March 25, 2025 - "Global evidence is clear: Adding more solar and wind to the energy supply pushes up the price of electricity for consumers and businesses....
"[F]rom 2005, the Ontario government began phasing out coal energy and dived headlong into subsidizing wind and solar generation.... From 2005 to 2020 the average, inflation-adjusted cost of electricity doubled from 7.7 cents to 15.3 cents. Since 2019 the Ontario government has subsidized these high costs through a slew of programs like the 'Renewable Cost Shift', lowering the direct pain to ratepayers but simply moving the increasing costs onto the government coffers. Today, this policy costs Ontario more than $6 billion annually...
"A relatively small amount of wind energy costs Ontarians over a billion dollars each year. One peer-reviewed study finds that the economic costs of wind are at least three times their benefits. Only the owners of wind power make any money, whereas the 'losers are primarily the electricity consumers followed by the governments.' Yet, politicians — supported by powerful green energy interests and credulous journalists — keep gaslighting voters claiming green energy is cheaper than fossil fuels....
"At best, this is only true when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. At all other times, their cost is significantly higher. Modern societies need around-the-clock power. The intermittency of solar and wind energy means backup is required, often delivered by fossil fuels. That means citizens end up paying for two power systems: renewables and their backup.... This intermittency can be huge, as when solar power in the Yukon delivered a massive 150 times more electricity to the grid in May 2022 than it did in December 2022. It is also the reason that the real energy costs of solar and wind are far higher than green campaigners claim....
"One study shows that in China, when including the cost of backup power, the real cost of solar power becomes twice as high as that of coal. Similarly, a peer-reviewed study of Germany and Texas shows that the real costs of solar and wind are many times more expensive than fossil fuels. Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Denmark, all of which increasingly rely on solar and wind power, have some of the world’s most expensive electricity.... The International Energy Agency’s latest data from nearly 70 countries from 2022 shows a clear correlation between more solar and wind and higher average household and business energy prices. In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is about 16 cents per kilowatt-hour. For every 10 per cent increase in solar and wind share, the electricity cost increases by nearly 8 cents per kWh....
"In Germany, electricity costs 43 cents per kWh — much more than twice the Canadian cost, and more than three-times the Chinese price. Germany has installed so much solar and wind that on sunny and windy days, renewable energy satisfies close to 70 per cent of Germany’s needs — a fact the press eagerly reports. But the press hardly mentions dark and still days, when these renewables deliver almost nothing. Twice in the past couple of months, when it was cloudy and nearly windless, solar and wind delivered less than 4 per cent of the daily power Germany needed.... Last month, with cloudy skies and nearly no wind, Germany faced the costliest power prices since the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with wholesale prices reaching a staggering $1.40 per kWh.
"Canada is blessed with plentiful hydro, powering 58 per cent of its electricity. This means that there has been less drive to develop wind and solar, which deliver just 7 per cent. But the urge to virtue signal remains. Indeed, the federal government’s 2023 vision for the electricity system declares that shifting away from fossil fuels is a “scientific and moral imperative” and “the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetime”.
"Yet the biggest take-away from the global evidence is that among all the nations in the world ... there is not one that gets much of its power from solar and wind and has low electricity costs.... Instead, there are plenty of nations with lots of green energy and exorbitantly high costs."
Was Hitler's National Socialism really socialism? In the Marxist paradigm, obviously not: it was a "far right" manifestation of "late-stage capitalism". But the Marxist paradigm is not the only way to look at it.
December 8, 2020 - "Words are powerful things in that they enable us to share a common world of understanding with our contemporaries and, in the written form, with generations long past. But too often words can just as easily cause confusion, misunderstanding, and conflict among people in any society. One such word that keeps causing this type of confusion and conflict is 'socialism.' What does it mean, what forms has it taken, and why does it generate so much intellectual 'heat' rather than 'light?'
"This has come up, again, in a recent article by Ronald J. Granieri, who is research director of the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, on why 'The Right Needs to Stop Falsely Claiming that the Nazis were Socialists' (Washington Post, December 5, 2020).... He seethes with frustration that those he calls on the political 'right' attempt to classify the German Nazi regime of the 1930s and 1940s as 'socialist.' Yes, the formal name of the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers Party ... [and] prominent Nazis may have played to the 'working-class resentments' with the hope of attracting people away from the communists and the democratic socialists ... but there was no directed and consistent challenge against private property....
"Granieri says: 'National Socialism preserved private property, while also putting the entire resources of society at the service of an expansionist and racist national vision, which included the conquest and murderous subjugation of other peoples.' The Nazi regime, therefore, cannot be considered to be 'socialist,' because National Socialism was not interested in controlling the means of production or redistributing wealth to build an egalitarian utopia....
"Granieri also takes a swipe at the Austrian economist and Nobel Prize winner, Friedrich A. Hayek, for attempting to put the socialist label on Nazism in his book The Road to Serfdom (1944).... Hayek was 'enormously influential,' he says, on both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and 'Hayek’s assertion that all government interventions in the economy led to totalitarianism continues to animate popular works' that warn of the 'genocidal dangers' from implementing a welfare state.... Granieri would rather drop all of this distracting labelling controversy and search for ways for 'protecting citizens against the negative exigencies of the market'.... He also wants 'rightists' to drop harping on early 20th century American Progressives who heralded and advocated eugenics as a means of designing superior human types. (But, wait! Were they not simply 'following the science' as widely understood and accepted at the time?)...
"[I]n the house of collectivism there have been many socialist mansions. Among the early 19th century French socialists there was a diversity of views as to whether the socialist society to come, for instance, would be an industrial or agrarian paradise. There were disagreements about whether people could reason their way into radical social change, those whom Marx labelled the 'utopian socialists,' or whether it would come only in its own good time due to inescapable historical evolution and revolution, as Marx insisted.
"The first socialist party to seriously move towards political influence in the second half of the 19th century was the German Democratic Socialists, who shunned the call for violent revolution, and amassed a growing number of votes in electing their candidates to the Imperial German Parliament by pursuing power through the ballot box. This frightened the German powers-that-be, so besides attempting for a while to suppress the German socialist party, Otto von Bismarck, as Chancellor of the German Empire in the 1870s and 1880s, introduced all the major component elements of the modern welfare state as well as interventionist regulations over parts of German industry and trade. Bismarck’s brand soon was labelled 'state socialism' or sometimes 'monarchical socialism'....
"Further to the East in Europe, more doctrinaire Marxian socialists in Imperial Russia rejected the niceties of elections and legislative welfare-state reforms. Only violent revolution could break the capitalist hold on the exploited masses, with, as Lenin came to insist, a dictatorship of the proletariat once in power. This resulted in a schism between democratic and dictatorial socialists for a good part of the 20th century. But ... while these two groups of socialists denounced each other over the means of coming to power, well into the second half of the 20th century they almost all agreed on the desired end: the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the introduction of central planning....
"From these forms of 'socialism,' Granieri’s desire for a democratic 'balancing of interests' based on the expediency of what 'works,' Bismarck’s state socialism seems the closest to what he is looking for. As William Dawson expressed it in Bismarck and State Socialism (1891), 'No department of economic activity should on principle be closed to the state.... The state socialists say that this must be determined by expediency, and by circumstances of time and place.' (pp. 4-6) It was a state socialism in which, as an American admirer of the German system, Frederic Howe, expressed it in his book on Socialized Germany (1915): 'The state has its finger on the pulse of the worker from the cradle to the grave. His education, his health and his working efficiency are matters of constant concern'.... Howe later served in FDR’s New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) that attempted to plan the output of American farming....
