Category: IRAN

Liberal ideology & virtue signaling put before people’s HEALTH, as Macron, Merkel defend open borders amid Covid-19 spread

CAP

By Neil Clark

Dealing with Covid-19, Emmanuel Macron seems to be singing from the same hymn sheet as Angela Merkel, who is also against closing borders, but is this not a case of Western liberal ideology overriding necessity and common sense?

Compare and contrast. In his speech to the nation last night, Macron declared: “This virus has no passport.” He added: “We will undoubtedly take measures to close borders, but only when it is relevant… It is at the European level that we have built our freedoms.”

‘Coronavirus has no passport!’ Macron insists no need to close French borders unless EU agrees, as he orders school & uni shutdown

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Macron is closing all schools, nurseries, universities and day care centres from next week and has called on the vulnerable to isolate themselves. But if anyone can still come into France unchecked from countries where coronavirus is even more of a problem, won’t those measures be undermined?

Ditto Germany. Angela Merkel said this week that “we in Germany, in any case, are of the opinion that border closures are not an appropriate response to the challenge.”

Contrast this ‘open borders,’ ‘we must protect Schengen’ approach with that of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary who are all EU member states. Declaring a 30-day ‘state of emergency,’ the Czech government has closed its borders to people from 15 countries hit by coronavirus and banned its citizens from visiting these countries too. From Monday next week, all international travel to and from Czechia will be essentially prohibited.

Slovakia is closing its borders today to all foreigners except those who have a residency permit, while announcing that all Slovaks who have been abroad will have to face two weeks of quarantine. Austria has barred all people entering the country from Italy, unless they have a medical certificate. Hungary has banned arrivals from Italy, China and Iran.

But in Western Europe, it seems a commitment to maintaining ‘open borders,’ even at a time of a potentially very extreme health crisis, trumps other concerns.

An example of this fundamentalist and very dogmatic approach can be seen in the tweet from Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt who declared: “Nationalism isn’t the answer to COV19, because viruses don’t care about borders or nationalities.”

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International travel may broaden the mind, but unfortunately, it also helps Covid-19 to spread.

You really don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand that the more open the borders, the greater chance of a country seeing its coronavirus cases rise. Yet the most powerful countries in the EU – unlike the more pragmatic ones in central and eastern Europe – seem to be putting virtue signaling and liberal ideology first. Of course, there’s a moral case that can be made for ‘free movement,’ but in a time of crisis, governments have to forget all that and put protecting their own citizens first. Nationalism? No, it’s just doing what governments are elected to do.

If we can criticize Macron and Merkel on these grounds, we can criticize Boris Johnson too. Plane loads of people arriving from the worst affected areas of Italy have been arriving in Britain without any proper checks. On last night’s BBC Question Time, Professor John Ashton, a former director of public health, noted how around 3,000 supporters of the Spanish football team Atletico Madrid were in Liverpool this week for a Champions League tie. Spain’s Corona cases, as of Wednesday, had surpassed 1,600 with about half of them in the Madrid region.

Two-thirds of Spain’s deaths from the virus have occurred in the Madrid region. Yet, as Professor Ashton pointed out, the Madrilenos would have been out and about in Liverpool on Tuesday and Wednesday, drinking in bars, staying in hotels, traveling on public transport. How can governments say they are doing everything they can to stop the spread of coronavirus when unrestricted travel from Covid-19 ‘hotspots’ is still taking place?

It may be true, as Macron says, that “It is at the European level that we have built our freedoms,” but what price ‘freedom’ if it means the ‘freedom’ to die from coronavirus because the most logical, common sense step of all is not taken?

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Tucker: The Media Has Sided With Communist China to Blame America For the Coronavirus

Their highest priority is approval from Beijing.

 

Tucker Carlson savaged the mainstream media during his show last night for siding with Communist China to blame America for the coronavirus.

“This pandemic came out of China and it came out of China for a reason,” said the Fox News host. “It’s a country where government officials deliberately covered up the early stages of the virus when it could have been stopped before it spread out of control.”

Noting that China controls 96 per cent of antibiotics and is threatening to cut off drug exports to the U.S., Carlson charged that Beijing “is now trying to hide the reality of where coronavirus came from” and worse, blaming the virus on America.

Carlson then referenced tweets yesterday by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who claimed, “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.”

When asked to distanced itself from Lijian, Beijing refused to do so.

Lijian also slammed people for linking the virus to China, a narrative which has now been picked up by the mainstream media as people like CNN’s Jim Acosta insist it’s “xenophobic” to say the virus came from China (despite the fact that it did).

“Amazingly though, it was just two months ago…that Acosta himself was sending tweets about the “Wuhan coronavirus,” he hadn’t yet received his orders from Jeff Zucker who receives his orders from China,” pointed out Carlson.

“Keep in mind, these are the people, the Chinese leadership, that our media class has allied with, has sucked up to for years, made every excuse for endlessly even when China blamed the United States for a plague they unleashed, even when the Chinese government threatened to murder our citizens by cutting off drugs, our media continued to take their side,” said the Fox News host.

