Month: December 2021
Almost fully jabbed Portugal returns to state of calamity, reinforces Covid-19 measures
Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa last week announced that Portugal would return to the “state of calamity” on December 1 with reinforced measures to curb Covid-19 infections.
Chinese news outlet Xinhua reported that according to Costa, “the first measure to be taken is the reinforcement of the vaccination campaign with the booster dose”.
“The government has acquired in time the requisite amount of vaccine doses to be administered to each Portuguese” and authorities were “prepared to vaccinate eligible children,” he said.
The wearing of face masks will once again be mandatory in all closed spaces, the Council of Ministers said and a digital vaccination certificate will also be mandatory for access to restaurants, hotels, bars and clubs, sporting events and gyms.
Those wishing to enter retirement homes and health establishments, or attend major cultural or sporting events will be required to present a negative test regardless of whether they were fully vaccinated.
Portugal has also “strongly increased sanctions” for airlines with fines of 20 000 euros per passenger in case of non-compliance of a negative Covid-19 test.
Portugal has the highest vaccination rate in the world, but has had to return to a “state of calamity” with mask mandates, vaccine passports, and mandatory testing to enter certain establishments.
Early praises
As recently as in October, Portugal declared that it stood “as an example not only to the world but also to itself” because “the vaccination campaign proved to be a success in ‘beating this virus’ after the Covid task force chief Vice Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo stepped in. Socialists lauded the high jab rate as the “Portuguese success story” and “historical”.
Gouveia e Melo was appointed as Coordinator of the Covid-19 Vaccination Plan Task Force, the unit set up by the Portuguese government to assure the strategic planning and logistics for the national mass immunization campaign. Gouveia e Melo was appointed to head the task force on 3 February 2021, following the resignation of the first coordinator, former Secretary of State for Health Francisco Ramos, over a “queue jumping” scandal, in which people not belonging to priority groups allegedly were receiving their vaccines before their turn.
Admiral Gouveia e Melo began to wear only his green combat uniform in public as well and used not only “the language of war” but military language in public outreach attempts. By October 2021, 98 percent of the eligible population and 86 percent of the total population were vaccinated.
On 4 October 2021, shortly after the Vaccination Task Force disbanded, Gouveia e Melo was awarded the Golden Globe for Merit and Excellence in a ceremony in Coliseu dos Recreios. As he was presented with the award by Francisco Pinto Balsemão, former Prime Minister and Chairman of Grupo Impresa, he received a standing ovation, and on his speech thanked every Portuguese that had contributed to the “success” of the vaccination effort. He said he would leave his trophy at the Ministry of Health.
Gouveia e Melo has been extremely harsh to Portugal’s tiny number of vaccine critics. “Negationism and obscurantism are the true killers,” Gouveia e Melo told journalists after protesters tried to ask him questions outside a vaccination center in August. Gouveia e Melo credited himself, the national health service Serviço Nacional de Saúde, its professionals, and its patients for the “historic accomplishment”.
The cost of a premature mutual admiration society
These particularly stupid public health pronouncements have had some serious financial impacts. Overtime and service provision have cost the national health service more than 400 million euros, something that Gouveia e Melo evidently did not include in his lofty estimations.
By September, nurses had worked more than five million overtime hours and doctors more than four million and the number of hours overworked continues to rise. In the first ten months of this year, they amounted to 18.5 million, already surpassing the entire amount realized last year.
Until October, health professionals had worked over 1,2 million extra hours than the total performed in the entire past year to fill the need for human resources, according to data from the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS).
On the day when it was once again mandatory to present the digital certificate in restaurants and other places, access via mobile phone applications was unavailable and the number of new cases of Covid-19 in Portugal reached a peak of 4670.
This is similar to February this year when the country was facing the worst crisis of the pandemic.
Portugal is also now the only EU country without diagnostic data for 2020 in the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control report on surveillance of HIV/AIDS infection. Hospitals with difficulty in reporting cases, and fewer than 500 were reported due to computer system problems.