"Granieri insists that National Socialism could not be 'socialist' because it did not pursue a 'utopian' ideal for greater equality for all as a whole. But this presumes that the only legitimate utopian dream, and therefore benchmark for labeling something 'socialist,' is the one that Granieri considers good and right. In fact, the Nazis had a utopian vision for the future; it began with their notion of German race purity on the basis of which they rejected the older Prussian idea of aristocratic and class hierarchy. All 'real' Germans were equal and were to be given opportunities for education, occupational and professional advancement as the means by which they could make their contribution to the high good of the German people as a whole.
"That Nazi egalitarianism was limited to only those 'real' Germans possessing the racial characteristics that guided their ideological thinking, with Jews classified as the lowest and most treacherous of race enemies, does not change the fact that they, too, were 'utopians' with social equality goals, but only for those within the 'in-group.' This was nothing but a variation of the Marxist theme that the world is divided into irreconcilable social classes, with the 'capitalists' being the inescapable 'class enemies' of 'the workers.' And as in the Soviet practice, they and their children were stripped of all rights and opportunities, and made into permanent pariahs to be reeducated to serve 'the building of socialism' or liquidated.
"It may be a notion of a utopia that both Granieri and I would reject, but for many in the Nazi leadership and among the wider German population at the time, it was believed in and worked for, no matter [how] reprehensible it may seem to others.... This is what made it a 'national' socialism rather than an international socialism. Its call and appeal were to a segment of humanity defined by asserted racial characteristics, rather than a call for all workers of the world to unite regardless of who or where. In retrospect, this meant that National Socialism could never have a following great enough to conquer and control the world, since its pool of members was definitionally too limited.... Most of the world’s population had to find itself in conflict with Nazism precisely due to its race-based exclusivity....
"It would be possible to draw upon any number of Nazi sources to determine and decide whether National Socialism was a form of 'real' socialism. In 1936, Nazi educator Friedrich Alfred Beck said in Education in the Third Reich, a text meant as a guide for German teachers around the country:
National Socialism has restored the concept of a people from its modern shallowness . . . By people we understand an entire living body which is racially uniform and which is held together by common history, common fate, a common mission, and common tasks . . . Education, from the standpoint of race and people, is the creation of a form of life in which the racial unity will be preserved through the totality of the people . . .
Socialism is the direction of personal life through dependence on the community, consciousness of the community, nationalism is the elevation of individual life to a unique (microcosmic) expression of the community in the unity of the personality.” (Translated in: National Socialism [U.S. Department of State, 1943], p. 28)
"The individual lives through the community, and race and nation define to which community an individual owes his allegiance. Rather than social classes, National Socialism classifies people by race category. This makes you who you are and provides meaning to your life, in the Nazi worldview.
"But what about National Socialist economics? Let us look at Gustav Stolper’s German Economy, 1870-1940 (1940). Stolper was the long-time editor of a German economic magazine oriented toward a classical liberal viewpoint. He was forced to leave Germany with Hitler’s rise to power due to his politics and his Jewish family background, and found refuge in the United States. Stolper explained some of the socialist aspects to Nazi ideology and policy:
The National Socialist party was from the outset an anti-capitalist party. As such it was fighting and in competition with Marxism.... National Socialism wooed the masses [from three angles]. The first angle was the moral principle, the second the financial system, the third the issue of ownership. The moral principle was ‘the commonwealth before self-interest.’ The financial promise was ‘breaking the bondage of interest slavery’. The industrial program was ‘nationalization of all big incorporated business [trusts]’.
By accepting the principle ‘the commonwealth before self-interest,’ National Socialism simply emphasizes its antagonism to the spirit of a competitive society as represented supposedly by democratic capitalism . . . But to the Nazis this principle means also the complete subordination of the individual to the exigencies of the state. And in this sense National Socialism is unquestionably a Socialist system . . .
The nationalization of big industry was never attempted after the Nazis came to power. But this was by no means a ‘betrayal’ of their program, as has been alleged by some of their opponents. The socialization of the entire German productive machinery, both agricultural and industrial, was achieved by methods other than expropriation, to a much larger extent and on an immeasurably more comprehensive scale than the authors of the party program in 1920 probably ever imagined. In fact, not only the big trusts were gradually but rapidly subjected to government control in Germany, but so was every sort of economic activity, leaving not much more than the title of private ownership.” (pp. 232-233; 239-240)....
"Guenter Reimann, in The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism (1939), highlighted that while most of the means of production had not been nationalized, they had nonetheless been politicized and collectivized under an intricate web of Nazi planning targets, price and wage regulations, production rules and quotas, and strict limits and restraints on the action and decisions of those who remained; nominally, the owners of private enterprises throughout the country. Every German businessman knew that his conduct was prescribed and positioned within the wider planning goals of the National Socialist regime.' Not much differently [from] the state factory managers in the Soviet Union, even at that time under Stalin, the German owners of private enterprises were given wide discretion in the day-to-day management of the enterprises that nominally remained in their possession. But Nazi planning agencies set output targets, determined input supplies and allocations, determined wage and work condition rules, and dictated the availability of investment funds and the rates of interest at which they could be obtained through the banking system, along with strict central control and direction of all import and export trade....
"[W]e can turn to a more recent historian of the Nazi regime, that being Goetz Aly in, Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2007). Aly 'focus[es] on the socialist aspect of National Socialism' so as to better understand 'the Nazi regime as a kind of racist-totalitarian welfare state.' Aly emphasizes that the ideology and practice of the Nazi regime were in fact deeply socialist. Within Germany, among the German people of 'pure Aryan blood,' the ideal was an egalitarian social order in which every German would be freed from traditional class barriers so that he might have the opportunity to rise to any level of success in serving the fatherland. The welfare-state policies begun by Bismarck ... were viewed by the Nazis as a prelude to a complete guarantee of a quality standard of living for all 'real' Germans that would be paternalistically provided by the National Socialist state....
"Aly points out that before and during World War II, the German 'capitalist class' was made to pay its 'fair share' for the benefit of the rest of the German people. Taxes were proportionally far higher on the 'rich' in Germany than the rest of the population. During the war the government established mandatory overtime pay in all industries and imposed wage increases to keep 'the masses' loyal to the regime – all at the expense of German business. At the same time, German industry worked under government-commanded four-year plans from 1936 until the end of the war in 1945....
"But it was only after the war started that the machine of redistributive plunder was really set into motion. Every country overrun by the German army not only had to pay the costs of the occupation, but also was systematically looted for the benefit of the German population as a whole.... In every occupied country the Nazis initiated similar confiscatory policies with local accomplices with whom they shared looted Jewish property. (Only in Belgium and Denmark did large segments of the population and the bureaucracy resist participating in this plunder of the Jews.) The Nazis first nationalized Jewish property and then distributed it to those deemed worthy among the German or occupied populations.... Aly estimates that because of this looted property and the goods sent back to Germany by soldiers, many, if not most, Germans enjoyed a more comfortable standard of living throughout most of the war than the civilian population in Great Britain.... The vast majority of German families continued to feast, even under the allied bombings, thanks to the locust-like seizure of anything and everything across occupied Europe....
"No doubt this summary of the content of Goetz Aly’s analysis of the National Socialist welfare system and its version of central planning would convince Ronald Granieri even more that the Nazi regime should not be classified as 'socialist.' But in my view, it demonstrates that all of its characteristics find their family resemblance in socialist regimes. Institutionally, the starting premise is that the individual is little or nothing, and must view himself as dependent upon and working for a wider 'common good,' other than his own personal self-interest.
