Tag: ARGENTINA

EERIE DRONE FOOTAGE OF WUHAN REVEALS CHINA’S REAL “GHOST CITY”

Eerie Drone Footage Of Wuhan Reveals China's Real "Ghost City"

Scenes resemble apocalyptic horror movie

Zero Hedge – FEBRUARY 6, 2020

In its latest video on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, the New York Times managed to fly a drone over the city of Wuhan, which has been under quarantine/lockdown orders from Beijing for more than a week.

The footage is haunting – like something out of an apocalyptic horror movie.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000006960506

 

Roughly 80% of virus-related deaths have occurred in Wuhan since the outbreak began. But there’s reason to believe the death toll – particularly in Wuhan – might be much higher.

 

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Democrats failed to impeach Trump, but they won’t give up trying – it’s all they’ve got

CAP

by Nebojsa Malic

Even before President Donald Trump was elected US president, Democrats began talking about impeachment. Now that it has failed, will they finally accept the result of the 2016 election? Don’t get your hopes up.

Trump’s acquittal in the Senate on Wednesday was a foregone conclusion, given as it takes two thirds of the senators present to convict. The only way for 20 Republicans to switch sides was for the House case to be open and shut – something that only Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) and ‘Russiagate’ truthers in the media actually believed.

In the end, the sole Republican to break ranks was Mitt Romney, and only on one of the articles. Not guilty, exonerated, case closed, let’s “move on” – as Democrats themselves advised in 1999, after the same thing happened to Bill Clinton.

Not so fast. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has rejected the verdict, calling it “meaningless” because what happened in the Senate “wasn’t a trial.” It’s a retreat to last week’s talking points, arguing that the Senate should have called additional witnesses and documents that the House didn’t care to obtain before rushing to impeach back in December.

Never mind that doing this would have meant the House process was flawed, fatally undercut the second article – “obstruction of Congress” – or that the House managers themselves objected to any new evidence being introduced. If you’re expecting logic rather than lawfare, you’re in the wrong town.

Democrats began talking impeachment from the second Trump took office, having failed to prevent that from happening through a variety of long-shot schemes such as “Hamilton electors.” Their initial strategy was to allege “emoluments” and harp on Trump’s undisclosed tax returns, before settling on “Russiagate.” Then the Mueller Report came out and proved to be a dud of epic proportions. Hopes to at least get obstruction of justice charges out of it were decisively crushed by Attorney General William Barr.

Report came out and proved to be a dud of epic proportions. Hopes to at least get obstruction of justice charges out of it were decisively crushed by Attorney General William Barr.

Under tremendous pressure to find something – anything – to impeach Trump over, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi turned to Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, a fellow Californian. Schiff seized upon a phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he was told about by staffers in touch with their former colleagues inside the intelligence community.

Schiff seized on Trump’s reference to Joe Biden’s bragging about getting a corruption prosecutor in Ukraine fired, to claim that this amounted to “soliciting foreign interference” in the 2020 election, since Barack Obama’s former VP was the front-runner for the Democrats’ presidential nomination.

While Schiff and his crew did their best to conjure a crazy conspiracy involving Trump holding up military aid for political leverage – mind-reading and inventing fake transcripts along the way – their case was ultimately smoke and mirrors. Zelensky himself said he was not being extorted, and the parade of other witnesses from within the very bureaucracy Trump had sworn to purge (but obviously hadn’t) had only their personal, anti-Trump opinions to offer.

Paradoxically, impeachment only made Trump stronger – and more popular, if the latest polls are anything to go by. By contrast, Democrats have gone from one defeat to the next this week, starting with Monday’s fiasco at the Iowa caucuses and continuing with Pelosi’s tantrum at Trump’s State of the Union on Tuesday.

“This impeachment was a destructive debacle in every conceivable respect, but don’t worry I’m sure [Democrats] will change their behavior moving forward, they have a well-established track record of taking responsibility for failure,” quipped political journalist Michael Tracey after the Senate acquittal.

If Trump wins re-election in November – which increasingly looks like it might happen – expect the Democrats to try to impeach him again. What for? It doesn’t matter, any excuse will do.