According to reports, this is another side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic: Portugal does not know how many new cases of HIV/AIDS emerged in 2020. In the first year of the pandemic, less than 500 new cases were reported, a substantially lower number than usual.
Those responsible for the General Directorate of Health (DGS) and the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge chose not to disclose the data on the rate of HIV infection in the country, both nationally and internationally.
New German government wants a United States of Europe
After the German Greens nominated Annalena Baerbock to be a foreign minister in the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Germany is preparing to push for a federal European Union. Baerbock, an EU enthusiast, will undoubtedly pursue the goal of creating the United States of Europe.
Scholz’s government called for the rewriting of the EU treaties so that the bloc becomes a federal European state. According to the coalition agreement presented last week, the European Parliament should be given real powers, and an EU foreign minister should represent the Union on the world stage.
“A strong German foreign policy can only be European,” Baerbock said on Friday after her new function in the government was announced.
The EU reforms, sought by the Scholz government, would need the unanimous support of the member states, which will be difficult to obtain in the current situation. However, the new approach of Berlin will be welcomed by the French President Emmanuel Macron, who has long called for such reforms and did not hide frustration at Angela Merkel’s reluctance to accept them.
Baerbock, whose experience in foreign policy is de facto zero, said before the elections that if she becomes the chancellor, her first foreign trip in the post will lead to Brussels.
The Greens have long been the most pro-European party in German politics and will now take control of the European agenda.
“However, their federalist approach seems to have the full support of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and liberal Free Democrats (FDP),” noted The Daily Telegraph.
“Germany must send a signal, showing how the Berlin government would like the European Union to develop,” Udo Bullmann, the SPD’s negotiator for European affairs, told the Der Spiegel weekly.
“We want to take bold steps towards integration because we know that time is short and people are waiting for them,” he added.
Did the FDP give in?
“No German government has gone that far. It’s astonishing because Christian Lindner, the head of the FDP, has publicly spoken out against passages in his party’s program that set federal Europe as a target,” wrote the Die Zeit daily.
However, Lindner does not seem to have backed down entirely because he made sure that there were some stipulations that prevent the new government’s federalization efforts. Thus, the coalition agreement states that the EU should not be in debt, and the European Commission should not have a permanent opportunity to take out loans on financial markets.
The coalition agreement also calls for much tougher action against the member states that dispute the EU law or the decisions of European courts, such as Hungary and Poland. In particular, it calls on the European Commission to withhold funds, including coronavirus aid.
Baerbock, a supporter of a hardline stance towards Russia and China, used to act as an opponent of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. On Friday, however, she avoided questions on the subject, which might be a sign that she is more cautious in the Scholz-led government that supports the pipeline.
https://rmx.news/commentary/new-german-government-wants-the-united-states-of-europe/
To Force the Tories To Become REAL Conservatives, We Need a Cultural Version of the Brexit Party
Study on anti-Semitic wave: Islamists in particular stirred up hatred in German-speaking countries
Germany has not witnessed so much violence against Jews, so much openly displayed anti-Semitism since 1945: During Hamas’ war against Israel in May, anti-Semitic incidents increased in Germany. According to a new study, there were 261 incidents. The masterminds were mainly Islamists.
At least 261 anti-Semitic incidents took place in Germany from May 9 to 24, the period of the war of the radical Islamic Hamas against Israel. This is the finding of the Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Anti-Semitism (RIAS) and the International Institute for Research on Education, Social and Anti-Semitism (IIBSA) in a new report. According to the authors of the study, the main aggressors were Islamist organisations that created a hateful atmosphere even before the outbreak of war. They misused religious holidays for Islamist purposes and anti-Semitic agitation.
