The Cobbler's Children Poorly Shod

"Those were right-wing attacks that tried to discredit my character, and I don't operate off of what the right thinks about me."

"I've created the infrastructure and the support, and the necessary bones and foundation, so that I can leave."

"It feels like the time is right." 

"I think both of them [two new interim senior executives to help steer it in the immediate future: Monifa Bandele, a longtime BLM organizer and founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in New York City, and Makani Themba, an early backer of the BLM movement and chief strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies in Jackson, Mississippi] come with not only a wealth of movement experience, but also a wealth of executive experience."

"I think I will probably be less visible, because I won't be at the helm of one of the largest, most controversial organizations right now in the history of our movement."

"I'm aware that I'm a leader, and I don't shy away from that. But no movement is one leader."

Patrisse Cullors, co-founder, Black Lives Matter

In this Nov. 4, 2018, file photo, Patrisse Cullors poses for a photo on day three of Summit LA18 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)

"[Prior to 2019, Patrisse Cullors had] received a total of $120,000 since the organization's inception in 2013, for duties such as serving as spokesperson and engaging in political education work."

"As a registered 501c3 non-profit organization, [the foundation] cannot and did not commit any organizational resources toward the purchase of personal property by any employee or volunteer." 

"Any insinuation or assertion to the contrary is categorically false."

Black Lives Matter Foundation statement

 

"If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes."

"It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement."

"We need black firms and black accountants to go in there and find out where the money is going."

Hawk Newsome, Black Lives Matter organizer

USA Today network

An avowed Marxist and co-founder of the Black social-activist group Black Lives Matter is resigning from her position with the movement she was instrumental in bringing to life and worldwide attention. She has garnered praise from almost everyone associated with the movement, but also criticism from those within the movement, apart from accusations from what the woman herself, 37-year-old Patrisse Cullors, dismisses as right-wing White Supremacists. She has amassed a personal property portfolio worth millions and cast suspicion upon herself as a millionaire-Marxist.

This is a woman who was not born to wealth, but also a woman who saw opportunity when it presented itself. The opportunity to organize Black anger and resentment at a long history of discrimination and violence directed against Blacks, exploiting to great effect the killing by police in the United States of Blacks being arrested for infractions of the law. The long history of Black subjugation by white society as slave labour of an oppressed and enslaved people gave birth to a movement of angry victimhood demanding equality and respect and opportunity for advancement.

Black Lives Matter focused attention within the greater American community on the injustices of the past and the continued stripping of the dignity of human rights of the present-day Black population in America. Undeniable is the fact that Blacks represent a larger segment of the population involved in petty crimes, drawing the attention of law enforcement in a society mortified by its own ill-treatment of Blacks but within which resonance of virulent Black prejudice still festers. 

Black slavery took place when European countries colonized Black Africa. But Black slavery far predated those European colonizers who approached the slave trade as a commercial enterprise in competition with Arab slavers who had been in business far longer. And nor did Black slavery begin with Arab slavers; it was Black tribes themselves who warred against other tribes, taking their populations, men, women and children into institutional slavery. Slavery was universal in Africa; Blacks owning other Blacks.

This too is part of Black heritage, but one that is not audibly acknowledged, considered irrelevant to their current situation of living prejudice against blacks. It is a prejudice that will, in all likelihood, never completely dissipate, just as anti-Semitism rises and wanes interminably. As persecuted people, Jews have seen fit to defend and support Blacks in their traditional struggles to achieve equality. Blacks have not always reciprocated in kind; among their populations there are ample instances of Black antipathy to Jews. Human nature asserts itself in predictable ways.

Patrisse Cullors saw other opportunities in the movement she helped found, and as a leader gaining recognition in a context where the left, liberals, and the newly-recognized progressive 'woke' arose to defend and enshrine Black Lives Matter as a new campaign they could champion to demonstrate just how progressive they are, Ms. Cullors was recognized as a figure to contend with. She became an author of best sellers, and will author more of the same, and is now moving as a celebrity figure toward debuting a television series.

This is undoubtedly where her wealth stems from, not from siphoning off funding Black Lives Matter gathered during its public relations campaigns in support of their mission to change the world by confronting what they call White Imperialism, and uplifting Black lives and expectations toward a brighter future for the Black community. Which should, itself of its own volition begin to deal with the very real situation of Black crime; Black-on-Black violence, Black gangs, and Black criminality altogether. Intact families raising children, which BLM appears to be cavalier about, impart moral values and civilizational mores for the well-being of society.

The BLM Foundation collected $90 million in donations during its campaign for equality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer who just incidentally committed his violent 'arrest' of the Black man in the company of other Minneapolis police officers, several of whom were visible minorities themselves. In the United States, where Blacks thunder against a vibrant brand of discrimination against blacks, there are Black mayors of major cities, Black police chiefs of large metropolitan areas, Black state and federal legislators, Black justices, Black university teachers, Blacks in the arts and sciences competing equally with their white counterparts. This too is reality.

A third of the $90 million the BLM foundation raised in donations was spent for operating expenses, and they claim grants to black-led organizations and other charitable enterprises, amidst concerns over the disbursements and where they were going related to a lack of transparency. "I know some of [the families directly impacted by police brutality] are feeling exploited", stated Rev.T.Sheri Dickerson, representing the BLM10 national group of organizers publicly criticizing the foundation for its lack of funding transparency. There are large accountability gaps in Black Lives Matter.

Its frenetic calls to defund police at a time when they themselves lack fundamental answerability to those they claim to represent has a bad odour. Defunding police will do nothing to advance the measures that the black community needs to improve itself so that the police are not always on guard against black misdemeanors in lawful conduct. Who will protect blacks against other blacks, should police be withdrawn? Revenge does not answer to the need within their communities, but they seem unprepared to address their own issues, preferring instead to cast themselves interminably as victims of White Imperialism.