CAP

Simply put, they have to. In retrospect, impeachment seems to have always been a coping mechanism for 2016, the election that neither Hillary Clinton nor her party ever recovered from losing.

Clinton herself offered more proof of that on Wednesday, accusing 52 Senate Republicans of betraying their oath to the Constitution and saying the US was “entering dangerous territory for our democracy.”

She’s actually correct about that, though not in a sense she may have intended. Democracy works only so long as all participants agree to abide by electoral results. Refusing to accept defeat and attempting to rules-lawyer one’s way out would be bothersome enough at a board game night, but is downright toxic when it infects national politics.

Kaiser Report co-host Stacy Herbert summed it up best, calling the last three years “one horrible remake of ‘Goodbye, Lenin’ in which the entire political and media classes have constructed an elaborate alternative reality so as to avoid having Hillary encounter any further distress which might compound her humiliation.”

Unlike in the 2003 German film, nothing so far has been capable of bursting this particular delusion bubble – which means that America’s long national nightmare is nowhere near over.

 

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Not a great look: Failed Iowa caucus app is deeply linked to self-declared winner Buttigieg… and Hillary Clinton

CAP

By Danielle Ryan

An app supposedly meant to ensure quick reporting of the Iowa caucus results was developed by a firm deeply tied to the Democratic establishment and went kaputt at the crucial moment. What are the chances?

It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but Americans can be excused for their distrust of the system after what happened in 2016 – and the facts that have been dug up on the group behind the failed Iowa app won’t do much to quell their suspicions.

The firm in question, rather ironically, is called Shadow Inc. —  and, according to Federal Election Commission filings, it was paid thousands of dollars by Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for “software rights and subscriptions” in July 2019.

CAP

Fast-forward to February 2020, and the app has failed to deliver any reliable results in Iowa, Buttigieg has prematurely declared himself the winner — and #MayorCheat is trending on Twitter.

CAP

Adding to the suspicions surrounding the Iowa debacle is the fact that the company’s CEO, CTO and COO, among others, all previously worked for Hillary Clinton‘s presidential campaign, according to their LinkedIn profiles. For supporters of Sanders, convinced the DNC is attempting to rig the primary process against him for a second time, the conspiracy theory writes itself.

CAP

Shadow Inc was launched in 2019 by ACRONYM, a digital non-profit founded by one Tara McGowan, who happens to be a huge fan of Buttigieg, tweeting her excitement over his candidacy back in January 2019.

Despite declaring that it“launched” Shadow last year, ACRONYM has suddenly tried to distance itself from the company in the midst of the Iowa debacle. Yet, only a couple of weeks before the caucus disaster, McGowan herself was tweeting proudly about what ACRONYM was “building” together with Shadow. McGowan, by the way, is married to a top Buttigieg advisor.

Raising even more questions, there are rumors that Clinton’s former 2016 campaign manager, Robby Mook, was indirectly involved with the Shadow app. While Mook himself says he doesn’t “know anything” about it and there is no indication that he was involved in its actual development, investigative journalist Lee Fang tweeted that it was Mook’s security company, Defending Digital Democracy, which “vetted” the Iowa caucus app for “integrity.” The New York Times also reported that Mook’s company was involved in testing the app.

Iowa caucus disaster: ‘Technical glitch’ spawns conspiracy theories & Democrats have only themselves to blame

CAP

It’s not like Sanders supporters haven’t been burned by this sort of thing before. It is now widely accepted that the DNC was secretly working to thwart Sanders’ campaign in 2016, in an effort to ensure establishment favorite Hillary Clinton would face off against Trump. It is perfectly plausible to assume the party apparatus might try to do the same again in 2020, albeit with different tactics.

The utter contempt for Sanders among the establishment ranks of the DNC should not be underestimated. Despite the fact that Sanders ultimately supported Clinton in 2016, Clinton herself initially refused to say she would back Sanders if he became the party’s nominee in 2020 — and declared that “nobody likes” the Democratic socialist, who consistently ranks as the most popular politician in the country, but whose socialist-style politics are anathema to corporate centrists.

