severe underlying lung disease. During the pandemic, a team at the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University NHS Foundation Trust, observed several patients with COVID-19 who had developed punctured lungs, even though they did not fall into either of these two categories. "We started to see patients affected by a punctured lung, even among those who were not put on a ventilator," says Professor Stefan Marciniak from the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research. "To see if this was a real association, I put a call out to respiratory colleagues across the UK via Twitter. The response was dramatic - this was clearly something that others in the field were seeing." Professor Marciniak subsequently obtained the appropriate ethical approvals and exchanged anonymised clinic information about 71 patients from around the UK. This led to a study published today in European Respiratory Journal. Although the team are unable to provide an accurate estimate of the incidence of punctured lung in COVID-19, admissions data from the 16 hospitals participating in the study revealed an incidence of 0.91%. "Doctors need to be alert to the possibility of a punctured lung in patients with COVID-19, even in people who would not be thought to be typical at-risk patients," said Professor Marciniak, who is also a Fellow at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. "Many of the cases we reported were found incidentally - that is, their doctor had not suspected a punctured lung and the diagnosis was made by chance." Just under two-thirds (63%) of patients with a punctured lung survived. Individuals younger than 70 years tended to survive well, but older age was associated with a poor outcome - a 71% survival rate among under 70s patients compared with 42% among older patients. Patients with a punctured lung were three times more likely to be male than female, though this may be accounted for by the fact that large studies of patients with COVID-19 suggest that men are more commonly affected by severe forms the disease. However, the survival rate did not differ between the sexes. Patients who had abnormally acidic blood, a condition known as acidosis that can result from poor lung function, also had poorer outcomes in COVID-19 pneumothorax. Dr Anthony Martinelli, a respiratory doctor at Addenbrooke's Hospital, said: "Although a punctured lung is a very serious condition, COVID-19 patients younger than 70 tend to respond very well to treatment. Older patients or those with abnormally acidic blood are at greater risk of death and may therefore need more specialist care." The team say there may be several ways that COVID-19 leads to a punctured lung. These include the formation of cysts in the lungs, which has previously been observed in x-rays and CT scans. The article Punctured Lung Affects 1 In 100 Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients appeared first on Eurasia Review. | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: "fbi" - Google News: City of Chicago Wants FBI's Jussie Smollett Investigation Records - TMZ | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:35:36 -0400 City of Chicago Wants FBI's Jussie Smollett Investigation Records TMZ | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: RT @MoscowTimes: Serbia has dropped out of the 'Slavic Brotherhood 2020' exercise with Russian and Belarusian troops after pressure from th | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:14:37 -0400 Serbia has dropped out of the 'Slavic Brotherhood 2020' exercise with Russian and Belarusian troops after pressure from the EU themoscowtimes.com/2020/09/10/-11 Retweeted by  Michael Novakhov (mikenov) on Thursday, September 10th, 2020 5:14am19 likes, 15 retweets | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Ex-intelligence chief at US Department of Homeland Security files whistleblower claim | intelNews.org intelnews.org/2020/09/10/01- | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:14:22 -0400 Ex-intelligence chief at US Department of Homeland Security files whistleblower claim | intelNews.org intelnews.org/2020/09/10/01- | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Exclusive: Russian state hackers suspected in targeting Biden campaign firm sources - Reuters reuters.com/article/us-usa | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:07:14 -0400 Exclusive: Russian state hackers suspected in targeting Biden campaign firm sources - Reuters reuters.com/article/us-usa | |||||||
| Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks: 12:51 AM 9/10/2020 - Trump Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize | |||||||
Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:00:29 -0400
12:51 AM 9/10/2020 - Trump Nominated For Nobel Peace Prizehttps://thenewsandtimes.blogspot.com/2020/09/1251-am-9102020-trump-nominated-for.html
Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks
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| mikenov on Twitter: 12:51 AM 9/10/2020 - Trump Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize thenewsandtimes.blogspot.com/2020/09/1251-a pic.twitter.com/ZQcEmM1Y4W | |||||||