Black Lives Matter has become a global rallying cry   Getty Images

"A Black Lives Matter protest on May 30 in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles turned violent. A Los Angeles Times account and a local CBS TV affiliate report made no mention of Jewish targets, but there were reports that synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized."

"As we watched the fires and looting, what didn’t get covered were the anti-Semitic hate crimes and incidents," Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Koretz said, according to the Jewish Journal, which reported that Congregation Beth El was vandalized with graffiti stating "free Palestine" and "f— Israel."

Politifact

 

 

Anatomy of an al-Qaeda Convert Rejecting ISIL

"When it came to the targets the thinking was that one of them was economic and one of them was security and the other one was military."

"I was aware that people were going to be hurt but it seemed at the time that I was so focused on the symbolism of the act. Because I'm not a violent person it is easier to think of a bomb where you don't see the victims versus a close-up attack where you do physically have an intimate or a close contact with the victims."

"At some point I contemplated, unfortunately adding shrapnel to increase the casualty rate. So that's disgusting."

"The plan to construct three truck bombs was a little bit too complicated. Near the end, the technical issues became too much."

"Every time there was an obstacle, I kept doubling down and I kept going forward. I did have the intent. I would have tried something."

"I look at prison as a blessing and, in a way, I see the life sentence as a blessing too, because going to prison was the best of all possible outcomes, given how radicalized I was at the time and how determined I was to go through with it."

"Prison was very good for me because it was the only way I could be saved."

Zakaria Amara, 35, one of 18 arrested June 2, 2006 in a homegrown terrorist ring, Toronto

Zakaria Amara, one of the "Toronto 18" who were arrested in a shocking anti-terrorism probe in 2006. Photo by Reuters/File

Just as well that Zakaria Amara is so grateful that arrest, trial and sentencing took him to prison, avoiding martyrdom and Paradise. He and  his fellow conspirators were apprehended, with the help of an 'inside' informer who benefited handsomely for his undercover work, revealing a plot to wreak havoc in Canada in revenge for the Canadian military dispatched as part of NATO in a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to root out Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda operation, sheltered by the Taliban.

Zakaria Amara and his Islamist colleagues, the infamous 'Toronto 18' -- whose plans included blowing up truck bombs, storming Parliament to behead the prime minister, blowing up the CBC, and Canada's premier intelligence-gathering service CSIS, among other targets -- were quite ambitious in their conspiratorial organization to teach Canada and Canadians that Islamism is not to be trifled with. The greater the number of victims, particularly those in high places, the more resonant their message.

 

In gratitude for the unexpected attention on the part of Canadian Muslims living the good life in Canada, Canadian justice handed Amara a life sentence for his thwarted ambitions. As the leader of the terrorist plot, he has decided, it would seem, that his happiness at being incarcerated is now dwindling and he would at this juncture, prefer being released from prison after having served 15 years of his life-in-prison sentence. After all, he points out, he is remorseful.

While al-Qaeda's agenda was appealing to him and his cohorts, including the spectacular victory over the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, striking terror into the hearts of Americans, he explained to a hearing of the Parole Board of Canada that ensuing news of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant gave  him pause for second thought. Did he really want to be aligned with these lunatic psychopaths? Re-evaluating his direction to reject his radical beliefs, he felt himself prepared for release from prison.

His verbal passion in appealing to the Board for due consideration and trust in his newfound sincerity rejecting violent Islamism had him in tears, thanking his supporters in the Muslim community; his family, his daughter, nine months old at the time her father was arrested. For three hours he addressed the Board, acquainting them with his transformation from jihadist to thoughtful and sober mature man intent on occupying a place in Canadian society he had so impetuously forsaken as a young and impressionable fervent Islamist.

"In my heart", he explained, he had praised Osama bin Laden, a loyalty he maintained while in prison. From prison he maintained contact with members of the notorious Canadian-Egyptian Khadr family whose paterfamilias had been a financial supporter of bin Laden and close friend in their mutual campaign against the West. The Parole Board hearing took place at the medium security Warkworth Institution in Ontario, where he spoke of being overwhelmed by his ambition to succeed in the terrorist plot he headed up.

He spoke of his determination to forge ahead with the many-pronged attack on Canadian institutions and government figures. Had the plot not been revealed to police, had he not been arrested, he would have persisted until reaching a successful conclusion. Convicted in 2010, he was designated to the Special Handling Unit in Canada's highest security prison in Quebec. There he mingled with other Islamist extremists, and there his sentiments and values grew in strength, flourishing in a setting that set him on a course to eventually seek completion of his Islamist mission.

And then came Islamic State, his attention fixated on the group's relentless gathering of territory in Syria and Iraq to form their Caliphate, addressing the world with sophisticated public relations material of gruesomely violent exploits in capturing journalists and other Western figures to suffer horrendous torture and death for the camera. The barbarous celebration of atrocities committed by psychopathic Islamist murderers became a recruiting tool bringing in enthusiastic ISIL volunteers for jihad from the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

He, on the other hand, was so revulsed by ISIL in contrast to his championing of al-Qaeda, that his Islamist faith faltered. "A lot of things have changed", he assured the hearing. The actions of ISIL had him re-evaluating his ideology. ISIL "came on the scene and were doing all kinds of horrific things", that he "couldn't stomach". Obviously, he said, there was something wrong with his world view and since, he has been "building a new house" for himself. Cut ties with radicals with whom he no longer has anything in common ideologically.