There had not been a comparable wave of violence against Jews in Germany since 1945. The study results prove a hatred of Jews and the Jewish state that is particularly strong in Islamist circles and is also regularly encouraged there.War lasted eleven days, which Hamas started with thousands of rockets fired at the Jewish state at the time. The Israeli army responded with military strikes from the air. Aggressive anti-Semitic demonstrations in all German cities – also in Austria – were the result, attacks on synagogues, burning of Israeli flags and attacks, threats and insults against Jews increased in Germany to an extent not seen since 1945.All known incidents are documented in the 75-page report “Mobilisations of Israel-related antisemitism in Germany 2021”, including 10 physical attacks, 18 threats, 22 targeted damage to property, 7 cases of incitement in bulk emails, 204 cases of hurtful behaviour, i.e. antisemitic insults and abuse. 76 of these cases of hurtful behaviour were anti-Semitic content spread on signs or as slogans.
“The high point was Saturday May 15, when 59 anti-Semitic incidents related to this year’s escalation were documented,” the RIAS and IIBSA report says. This day also saw the largest number of rally participants, with more than 17,500 people at 43 gatherings.
The actors belonged to the left-wing/anti-imperialist spectrum, came partly from the political centre, and nationalist and neo-Nazi ideas also surfaced. However, according to the report, sympathisers of Islamist organisations, namely Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Millî-Görüş movement and the Turkish Diyanet, have particularly contributed to the spread of anti-Semitic hatred and the incitement of violence.
According to the report, these had already fomented an atmosphere of hatred before the start of the armed conflict. The Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood networks in particular had concentrated on Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque there in order to give the conflict an Islamist-religious connotation. In this way, they were also able to build a bridge between the Arabic- and the Turkish-speaking groups. The escalation of the conflict had been placed at the end of Ramadan in order to achieve an international religious focus on Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque.
With success: In addition to contributions by actors from the neo-Nazi spectrum and by German-speaking anti-Israeli activists, “particularly radical speeches and calls for violence at demonstrations and in posts on social media were also written in Arabic and Turkish”.
When Hamas began its bombardment with rockets, after the end of Ramadan, “the two following days, Friday 14 and Saturday 15 May (at the end of Eid) (…) were dedicated in many mosques around the world to Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Palestine in connection with the war”.
The German and European structures of Hamas supporters were largely responsible for the organisation and promotion of the May marches, especially the Palestinian Community in Germany (PGD), RIAS and IIBSA point out. According to the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the PGD is an “umbrella organisation of Palestinian organisations in Germany, most of whose members belong to Hamas or sympathise with it”.
On May 11, several people pelted the windows of the synagogue in Bonn with stones and set fire to an Israeli flag.
On May 12, participants in an unregistered demonstration in Gelsenkirchen march near the synagogue there and shout “Shit Jews” and “Child murderer Israel”.
On the night of May 13, a stone is thrown at a window of the synagogue in Mannheim.
A few hours later in Bremen, a member of the press documenting an anti-Israeli manifestation is insulted as “dirty Jews” and “dirty bastards”.
Two days later, on May 15, an anti-Israeli rally in Leipzig features a placard that reads: “It’s important to know that Israelis are in control of the international media.” Participants in the counter-demonstration there are called names including “cunt Jews”.
On the same day, at a rally in Oldenburg, someone displays a poster that reads: “Israel drinks the blood of our children from the glass of the United Nations” – a modernised version of the old ritual murder legend.
In those days in May, at rallies in Gelsenkirchen, Hanover, Bremen, Halle an der Saale, Bielefeld, Berlin, Hamburg, Mannheim and Münster, the Islamist slogan “Khaibar, Khaibar, ya yahud, jaish muhammad saya’ud!” is shouted, in German: “Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews, remember Khaibar, Muhammad’s army returns!” This slogan recalls a campaign by the Prophet Muhammad in 628 against an area inhabited by Jews in what is now Saudi Arabia. It ended with the conquest of the territory and, according to various sources, with a massacre of part of the Jewish population.
https://exxpress.at/studie-zu-antisemitischer-welle-vor-allem-islamisten-schueren-hass/
Germany: Asylum seeker shouting “Allahu akbar” threatened to slaughter children!