"In the name of 'the people' those in political authority, whether in that position through votes or violence, establish in the name of 'the people' the hierarchy of social goals, purposes, and collective ends for which a set of government planning policies, interventions and welfare redistributions will be set in motion. Individual choice and decision-making as consumers and producers are significantly reduced or even totally eliminated with government central planning and decision-making replacing voluntary association and exchange.... Prices and production no longer fully reflect the valuations and appraisements of the multitudes of interacting buyers and sellers in the society – which means all of us.... Instead, government plans and interventions determine or heavily influence wages and prices, along with what gets produced and how much; which means everything concerning our personal lives, livelihoods and standards of living.
"In other words, extensive and intrusive government regulations, restrictions, redistributions, and imposed centralized plans demonstrate what Friedrich A. Hayek was arguing over 75 years ago in The Road to Serfdom: that the more government command and control replaces market-based choices, decisions, and opportunities, the less freedom we have over increasing corners and aspects of our lives....
"Ronald Granieri may very well pooh-pooh this because he may not consider some loss of personal liberty something much to despair when it’s replaced with compulsory political paternalism that 'guarantees' various material wants for some that he considers more important than the degree of freedom forgone by some others. But I would ask him to at least admit that this is freedom lost for a coerced 'security,' ... still a compulsory 'taking,' whether done by a voting majority or dictatorial elite.
"And I would further ask him to concede that whether he agrees with the ends and goals of other socialists, their use of command and control and their introduction of some form of institutional central planning to pursue their declared 'social good' makes their system just as much a 'socialist' one as any other that Ronald Granieri might endorse or look more favorably upon. So, whether he likes it or not, the Nazis, too, were socialists, just a different stripe than the ones he feels more comfortable with."
Black Ribbon Day, August 23, commemorates the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia which led to their joint attack on Poland and the start of the Second World War a week later.
August 21, 2024 - "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. That’s why the Alberta government is marking one of the darkest days in 20th Century history by commemorating ‘Black Ribbon Day’ — the 85th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.... [O]n August 23, 1939 the foreign ministers of Germany and Russia signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact that set the groundwork for the invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War a week later on September 1.
"In a statement, the UCP government said it plans to mark the ignominious event with a special event in the rotunda of the Legislature on Friday. 'On the 85th anniversary of Black Ribbon Day we pause to look upon the horrific events of the past and renew our resolve to forever honour the victims of tyranny,' said Legislative Assembly Speaker Nathan Cooper. 'People from around the world observe Black Ribbon Day and we stand with them to uphold the importance of freedom from oppression now and for the generations to come.'
"On August 22 [1939], Joachim von Ribbentrop flew to Moscow to finalize the treaty.... The so-called Hitler-Stalin pact, signed the next day, guaranteed peace between the parties and was a commitment neither government would aid or ally itself with an enemy of the other.... [T]he treaty included the Secret Protocol, which defined the borders of Soviet and German spheres of influence across Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland which would later make up the Iron Curtain....
"‘Black Ribbon Day’ originated in the protests held against the Soviet Union in western capitals, including Ottawa, in the 1980s that led up to the Baltic Revolutions in the countries directly affected by the deal and its aftermath starting in 1989.... In 2009 the European Parliament formally recognized August 23 as the European day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism which was briefly even acknowledged by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
"[Putin] backtracked in 2014 and called the treaty as 'necessary for Russia's survival.' Then in February 2021, the State Duma voted in favor of a law to punish the dissemination of 'fake news' regarding the Soviet Union's role in the Second World War, including claiming that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union held equal responsibility due to the pact." Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/day-of-infamy-alberta-govt-marks-85th-anniversary-of-nazi-soviet-pact/57170
August 23, 2013 - "Black Ribbon Day, also called the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, originated in the 1980s. Central and Eastern European refugees then living in Canada organized a series of peaceful protests on both sides of the Iron Curtain to draw attention to the rampant human rights abuses perpetrated by authorities across the Soviet bloc. They chose August 23, the anniversary of the infamous 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany to hold the annual rallies.
"On August 23, 1989, about 2 million people formed a human chain spanning more than 600 kilometers across the Baltic republics. Known as the Baltic Way, this protest is seen as a defining moment in the Baltic states' battle for independence from the Soviet Union. As the Soviet bloc crumbled in 1991, Black Ribbon Day demonstrations were held in as many as 56 cities around the world.
"Today, Black Ribbon Day commemorates both victims of Stalinism and Nazism and, more generally, all those who died, suffered, or perished under authoritarian regimes. In 2008, the European Parliament became the first entity to formally designate August 23 as a day of remembrance for victims of Stalinism and Nazism. Canada followed suit in 2009 and Georgia, in the Caucasus, one year later." Read more: https://www.rferl.org/a/black-ribbon-day/25083982.html
April 1, 2024 - German cannabis campaigners and aficionados lit celebratory joints at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate at midnight early Monday, gathering for a legal “smoke-in” to mark the nation’s newly liberalized law on marijuana coming into effect. Germany’s government passed legislation allowing adults to possess small amounts of the drug, making it the largest European Union country to legalize possession for recreational use.
"The purchase and sale of cannabis is still prohibited and can lead to fines and imprisonment. Adults can now carry up to 25 grams (nearly an ounce) of marijuana and keep up to 50 grams at home. They can also grow up to three plants for personal use under the law that was passed by Germany’s federal council last month and took effect Monday.
"Adults who don’t want to grow their own plants ... can join 'cannabis clubs' starting in July. They are licensed nonprofit growing cooperatives capped at 500 members who must 'actively participate in the cultivation' to access the club’s cannabis. 'The law does not provide for passive membership that is aimed solely at purchasing cannabis,” the Bundesrat, effectively Germany’s upper house, said in its announcement of the law.
"Marijuana has slightly more restrictions for young adults between ages 18 and 21, and it is still illegal for minors....
"Though the amounts permitted in Germany are relatively small — adults are allowed to possess up to three ounces of cannabis flower in New York, for example — the new law still makes Germany one of the most lenient countries on marijuana in the European Union."
The scientists who did the most in 2020 to have the lab origin of Covid dismissed as a "conspiracy theory," says journalist Robert Kogon, form a group connected with a little-known German-Chinese virology lab, based in Wuhan and partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which also may have been conducting the same gain-of-function research.
March 15, 2024 - "The ‘story of the decade,’ ‘smoking gun,’ ‘case closed.’ The story of US-funded – or, as the case may be, even not funded – gain-of-function research on coronaviruses has been widely presented in recent weeks as the solution to the riddle of Covid: not only the nearly definitive proof that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a laboratory, after all, but also the nearly definitive demonstration of whodunnit. The Americans did it, of course.... Anthony Fauci, the funder of the research; Ralph Baric, the ‘designer’ of the virus; and Peter Daszak, the albeit British head of US-based EcoHealth Alliance, who directed the research. They merely needed a little help from one hired-gun Dutch virologist in the person of Vincent Munster, who made Baric’s virus transmissible at Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab in Montana before it was shipped to Wuhan. And the rest is history.
"But what about all the German connections to virus research in Wuhan which I have documented ... and which involve not just German funding for virus research in Wuhan, but indeed a full-fledged German-Chinese virology lab in Wuhan, which – unlike the Wuhan Institute of Virology – is located right in the area of the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in the city?