Given parole, he would stay at a halfway house in downtown Toronto. Granted parole, he would undergo a deradicalization program, complete post-secondary education. He wanted to become a professional social worker. Just as it seems that all Muslim extremists aspire to be engineers, those who reform themselves from jihadist sentiments appear to aspire to become social workers. As though to expunge from their subconscious any possible further twinges urging toward jihad by turning themselves toward public good, in support of the social weal.

On his own initiative, good soul that he is, he self-started his rehabilitation with sporadic and informal conversations with imams, conversations with institutional parole officers, while reading extensively and speaking with 'reputable members of the community'. All, all to no avail. Wasted, his effort in writing a 102 page-letter to the Board, setting out his thoughts and experiences and aspirations for the future, as a completely reformed good Canadian citizen. 

For despite his earnest demeanor and pleading stance, his conscientious relaying of the truth, his sincere pledge to become a responsible member of society, his admirable ambition to join the cadre of social workers who aid those in society whom ill fortune has struck, the Parole Board denied him the parole he sought, following deliberation of an hour's duration. One Parole Board member complained that the board was unable to adequately assess the progress Amara had made while imprisoned, given a lack of objective programming.

In the end, the consensus was that those at the hearing felt the risk to public safety remained, a risk that was unmanageable without reliable, adequate further intervention to steer this self-reformed former terrorist beyond his first choice, of punishing Canada for its role in ousting bin Laden from Afghanistan, and for its part in the Western-based coalition to lead Afghanistan toward peace and security, helping to fend off the constant Taliban resurgences. 

 

All now to no avail, as the Taliban is set to resume its former violently brutal Islamist command of Afghanistan. A metaphor for rescuing Amara from his passionate love affair with jihad.

A courtroom evidence photo from the Toronto 18 case, released on Oct. 20, 2009, shows electronic equipment. The group was accused of a plot to create explosions at various Canadian sites. (Canadian Press)

The Devastation of Cyclone Yaas

"[The] north coast of the Bay of Bengal is more prone to catastrophic surges than anywhere on Earth," 

"[The Bay of Bengal is a] textbook example [of the worst kind of places for storm surges to develop - shallow, concave bays where water is pushed by the strong winds of a tropical cyclone. This gets concentrated as the storm moves up the bay]."

Bob Henson, meteorologist and writer with Weather Underground

 

India evacuated more than one million people in coastal areas   Reuters

India and Bangladesh, both trying to cope with surging COVID-19 cases and deaths, were given another wild ride of nature to add to their worries. Indian hospitals and crematoria may be working overtime in a desperate bid to control the wicked surge of infections, but they also had no option left to them but to deploy rescue crews to meet the needs of huge numbers of people in eastern India and Bangladesh who could not be left to their own devices to struggle against the deadly threat of a wild cyclone.

 

As matters turned out, now that the cyclone that unleashed huge storm surges and heavy rains that hampered rescue work has passed, 150,000 people have been left homeless. Low-lying coastal areas were deluged and they're now uninhabitable. Cyclone Yaas moved inland from the Bay of Bengal with wind gusts of up to 149 km/h, with tidal surges whipped up in West Bengal state, India, and in Bangladesh, next door.

 

An embankment breached at Shankarpur in East Midnapur, West Bengal during Cyclone Yaas

Heavy rain poured into parts of West Bengal where fresh inundations of sea water drowned coastal villages. "Restoration work will be difficult unless the weather improves", noted Bankim Hazra, West Bengal state minister. In Sundarbans delta, West Bengal, stretching into Bangladesh, some 25,000 homes constructed of traditional mud houses were destroyed, leading to 150,000 people left without shelter, stated Mr. Hazra.

This was the second violent storm to target India in the space of a week, arriving just while the country struggles with its second deadly wave of coronavirus infections that India's health network is struggling to cope with. A half-million people sheltered in relief camps in West Bengal, where state officials have been mindful of the necessity to reduce the risk of yet another virus spread. "Flood shelters have quarantine rooms for those showing symptoms of COVID-19 like fever, sore throat, body ache", stated medical officer Dr.Indranil Bargi, in Gosaba.

 

Orissa bore the brunt of the storm   Reuters

 

Anyone testing positive stands to be taken to safe homes established in government offices and schools. There was another shattering 211,298 new infections in India on Thursday, the world's highest daily rise, yet half the daily infections India recorded earlier in the month. 27.37million speaks to the overall case load. And a staggering 325,235 deaths were reported, according to data from India's health ministry. And even that huge number is recognized as an underestimate, according to experts, a gross underestimate of the actual toll.

In Bangladesh, flooding of villages as a result of torrential rains and tidal surges spells out the picture there. "I have never seen a tidal surge rising to this level. It flooded many villages and washed away houses. Many people are marooned", district of Khulna official Humayum Kabir explained.

 

There Are Strange Things Done In The Midnight Sun

Peter Daszak (right), Thea Fischer (left), and other members of the WHO team investigating the origins of covid-19 arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province.

 

"We would ask that we separate the science from the politics, and let us get on with finding the answers that we need in a proper, positive atmosphere."

"This whole process is being poisoned by politics."

WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan 

 

"The technical team will prepare a proposal for the next studies that will need to be carried out and will present that to the director-general."

"He will then work with member states about the next steps. There is no timeline."

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib

 

"[The first phase of the WHO expert panel study was] insufficient and inconclusive. There is a need for a] timely, transparent, evidence-based and expert-led Phase 2 study, including in the People's Republic of China."

"[There is a need for access for independent experts to] complete, original data and samples [relevant to the source of the virus and early stages of the outbreak]."

"We appreciate the WHO's stated commitment to move forward with Phase 2 of the COVID-19 origins study, and look forward to an update from Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus."