The Iowa drama is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC in 2016. The determination that Moscow hacked the organization to harm Clinton’s campaign was made almost instantly by Crowdstrike, a private Democratic party contractor with links to an arms manufacturer-funded think tank. You couldn’t even make it up.

For progressive Democrats expecting a Sanders win in Iowa (that prediction based on recent polls in which he enjoyed significant leads), this all looks like blatant, bare-faced corruption. Or, as journalist Kyle Kulinski put it: “This is either record breaking incompetence or it’s an attempt to game the results. Those are the only two options.”

As of the time of writing, it has been 14 hours since the Iowa polls closed, there are still no official results available and Shadow Inc has assured everyone that it sincerely regrets the delay. While Buttigieg has declared victory based on limited data covering only his own campaign, Sanders’ camp has released data covering all candidates, indicating that he won the night.

With such a mess made of the Iowa caucus, and suspicions swirling about Shadow’s mysterious app, whether Sanders won or he didn’t, the DNC has once again ignited a rage in his supporters that it may come to regret.

Progressive Democrats were expecting yesterday’s caucus to potentially get messy, but “Shady app crashes and Pete Buttigieg declares victory before the result” probably wasn’t on anyone’s Iowa bingo card.

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H5N8: Saudi Arabia reports outbreak of HIGHLY pathogenic bird flu virus

CAP

An outbreak of a particularly contagious bird flu virus has been reported in Saudi Arabia, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) warns, as the world struggles to contain the spread of a deadly China coronavirus.

The outbreak took place in the central Sudair region, located some 150 kilometers north of the nation’s capital of Riyadh. The disease already killed more than 22,000 birds, the OIE said, citing the Saudi Agriculture Ministry. More than 385,000 birds were also slaughtered out of precaution. This is the first such outbreak since July 2018.

The H5N8 strain of the bird flu, which was detected in Saudi Arabia, was previously considered not particularly contagious for humans. Yet, it has been recently declared to have become increasingly more pathogenic.

Earlier on Tuesday, a similar alarming report about a bird flu outbreak came from Vietnam, where another highly pathogenic virus strain — H5N6 — led to the deaths of 2,200 birds in a village in the country’s north.

On February 1, China, which has already been gripped with a novel coronavirus originated from the city of Wuhan, reported that an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was detected in its central Hunan province.

While it hasn’t occupied the news spotlight lately, H5N1 is said to be an even deadlier virus to those who contract it. Nearly 60 percent of H5N1 patients die after contracting the sickness, compared to two percent of Wuhan coronavirus (2019 nCoV) patients thus far.

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Coronavirus death toll surpasses SARS numbers in China, traces of disease found on door handle

CAP

More people in China have already died from the ongoing coronavirus outbreak than from the SARS epidemic 17 years ago, Chinese officials said. Meanwhile, traces of the disease were spotted on a door handle used by the patient.

The death toll from the previously-unknown coronavirus in China has grown to 361 on Sunday, the country’s National Health Commission said. This number exceeds the 349 fatalities from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in mainland China in 2003.

Out of 57 newly reported deaths, 56 were in central Hubei Province, whose capital Wuhan remains the epicenter of the outbreak, and one in the city of Chongqing in China’s southwest. So far, the only death from the virus outside mainland China was registered in the Philippines.

Overall, 17,205 cases of the virus have now been registered in China since the outbreak started in late December.

During a press briefing in Beijing on Monday, Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Lian Weiliang announced that China will step up measures to supply Wuhan with basic goods as it remains quarantined along with several other major cities.

China’s first ‘instant’ coronavirus hospital accepting patients, second facility days from opening

CAP

Army troops stationed in Wuhan have taken over the delivery of food and basic necessities, using military trucks to stock local supermarkets. The authorities also ordered to boost the production of face masks and test kits after the Lunar New Year holidays in response to shortages in Wuhan and some other areas in Hubei.