| Thu, 10 Sep 2020 00:57:59 -0400 12:51 AM 9/10/2020 - Trump Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize thenewsandtimes.blogspot.com/2020/09/1251-a pic.twitter.com/ZQcEmM1Y4W  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: "us national security" - Google News: Live Covid-19 News Updates - The New York Times | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:25:46 -0400 Live Covid-19 News Updates The New York Times | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: FoxNewsChannel's YouTube Videos: Tucker: President Trump wants US troops out of the Middle East | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:24:14 -0400 While the left wants more U.S. intervention in Syria. #FoxNews #Tucker Subscribe to Fox News! https://bit.ly/2vBUvAS FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC has been the most-watched television news channel for 18 consecutive years. According to a 2020 Brand Keys Consumer Loyalty Engagement Index report, FOX News is the top brand in the country for morning and evening news coverage. A 2019 Suffolk University poll named FOX News as the most trusted source for television news or commentary, while a 2019 Brand Keys Emotion Engagement Analysis survey found that FOX News was the most trusted cable news brand. A 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey also found that among Americans who could name an objective news source, FOX News was the top-cited outlet. Owned by FOX Corporation, FNC is available in nearly 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre.  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: PBSNewsHour's YouTube Videos: Barr's 'shocking' request for DOJ to defend Trump in defamation lawsuit | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:23:59 -0400 The Justice Department has moved to intervene in a defamation lawsuit against President Trump. In 2019, columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her years ago, and later claimed his denunciations amounted to defamation. William Brangham talks to David Laufman, a former DOJ official under multiple administrations, about what he calls an "inappropriate" intervention by the attorney general. Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG Follow us: Subscribe:  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: News: Alexei Navalny: Mike Pompeo admits 'substantial chance' that Russia ordered poison attack | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:23:43 -0400 | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: PBSNewsHour's YouTube Videos: PBS NewsHour West live episode, September 9, 2020 | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:22:41 -0400 Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG Follow us: Subscribe:  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Eurasia Review: Russian Arms Sales To Armenia And Geopolitical Effects Analysis | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:21:43 -0400
By Robert M Cutler* The combined effects of Russias invasion of Georgia in August 2008, together with the disinterest in the South Caucasus by U.S. President Barack Obamas administration beginning with his inauguration in January 2009, has entailed a steady increase of Russian influence in the region over the last 12 years. The Trump Administration has sought to increase modestly the American profile in the South Caucasus, but it has not been able to remedy the damage is done under the two Obama administrations. After the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, Russia began to supply weapons to both Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has, however, greatly favored Armenia in its attempt to maintain an equilibrium that it could manipulate to its own advantage. The Global Militarization Index of the Bonn International Center for Conversion ranked Armenia as the third most militarized country in the world in 2018. Military relations between Russia and Armenia date from 1992, immediately after the Soviet Union disintegrated. An intergovernmental agreement from 1997 commits them to assist one another in case of military threat. Russia has greatly favored Armenia and has been its main supplier of weapons and weapons systems since that time. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, is compelled to pay the significantly elevated normal international prices charged by Russian arms export bureaucracies. And Azerbaijan is compelled to pay in hard currency, whereas in reality Armenia pays for Russian arms with targeted loans from Russia itself in Russian currency. Perhaps most significant, a Russian-Armenian agreement on military cooperation in 2013 provides for Armenia to buy Russian military equipment at Russian domestic prices. Hikmet Hajiyev, the head of the foreign policy affairs department within the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, has accused the government of Armenia of illicit weapons trade and reselling to terrorist groups, weapons that it has purchased from Russia at artificially low prices. Yerevan has shown unhappiness over Moscows arms sales to Baku but can do nothing about them. Russian officials have suggested that such sales are required in order to ensure the military balance in the region. Also, of course, such sales are a revenue generator for the Russian State budget. Russia supplied two-thirds of Azerbaijans weapons imports between 2013 and 2017. Moscow supplies Yerevan with weapon systems, such as mobile missile systems, that it does not supply to Baku. As senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Kalashnikov, Chair of the State