U.S. Diplomatic Mission, Geneva 

Workers in protective gear carry a bag containing a giant salamander that was reported to have escaped from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Monday, Jan. 27, 2020. (Chinatopix via AP)

When the mysterious appearance of a strange pneumonia was discovered in patients admitted to hospitals in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, and soon afterward the virus began spreading outside China's borders, Beijing took exception to the virus, identified as a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 being familiarly referred to as the 'Wuhan virus', until the World Health Organization gave it the pandemic name it is now known by, COVID-19.

 

And now that world powers like the United States and Great Britain are leading a drive for a full and deep investigation to discover the origins of the virus causing COVID-19, Beijing continues to deny that suspicions harboured by many in the West that the closed high-security Wuhan Virology Institute laboratory might possibly have loosed the virus accidentally, giving the virus its villainous start on its global predation. Chinese authorities found it much more palatable to insist that the Huanan wet market was a likelier source of the zoonotic when the pathogen made its leap from animal to human.

A growing clamour of voices calling for an independent, unbiased and unchaperoned-by-Chinese-authorities investigation take place to settle the question once and for all; whether the virus origins was a lab-held virus that made its escape or the leap of transmission between species. The WHO assembly was informed by a Chinese representative the official Chinese position that the "China part" of the origin-tracing study "has been completed". In other words: you want to study further, go right ahead but don't expect any cooperation from China. 

 

An interpreter made it clear as well that China was interested in seeing "a global origin-tracing cooperation" -- the translation of which is that China feels the hunt would be best carried out elsewhere than in China. Literally washing its hands of any further investigation, much less the thought that China would further lend itself to another such survey as the original WHO 'independent' investigation when the investigation team was comprised of more Chinese investigators than WHO investigators. 

 

And where the official presence of Chinese authorities at all interviews and site visits constrained a deep and useful investigation, topped off by China's refusal to allow the WHO investigators access to critical records. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian suggested on Wednesday that U.S. sites should be explored -- reflecting Chinese specious 'speculation' the coronavirus could have emerged there. Surely derisively. 

 

Wuhan, a central Chinese city of 11 million people, is where China's first-ever BSL-4-certified laboratory is located. This is a rare classification identifying laboratories meant to work with the world's most lethal pathogens. When it was opened in 2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology campus was recognized as specializing in coronavirus studies, particularly bat coronaviruses which just happen to represent the likely origin of COVID-19. 

 

The Wuhan Institute is noted for its  unusual housing of the "most comprehensive inventory of sampled bat viruses in the world", according to a January investigation by New York magazine, considered the most rigorous journalistic probe into the COVID-19 potential lab origins. In addition, the lab is understood to engage in gain-of-function experiments, where researchers attempt to supercharge coronaviruses to infect lab mice or human cell samples. Gain-of-function is meant to discover methods of combating the emergence of new viruses from nature, but it is also "exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS-2-like virus could have emerged", explains a scientific breakdown of COVID-129 origins by The Wire, an Indian news site.

Given these incriminating circumstances, how likely is it that a novel coronavirus linked to bats might have simply by coincidence begun infecting humans who just happened to be located within easy walking distance of a laboratory that incidentally is the world centre for studying highly infectious bat coronaviruses? As a plot of fictitious origins it is hardly believable, as a scenario of real-time circumstances, there is no competition for the actual location of the Virology laboratory escape.

With respect to circumstantial identification of source, American diplomats back in 2018, long before the emergence of the coronavirus causing COVID, visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and afterward drafted a cable to Washington complete with a heads-up warning of a mishap waiting to happen. Their distinct impression was that the facility's safety and security standards were lax enough to risk sparking a pandemic. According to the Washington Post, which headed the story, "The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory", read the cable.

Three years later, the revelation that a US. intelligence report that three workers at the Wuhan Institute were hospitalized "with symptoms consistent with both COVID19 and common seasonal illness", came out this week. Another very peculiar coincidence, this time bringing Canada into the narrative, when researcher Xiangguo Qiu, working at the high-security BSL-4 lab at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg was escorted from the facility along with her scientist husband and a Chinese student, all later fired, with no public explanation.

The two-week investigation by the World Health Organization scientific team of ten, joined by a team of 17 Chinese scientists in Wuhan conducted interviews under constant supervision. The researchers spent a mere few hours at the Virology lab where select documents were presented for their examination but no forensic examination of lab protocols was undertaken, only a few supervised meetings with laboratory staff who assured them the institute had witnessed "no disruptions or incidents" at the time of the emergence of COVID-19.

"The lab leak hypothesis has picked up more adherents as time passes and scientists fail to detect a bat or other animal infected with a virus that has covid’s signature genetics. By contrast, within a few months of the start of the 2003 SARS pandemic, scientists found the culprit coronavirus in animals sold in Chinese markets. But samples from 80,000 animals to date have failed to turn up a virus pointing to the origins of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes covid."

"The virus’s ancestors originated in bats in southern China, 600 miles from Wuhan. But covid contains unusual mutations or sequences that made it ideal for infecting people, an issue explored in depth by journalist Nicholas Wade."

"Scientists from the Wuhan Institute have collected thousands of coronavirus specimens from bats and registered them in databases closed to inspection. Could one of those viruses have escaped, perhaps after a “gain of function” experiment that rendered it more dangerous?"

Arthur Allen, KHN

The World Community Has a Right to Know

Lab-leak theories centre on the Wuhan Institute of Virology   Reuters

"[Of the lab-leak theory]: That possibility certainly exists, and I am totally in favour of a full investigation of whether that could have happened."

"[I am] not convinced [the virus originated naturally]."