"It is all the more remarkable that these German connections are being ignored given that the supposedly ‘American’ story of the creation and release of Covid-19 points right back to them: namely, to a German or, more exactly, German-Dutch coronavirus research nexus, which has played a key role in the Covid-19 response and at whose centre we find none other than Christian Drosten ... the German creator of the notoriously hypersensitive and unreliable Covid-19 PCR test which was the very basis of the declaration of a pandemic.
"Let us start with what is invariably described as Anthony Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab, where Vincent Muster is supposed to have made Baric’s virus design transmissible. The headline of a Daily Mail article even describes it as a 'Fauci-run' lab. Well, although indeed a NIAID research facility and to that extent connected to the former NIAID director Fauci, the actual director of the facility itself is the German virologist Heinz Feldmann. 'So what?' – you might say. There are 80 million Germans. True enough. But there are not 80 million Germans who have conducted virus research with Christian Drosten....
"[I]n addition to Feldmann and Drosten, there are two other notable authors of the above-cited 2011 Ebola virus paper: Vincent Munster, Feldmann’s employee at the Rocky Mountain Lab ... and Stefan Pöhlmann, a virologist based at the German Primate Centre in Göttingen. Like Drosten, Pöhlmann took part in the famous February 1st 2020 conference call with Anthony Fauci on a possible lab leak of SARS-CoV-2. As will be seen momentarily, it was precisely what might be called the ‘EU crew’ around Drosten, and including Pöhlmann, which would attempt to beat back the lab-leak hypothesis in the discussions with their Anglosphere counterparts, both on the call and in emails which followed....
"It should be recalled from the FOIA’d ‘Fauci emails‘ that after the spectre of a laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2 was first raised with Fauci by Kristian Andersen, Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust would arrange for the famous February 1st conference call, bringing in a German-Dutch team of coronavirus experts to discuss the matter with their dismayed Anglosphere colleagues. The concerned Anglosphere scientists were Robert Garry, Andrew Rambaut, Edward Holmes, and the Danish virologist Andersen, who is, however, based at Scripps Research in California. All of them suspected that the virus had a lab origin or were even convinced that it did. Even Farrar, who has been dismissive about lab leak in his public statements, said he was '50-50' between lab leak and natural origin behind the scenes.
"But it was members precisely of the German-Dutch ‘EU team’ who are reported to have lambasted Andersen and his Anglosphere colleagues on the conference call and who would continue to urge, in subsequent correspondence, that the matter be, in Drosten’s words, 'dropped.' We have already noted Heinz Feldmann’s connections to the two German members of the EU team, Christian Drosten and Stefan Pöhlmann. The other two members of the team were the Dutch virologists Marion Koopmans and Ron Fouchier. Koopmans is head of the Erasmus University Medical Centre’s department of Viroscience and co-author of Drosten’s controversial PCR-protocol paper [which]had been published by the EU-funded journal Eurosurveillance just one week before the conference call. Fouchier is ... Koopman’s deputy at the Department of Viroscience of the Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam. He is also co-author of the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 paper....
"[W]hat does that have to do with Vincent Munster’s alleged concoction of SAR-CoV-2 at Feldmann’s (not Fauci’s) Rocky Mountain Lab? Well, Munster is Fouchier’s student! Fouchier was the co-director of Munster’s PhD thesis (as can be seen here), along with Ab Osterhaus, who is perhaps the key historical figure in the formation of the German-Dutch virology nexus. Osterhaus was the head of the Viroscience Department at the Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam until 2014, when he was succeeded by Koopmans. The 75-year-old Dutchman presently leads a ‘One Health’ working group at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover....
"Neither Koopmans nor Pöhlmann appear to have played an active role in the conference call. As the FOIA’d emails and the related Slack messages make clear, 'Christian' and 'Ron' led the charge. They would keep the pressure on in the subsequent email exchanges, ultimately getting Andersen and his Anglosphere colleagues to recant their original theory and to endorse precisely the opposite theory, i.e., that of a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2, in their now infamous 'Proximal Origin' paper....
"Now, if you were a detective investigating a crime – for instance, the creation of a supposedly deadly virus (whether it was in fact so deadly is, of course, another matter) – whose behaviour would you find suspicious? The behaviour of those who themselves expressed concern about a lab leak and were keen on investigating the matter – including, nota bene, none other than Anthony Fauci, who even suggested contacting the FBI! – or the behaviour of those who were dismissive and defensive and tried to shut the conversation down?
"'Didn’t we congregate to challenge a certain theory and, if we could, drop it?” Christian Drosten asked with notable irritation in a terse February 9th 2020 email to the other members of the group: 'Who came up with this story in the beginning? Are we working on debunking our own conspiracy theory?' Do these sound like the words of an innocent man? Not much, especially if we consider that before this email emerged thanks to an American FOIA request, Drosten had insisted in a sworn statement to a German court that he 'had no interest in steering the suspicion about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a certain direction. In particular, I had and I have no personal interest in ruling out the so-called laboratory thesis.' No interest in steering the suspicion in a certain direction?! How is that consistent with 'Didn’t we congregate to challenge a certain theory, and if we could, drop it'?
"Drosten, as discussed in my ‘Why Fauci, not Drosten?‘, has links to the German-Chinese virology lab in Wuhan and its German Co-Director Ulf Dittmer. As seen in the below photo, a 2015 German-Government-sponsored virology symposium in Berlin brought together not only Drosten and the bat coronavirus specialist Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV], but also both the German and the Chinese Co-Directors of the German-Chinese lab, Ulf Dittmer and Dongliang Yang, and both the then- and apparently even the current Directors of the WIV to boot!
a) Wang Yanyi? b) Shi Zhengli c) Christian Drosten d) Ulf Dittmer e) Dongliang Yang f) Chen Xinwen.
"The [WIV] Director at the time, Chen Xinwen, is the small, buck-toothed man with the blue tie in the photo. The young woman with the long black hair in the lower left-hand corner appears to be current WIV director Wang Yanyi, although Wang is not listed as a participant in the event programme.
"In January 2020, moreover, Drosten told the Germany daily Die Berliner Zeitung that he had learned about the supposedly novel virus in Wuhan from virologist colleagues in the city before any infections had even been officially reported!
"If a virus engineered in Montana is supposed to have somehow gotten to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, even though the WIV was not even a part of the US-funded CREID project which is alleged to have made the connection, why could it not have gotten to the German-Chinese virology laboratory on the other side of the Yangtze? (Moreover, the CREID project – which is in fact more a network than a project – was not even launched until 2020: several months after the official start of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan.)
"As the below map from Science magazine makes clear, the campuses of the Wuhan Institute of Virology are in fact nowhere near the area of the initial cluster of Covid-19 cases in Wuhan. The German-Chinese lab, by contrast, is right in the cluster. It is located at Union Hospital, designated by number 6 in the map. The Chinese co-sponsor of the lab, Tongji Medical College, is located virtually at the very epicentre of the outbreak: roughly one kilometre to the north of Tongji Hospital, which is designated by number 5 in the map....
[W]hat do we know about the research which was being conducted at the German-Chinese virology lab in Wuhan itself? Not much. In September 2021, one Reinhard G. used a website dedicated to posing questions to German parliamentarians in order to ask the German member of the European Parliament Christian Ehler whether gain-of-function research was being conducted at the German-Chinese lab. Ehler is chair of the EU Parliament’s Panel on the Future of Science and Technology (STOA). Reinhard G. did not receive an answer. Ehler’s team merely noted that they did not know.