Dumas Committee for CIS, Eurasian Integration, and Compatriots Affairs, recently told reporters that Russia sells Armenia more weapons and especially more kinds of weapons than it sells to other countries. An important factor in this is the embargo on arms sales to Azerbaijan implemented by the United States and Europe. There are different justifications for this, but they all reach back eventually to the request in the early 1990s by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that all arms sales to all parties to the conflict should be halted. Yet Russia, a co-chair of the OSCEs Minsk Group charged with resolving the conflict, has failed to honor this request from the beginning. As a consequence of all this, Azerbaijan has turned to other arms exporters for advanced military systems especially including multiple-launch rocket systems and other missile systems. Western countries only limit their own influence and enhance the power of Russias coercive diplomacy by refusing to consider arms sales to Azerbaijan. The Armenian dependence on Russian arms has had very definite geopolitical results. Armenia began to negotiate an Association Agreement (AA) with the European Union in 2010. It was close to being finalized in autumn 2013, but Russia put an end to the process when Armenia announced its decision that year to join the Eurasian Economic Union. This made the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), which would have been part of the AA, impossible. Armenias President Serzh Sargsyan announced his countrys readiness to proceed with the AA minus the DCFTA, but this never happened. In 2017 he signed instead a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement having, despite its name, a much reduced scope. Armenias dependence on Russian arms sales was not a small influence that produced this geopolitical result. Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and hosts more than 3,000 Russian soldiers at a military base near Gyumri, as well as an air base near Yerevan. In addition, Russia is integrating Armenian armed forces into the structure of its Southern Military District, including the formation of joint Russian-Armenian ground forces. Nor is this the only indicator of Russian influence in Armenia. The Armenian energy sector is heavily dominated by Russian companies (up to 80 percent according to some estimates), and Russian banks equally dominate the Armenian financial sector. Russian deliveries of military equipment and ammunition to Armenia were enhanced just after the military clashes in 2016, and Russia has delivered new military equipment and ammunition to Azerbaijan, even during the tense period of the most recent hostilities. In the days surrounding the most recent clashes, from July 17 to August 4, there were no fewer than seven flights from Russia transporting arms to Armenia. As Georgia had refused permission for the overflight of its territory by Russian military transports, the planes took the roundabout path from Russia over Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and finally into Armenian airspace. It seems likely that Russia has underestimated the effect of its overt tilting toward Armenia in the recent hostilities, upon Azerbaijani political opinion. In practice, Moscow risks creating the impression in Baku that it can no longer count on Moscow and that Ankara is its only true regional friend in facing up to Yerevan. Robert M. Cutler is a Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com. The article Russian Arms Sales To Armenia And Geopolitical Effects – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review. | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Esper Says Artificial Intelligence To Change The Battlefield | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:18:29 -0400 By Jim Garamone One aspect of the return of great power competition is the race to develop artificial intelligence, Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper said at the virtual Joint Artificial Intelligence Center symposium. Artificial intelligence has the potential to change the battlefield, and the country that's first to field it will have enormous advantages over competitors, he told participants Wednesday. "History informs us that those who are first to harness...  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Trump Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:17:50 -0400 U.S. President Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering a historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in August, Fox News reports. Norwegian lawmaker Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a lawmaker with the populist Progress Party, made the nomination. He told the "Fox News Rundown" podcast Wednesday, September 9 that Trump "should be awarded" for the groundbreaking agreement, which normalizes relations between the two countries...  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Oregon wildfires: At least 3 found dead as fires rage across state | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:16:58 -0400 Oregon authorities found at least three people dead Wednesday, including a 12-year-old boy and his grandmother who perished in the family car trying to escape flames, as wildfires raged across the state.   | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: US Revokes Chinese Graduate Student Visas On Fears Of Research Theft | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:15:20 -0400 US Revokes Chinese Graduate Student Visas On Fears Of Research Theft Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2020 - 21:00 The Trump administration confirmed in a statement Wednesday that it is "blocking" many students from China from obtaining visas to America, specifically graduate students focusing on research in scientific and medical fields over fears they could steal sensitive research. Citing the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Chad Wolf, Reuters reports:
