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Rocket attack in Iraq kills two Americans and a British citizen
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 6: Politix
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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic
[CNBC] The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on Wednesday as the new coronavirus, which was unknown to world health officials just three months ago, has rapidly spread to more than 121,000 people from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

"In the past two weeks the number of cases outside China has increased thirteenfold and the number of affected countries has tripled," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. "In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries to climb even higher."

Tedros said several countries have demonstrated the ability to suppress and control the outbreak, be he scolded other world leaders for failing to act quickly enough or drastically enough to contain the spread.

"We’re deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction," he said, just before declaring the pandemic. "We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear."

Cases in China and South Korea have significantly declined, he said, adding that 81 countries don’t have any confirmed cases and 57 countries have 10 or fewer cases.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 13:02 || Comments || Link || [336102 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And that helps us how?
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/11/2020 18:17 Comments || Top||

#2  The Health Ministry announced Wednesday that the number of coronavirus patients diagnosed in Israel has risen to 97.

Out of 82 patients, 71 remain hospitalized across the country, five are on their way to hospital, three are in-home patients, and an additional three have recovered and been released.

The majority of the patients are in relatively mild condition, four are in moderate condition - and one is in serious condition.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/11/2020 18:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Probably opens up money boxes.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 03/11/2020 19:52 Comments || Top||


Rand Paul: $8.3B in emergency funds to fight coronavirus should come from 'foreign welfare'
[Washington Examiner] Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wants to funnel the $8.3 billion that will be spent to combat the coronavirus out of the money spent on foreign aid.

After passing through both chambers of Congress, President Trump signed legislation that makes $8.3 billion in emergency funding available to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Paul, who was the only senator to vote against the spending package, views the funding as necessary to address the spreading illness, but he did not want to take out the taxpayers' checkbook without saving money elsewhere.

"I support the money," Paul told WDRB. "I just think we should take it from somewhere else in the budget where it's not being used wisely. So I had an amendment that would have said the $8 billion should come from foreign welfare that we send to foreign countries in the form of foreign aid. I think really we ought to concentrate on our country."

He added, "I think really we ought to concentrate on our country, instead of borrowing more money from China. The virus came from there. Now we're borrowing from China to spend on it. Why don't we take it from the money we're actually sending overseas and spend that money here?"

As Paul noted, the coronavirus outbreak has been traced back to Wuhan, China. Since the outbreak began late last year, more than 116,000 people have been infected worldwide, and more than 4,000 have died. In the United States, 27 people have died, and more than 750 have been infected.

Paul voted against the emergency funding last week, citing how the package did not include spending cuts to counter the money spent on fighting the coronavirus. He argued that even more money could have been allocated to stop the disease, but that he could not support a funding package that did not have an adjacent spending cut.

“I think we could allocate more money, but we should pay for it,” Paul said. “If you don’t follow through and you say, well, we should pay for it, but I’ll vote for it anyway, then that just gives them license to do it again and again and again. And that’s what happens.”
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 09:02 || Comments || Link || [336097 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Perplexed? Take a look around Rand. Visit a few of our major box stores. It will come to you.

The sell-out to cheap labor, and the downside.

Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 9:17 Comments || Top||

#2  I am with Rand on this one.
Posted by: Clem || 03/11/2020 23:53 Comments || Top||


Yanzhong Huang: U.S.- Chinese Distrust Is Inviting Dangerous Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories
Excerpt:
[Foreign Affairs] Rumors thrive on fear and uncertainty, and the outbreak of the novel coronavirus offers plenty of both. Within weeks of the pathogen’s appearance, social media lit up with suggestions that the virus was a biological weapon‐either a Chinese one that had escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan or an American one inflicted on Wuhan. While such rumors are not credible, given that neither the United States nor China has incentive to develop biological weapons, they are difficult to dispel, because military officials on both sides still view with suspicion each other’s motives in building biosecurity programs. Loopholes in China’s biosafety regulations only allow the rumors to gain more currency. And the lack of trust between the two nations‐as evidenced by China’s initial refusal to allow U.S. disease experts to visit Wuhan‐is undermining efforts to contain the virus’s global spread.
YANZHONG HUANG is Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs the Global Health Governance Roundtable.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 02:39 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Fudan University, July 1991

https://www.shu.edu/profiles/upload/Yanzhong-Huang-CV.pdf
Posted by: 3dc || 03/11/2020 5:40 Comments || Top||