Dr.Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Biden's chief medical adviser   

 

"From day one China has been engaged in a massive cover-up."

"As the evidence for the lab-leak hypothesis grows, we should be demanding the full investigation of all origin hypotheses that's required."

Jamie Metzl, a fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council 

 

"We do need to be a bit patient but we also need to be diplomatic."

"We can't do this without support from China. It needs to be a no-blame environment."

Prof Dale Fisher, Singapore's National University Hospital 

"I've read it, [report released by the Washington Post calling into question when and how the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged] it's a complete lie."

"Those claims are groundless. The lab has not been aware of this situation, and I don't even know where such information came from."

Yuan Zhiming, director, Wuhan National Biosafety Lab, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan, China

The story in the Wall Street Journal claims that three laboratory workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November of 2019, and were admitted to hospital for treatment. A month later, China advised the World Health Organization of the sudden appearance of a zoonotic, a virus transmitted from animal to human, and that authorities in China felt confident the virus had erupted in a fresh food market where wild animals were sold and pangolins were the suspected source.

The U.S. intelligence report cited by the paper had originally been the product of an investigation authorized by then-President Donald Trump who stated  his determination to get to the bottom of the matter that he suspected was Beijing's lack of openness in alerting the world community of the presence of a galloping new virus with unknown properties but a surprising level of lethality, initially presenting as a new kind of pneumonia. 

It was the newspaper's contention and possible purpose of re-visiting the investigative report and coming away with greater details, that what it revealed could conceivably bring support to the evidence already in question, leading to a broader and deeper investigation into what many in the scientific community suspect -- and many others object to -- that the COVID-19 virus could have been a lab escapee.

What is undeniable unless new information arises, is that the first cases of a strange new pneumonia were being reported toward the end of December 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where coincidentally two high-security laboratories for the study of viruses were located. One laboratory had undertaken studies of viruses collected from bats in caves and theorized that the bats had infected pangolins and the pangolins carried the virus with them when they were trapped for sale at the live animal market in Wuhan.

 

Although rumours have circulated widely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 was not a zoonotic that naturally occurred, infecting people who had come in contact with a vector at the Wuhan market, but rather a laboratory-produced virus and that inept, insecure methods led to its escape, China has steadfastly denied any such allegations. Claiming instead that the lab theory was unproven and nonsensical and simply represented U.S. paranoia.

 

Instead Chinese authorities point to the possibility that the virus may very well not have originated in China, or Wuhan, at all, and was imported with frozen food from some other geographic location. Wildlife trading too was cited as a source, as well as a circulating virus that had emerged elsewhere and found its way to China by some unsuspected means. China's foreign ministry rejected the claim that three lab workers had been hospitalized, characterizing it as a lie.

 

The World Health Organization, which had sent an independent team of researchers to Wuhan months ago to undertake a detailed investigation, now entertains thought of another investigation, this time perhaps without Chinese authorities' interference, although without Beijing's approval for yet another group of scientists arriving in Wuhan there can be no follow-up of the original which declared its joint opinion that no lab escape of a virus was a likely explanation for the pandemic.

 

That opinion was reached despite that there were no unescorted interviews permitted where the investigators could privately, without interference and the presence of Chinese authorities, closely question someone who might have information critical to the investigation, nor were the investigators permitted to see collected data directly relevant to the more immediate Chinese investigation of the market where purportedly the outbreak was traced to.

 

According to Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for WHO, the organization's technical teams were currently making decisions on whether to proceed further and if so, how. Further study was obviously required into the role of animal markets, as well as the hypothesis of a lab leak. The issue, after all, is that of a lethal, minuscule, unseen pathogen seeking out new hosts, invading body cells and replicating wildly. A virus that has in the space of a year-and-a-half killed three and a half million people worldwide.  

Knowing its true origins could help medical science more fully understand the nature of the pathogen and how best to control it. It could also lead to techniques of detection and deterrence that could help avoid future such global pandemics. As well as teach both the global medical community and governments how best to anticipate new and perhaps even more deadly invasions of viruses from wild animal to humanity.

 

The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was linked to early Covid cases   Getty Images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bomb On Board

A Belarusian dog handler checking luggage from a Ryanair flight at Minsk International Airport on Sunday.   Credit...Onliner.by/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Belarus made use of a ruse to convince the pilot of a Ryanair flight en route from Greece to Lithuania that it would be in the best interests of all on board to cut the flight short by landing in Minsk with the claim there was a security threat aboard the plane and there was no time to be lost. For good measure, a Belarusian MiG was scrambled to intercept the passenger flight headed to Vilnius. All for the purpose of apprehending a Belarusian journalist who had run afoul of Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko by disputing the legality of a discredited 2020 election that resulted in mass street demonstrations by outraged Belarusians. 

 

The young journalist aboard the Ryanair flight, along with his girlfriend, a Russian photographer, had also been involved in organizing some of those demonstrations and in editing an online magazine critical of the longtime Belarusian dictator. Roman Protasevich, 26, was charged with being a 'terrorist', becoming a wanted man, which convinced him to leave Belarus and redomicile himself safely in Lithuania. Sofia Sapega was attending university in Vilnius. So much for the best-laid plans of mice and men, and journalists who run afoul of tyrants.

Minsk air traffic control, according to transcripts acquired by Reuters, informed the plane's pilot that a bomb was aboard his plane, to be activated over Vilnius.

Pilot: Standby

Pilot: OK, could you repeat the message?

ATC: I say again, we have information from special services that you have bomb on board. That bomb can be activated over Vilnius.

Pilot: Roger that, standby.

ATC: For security reason we recommend you to land at UMMS [ICAO code for Minsk airport].

Pilot: OK ... that ... it ... understood give us alternate please.