 This comes after longtime allegations that Beijing is seeking to obtain sensitive coronavirus data and research from American pharmaceutical companies, labs and academic institutions amid the global race for a vaccine. In the past few years Chinese students have made up the largest contingent of visas issued to foreign graduate students and researchers. For example, DHS lists that for the 2018-2019 academic year, American universities had a whopping 272,470 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled. It's as yet unclear how many students are currently banned from travel to the US under this latest DHS policy. But already students who completed their undergraduate programs in China at schools linked to the PLA Army are seeing their visas canceled. Apparently some are just now finding out, as Reuters details:
Wolf's Wednesday announcement also referenced the Chinese communist government's alleged mass prison camps to 'reeducate' Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province. He asserted the US was also preventing goods produced from slave labor from entering our markets, demanding that China respect the inherent dignity of each human being, however didn't give further details.  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: Grateful Dead's 'American Beauty' album to be reissued for 50th anniversary | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 21:13:40 -0400 The record will be remastered and reissued on Oct. 30.   | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: NYT > World > Europe: Facebook May Be Ordered to Change Data Practices in Europe | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 17:12:05 -0400 Facebook said that it might have to store European users' data in Europe, instead of moving it back and forth between the European Union and the United States.  | |||||||
| Saved Stories - None: The National Interest: Looking Back at Shinzo Abes Mixed Legacy | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 17:10:46 -0400 Rintaro Nishimura Politics, Asia  Abe was a unique, strong leader who lasted a long time and brought stability but controversy to Japan's politics.It was probably not the way he imagined it would go down. On August 28, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he would step down due to health reasons. This came as a shock to many, considering it was just days after he broke the record for the longest uninterrupted tenure as the nations leader. However, the coronavirus had ravaged the economy and cabinet approval ratings were tanking. If ever there was a time to resign, this was it. A Perplexing Legacy Abe was destined for political stardom, coming from a political familyhis maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was prime minister in the 1950s and his father, Shintaro Abe, was foreign minister in the 1980s. The most recent and influential member of that dynasty leaves behind a heap of unfinished business and a mixed legacy. Most recently, Abes government faced criticism for its delayed pandemic response, limited testing, and generally citizen-dependent approach. People took to social media to show their disapproval of Abes actions. They pointed to his tone-deaf Twitter video promoting social distancing, as it seemingly mocked those facing financial hardship. His persistence with the giveaway of washable gauze Abenomasks fueled the fire, since people wanted non-woven surgical masks instead. At one point, Abe was lambasted for enacting a bill to raise the legal retirement age for Tokyos top prosecutor, all to promote the pro-government attorney general in office. It wasnt the first time Abe or his cabinet faced allegations of misconduct. In 2017, opposition lawmakers and some media sources accused Abe and government officials of favoritism toward educational institutions linked to him and his wife. The heart of the matter remains unaddressed, since the government covered up and denied the accusations. In 2019, Abes opposition accused him of violating election law at the annual cherry blossom viewing party by spending public funds to reward constituents who voted for him. The party itself came under scrutiny after further allegations that members of organized crime syndicates attended alongside the traditional distinguished guests. Government officials destroyed the guest list before opposition parties could request it for investigation. Voters will also remember Abes reputation for weak oversight over party members. There were two ministerial scandals over violations of election law in 2019, along with the arrest of a fellow Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) politician for accepting bribes from a Chinese company. Abes murky ethical record is not the only thing that deserves criticism. Abe failed to