"But why are no German journalists or commentators, many of whom have shown great interest in DEFUSE and CREID, demanding to know?
"The DEFUSE proposal was not funded. The CREID network is funded by the US Government, but the Wuhan Institute of Virology is not part of it and it only got underway well after the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan. The German-Chinese lab was launched in 2017 and it is funded by the German Government. It grew out of a German-Chinese joint virology project, TRR60, which was publicly-funded for a full decade from 2009 to 2018 and which, as I have shown here, proudly featured the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a partner.
"Why should the world not know as much about the German-Chinese lab and TRR60 as it knows about DEFUSE and CREID? Where are the Freedom of Information requests? Why is the German Government being spared them? If anyone asked, at least it could say no, which would be revealing in its own right. We know that the German Government funds gain-of-function experiments, because none other than Christian Drosten was coordinator of a multi-part publicly-funded RAPID project which includes them.... Stefan Pöhlmann was, incidentally, Director of one of the RAPID sub-projects.
"Of course, if one only has US information, one will end up telling a US story. But if a foreign power really did have a hand in the escape or release of an engineered virus in Wuhan, then prima facie Germany is the far likelier suspect."
Germany's capital was gridlocked on Monday as the country's farmers brought their ongoing national protests to Berlin, with an estimated 30,000 rallying at the Brandenburg Gate.
January 18, 2024 - "Thousands of tractors rolled through Berlin on Monday. The city was clogged for hours as the approximately 6,000 machines made their way to the city centre. Their destination was Brandenburg Gate where a protest rally, attended by many thousands (the organisers claimed 30,000) took place. It was the climax of a week-long protest organised by German farmers all over the country. And it was a massive show of discontentment with the government and its green agenda.
"'The traffic light coalition must go', was the main demand, displayed on banners fixed to the tractors. (The traffic light stands for the party colours of the three coalition partners - SPD, Green Party and Liberals.) It was a message echoed by the participants at the demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate too. When asked why they were taking part in the rally, people replied ‘because this policy is not only destroying the farmers, but the whole country’, or ‘because we are fed up with the restrictions imposed on us’.
"The protests were triggered in December when the government announced that it would abolish tax reliefs on agricultural diesel and farm vehicles [as] part of a general budget cut which became necessary after a court ruling exposed a €17 billion gap in the original 2024 budget. The additional burden on farmers was justified with the argument that the government wanted to cancel ‘climate-damaging subsidies’. Farmers, who depend on agricultural diesel vehicles - understandably - saw this as an outrageous disregard for their work. ‘Why should we pay for the government’s incompetence?’ asked one farmer said at the rally.
"It was stupid of the government to believe it could get away with its new tax hikes at a time of growing discontentment. Like other entrepreneurs, farmers are suffering from the high energy prices in Germany. And because parts of the chemical industry have ceased production, fertiliser prices have also rocketed. In January, before the protests hit the streets, the government tried to appease the angry farmers by taking back the tax on vehicle fuel. It also said that the diesel tax would be phased out over a period of two years, rather than all at once. But the farmers who had geared up for the fight were not willing to be put off by such half-hearted compromises....
"For years, discontentment at ever harsher environmental regulations and time-consuming bureaucracy has been building up amongst farmers. In 2019, farmers blocked Berlin’s streets after the Merkel government demanded a 20 per cent reduction in the use of fertilisers, as part of its agricultural reform package. Since then, matters have become even worse. Keen to meet the EU’s strict nitrate laws, the current government announced further directives on nitrates, pesticides and animal-husbandry last summer. As part of the EU’s green new deal, farmland is now being identified for ‘renaturalisation’. Many farmers have already had to reduce their animal stock as a result....
"The determination of the farmers and the size of the protests have caught the government unprepared. On Monday, many protesters said they were fighting for nothing less than the survival of their industry. Without the freedom to make informed decisions, farming would have no future in Germany, they said. But what has made these latest protests special is that they have found such widespread support. Hauliers, craftsmen, restaurant owners and hunters were amongst those standing in front of Brandenburg Gate. Lorry drivers have announced that they will continue the protests this week. And as the tractors rolled through Berlin, countless people could be seen waving at them, and showing the thumbs up sign. A survey carried out by one of Berlin’s leading newspapers found that 65 per cent of those questioned said they stood on the side of the farmers....
"Regrettably, the government has reacted very helplessly. It has said that it would hold on to the cuts, but would reduce bureaucracy for farmers. When Scholz finally commented on the protests last week, he accused the farmers of being too radical: ‘If legitimate protests turn into anger or disregard for democratic processes and institutions, then we all lose’, he said. Such warnings say more about the chancellor and his fear than about the actual protests. The participants on Monday reacted with derision when asked about reports of far-right groups infiltrating the protests. ‘Do you see any right-wingers here?’ asked one. ‘Such talk is all about unsettling people’, said another.
"There were some flags showing the colours of the right-populist AfD, but very few, and only on the periphery. Indeed, the AfD has not been particularly popular with farmers so far. In the last general election in 2021, only eight per cent of farmers voted for the party.... It won't help the government to lump the farmers and their supporters into the corner of right-wing extremists. It will only make people think that for this government, anyone who opposes its green agenda is right-wing. The great solidarity with the farmers shows how exposed this agenda stands."
April 11, 2023 - "The German government is phasing out nuclear power despite the energy crisis. The country is pulling the plug on its last three reactors on Saturday (15 April), betting it will succeed in its green transition without nuclear power.... While many Western countries depend on nuclear power, Europe's largest economy is turning the page - even if the subject remains controversial until the end.
"Germany is implementing the decision to phase out nuclear power taken in 2002 and accelerated by Angela Merkel in 2011, after the Fukushima disaster. Fukushima showed that 'even in a high-tech country like Japan, the risks associated with nuclear energy cannot be controlled 100 per cent', the former chancellor justified at the time. The announcement convinced public opinion in a country where the powerful anti-nuclear movement was initially fuelled by fears of a Cold War conflict, and then by accidents such as Chernobyl.
"The invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 brought everything into question. Deprived of Russian gas, ... Germany found itself exposed to the worst possible scenarios, from the risk of its factories being shut down to the risk of being without heating in the middle of winter.
"With just a few months to go before the initial deadline for closing the last three reactors on 31 December, the tide of public opinion began to turn. 'With high energy prices and the burning issue of climate change, there were of course calls to extend the plants,' says Jochen Winkler, mayor of Neckarwestheim, where the plant of the same name is in its final days. Olaf Scholz's government, which the Green Party - the most hostile to nuclear power - is part of, finally decided to extend the operation of the reactors to secure the supply until 15 April....
"Sixteen reactors have been closed since 2003. The last three plants supplied 6 per cent of the country's energy last year, compared with 30.8 per cent [from all 19 plants] in 1997. Meanwhile, the share of renewables in the generation mix has risen to 46 per cent by 2022, up from less than 25 per cent a decade earlier.
"The current rate of progress in renewables does not satisfy either the government or environmentalists, and Germany will not meet its climate targets without a serious push.... The equation is even more complex given the goal of shutting down the country's coal-fired power plants by 2038, many of them by 2030. Coal still accounts for a third of Germany's electricity production, with an 8 per cent increase last year to compensate for the absence of Russian gas.
"Germany needs to install 'four to five wind turbines every day' over the next few years to cover its needs, warned Olaf Scholz. This is a tall order compared to the 551 units installed in 2022. A series of regulatory relaxations adopted in recent months should speed up the pace. 'The planning and approval process for a wind power project takes an average of four to five years,' according to the industry association (BWE), which believes that gaining one or two years would be 'a considerable step forward'."