#2  /\ Link found here.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 9:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Wouldn't put it past the Chicoms if they thought Trump's reelection chances could be diminished by the economic disruption. You know they'd like to have someone more pliable in the White House.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 03/11/2020 11:56 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Coronavirus- Blunt Truth
From Capitalist Eric blog
The coronavirus (Covid-19, or whatever else you want to call it) represents a fundamental change in the way our current society operates. For this essay, I’m ONLY talking about the virus itself. I’ll follow up in the next day or two on economic impacts of it.

But let’s start off with the virus, establish the history, where it really came from, WHY, and what to do about it… then we can get on to what happens after.

BACKGROUND:
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/11/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under: Commies


#2  Meanwhile, our intelligence community remains amazingly silent.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 2:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Not the subject of Drump, they don't!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/11/2020 2:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Selenium sources
Note 6-8 Brazil-Nuts a day is %777 of normal daily allowance (normal being pre-virus)
Posted by: 3dc || 03/11/2020 2:58 Comments || Top||

#5  “[t]he only people that can be infected by the 2019-n Coronavirus have less than 98.7 µg/L of Selenium in plasma or serum. Those who have enough Selenium are immune to this and all other enveloped viruses. Selenium can be obtained from Brazil nuts, Selenium pills or Astragalus tea.”
Posted by: 3dc || 03/11/2020 6:14 Comments || Top||

#6  ^?????????????????????
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/11/2020 6:41 Comments || Top||

#7  Meanwhile,our intelligence community remains amazingly silent.

Too busy trying to overthrow the domestic government. Given their failures on 9/11 what else do they have to do?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/11/2020 8:12 Comments || Top||

#8  /\ It is very likely the intelligence community knows precisely how Covid-19 originated. It's simply a turd no one will attempt to pick up from the clean end.

Follow the money.

Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 8:38 Comments || Top||

#9  Do the American Intelligence agencies actually work for the American people's interests?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 03/11/2020 9:11 Comments || Top||


#11  #9 That's a trick question, right?
Posted by: Matt || 03/11/2020 12:25 Comments || Top||


Coronavirus – China’s Secret Plan To Weaponize Viruses
[GreatGameIndia] In a secret speech given to high-level Communist Party cadres nearly two decades ago, Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian explained a long-range plan for ensuring a Chinese national renaissance.

He said there were three vital issues that must be grasped. The first was the issue of living space—because China is severely overpopulated and China’s environment is deteriorating. The second issue, therefore, is that the Communist Party must teach the Chinese people to “go out.” By this Gen. Chi meant the conquest of new lands in which a “second China” could be built by “colonization.” From this arises the third vital issue: the “issue of America.”

Gen. Chi warned his listeners: “This appears to be shocking, but the logic is actually very simple.” China is “in fundamental conflict with the Western strategic interest.” Therefore, the United States will never allow China to seize other countries to build a second China. The United States stands in China’s way.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/11/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336090 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  I would add that it is very likely that China has been using their African expansion as a cover for human bio-weapons testing for a considerable length of time. Yes, Wuhan was likely a laboratory containment accident.

Equally distressing is the West's failure to call the bastids on it.

Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 0:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Just for fun now, does this mean the island building is for isolated research sites, or retreats for the politically adept?
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/11/2020 10:17 Comments || Top||

#3  This is annoying. I presume we are in phases 2 and 3 now. I see phase 2 as Africa as well, Bes. The covid reporting we might get from Africa will be at best muddled.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 03/11/2020 12:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Ref #2: Just for fun now, does this mean the island building is for isolated research sites, or retreats for the politically adept?