Pilot: The bomb ... direct message, where did it come from? Where did you have information about it from?

ATC: Standby please.

Pilot: Go ahead.

ATC: Airport security staff informed they received email.

Pilot: Roger, Vilnius airport security staff or from Greece?

ATC: This email was shared to several airports.

Pilot: Did you say that your recommendation? 

ATC: Advise your decision please.

Pilot: I need answer the question: what is the code of the [unreadable] green, yellow or amber, red.

ATC: Standby.

ATC: They say code is red.

Pilot: Roger that. In that case we request holding at present position.

ATC: Roger, hold over your position, maintain FL390 turns at own discretion.

Pilot: OK holding at our discretion at present position maintaining FL390.

Pilot: We are declaring an emergency MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY RYR 1TZ. Our intentions would be to divert to Minsk airport.

ATC: RYR 2TZ MYDAY, Roger. Standby for vectors.

And so, when the pilot announced on the plane's intercom that the plane was being diverted to Minsk, the reaction from the journalist was instant for he, among all the passengers who panicked over the highly unusual, inexplicable sudden change in destination, fearing the plane's physical integrity to have been compromised through some kind of emergency, knew otherwise. The emergency was his alone. And he visualized his arrest, incarceration, questioning, torture, sentence. Death sentence for 'treason'. 

"Belarus is Europe's last dictatorship, this continent's last country that has still not managed to shrug off the dark legacy of the Soviet regime, to overcome the terrible traumas totalitarianism brought upon our nation."

Belarusian-Canadian Ivonka Survilla, head RADA Belarusian government-in-exile

 

"[The exiled government is a] non-material relic of sorts."

"[The Belarusian government-in-exile almost gave its blessing to the country's first post-Soviet government in 1990, but did not because] the signs of how the present regime would come into being were already evident."

"We can only give the mandate once. That's why it is necessary to wait for the moment when full-fledged and independent democratic institutes are set up [in Belarus]."

Ales Cajcyc, RADA Information Secretary

 

"He [Roman Protasevich] said that he was treated lawfully [speaking from an unknown prison in a video released to the public by Belarusian authorities], but he's clearly beaten and under pressure."

"There is no doubt that he was tortured. He was taken hostage."

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatiana Tsikhanouskaya

Roman Protasevich being detained by  police officers in Minsk, Belarus, in 2017.  Credit...Sergei Grits/Associated Press

State AirJacking and Abduction

"The captain suddenly banked and went downward, then he came on the intercom and said, 'Unfortunately, we have to land in Minsk', for reasons he did not explain."

"He [air passenger] suddenly stood up and tried to give  his phone and his laptop to the woman who was with him. And he began to tell the people around him, 'No, we can't land in Minsk, they will arrest me'."

Ryanair flight 4978 from Athens to Vilnius, Lithunia, passenger

"They took the boy aside and shook his belongings on to the runway. We asked him what was going on."

"He said what it was and added, 'The death penalty awaits me here'."

Passenger, Ryanair flight 4978

Lithuanian passenger Mantas (centre, front) said Mr Protasevich "made a mistake" giving his laptop to his girlfriend   Reuters

 

A regularly scheduled flight, a low-cost passenger flight popular among middle-class people in Lithuania, budget-driven tourists who plan a holiday on the Mediterranean. Among the 126 passengers on board Sunday's flight from Athens to Vilnius was a young pair living as refugees from Belarus, in Vilnius. He, Roman Protasevich, 26, a journalist, and she, 23-year-old Sofia Sapega, a professional photographer studying at the European Humanities University. Returning from an assignment where they decided to use the opportunity to take a break in the sun.

The journalist was a hunted man. Designated by the Belarusian military government of Alexander Lukashenko as a terrorist. The sham election that 're-elected' Lukashenko in a hugely unlikely landslide, back to the presidency last summer after 26 years in dictatorial power, occasioned large, vociferous opposition and ongoing street protests. Harshly and violently put down, until protests were exhausted of their furious oxygen. 

 

And Roman Protasevich was a protest organizer and news editor as well as journalist, placing him in very bad odour with the Lukashenko government. He was acutely aware that the political leader of Belarus was interested in apprehending him. It was why he left Belarus. The pair had accompanied the Belarusian self-exiled (for self-protection) opposition leader Sviatiana Tsikhanouskaya to the Delphi Economic Forum on assignment in early May. 

When the plane's pilot gave no explanation for his decision to divert the plane to land in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, the plane passengers were stunned and alarmed, many fearing a bomb aboard the plane, others that something had gone mechanically wrong and they were in deep trouble. Only Mr. Protasevich knew what was happening: "We can't land there. They are going to arrest me"!, he was heard to exclaim.

 

Mr Protasevich was charged with terrorism and inciting riots after covering the events of the 2020 Belarus presidential election  Getty Images

 

He had, in fact, spoken with a friend about the potential dangers of overflying Belarus, with his wanted status in mind. It was only when he and  his girlfriend were in the act of boarding the plane back to Vilnius that he experienced the first of a series of peculiar incidents; each one a warning signal. Standing at the check-in queue behind him was a Russian-speaking man who used his phone to quickly photograph the journalist's documents as he presented them to the check-in, and then quickly disappeared.

 

Others remained in the queue, silently watching, taking note of everything; Belarusian KGB agents. In flight, the aircraft continued at cruising altitude, maintaining speed at a point in time when it would generally have started its descent to Vilnius. Two minutes before entering Lithuanian airspace where it was scheduled to land in Vilnius in another ten minutes, there was an abrupt turn. If it was an emergency landing, Vilnius was a lot closer than Minsk, where the pilot now headed the aircraft toward.  