It must have been a terrible shock for the children (about 13 years old). In the evening, Ismail S. (26) suddenly stood in front of them at the Gorbitz Centre car park shouting, making the cutthroat gesture and shouting: “I’ll slaughter you!”
Fortunately, Achmut Al D. (47) and Muhamed Al M. (27) intervened. But then the Eritrean attacked the two Iraqis with a knife. Now there was a trial at the district court.
“I was coming from work,” said geriatric carer Muhamed, who met Achmut on Harthaer Street. “There we saw the man shouting at children. We went there to protect the children.” While the children gratefully ran away, Ismail turned to the Iraqis.
“He called our mothers names, shouted insulting words and ‘Allahu akbar’,” said family father Achmut. Muhamed added: “At first he was ranting in German. When he realised we were Iraqis, he shouted at us in Arabic.”
Sentences were uttered like: “Call the police. I am not afraid. I’ll slaughter everyone. I’m not a man if I don’t kill you.” Then Ismail pulled out a knife and stabbed Muhamed in the leg.
The men fled, called the police, but kept an eye on the attacker. “I saw him suddenly running around with a big knife with a blade that must have been 40 centimetres long. It looked like he started a war,” said Achmut.As paramedics attended to the injured man, Ismail joined them: “I told them: That’s him, he has a knife. They let me into the ambulance and locked the doors,” said Muhamed.
Ismail, who was also accused of theft and fare evasion, said he could not remember anything, that he had been drunk. But he cannot avoid jail. Sentenced: 16 months imprisonment. Without parole.
In Germany, Covid management is being militarized
Since last year, Major General Carsten Breuer, as commander of the Territorial Tasks Command, has organized the Bundeswehr’s administrative assistance in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
A general with experience from operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan and the NATO Defender Europe major maneuvers will in future lead the Corona crisis team of the new German government. Breuer is called “General Corona” in the Bundeswehr.
The tasks of his command also include the operation of military training areas and practical measures in connection with host nation support, i.e. the stay of troops from allied states in Germany and their transit. In this context, Major General Breuer was tasked with assisting the advance of US troops towards the Russian border during the Defender Europe maneuvers.
He now runs the new Corona crisis team, a supposedly civil body, from an office in the Federal Chancellery. By assigning posts to a general, the new government, in which the Greens have a strong position, is pushing for the normalization of a military response to a health issue.
Italy is being touted in Berlin as a “model” for the plan to transfer the chairmanship of the crisis team to a military. There, in order to increase the low vaccination rate, the government appointed the three-star general Francesco Figliuolo as “Covid Special Commissioner” in March. Figliuolo actually managed to increase the vaccination rate significantly.
The Kosovo and Afghanistan veteran usually appears in uniform. He also has a reputation for ignoring the prescribed distribution of competencies in the state structure. In response to criticism of his appearances in military uniform, Figliuolo said: “I hope that this uniform creates trust.”
Major General Carsten Breuer is not the first soldier to lead the “civil” German Corona crisis team. The previous Corona crisis team in the Federal Ministry of Health was also headed by an officer – General Staff Doctor Hans-Ulrich Holtherm, whom Health Minister Jens Spahn appointed on March 1, 2020 as head of the new department “Health Protection, Health Security, Sustainability” in the Ministry of Health.
Holtherm, who was previously the commander and medical director of the Bundeswehr hospital in Ulm, had extensive operational experience and participated in missions abroad in Croatia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti. In 2014, he was also a member of the interdepartmental Ebola crisis team that the German government had set up specifically to coordinate the German contribution to the international response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. At that time, the Bundeswehr carried out numerous transport flights and also sent soldiers to volunteer in the areas affected by Ebola.