I'll take 'isolated retreats' for $600. Alex.

Discard nothing. Rank order everything. Explore the potential linkages.

Posted by: Besoeker || 03/11/2020 12:51 Comments || Top||

#5  I see phase 2 as Africa as well

Ah'm thinking the VNZ impact is suppressed by Maduro's thrashing.
Posted by: Skidmark || 03/11/2020 13:30 Comments || Top||

#6  Does seem they could have built that second china in central asia and nobody would have cared (except Russia and central asian people).
Posted by: ruprecht || 03/11/2020 23:33 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Trump Cancels 2020 Election Over Coronavirus Concerns
[Babylon Bee]
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/11/2020 10:27 || Comments || Link || [336087 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bzzzzzz.....called it.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 03/11/2020 11:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Go for it. Obama would have.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/11/2020 12:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Jim Acosta, next press conference: "Mr. President, what do you have to say to all the Americans who believe you are going to cancel the 2020 election?"
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 03/11/2020 22:20 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Sooner or later, #Hezbollah will have to accept the #IMF and its restricting conditions
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 03/11/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


Home Front: Culture Wars
COVID-19 Is Your Friend
IMAO
I know y’all are tired of hearing about the COVID-19 strain of Coronavirus. Me too. I mean, the H1N1 flu killed 12,469 in the U.S. alone in 2009, according to the CDC. But everybody is pissing their pants over COVID-19, which just yesterday reached 1,000 reported cases in the U.S. Not deaths. That number is 31. Total cases. Compare that to 60.8 million cases of H1N1 in the U.S. in 2009, and 274,304 hospitalizations.

So the panic is overblown, in relation to 2009. What’s different? Trump is president, not Obama.

But there is a good thing from all this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Congresscritters are so concerned about COVID-19 that Congress might adjourn.
    Members plan to raise concerns with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at their weekly leadership meeting Monday afternoon, two sources said. It’s Pelosi’s decision whether to keep the House in session or make changes in the schedule.

And you were worried that nothing good could come from this.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/11/2020 11:48 || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It may make Medicare and Social Security solvent again...
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/11/2020 12:02 Comments || Top||

#2  We haven't heard from Herb for a week - a coincidence?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/11/2020 13:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Jinx!
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 03/11/2020 14:19 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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2Govt of Syria
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1Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2020-03-11
  Rocket attack in Iraq kills two Americans and a British citizen
Tue 2020-03-10
  US begins military pullout from two Afghan bases
Mon 2020-03-09
  Turks Use Drones in Tear Gas Attacks on Greek Border Guards
Sun 2020-03-08
  Leb defaults
Sat 2020-03-07
  Saudis reportedly detain three royal princes over ‘coup plot’
Fri 2020-03-06
  Tunis: suicide bomber explodes near U.S. embassy
Thu 2020-03-05
  Russia sends reinforcements through the Bosporus
Wed 2020-03-04
  4 L-39's and 18 Su-24's left in Syrian Airforce
Tue 2020-03-03
  Taliban Orders Resumed Attacks on Govt Forces
Mon 2020-03-02
  Turkey shoots down two Syrian fighter jets over Idlib
Sun 2020-03-01
  Iraq's PM-designate Allawi withdraws, prolonging deadlock
Sat 2020-02-29
  U.S. and Taliban sign troop withdrawal deal
Fri 2020-02-28
  Rouhani and his VP both reported to have coronavirus
Thu 2020-02-27
  Hezbollah operative killed in drone strike in southern Syria
Wed 2020-02-26
  Gulf Cartel Border City Turf War Kills at Least 20 Gunmen, Innocents in Week
Tue 2020-02-25
  Hosni Mubarak sleeps with the pharaohs

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