"We all on the plane had panicked because we thought we were going to crash."

"This was a sudden dive, changing the altitude very drastically. It was very violent. I've never felt this on an airplane. Everybody was in shock."

Lithuanian passenger Raselle Grigoryeva

While passengers excitedly speculated between themselves what might have occasioned the swift decision to deviate from the expected route, they were unaware that a Belarusian MiG-29 had ordered the change of course as it intercepted the Ryanair flight. When that happened, the young journalist leapt into action, desperately attempting to persuade the crew to return to its original flight pattern, to no avail. 

Once landed in Minsk and everyone deplaned, both young people, the journalist and the photographer were seen in loose custody, while the KGB authorities made an effort to divert attention from an obvious kidnapping taking place by making a show of document-checking all passengers despite the security officers having no obvious interest in the other passengers. "It was obviously not why we landed", remarked a passenger.

Journalist and photographer were soon closely escorted out of sight where each was placed in a waiting SUV. Six hours on, the passengers and crew were given permission to leave, landing in Vilnius 35 minutes later. It was noted that three other passengers had remained behind in Minsk and speculation that they were Belarusian or Russian KGB agents that followed the couple was rife. 

The plane was diverted on an emergency basis reflecting orders from a missive authorities had received warning of a bomb ostensibly placed on board by the terrorist group Hamas. according to Minsk authorities. Hams, no less. Whoever thought that one up was evidently flailing around for anything that might sound feasible, despite that the group their imagination conjured up, was anything but likely to be involved. 

 

Supporters of Mr Protasevich await him at Vilnius airport with a sign reading: "I am, we are Roman Protasevich"    PETRAS MALUKAS/GETTY IMAGES

 

Whoever posited that scenario felt, with good reason, that revealing that the Belarusian tyrant had given explicit orders to divert the plane else it would be shot down, would not go down well. Inspired, perhaps by the Ukrainian passenger jet that had been shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as it left the airport in Tehran, Iran. Or the Malaysian passenger jet shot down by ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

 

Tyrants of all stripes care little of what the world thinks of them.

A video was posted online on Monday where Roman Prostasevich is seen to assure he is in good health, although no one knows where he is being held. In the video he speaks of having played a role in organizing mass protests last year in Minsk. That he is under duress is beyond doubt. As for Ms.Sapega, she is being held, it is believed, at the notorious Okrestina prison in Minsk, and what will  happen to them both is now anyone's guess.

Seeking Justice and Closure for Canadian-Iranians

People hold signs with images of the victims of the downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, which was shot down near Tehran by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as family and friends gather to take part in a march to mark the first anniversary, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Jan. 8, 2021. Canada and other nations whose citizens died in Iran's downing of a Ukrainian jetliner on Jan. 8, 2020, called on Tehran to come clean about the tragedy and "deliver justice" for the victims' families. - COLE BURSTON/AFP via Getty Images

"I think Canada should take steps. We make a mistake if we fall into this trap of thinking we must exercise a sort of self-censorship."

"We need to take a principled stand. Canadians have been essentially murdered by this regime [Iranian Islamist theocracy]."

Aurel Brain, professor of international relations, Middle East expert, University of Toronto

"We don't expect justice from the Iranian regime. But we expect the government of Canada to protect its own citizens and to be much more effective."

"Now the ball is with the Liberal government."

Ali Gorji, Iranian-Canadian

"This verdict has no basis and does not consist of any objective reasoning or documentation."

"This behaviour of the Canadian judge, by following orders and political cliches, is shameful for a country which claims to follow the rule of law."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh

"We have to hold Iran accountable for its actions. Being passive in the face of these threats only further emboldens the Iranian regime", Michael Chong foreign-affairs critic for the federal Conservatives pointed out reasonably, of the newly-released Ontario court's ruling that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the deliberate shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner -- where half of the passengers were Canadians and others were travelling to Canada on visas or to resume their academic studies -- as an act of pure terrorism.

The court's decision, points out Member of Parliament Chong, validates the Parliamentary opposition Conservative Party's long-standing position calling on the government to list the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. Representing a quarter of a million military personnel, part of the Iranian military, that is highly politicized and well known for its al Quds branch focus on fostering terrorist groups in service to the terrorist ideology of the Republic.

While the Quds branch is a listed terrorist group in Canada, the position is that the entire IRGC should be included. the Canadian House of Commons passed a 2018 motion calling for the entire corps to be listed, but the Liberal-led government has seen fit to just sit on the motion. This government has been more interested in re-establishing diplomatic relations with Iran that were severed by the previous Canadian government that had no problem identifying Iran for what it is; a terrorist-sponsoring nation.

Justice Edward Belobaba of Ontario's Superior Court ruled in mid-May that Iran had deliberately targeted and shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752, an act that makes the Iranian theocracy liable under the provisions of the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. There were high tensions in play on January 8, 2020 between Iran and the U.S. when the plane was shot down. Iran claims the passenger jet was mistaken for an incoming American missile headed for Tehran.

 

The problem with that neat little explanation is that the plane on lift-off was heading OUT of Tehran, not entering it. One missile is a dreadful error; two missiles, a deliberate attack. None of which answers the question that if Iran was so nervous about its tensions with the U.S. anticipating missiles entering its airspace, why would it allow commercial flights to continue? There were a number of flights earlier in the day, none of them experiencing problems. This flight was different.

 

 A forensic investigation team was tasked to probe the event, its report in its final stages to be shortly made public. "Canada remains deeply concerned about the lack of convincing information and evidence provided by Iran.We will not rest until the families [whose loved ones lost their lives in the plane shoot-down] get the justice and accountability they deserve", stated John Babcock, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs Canada.