To coincide with the militarization of health, Germany’s defense minister in July disbanded an elite commando unit, known as the KSK, following an official report of “far-right extremism” within its ranks.
https://freewestmedia.com/2021/12/02/in-germany-covid-management-is-being-militarized/
Vaccines and Power
COVID-19 is a serious disease that can have deadly consequences. The good news is that now the recovery rate is between 97% and 99.75%. As the world approaches its second full year grappling with the ever-mutating virus and the public health response, some serious public policy and political questions require attention:
- Are some people looking to leverage vaccination status to stigmatize and marginalize political opponents?
- Is vaccine status being equated with ideology or political affiliation?
- Is vaccine status going to be the new societal discriminator for those who might be “more equal” than others?
- Are we seeing efforts to control and pressure citizens for daring to question government officials?
- What about officials who seek to change the meaning of terms such as “fully vaccinated,” or altogether abandon terms and conditions that were used to persuade the public to shut down businesses and society at-large.
The German news magazine, Der Spiegel, recently featured a story titled: “Study Finds Link Between Far Right and High Corona Rates in Germany.” The subtitle of the story is:
“The number of coronavirus infections is rising sharply in parts of Germany where the far-right AfD party enjoys greater support. Is it a coincidence? Researchers took a close look at the corollaries and drew some conclusions that surprised even them.”
Der Spiegel reporters Holger Dambeck and Peter Maxwill reported:
“An interdisciplinary team at the Research Institute for Social Cohesion and a researcher from Munich systematically investigated the connection between the election results and the spread of the pathogen. The experts’ findings are clear: The higher the number of votes the AfD got in a region in the 2017 election, the faster the coronavirus spread there in 2020.”
The broader political messaging is clear: Conservatives are disease-spreading troglodytes that endanger civilization.
The sensationalized findings focus on correlation and not a causal relationship, so the study and the speculative reporting are transparently sloppy smear-jobs. The real objective of both the study and the magazine reporting is clearly to damage political opponents by associating them with a deadly disease.
Given Germany’s notorious history of brutally stigmatizing various minority populations, it is shocking and outrageous that a German “research institute” and the Hamburg-based weekly news magazine would sink to such sleazy malice.
Sadly, the United States has its own set of operatives seeking to marginalize those who question vaccine mandates, as well as persons with valid reservations concerning the long-term safety and efficacy of the various vaccines. In the British medical journal, The Lancet, Dr. Günter Kampf, a professor at the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Science at the University of Greifswald in Germany, wrote an important, brief piece, published on November 20, 2021: “COVID-19: Stigmatizing the Unvaccinated is Not Justified.” Kampf wrote:
“In the USA and Germany, high-level officials have used the term pandemic of the unvaccinated, suggesting that people who have been vaccinated are not relevant in the epidemiology of COVID-19. Officials’ use of this phrase might have encouraged one scientist to claim that ‘the unvaccinated threaten the vaccinated for COVID-19’. But this view is far too simple.”
Kampf goes on to detail substantial, documented evidence that vaccinated individuals continue to have a relevant role in COVID-19 transmission. He describes a July 2021 COVID outbreak in Massachusetts, wherein 74% of the cases were in people who were fully or partly vaccinated. He closes his argument with a plea:
“I call on high-level officials and scientists to stop the inappropriate stigmatization of unvaccinated people, who include our patients, colleagues, and other fellow citizens, and to put extra effort into bringing society together.”
Kampf is not alone. Dr. Paul Elias Alexander is a clinical epidemiologist who teaches evidence-based medicine and research methodology. He was also a senior advisor on COVID pandemic policy for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Alexander has been published by the Brownstone Institute, writing:
“… existing immunity should be assessed before any vaccination… Such would be evidence of immunity that is equal to that of vaccination and the immunity should be provided the same societal status as any vaccine-induced immunity. This will function to mitigate the societal anxiety with these forced vaccine mandates and societal upheaval due to job loss, denial of societal privileges etc. Tearing apart the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in a society, separating them, is not medically or scientifically supportable.”