Zhang Zhoubin, deputy head of a disease prevention center in the southeastern city of Guangzhou, said coronavirus was “found” on the door handle at a patient’s home. “This reminds me that we have to do well in keeping hygiene at home, and it is important to frequently wash our hands,” he said. Zhang warned that other areas prone to contamination include mobile phones, keyboards, and faucet handles.

Meanwhile, biotech companies in Wuhan have been conducting experiments on rats and monkeys, in hope of developing vaccines. The scientists identified three drugs “effective” in slowing down the spread of the virus in the cell structure, however, they have not been tested on humans yet, Wang Wei, director of Hubei’s Science and Technology Department, said.

China’s first ‘instant’ coronavirus hospital accepting patients, second facility days from opening

 

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Impeccable record, good with email: Why shouldn’t Hillary Clinton give speech on cyber security?

CAP

She’s only just learnt that you can use separate emails for work and home, but Hillary Clinton is to deliver a keynote address at the Cyber Defense Summit. RT looks at the expertise offered by the ex-presidential candidate.

CAP

She might make grandma jokes about “wiping” her server with a cloth, but as RT’s Igor Zhdanov notes, there are few people in the world so adept at deleting information, that is potentially of state importance, off a server that even the FBI had no clue about.

And she would have managed to keep multi-million-dollar-earning Wall Street speeches a secret from the world, if it were not for the dastardly Wikileaks. So, there is a cautionary tale she can tell there.

And for the encore Clinton could explain how she cracked the Kremlin’s plan to meddle in the 2016 election and swing the result to Donald Trump, and then infiltrated the media to present her as a somewhat sore loser.

https://www.rt.com/usa/460978-clinton-cyber-security-email/

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‘Create a new category’: Fury after transgender runner claims US women’s college title

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US transgender runner Cece Telferm, who previously competed against men, has become embroiled in controversy after winning the women’s 400m hurdles title – with many fans accusing the athlete of having an unfair advantage.

Franklin Pierce University senior Telfer took the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s 400m hurdles title in dominant fashion at the end of May, setting a new personal best of 57.53 and finishing more than a second ahead of rival runners.

READ MORE:Transgender powerlifter stripped of world records after drug tester rules she is ‘actually male’

However, the victory was met with mixed reaction on social media, with many users insisting that Telferm should not have been allowed to compete against women.

“Cheat. It’s a shame that cheats are also given awards and celebrated,” one user wrote.

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A number of fans fumed that the result of the race was highly predictable, as a mediocre male runner is stronger than even the best female athletes.

“This is getting beyond ridiculous. Natural born female sport is now in absolute crisis and if this is permitted to continue unchecked, XX chromosome World and Olympic records will shortly be consigned to history. XX female athletes cannot beat CeCe, it’s simply not a fair fight!” one person wrote.

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Some users suggested that there should be a new division introduced for transgender athletes to ensure fair competition in sport.

“There needs to be men’s, women’s and ‘others’ categories then. It has to be a level playing field or it’s just not fair,” one commentator suggested.

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“I am so thinking this is not fairness or sporting. Create a new category,” another user added.

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“Sports need another category—men , women, and transgender. The women are competing with a biological male, in this case. In other words, more muscle just by nature’s biology,” one more comment reads.

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Should HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ have had more actors of color? Twitter suggestion met with ridicule

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HBO’s hit new series based on the Chernobyl tragedy has divided opinion online, but the oddest reaction yet has come from a budding UK actor wondering why the show’s creators had not chosen more people of color for the cast.

While the docudrama has come under criticism for various historical inaccuracies, until now, the lack of racial diversity among the actors was not one of those criticisms — for the simple reason that 1980s Ukraine was not exactly a thriving hub of modern-day multiculturalism.

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That should have been no reason to leave black and brown actors out though, according to actress Karla Marie Sweet, who tweeted that there are “so many great actors of colour” in the UK who “would’ve been amazing” in the series. Sweet felt “disappointed” to see “yet another hit show with a massive cast” that “makes it looks like PoC don’t exist.”

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Just to clear up any confusion, the show “makes it look” like that to reflect the reality of the time and place — and the producers seem to have been at least trying to create an authentic vibe.

Needless to say, Sweet’s tweet didn’t exactly go down well on Twitter, where she was promptly told to “learn history.”