February 11, 2023 - "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh alleges that US Navy divers laid the bombs that destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea last September, cutting Russian gas supplies to Europe. The Pentagon has denied the claim but Moscow, which Western countries suspect of involvement, says it should be taken seriously.
"According to a blog written by Hersh on the site Substack, American navy divers planted remotely triggered explosives that wrecked three of the four pipelines built to carry natural gas from Russia to Europe. Hersh claims that the US Navy planted the explosives under the cover of a Nato maritime exercise, Baltic Operation 22, known as BaltOps, which involved vessels from 14 Nato member states and took place in the Baltic between 5 and 17 June 2022....
"Hersh puts the motivation for the attack down to a simple political calculation. 'With Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming,' he writes, 'President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponise natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions'.... Putin would now have an additional and much-needed major source of income, and Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia – while diminishing European reliance on America."
"The September 2022 explosions were blamed by Western countries on Russia, adding to the anger against Moscow in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. Investigations by Swedish, Danish and German authorities have not pinned the blame on any one country or actor. Swedish investigators have already said they believe the blasts were the result of 'gross sabotage'.
"Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden warned that the Nord Stream 2 project connecting Russia and Germany would not move forward if an attack took place. This led some commentators to suspect US involvement when the pipelines were destroyed seven months later. 'If Russia invades – that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again – then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,' Biden said on 7 February 2022. 'We will bring an end to it.'
"Pentagon spokesman Marine Corps Lt. Col. Garron J. Garn says 'the United States was not involved in the Nord Stream explosion'. 'This is utterly false and complete fiction,' stated Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council....
"Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Hersh's work is a 'very serious' article that offered 'deep analysis'. 'It would be unfair not to give it attention,' he said.... Peskov added that Moscow had information "on the involvement of the Anglo-Saxons in the organisation of this act of sabotage', a claim Russia has made repeatedly but without providing any evidence publicly."
Dec 31, 2022 "Last week, Christian Drosten – Germany’s Anthony Fauci – finally declared the pandemic over:
The head of virology at Berlin Charité, Christian Drosten, believes that the Corona pandemic in Germany has ended. “We’re experiencing the first endemic wave with SARS-CoV-2 this winter; in my opinion the pandemic is over,” Drosten said in an interview … After this winter, the immunity in the population will be so broad and resilient that the virus can hardly be able to break through in the summer. The virologist said his only reservation was the possibility of another mutation. “But at the moment I don't expect that either …” The virologist defended the measures taken to contain the virus: “It was never about stopping the pandemic, it was clear from the beginning that that was not possible. But if we had done nothing at all, we would’ve had a million deaths or more in Germany in the successive waves through Delta. So we had to reduce contacts.” ['Exklusiv Christian Drosten zur Corona-Lage in Deutschland: „Nach meiner Einschätzung ist die Pandemie vorbei“, TagesSpiegel, December 25, 2022.]
"There are more than 83 million people in Germany, which makes it hard to imagine how a virus with (at worst) a 0.5% infection fatality rate ever could’ve managed a million deaths. Even harder to imagine, is that Drosten is mistaken and not lying about this. He and the other Corona astrologers will go to their graves exaggerating the risk of the virus to justify their actions, but with every passing moment fewer and fewer will believe them. All that matters, is that not even Drosten can deny it now. The Corona era has drawn to a close.
"Importantly, it wasn’t lockdowns that ended the pandemic, and it wasn’t masks or mass vaccination or any of the other One Cool Tricks offered us by our technocratic solutionsists either. It was Omicron, a more contagious and less virulent Corona lineage that behaves like a totally different pathogen, and that rapidly displaced all prior strains. From the speed of the collapse of the containment regime in the first half of 2022, you gain some idea of how sick the apparatus already was, after two years of inflationary policies, wall-to-wall carpet-bomb propaganda, and an increasingly threadbare immunological mythology. Cleverer governments immediately ended the measures. Duller bureaucracies, like those native to Germany, took a lot longer, and boiled away much of their remaining credibility in their effort to keep the pandemic circus running.
"What has ensued in the wake of Corona, above all, is the deafening silence of the press. This silence has persisted as international comparisons continue to reveal lockdowns as an abject health and policy failure; as mortality continues to rise across the mass vaccinated world; and as demand for the extremely safe and highly effective mRNA elixirs that were supposed to save us collapses. As if to fill the vacuum of their incuriosity, journalists have careened from one panic to the next, inflating a whole false Monkeypox pandemic already in the smouldering ashes of their faded virus craze, and hyperventilating endlessly about Putin and the end of democracy in Ukraine. Only the economic and energy crises unleashed by the sanctions they championed have failed to interest them.
"The pre-pandemic world is gone forever. If the past year has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that much. Mass containment has permanently transformed our societies and our cultures. It has cemented the cooperative relationship between the regime and the press, and it has changed the content and the tenor of our media. Drama and panic have always sold newspapers, but our new era is characterised by an unending self-reinforcing cyclone of hyperventilation journalism, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. For the foreseeable future, I think, we will careen from one crisis to the next.
"The pandemic has also changed politics. We have all learned that our alleged liberal rights and freedoms are quaint fictions, which will evaporate in the face of any false emergency. This is one reason that the unceasing hysteria of the press is so ominous, for it represents a continual attempt to restore those extraordinary conditions in which the managers wield absolute power. Under the pretense of emergency, everything is permitted. The government can seal you inside your home, forbid you from seeing friends, and outlaw all protest. It can banish all criticism from the media, and with a bit more hyperventilation, it can probably even force-medicate you. In the pre-2020 world, of course, our governments could do all of these things as well. What is different now, is +merely that many more people know that they can, and approve nevertheless.
"Finally, it is now clear that the pandemic has changed our society in dramatic ways. Anything that you do for more than a few weeks becomes a part of you, and in Germany we locked down for seven months, and endured the deranged paroxysms of the vaccinators for even longer. Surveys show that the Corona era has left people fatter, sicker, and suffering from far higher rates of substance abuse. Many report drastic reductions in the quality of their social life. Rates of loneliness and depression will be elevated for decades. All of this was predicted, but what’s more astonishing is the apparent disappearance of vast numbers of people from public life and the economy.."
July 18, 2022 - "A farmers protest that began in The Netherlands over proposals to slash emissions has spread to other parts of Europe with cultivators in Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland taking to the streets in solidarity with their counterparts.
"It all kicked off in June as Dutch farmers protested over their government’s proposals to slash emissions of damaging pollutants, a plan that will likely force cultivators to cut their livestock herds or stop work altogether.... Some 40,000 farmers gathered in June in the central Netherlands' agricultural heartland to protest the government's plans. Many arrived by tractor, snarling traffic around the country.... Days later, farmers again took their protests to crowded highways, driving slowly along the roads or stopping altogether. Some have dumped hay bales on roads, and small groups demonstrated at town and city halls, in some cases starting bonfires outside the buildings. Some farmers set hay bales ablaze alongside highways, while others gathered in towns and cities, including The Hague.
"The Dutch government was forced to act after a series of court rulings that blocked infrastructure and construction projects because of fears they would cause emissions that breach environmental rules.... The government says emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia, which livestock produce, must be drastically reduced close to nature areas that are part of a network of protected habitats for endangered plants and wildlife stretching across the 27-nation European Union. Dutch farmers say that they are being unfairly targeted as polluters while other industries, such as aviation, construction and transport, also are contributing to emissions and face less far-reaching rules.... As per The Scottish Farmer, supermarkets are running out of food as the protests continue to intensify. This, as fishermen have been blocking ports and several ships honking their horns to express their discontent over inflation.