achieve his and his partys most significant policy goalrevising Article 9 of the Constitution, which bans the maintenance of military forces. He wanted the article to clarify the Self-Defense Forces as a legitimate militia, but could only reinterpret it to allow the SDF to aid allies under threat. Ultimately, low public approval, debate among political parties regarding the exact nature of the revision process, and the inability to reach a supermajority in both houses stymied the process. The prime minister also failed to resolve territorial issues with China, Russia, and South Korea. Abe oversaw a period of improved relations with China, only to see the Senkaku Islands dispute exacerbated during the pandemic. Furthermore, he could not compel Russia (which recently banned territorial concessions under its revised constitution) to return the Northern Territories or South Korea to revoke its claim over the Dokdo Islands. Japan faces other outstanding disputes with South Korea from the wartime labor issue to the World Trade Organization dispute over Tokyos export restrictions. Japan has faced increasing security threats during Abes tenure as well. In the 1970s and 1980s, Pyongyang kidnapped Japanese citizens; with at least seven still being held against their will, people have questioned Abes negotiation tactics. Furthermore, Japan faces missile threats from China and North Korea, despite Abes moves to improve diplomatic relations. While one can debate whether any other leader could have performed better, the lackluster progress in these areas will remain a key part of Abes legacy. On the other hand, the Abe years saw a bolstering of security through increased defense spending and expanded regional cooperation to guarantee a liberal world order. His administration introduced The Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy in 2016, which advocates for a rule-based international order that promotes peace and stability, freedom of navigation, free trade, and economic prosperity. Under that strategy, Japan reached out to Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, Australia, and India to reinforce regional cooperation. In particular, it pushed to include India in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership deal to reinforce cooperation among like-minded nations and subtly counter Chinas increasingly concerning military buildup in the region. Economically, Abe revived a nation hit by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, keeping GDP growing since 2012. Abenomicsa comprehensive policy package to revive the Japanese economysurged corporate profits, improved the labor market, and led the Nikkei Stock Average to more than double in value. Since then, the economy has remained stable, yet remarkably stagnant. Japan also led the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership that many thought would lose momentum after President Trump withdrew the United States from it. Abe signed the European Union-Japan trade deal, which covers 635 million people and nearly a third of world GDP. While Japans relationship with the United States remains complicatedespecially as Trump demands more cost-sharing for U.S. military supportthe two countries increased cooperation on defense and trade during Abes tenure, strengthening overall relations. Domestically, Abe boasted a strong election record and masterfully organized in-party factions. Abe ran the party for nine years (2006-2007 and 2012-present) and won six consecutive national elections. He prevented dissent by allocating top cabinet positions to each faction, keeping many on board. This contributed greatly to Abe becoming the longest-serving prime minister and maintaining a consistent approval rating. Conversely, one can argue that luck resulted in his success more than political skill. Abe returned to power in 2012 against the backdrop of a poor stint by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), an old form of the current main opposition. Since then, polls have consistently shown that people prefer the LDP because they are haunted by the memory of the DPJs failure and believe there are no other viable options. Moreover, Abes campaigns benefited immensely from a strong base and opposition currently polling in single digits. What Now? Abe will remain prime minister until a new leader is elected; hell also continue working as a member of the House of Representatives. He can work behind the scenes to advise future leaders on pursuing some of his goalsmost notably revising Article 9. Abes resignation pushed up the battle to determine his successor by a year. This fight is bound to get heated quickly considering next months cabinet reshuffle and the emergency in-party election to determine the next leader. If Shigeru Ishiba, a critic of Abe, becomes the next leader, Abes influence and legacy will wane. While the public will remember him for scandals and mishaps, we should give the man credit where its due. Too many people criticize him without examining his success. He may not have won over hearts with outstanding policy achievements, but he bolstered security and promoted Japanese leadership in the world. One can only imagine how stressful it is to pragmatically balance ideological pressures from conservative factions for nearly eight years. Just ask Abe, who was recently heard mumbling, Im already tired. All things considered, he stabilized a country that faced many challenges at home and abroad. Hopefully, his resignation refreshes politics, something desperately needed for a party led by seasoned elders. Prime Minister Abe, I thank you for your service, and hope you focus on nursing yourself back to health. Rintaro Nishimura is a former Korean Studies Research Assistant at the Center for the National Interest. He has written pieces for The National Interest, The Diplomat, and The Japan Times. He is currently a 4th year undergraduate student at Northeastern University writing foreign policy pieces for the NU Political Review, an undergraduate student-run publication. This piece was originally published on the NU Political Review website. Image: Reuters | |||||||
| Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks: Former DNI Dan Coats thinks Putin has Trump blackmail: Woodward book | |||||||
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 17:02:09 -0400
  Dan Coats, the former top intelligence official under President Donald Trump, harbored a "secret belief" that Russian President Vladimir Putin had kompromat on Trump, the veteran journalist Bob Woodward wrote in his book "Rage." The book is set to be released next Tuesday, but CNN obtained an early copy and published excerpts this week. Coats was the director of national intelligence from January 2017 to July 2019. In his book, Woodward wrote that Coats "continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump." "How else to explain the president's behavior?" Woodward wrote, according to CNN. "Coats could see no other explanation." Coats and senior staffers in his office "examined the intelligence as carefully as possible," Woodward wrote. But Coats was still uneasy about Trump and Putin's relationship. He "saw how extraordinary it was for the president's top intelligence official to harbor such deep suspicions about the president's relationship with Putin," Woodward wrote. "But he could not shake them." "Rage" is Woodward's second book about the Trump administration; he also wrote the 2018 bestseller "Fear: Trump in the White House." The president has railed against "Rage," calling it fake news and saying Woodward didn't conduct any interviews with him ahead of the book's release. For his second book about the administration, Woodward did 18 extensive interviews with the president from December 5 to July 21, according to CNN. Woodward recorded the interviews with Trump's permission, and CNN obtained copies of some of the tapes. Still, Trump said in a tweet last month that the book was "a FAKE, as always, just as many of the others have been." Coats a former Republican senator from Indiana and other senior national security officials, like former Defense Secretary James Mattis, discussed whether they needed to take "collective action" to speak out against Trump, Woodward wrote, according to CNN. Mattis resigned in late 2018 after Trump decided to pull US troops out of Syria, telling Woodward he decided to leave "when I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid." The US intelligence community determined in early 2017 that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to propel Trump to the Oval Office. Coats and other intelligence officials testified to Congress last year that Russia was one of the biggest national security threats facing the US ahead of the 2020 election and that it would continue employing the tactics it used in 2016 and during the 2018 midterm elections. The intelligence community also said last month that both Russia and China were attempting to interfere in this year's election and that Russia wanted Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, to lose, while China wanted him to win. "We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia 'establishment,'" William Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in a statement. "This is consistent with Moscow's public criticism of him when he was Vice President for his role in the Obama Administration's policies on Ukraine and its support for the anti-Putin opposition inside Russia." Trump, meanwhile, has consistently refused to explicitly condemn Russia for its actions. His 2016 campaign derided the CIA after it concluded that year that Russia meddled in the election to help Trump. He also repeatedly criticized and attempted to thwart the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference, describing it as a "hoax" designed to undermine his presidency, even as several high profile figures in his inner circle pleaded guilty to or were convicted of crimes stemming from the probe. In 2018, during a joint press conference with Putin following a bilateral summit in Helsinki, Trump publicly sided with the Russian leader over the US intelligence community, saying, "I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia that meddled in the 2016 election. The president later walked back his comments after facing swift public backlash. John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, told Insider in an interview last month that the president's comments during the Helsinki summit were the most shocking and disappointing he'd heard throughout his tenure. "I was sitting in the audience with Chief of Staff John Kelly, and we were both frozen to our chairs," Bolton told Business Insider. "We couldn't believe what we had heard. And we spent a good part of the flight on Air Force One back to Washington trying to explain to the president why he was getting such a negative reaction from the press back in Washington. The president didn't seem to understand that people might be upset that he equated what Putin said with what our intelligence community said." | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Former DNI Dan Coats thinks Putin has Trump blackmail: Woodward book - Business Insider businessinsider.com/bob-woodward-b | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 17:01:32 -0400 Former DNI Dan Coats thinks Putin has Trump blackmail: Woodward book - Business Insider businessinsider.com/bob-woodward-b | |||||||
| Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks: Former Spy Chief Believes Putin Had Something on Trump - 'He's Dangerous. He's Unfit' | |||||||
Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:57:34 -0400
Former director of national intelligence Dan Coats could not shake his deep suspicions that Russian President Vladimir Putin had something on President Trump, seeing no other explanation for the presidents behavior, according to Bob Woodwards new book Rage.Coats was the presidents top intelligence official from March 2017 until August 2019. Woodward reports that Coats and his staff examined the intelligence regarding Trumps ties to Russia as carefully as possible and that he still questions the relationship between Trump and Putin despite the apparent absence of intelligence proof. But Coats was still uneasy about the relationship between Trump and Putin. He saw how extraordinary it was for the presidents top intelligence official to harbor such deep suspicions about the presidents relationship with Putin. But he could not shake them. The New York Times Michael Schmidt reported in his new book that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein secretly curtailed an FBI counterintelligence probe into Trumps ties to Russia, meaning the full scope of decades of the presidents personal and financial dealings there has never been explored. The explosive Woodward book, which is based in part on 18 interviews that Trump sat for with the veteran journalist, details the tortured tenure of Coats and other officials described by the Washington Post as so-called adults of the Trump orbit including former Defense Secretary James Mattis and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. At one point, Mattis went to Washington National Cathedral to pray for the countrys fate under Trumps leadership. He reportedly told Coats, There may come a time when we have to take collective action to speak out against Trump because he is dangerous. Hes unfit. In a later conversation reported by Woodward, Mattis told Coats, The president has no moral compass. Coats reportedly responded, True. To him, a lie is not a lie. Its just what he thinks. He doesnt know the difference between the truth and a lie.
The US intelligence community determined in early 2017 that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to propel Trump to the Oval Office. Coats and other intelligence officials testified to Congress last year that Russia was one of the biggest national security threats facing the US ahead of the 2020 election and that it would continue employing the tactics it used in 2016 and during the 2018 midterm elections. Trump is angered by the release of the Woodward book. The Bob Woodward book will be a FAKE, as always, just as many of the others have been, Trump tweeted on Aug. 14, before the book had come out. This is despite the fact that the president sat for 18 interviews with Woodward.  ON TAPE: Trump Admits To Woodward He 'Downplayed' Coronavirus With American PeoplePresident Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and "more deadly than even your strenuous flus," and that he repeatedly played it down publicly. "This is deadly stuff," Trump told legendary journalist Bob Woodward on February 7. September 9, 2020 In "2020"  Dan Coats Out As Intelligence Director - Trump Defender Ratcliffe NominatedPresident Trump announced on Twitter today that he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence. Coats, one of the reasonable voices left in the Trump cabinet, will leave office on August 15. Coats had rankled Trump more than once with his public July 28, 2019 In "Headlines"  FIRST SECURITY: Trump Pushed CIA To Give Taliban Intelligence To KremlinWhy would the Russian government think it could get away with paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers? One answer to that question may be the extraordinary response that Moscow received when the Trump administration learned of a precursor to the bounty operation. From mid-2017 and into 2018, July 8, 2020 In "Foreign Affairs" | |||||||
| mikenov on Twitter: Former director of national intelligence Dan Coats could not shake his deep suspicions that Russian President Vladimir Putin had something on President #Trump, seeing no other explanation for the presidents behavior, according t | |||||||
| Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:55:13 -0400 Former director of national intelligence Dan Coats could not shake his deep suspicions that Russian President Vladimir Putin had something on President #Trump, seeing no other explanation for the presidents behavior, according to Bob Woodward... |
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