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“You didn’t see PoC because they’re not there!”

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One user said perhaps the actors were chosen for the same reason that Martin Luther King should probably not be played by a white person — because he was black.

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Another said he was taking a screenshot of the thread because “nobody will believe” something so stupid could have been posted.

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To be fair, Sweet did at least acknowledge the lack of people of color in the USSR in another tweet, but suggested that since the actors spoke with British accents (it was a British production), the creators should have just thrown accuracy completely out the window and hired a more diverse-looking cast. Emotions like fear, panic and sadness can be “communicated just as effectively” by people of color, she added, missing the point entirely.

‘Chernobyl’ is a blast of a TV series – but don’t call it ‘authentic’

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Having actors of another race would “break immersion” for the viewers, another user tried to explain — but ultimately, Sweet didn’t seem open to criticism, later tweeting about the reactions she had received from “racist Twitter.”

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So Woke: Disney, Netflix Threaten Georgia Boycott But Continue Work in Countries Where Abortion Is Illegal

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By Dr. Susan Berry

Film industry giants Disney and Netflix are threatening to boycott the state of Georgia over its new “heartbeat” abortion law, but have continued and even stepped up filming in countries in which abortion is entirely illegal or highly restricted.

Variety reported Monday Netflix intends to increase production in Egypt – where abortion is illegal – with Paranormal, directed by Amr Salama and based on the horror books by late Egyptian author Ahmed Khaled Tawfik.

“We are excited to continue our investment in Middle Eastern productions by adapting the highly acclaimed Paranormal novels into a thrilling new series,” said Kelly Luegenbiehl, Netflix vice president of international originals.

Variety reported Paranormal is the third Middle Eastern Netflix original series. It follows Jinn, a teen drama with supernatural themes that was filmed in Jordan, where abortion is illegal, except to save the life of the woman or if her health is threatened. Women as well as abortionists can be penalized for defying the law in Jordan.

Despite filming in these nations, however, on Tuesday Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, told Variety the company has “many women working on productions in Georgia, whose rights … will be severely restricted” by the Georgia law that prohibits abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Sarandos said Netflix would be working with the ACLU to fight the new law.

“Given the legislation has not yet been implemented, we’ll continue to film there, while also supporting partners and artists who choose not to,” he added. “Should it ever come into effect, we’d rethink our entire investment in Georgia.”

While Disney Chairman Bob Iger commented that it would not be “practical” for his company to continue to shoot in Georgia, given its new abortion law, the Washington Free Beacon reported that Disney filmed part of its 2019 film Aladdin in Jordan as well.

The Free Beacon also noted that Disney owns the Star Wars franchise. In 2015, the company distributed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was filmed in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where abortion is illegal except during the first 120 days of pregnancy and only when the mother’s life is threatened or the baby is diagnosed with a “lethal abnormality” that is “incompatible with life.”

Republican pollster Logan Dobson also observed on Twitter that Star Wars: The Last Jedi filmed scenes in Croatia, Ireland, and Bolivia – all nations in which abortion was highly restricted at the time of filming:

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The Wall Street Journal editorial board noted the inconsistency in Disney’s policies, and specifically pointed out that the company also touts its theme park and films in China, where Turkic Muslims are being held in internment camps:

More than a few Americans may also notice the contradiction that Disney is more worried about filming in a U.S. state that has passed a law democratically than it is operating its theme park and hawking its films in China, which uses facial-recognition software to monitor its population and has a million Uighurs in re-education camps.

For decades, China also attempted to force control of its population with its “one-child policy,” which restricted the number of children a couple could have to only one.

Georgia’s Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act (HB 481) prohibits abortions in the state after a heartbeat is detected, usually at about six or seven weeks of pregnancy. Cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is in danger are exceptions to the law.

Georgia is the third largest production hub in the country, due to its generous tax incentives.

Actress and political activist Alyssa Milano called for a Hollywood boycott of Georgia if Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law. Milano then followed with a call for a sex strike – urging women to engage in abstinence from sex – to protest the end to “reproductive rights.”

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