Tucker then played a clip of Joe Biden claiming it was “misinformation” and “xenophobia” to label COVID-19 a “foreign virus” and blaming the Trump administration for its outbreak in the U.S.

“So it’s our fault,” said Carlson. “Just to be clear, describing a virus from Wuhan as the ‘Wuhan virus’ is not xenophobia, it’s accuracy and anyone who says otherwise is lying and probably for a reason.”

“For our ruling class the highest priority of all is now and always ‘wokeness’ – that and approval from Beijing – tells you everything about them,” concluded Carlson.

Tucker also pointed out that according to a report by scientists at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan” as a result of a researcher being infected by an animal and then spreading the virus outside the facility.

One of the laboratories named in the report which was conducting research on bat coronavirus was located just 280 meters from the site of the Wuhan meat market.

“Anyone who raises that theory on American television is attacked as a conspiracy monger,” said Carlson, despite the fact that the claim comes from “Chinese researchers making an evidence-based argument about the origin of this virus.”

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MMA trainer pleads for help as he’s forced to wait with dead body of sister for 36 HOURS in coronavirus-hit Italy

CAP

Italian mixed martial arts trainer Luca Franzese has posted a distressing video in which he pleads for help as the body of his dead sister lies in the background after she was infected with the coronavirus.

Franzese, who has also appeared as an actor on the popular TV series ‘Gomorrah’, posted a series of videos on social media last weekend in which he appeals for help as the body of his sister Teresa lies in bed behind him.

Teresa Franzese, 47, reportedly died on Saturday after showing symptoms of Covid-19 for several days.

“I am making this video for the good of Italy, for the good of Naples,” a distraught Luca says in the video.

“My sister died last night, probably because of the virus, and I’ve been waiting for answers since last night.

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“I had to force them to come and do the test. I’ve had to put myself in self-isolation. I might have the virus.

“To keep my sister alive, I tried to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation and no one cared, no one is calling me.

“We are ruined, Italy has abandoned us. But we must give each other strength.”

The trainer-turned-actor later confirmed that his sister, who had a form of epilepsy, had tested positive for Covid-19.

He said he had been forced to wait for 36 hours with her body at home – where elderly relatives were also staying – as he desperately sought funeral services who would come and take her body away for burial.

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Teresa Franzese was reportedly the fourth person to die of the coronavirus in the southern Italian region of Campania, where there have been more than 120 cases of the disease.

Local councillor Francesco Emilio Borrelli said that the confusion over Teresa Franzese’s death came from the fact that she had been the first person to die at home from the virus.

“It was the first case in Italy in which a person with the virus dies at home, so there was some confusion on what to do,” he said, Al Jazeera reported.

“The family [exemplifies] altruism, they are doing everything they can to protect their community, and the community is staying close to them by bringing food.

“Now the big problem is that they have been closed in there for four days, and no one is taking away their trash. It’s getting unhygienic and we don’t know what to do about it. Someone needs to help them.” 

A funeral home eventually agreed to come and take the body after Luca Franzese’s was widely shared online.

“It was surreal. We used masks, sterile shoes, hazmat suits, glasses, and gloves. Luca and another relative were there, but other family members were all in another room,” said Pasquale Pernice, an employee at the Aprea Funeral Home service.

Italy has recorded almost 12,500 cases of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 820 people dying of the disease, making it the worst-hit country outside of China.

The country and its 60 million population have been placed on lockdown, with all bars, restaurants and schools shut, as well as most shops.

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‘Ability to help may reach limit’: Italian doctor says medics ‘exhausted’ helping isolated patients amid coronavirus pandemic

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If the number of the infected keeps rising, patients with better chances of survival will have to be prioritized, an ER doctor at the epicenter of the Italian outbreak told RT’s Ruptly video agency.

In the city of Piacenza, in the heart of northern Italy’s coronavirus outbreak, overworked medical personnel are reaching their breaking point – and there seems to be no sign that the epidemic is letting up. With a population of just over 100,000, the city was placed on lockdown on Sunday, after suffering 50 deaths and more than 630 coronavirus diagnoses.

Visibly tired and with bags under his eyes, Davide Bastoni, who works in the emergency room of the Gugliermo Da Saliceto Hospital in Piacenza, told Ruptly that the battle against Covid-19 has been unceasing – and humbling.

“The night was very exhausting… This epidemic permits us to understand the fact that at the end of the day, we are all human beings, we are all the same, when facing these outbreaks or these viruses,” said Bastoni.

Dressed in a white smock and a hair net, the doctor confessed that protecting against the highly-contagious has separated patients from their caregivers.

“They are all patients who need human contact, who need some words of comfort, which is difficult to give them because we have the masks and all the protective devices,” the medical professional noted. He said that trying to make treatment more “humane” has forced clinicians to “reinvent” how they communicate with their patients.

There were more than three dozen patients with symptoms of the virus waiting to be screened and processed when the interview was recorded on Wednesday. But according to Bastoni, the epidemic is likely to get worse before it gets better.