Alexander’s report on naturally acquired immunity to Covid-19 seems to be ignored in the media and by government officials. Why is that? 130 research studies discussing the relative merits and protections of natural immunity appear to be scrupulously ignored. One would think that a full, open and honest public dialogue and corresponding public treatment plan would discuss the full spectrum of medical facts, conditions, and treatments.
Conspicuous for defying convention and taking the broader, holistic approach to COVID-19 is Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who holds both MD and PhD degrees from Harvard. He is the refreshing exception to authoritarianism and a seemingly endless cycle of public scare tactics.
We are seeing a growing authoritarianism by governments across the globe concerning the drive to vaccinate everyone: mandates, lockdowns, vaccine passports and restrictions on civil liberties. We are also seeing a corresponding resistance to heavy-handed, government imposed measures. Protests have erupted across Europe over renewed lockdown drives by European governments. Australians are also now pushing back in protest.
The Biden administration attempted to issue an unprecedented federal mandatefor vaccination, that has been thwarted (for the time-being) by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court made it explicitly clear that the mandate raises grave constitutional concerns. Nonetheless, the Biden White House arrogantly “encouraged” — some might say ordered – businesses to continue forward with forcing employees to be vaccinated.
Despite the Biden White House’s seemingly power-mad drive to defy courts, browbeat businesses, and intimidate citizens, this is still the United States and the Constitution is still the law of the land. Even though the normally vocal “my body, my choice” crowd seems to have vanished hypocritically from the public square over vaccine choice — American workers are pushing back against the fascist-like government/corporate partnership demanding vaccinations.
COVID-19 is a serious disease, but it bears constant repeating that the recovery rate now is between 97% and 99.75%. The American public has never had a federal vaccine mandate imposed upon it. Fear, shock, intimidation and ultimatums are not the decision-making components of a representative democracy. The Constitution is not “waived” due to disease or natural disaster. We must beware of politicians and other officials who seek to exercise power through “mandates” without a single vote or the active exercise of informed consent.
We must resist authoritarian impulses and exercises by various officials seeking to consolidate power and impose their will over the constitutional processes and guarantees we enjoy. Our Constitution was designed and ratified for exactly such challenges and it has endured 231 years through a myriad of challenges far more grave than a virus. The Constitution guarantees that we remain a country of freedom and opportunity in spite of a pandemic and those officials seeking to address public health.
WATCH: More than 10,000 people take part in token strike against Corona measures across Austria – traffic collapse in Linz
Today, Wednesday, there were token strikes in numerous provincial capitals across Austria. The organisers of the anti-government demonstrations have called for a one-day work stoppage. This should be seen as the first warning of a general strike.
In the centre of Vienna, about 1,000 people gathered at Maria-Theresien-Platz. At the completely peaceful demonstration, different speeches were held against the government. The focus was once again on the planned compulsory vaccination, which is to come into force on February 1. The demonstration proceeded without incident. There was also extensive promotion of an upcoming large demonstration in Vienna next Saturday, December 4. Afterwards, the demonstrators walked united across the Ring boulevard, which had to be closed off by the police.
People in Klagenfurt also took part in the token strike. As can be seen in the pictures from mein Bezirk, well over 1,000 people were also on the streets in the Carinthian capital. Afterwards, the people marched in front of the Carinthian ORF broadcasting centre and demonstrated against the media policy of the state broadcaster.
Most people gathered in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. Although the police only report about 1,500 demonstrators, it is easy to see from the media pictures that there must have been several thousand strikers. As reported by the newspaper Heute, there was even a traffic gridlock as the Nibelungen Bridge in Linz was peacefully occupied by the demonstrators.But there were also smaller demonstrations in the other provincial capitals. As reported by the newspaper Die Presse, people also gathered for demonstrations in Graz, Eisenstadt, St. Pölten, Innsbruck and Salzburg. While around 1,000 people took part in Graz according to media pictures, there were a few hundred in the other provincial capitals. If you add up the numbers across Austria, there were more than 10,000 despite the wintry temperatures. For an afternoon on a weekday, a considerable number.