"German farmers blockaded roads on the border with the Netherlands and gathered in large numbers to protest near the city of Heerenburg. As per The Deep Dive, German farmer groups are themselves upset over a recent renewable energy Act amendment by parliament, claiming it does not provide enough support for biogas production. 'It is completely incomprehensible that in the middle of this far-reaching energy crisis, a sustainable domestic energy source such as biogas is being curbed in the production of electricity, heat, and biomethane,' Bernhard Krüsken, secretary-general of the German Farmers’ Association, told the website.
"As per the website, Polish farmers also rose up in protest over the cost of fertiliser and cheap food imports being allowed and thus increasing local production costs. The farmers took to the streets of Warsaw shouting: “Enough is enough! We won’t let ourselves be robbed!” and “We workers cannot pay for the crisis created by politicians!”
"In Spain, farmers blocked highways in the southern region of Andalusia to protest against high fuel prices and the rising costs of essential products, as per The Scottish Farmer. In Milan, Italian farmers in a convoy of tractors blocked city traffic, as per Morning Star Online. This comes in the backdrop of Italian farmers facing a severe drought that has put a third of agricultural produce at risk. Farmers say they have lost around €3 billion as a result of the emergency and are being hit hard by rising fuel prices with costs rocketing as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, as per the report....
"The ruling coalition wants to cut emissions of pollutants, predominantly nitrogen oxide and ammonia, by 50 per cent nationwide by 2030.... They warn that farmers will have to adapt or face the prospect of shuttering their businesses. 'The honest message ... is that not all farmers can continue their business,' and those who do will likely have to farm differently, the government said in a statement this month as it unveiled emission reduction targets. Livestock produce ammonia in their urine and faeces.... The problem is compounded in the Netherlands, which is known for its intensive farming practices, with large numbers of livestock kept on small areas of land....
"Agriculture — from dairy farming to growing crops in fields and greenhouses — is a significant part of the Dutch economy. According to a national farming lobby group, LTO, there are nearly 54,000 agricultural businesses in the Netherlands with exports totalling 94.5 billion euros in 2019."
December 4, 2021 - " Tens of thousands of protesters marched through several northwest European cities on Saturday to demonstrate against coronavirus restrictions imposed amid a surge in infections.
"Austria last month became the first country in Western Europe to reimpose a lockdown, which is set to last 20 days, and said it would make vaccinations mandatory from February. Some of the more than 40,000 demonstrators in Vienna carried signs reading: 'I will decide for myself,' 'Make Austria Great Again' and 'New Elections'.... Around 1,200 police officers deployed for the march on the central Ring boulevard, and a 1,500-strong counter-protest, both allowed under the terms of Austria’s lockdown.
"In the central Dutch town of Utrecht, several thousand demonstrated against restrictions that began last weekend. Protesters carried banners reading 'Medical Freedom Now!', with a large police contingent present. It was the first major demonstration in the Netherlands against the measures....
"In the German financial capital, Frankfurt, police broke up a demonstration of several hundred people for failing to wear masks or maintain social distancing, using batons and pepper spray after they were attacked by a group of protesters. And in Berlin, where a new government is set to take office within days, small groups gathered to protest after a large demonstration was banned."
November 24, 2021 - "Germany’s new government thwarted a plan by outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel to put in place a two-week Austria-style national lockdown, German tabloid Bild reported on Wednesday.... Merkel put forth the proposal on Tuesday evening, and according to Bild the lockdown would have applied from Thursday onwards. It was however knocked back by the incoming government, who said it would have been interpreted by the public as a 'bad political trick' in tandem by the old and the new government, Bild reported on Wednesday afternoon.
"Citing several sources close to the government, Bild said Merkel wanted to cut rising infection rates through a ‘handbrake’ style national lockdown, which would have included closures of bars, restaurants and shops. Like Austria’s lockdown, which came into effect on Monday, November 22nd, the measure would have applied not only to the unvaccinated, but also to those who have been vaccinated against Covid or who have recently recovered from the virus.
"Germany’s new Infection Protection Act came into effect on Wednesday, which prevents such a nationwide lockdown and instead places greater responsibility on Germany’s 16 federal states. Therefore, the new act restricts the current government’s power to put in place a nationwide lockdown should it be deemed necessary and will require agreement from the states should harsher measures be adopted.
[This new amendment restores the situation that existed in Germany prior to April 2021, when the Merkel government amended the Infection Protection Act to allow the federal government to impose lockdowns. - gd]
"Covid cases have been surging in Germany in recent days, hitting record heights. Several parts of the country, primarily in the heavily-hit south, have put in place restrictive measures including stay at home orders and requiring restaurants to close."
November 17, 2021 - "Those who, for varying personal reasons, have chosen not to get vaccinated against Covid are facing increased, targeted restrictions around the world. The introduction of lockdowns against the unvaccinated only in Austria and, in the coming weeks, in Germany is perhaps the most extreme example of separation yet.
"The incoming Social Democrat (SDP) government today warned that those 14million Germans who have not been vaccinated will be prevented, likely with the threat of fines, from using public transport and from going to work. Meanwhile, millions of other citizens will be permitted by the state to live their lives as normal (save from working and travelling alongside their unvaccinated friends and relatives).
"The SDP and its coalition partners will present these plans to parliament for approval on Thursday. They have been labelled a form of 'lockdown apartheid'. Dirk Wiese, the Deputy Head of the SPD parliamentary group, was very willing to admit that 'this is actually a lockdown for the unvaccinated'.
Daily Sceptic Editor Toby Young told Express.co.uk: 'Given its history, I hoped Germany would be a bit more inhibited about curtailing the rights of a part of its population on the grounds that they’re dangerous and unclean. But apparently not.' He added: 'The really worrying thing is that it could happen here.'
In the UK, thousands of care home workers have been sacked because they failed to comply with a new Covid vaccine mandate. The Government recently expanded its mandate to cover all frontline NHS staff – last year lauded for their efforts to curtail the impact of the virus. Vaccine passports have also been put on the back-burner and could be introduced if the Government decides to implement its winter ‘Plan B’. This would also trigger the re-introduction of face mask mandates and work from home guidelines.
"Reported cases reached a high of more than 50,000 in Germany on November 10."
November 22, 2021 - The German health minister has warned citizens that they would be either 'vaccinated, cured or dead' from COVID-19 by the end of winter as several European countries impose restrictions amid surging infections.... Germany’s worst-hit regions have ordered new shutdowns, including the closure of Christmas markets.
"In regions with high hospitalisation rates, the unvaccinated will be barred from public spaces like cinemas, gyms and indoor dining. Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Germany’s current COVID restrictions, including barring the unvaccinated from certain public spaces 'are not enough'....
"Germany added another 30,643 cases on Monday, according to the Robert Koch Institute health agency, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to just more than 5.3 million. Almost 100,000 people have died so far, including 62 during the past 24 hours."
Thousands march in Montreal against mandatory vaccines for health workers, vaccination passport | CBC News - Sabrina Jones: August 28, 2021 - "Thousands of people marched in Montreal Saturday in protest of Quebec's public health measures, including the upcoming vaccination passport and mandatory vaccines for health-care workers. Protestors gathered at Maisonneuve Park around 1 p.m. and marched along Sherbrooke Street to end in front of the Quebec Order of Nurses (OIIQ) building on Molson Street. Signs reading, 'Choice, not mandate' and 'No to mandatory vaccinations,' in French could be seen among the crowd....