The doctor urged his fellow Italians, especially young people, to take all possible measures to avoid contact with the virus.

ALSO ON RT.COMWATCH Italians line up in extended supermarket queues amid coronavirus lockdown (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

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“It’s clear that if the community doesn’t follow the restrictions and the numbers [of the infected] continue to rise, at a certain point, our ability to help people will reach its limit,” Bastoni warned.

He expressed fear that it would soon become necessary to classify patients based on those who have a greater chance of surviving the illness.

“I really hope this doesn’t happen,” he said.

Italy remains Europe’s worst-hit country, with the number of confirmed cases reaching 12,462 on Wednesday and the death toll jumping by 196 to 827 in just 24 hours.

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AMIDST CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, SUBWAY POSTERS TELL NEW YORKERS NOT TO BE RACIST

Amidst Coronavirus Pandemic, Subway Posters Tell New Yorkers Not to Be Racist

Priorities.

 MARCH 12, 2020

An LGBT activist group called Pride Train has plastered New York subways with posters reminding commuters not to be racist during the coronavirus pandemic.

Asserting that “Facts, not fear, will stop COVID-19,” the posters tell travelers “No ignorance, racism, or xenophobia allowed at this station at any time.”

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Another poster states, “COVID-19 is not an excuse to be racist.”

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The posters immediately draw attention because they are designed to look like official MTA announcements.

Although previous posters were put up without the express permission of the MTA, Pride Train has described the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as a “silent (very silent) partner.”

Concerns over “racism” and “xenophobia” surrounding the coronavirus have repeatedly emerged, with the World Health Organization making numerous statements demanding certain words and phrases not be used in order to prevent people feeling “stigmatized.”

The irony of course is that the kind of border controls which countries like Russia imposed back in January would be decried as “racist” by groups such as Pride Train, yet they have successfully prevented the wider spread of coronavirus.

 

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Russia Has Recorded Zero Coronavirus Deaths

Gee, I wonder why.

 

Even as coronavirus ravages the rest of Europe, Russia, which closed its entire border back in January, still has zero recorded deaths from COVID-19.

What a stunning coincidence.

The latest numbers out of Russia show that just 28 people are recorded to be infected with coronavirus. There have been zero fatalities.

Compare these numbers to other European countries.

– Italy has 15,113 recorded infections and 1,016 total deaths.

– Spain has 3,059 recorded infections and 86 total deaths.

– France has 2,281 recorded infections and 48 total deaths.

– Germany has 2,512 recorded infections and 5 total deaths.

– The UK has 590 recorded infections and 10 total deaths.

Why such a significant difference?

As the Moscow Times highlights, Russia closed “most entry points along its 4,200-kilometer border with China, ordering people returning from high-risk areas to self-quarantine and temporarily banning Chinese citizens from entering the country.”

They did this back in January, while the World Health Organization was simultaneously ordering countries not to profile and not to take any border control measures that would stop the international flow of people.

Singapore, which despite its proximity to China has recorded only 189 cases of coronavirus and zero deaths, also closed its border back in January.

Compare Singapore and Russia’s response to a country like the UK, which despite seeing coronavirus ravage Italy and Iran is still allowing people to arrive in the country from Italy and Iran while performing zero checks on them whatsoever.

Border controls work. Globalism is a vector for disease pandemics.

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European Union Demands Greece Provide Asylum to Migrants Storming Turkish Border

The globalists aren’t having Greece’s border controls.

By 

Unelected bureaucrats of the European Union are demanding that Greece uphold asylum rights for the latest wave of migrants storming its border, weeks after the southern European nation suspended all asylum claims.

Thousands of itinerant migrants have been seeking to enter Greece in recent weeks after Turkey allowed the large migrant population it had been housing to pass through the country.

Ylva Johansson, the EU commissioner for home affairs and a Swedish national, is traveling to the country on Thursday to state a list of demands and mandates from Brussels for the nation. Johansson isn’t happy that Greece is refusing to provide a byzantine(no pun intended) legal process for so-called refugees storming the country.

Johansson claims Greece is treaty-obligated as a member of the union to permit migrants to apply for asylum.

“Individuals in the European Union have the right to apply for asylum. This is in the treaty, this is in international law. This we can’t suspend.”

It probably won’t go over well in the Mediterranean country that a foreign bureaucrat intends to lecture them on their response to the crisis of mass immigration flowing over the border from Turkey. Citizens of Greece largely expect the EU to assist them in dealing with the problem, namely in compelling Turkey to shut down the transit of migrants from the eastern parts of the country to its European border with Greece.

Greece is the latest country to question in policy the supposedly universal right to request asylum, a legal tactic often applied by illegal immigrants without a genuine case for refugee protections and utilized by human smugglers to facilitate illegal immigration in Europe and North America.

Thousands of migrants remain camped on Greece’s border with Turkey. Unfortunately for them, they can’t count on solidarity and assistance from the European Union in dealing with the problem, but rather a set of mandates and demands to let them in.

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