"Organizers behind Saturday's protest, the Canadian Frontline Nurses and Réinfo Covid Québec, say this latest demonstration, called "Professionals United", is significant. According to the groups, professionals from health-care, education and policing sectors took part in it and spoke out, despite the repercussions they may face at work." Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-protest-mandatory-vaccines-vaccination-passport-1.6157031
Over 1,000 people protested against the vaccine mandate on Saturday in New York City | Daily Mail - Christopher Eberhart: August 28, 2021 - "Over 1,000 people flooded New York City streets again to protest the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and then gathered in Columbus Circle where speakers fired up the crowd. One woman said, 'This is a war call. This is a fight. Leave here and do something ... Fight for your rights'.... The protest is in reaction to the new requirement for people ages 12 and older to show proof they've received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to get into restaurants or bars, gyms and indoor entertainment such as movies and theaters.
"Demonstrators chanted sayings like, 'My body, my choice,' on their way to Columbus Circle Saturday afternoon. They held signs saying 'Stop the medical tyranny', 'I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery' and 'Coercion is not consent', among dozens of others....
"Similar protests took place across the pond in the UK, where thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of central London in protest as they continue their campaign against mandated vaccines and COVID-19 passports. Demonstrators purportedly from The Save Our Rights UK group, armed with St George's flags, placards, banners and megaphones, spent the afternoon marching through the capital.... Pictures from the scene show crowds armed with placards bearing slogans including 'my body my choice' and 'hands off our children' as they made their way through the capital on Saturday." Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9936429/Its-war-call-Thousands-flood-New-York-City-streets-protest-vaccine-mandate.html
Seventh consecutive weekly protest against France's Covid-19 health pass | France 24: August 29, 2021 - "A total of 160,000 people protested across France on Saturday, the interior ministry said, angered at the country's Covid-19 health pass system which they say unfairly restricts the unvaccinated. By early evening the authorities had logged 222 separate protest actions, including 14,500 people who turned out in Paris....
Thousands march in Berlin in second day of anti-vaccination protests | Globe & Mail - Reuters: August 29, 2021 - "Several thousand people marched through the streets of Berlin on Sunday for a second day of unauthorized protest against coronavirus vaccinations and restrictions.... Dozens of police dressed in riot gear sought to control the march through residential streets in eastern Berlin. Berlin police said on Twitter they had detained about 80 people at the demonstration, with a focus on violent people or those calling for violations of coronavirus regulations. On Saturday, police detained more than 100 people at a similar demonstration after the marchers tried to get through barricades to the government quarter in central Berlin." Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-berlin-protest-against-covid-19-health-regulations-vaccines-attracts/
Italian teachers protest against Covid pass for schools | La Prensa Latina: August 30, 2021 - "Italian union members demonstrated Monday in front of Italy’s ministry of education in Rome against the requirement for a Covid health passport to enter schools. According to representatives of the Italian teachers union, the health pass imposed on citizens is an 'illegal, illegitimate, discriminatory and inadmissible instrument of blackmail, control and social exclusion.' Some 300 teachers, union representatives and anti-vaccine protesters took to the streets to demand the government to annul the new rule.... that will come into effect on 1 September." Read more: https://www.laprensalatina.com/italian-teachers-protest-against-covid-pass-for-schools/
Protest Against Mandatory Vaccination Turns Violent in Greece | Greek Reporter - Tasos Kokkinidis: August 30, 2021 - "Thousands took part in protests against mandatory vaccination in Greece on Sunday, the largest being held in Athens and Thessaloniki. In the Greek capital, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse a group of demonstrators who threw flares and other objects at Syntagma Square opposite the Parliament building. Many demonstrators were waving Greek flags, chanting slogans and demanding the plan to make vaccinations mandatory for all health professionals starting September 1 be reversed. Dozens of people have been detained, as tensions were running high. This was the third major demonstration against compulsory vaccination in Athens in the last couple of months." Read more: https://greekreporter.com/2021/08/30/protest-mandatory-vaccination-turns-violent-greece/
July 31, 2021 - "Judges in the German capital have moved to ban a number of weekend demonstrations amid fears they will lead to a rise in coronavirus infections. Police expect protesters to travel to Berlin nonetheless.
"Berlin authorities have banned more than tens of thousands of anti-lockdown protesters demonstrating this weekend. Judges at the German capital's administrative court refused to authorize 13 demonstrations, some of which had been organized by the Querdenker (Lateral thinker) anti-lockdown movement. The ban was upheld by the Berlin-Brandeburg upper administrative court. Organizers said 22,500 people had registered to take part in one of the rallies.... A separate march planned for Sunday has also been forbidden. The 'For Peace, Freedom, Truth' rally had been expected to draw 3,500 people....
"The bans affect all protests 'whose participants regularly do not follow legal regulations, specifically to protect against infections,' said police spokesman Thilo Cablitz."
August 2, 2021 - "More than 600 people have been arrested after participating in protests against the German government’s coronavirus measures, officials have said. About 13 separate demonstrations took place around Berlin on Sunday, despite being banned by a court order and participants saying they would not follow safety rules.
"Most of the approximately 5,000 protesters – a fraction of the 22,500 expected before the ban was announced – failed to stick to social distancing rules or to wear medical masks, according to police. After participants did not heed orders to abide by hygiene rules, police used pepper spray and truncheons to break up the crowds. Water cannon and a tank similar to an armoured recovery vehicle were on hand but not needed, according to police.
"Police confirmed that a 49-year-old man, who had travelled from the Rhineland region with his son to participate, collapsed and later died after breaking through a barrier [and beind detained - gd].... Several police officers were also injured on Sunday....
"Organisers have complained that they are being treated differently from other political demonstrations, such as the Christopher Street Day parade that took place in Berlin last month, attracting 65,000 participants. Mask-wearing and physical distancing rules were often ignored at that event."
June 3, 2021 - "A new study by German scientists claims to have found ... that lockdowns may have had little effect on controlling the coronavirus pandemic. Statisticians at Munich University found 'no direct connection' between the German lockdown and falling infection rates in the country.
"Instead, the study found infection rates had already clearly begun to fall before a national lockdown was imposed last November. It also found clear evidence the rate was already falling on the two occasions the lockdown was tightened, in December and April.
"The study focused on the R number, which indicates how many people each infected person passes the virus to. The scientists argue it is less easily distorted by fluctuating test rates than the weekly infection rates used by the German government to decide lockdown restrictions. The study found that on each occasion the R number was already under 1 before the new restrictions came into force, indicating that infections were falling. The lockdown has since been lifted across most of the country.
"'The measures taken could have had a positive effect on the course of the infection, but are not solely responsible for the decline,' the study’s authors wrote.
"The study was quickly seized on by lockdown opponents, but its authors were at pains to stress they were not making a political argument. 'You can't tell from the data that the lockdown was unnecessary,' Prof Ralph Brinks, one of the study’s co-authors, told German television. 'All that it shows is that the start of lockdown and the fall in infections do not coincide.'
"While no one has disputed the study’s figures, other scientists argued the debate over lockdown may have contributed to the fall in infections. Thorsten Lehr, professor of clinical pharmacy at Saarland University, told German television public discussions over impending lockdown measures may have influenced people to change their behaviour and meet others less."