The decision the Ontario Supreme Court arrived at is in relation to a lawsuit filed against Iran on behalf of relatives of those who perished on that ill-fated plane, but it has no direct bearing on government affairs, unless government decides to use it in a full-scale government-to-government push for justice and compensation for the families involved, from the Republic of Iran. Of the 176 passengers and crew aboard the plane, 55 were Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents, and 53 were students studying in Canada.

"The plaintiffs have established that the shooting down of Flight 752 by the defendants was an act of terrorism and constitutes 'terrorist activity'..."
"I find on a balance of probabilities that the missile attacks on Flight 752 were intentional and directly caused the deaths of all onboard."
Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba 

 

"Considering the TOR-M1 advanced military capabilities, two radars and control system, pre-approved flight plans and control of the airspace resting with the IRGC, and the firing of not one, but two missiles, it is not possible for two missiles to be fired by mistake as the IRGC claims."

"There are multiple redundant systems and procedures to prevent accidental shooting of civilian aircraft."

Dr. Bahman Jeldi, Iranian analyst, Canadian Center for Persian Studies  

 

"It is my hope that this decision does not prevent Canada's government from pursuing this case in international fora like the International Court of Justice.

"And I hope such a court wouldn't view this case as a replacement for an international judgment that finds Iran responsible for the killing of 176 innocent people."

Kaveh Shahrooz, lawyer, human rights activist

On Jan. 8, 2020, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in the skies over Tehran with two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 people aboard, including 138 with ties to Canada. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)

 

 

 

 

 

Declaring 'Victory'

"Hamas can't hide anymore. That's a great achievement for Israel."

"We eliminated an important part of Hamas's and Islamic Jihad's command echelon."

"And whoever was not killed knows today that our long arm can reach him anywhere, above ground or underground."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

 

"We will rebuild what the occupation [Israel] destroyed and restore our capabilities."

"And we will not abandon our obligations and duties to the families of martyrs, the wounded and those whose homes were destroyed."

"[We are grateful to Iran] which has not given up on providing the resistance with money, weapons and technology."

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh

Palestinians wave national flags in front of the Dome of the Rock in the al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem, Friday, May 21, 202, as a cease-fire took effect between Hamas and Israel after an 11-day war. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

 

Israel is determined and prepared to defend itself against any and all violence perpetrated by state actors or terrorist groups against its sovereignty and its population. This is a country which, since its return to its heritage geography 73 years ago, has been forced to build and to weaponize a military for the sole purpose of defence. A country surrounded by neighbours for whom irredentism is as much a part of their shared culture of the Middle East, as striving for peace is for Israel. Israel has been forced time and again to mount defences against armies of its neighbours joining in a military offensive to destroy its presence.

And while following one decisive battle after another where Israel has won its defence, or seen fit to withdraw when it was given little option but to pursue those who constantly challenged its sovereignty and killed its people, its purpose has always been defence, never offence. Those successful defences finally delivered the message to its tormentors that the Jewish state was entrenched for good where it belonged, and no amount of military conflict forced upon it to defend itself would serve to extricate it from its inheritance in the Middle East.

It is no longer the purpose of Arab Muslim countries in the Middle East to destroy Israel. That goal is left only with Aryan Muslim Iran, where its theocracy continues to conspire, threaten, and launch attacks against Israel through its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas (along with other terrorist Palestinian/Arab militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and Fatah) whose charters specify directly that their goal is the destruction of Israel and its Jewish population, dream of 'victory' over the Zionist state; a pejorative in their sense, a point of pride in Jews.

 

Palestinians pray by the bodies of members of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas movement, who died in Israeli bombardment of a tunnel, during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 21, 2021.  (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)

 

Israel speaks with the relief of having, in the tribal, sectarian, clan and ethnic-sect language of the Middle East, demonstrated amply that it will not absorb the violence meted out by the vicious trifecta of Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas. Attack Israel and there's a steep price to pay. Israel's attackers, on the other hand, know nothing beyond the crude, barbaric violence of threat and assault to gain the advantage they seek to destroy Israel. For Israel it is survival motivating its action, for the others it is a wargame of death delivery to those they deem an enemy.

A resident of Gaza, surveying the damage done to his neighbourhood by aerial bombardment when Israel responded to the barrage of thousands of missiles and rockets shot from neighbourhoods exactly like his, and his included, comes the rhetorical question: "How can the world call itself civilized?" Far more to the point were he to mull over the reality that the terrorist group that rules his neighbourhood uses his crowded civilian enclave and all others as convenient shields behind which it mounts its attacks clearly inviting a response in kind precisely where civilians in Gaza live; their schools, hospitals, their mosques.

 

People walk by a residential building covered with Israeli flags last week after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ramat Gan, central Israel, Friday, May 21, 2021.  (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

 

The death toll during the destructive air attacks is greater in Gaza than it is in Israel because this is how Hamas plans their strategy; the higher the Palestinian death toll the more sympathy can be extracted from the international community over the dire fate of Palestinians, in the line of fire of the Israeli Defense Forces. A death toll of 243, resulting from one thousand air strikes and buildings bombed is nothing short of miraculous, since it also includes largely the number of Hamas 'fighters' Israel managed to target. The civilian toll would have been far higher had Israel not, at every opportunity, forewarned people to evacuate buildings it meant to bomb because of links with Hamas.

Hamas builds networks of extensive underground tunnels. There are no bomb shelters built by Hamas to protect the population of Gaza whom Hamas constantly places in direct danger. Israel, the recipient of Hamas violence and well over four thousand rockets and missiles in the past eleven days, builds bomb shelters everywhere because it must, to protect its population; Jews, Druze, B'hai, Arabs, Muslims, Christians and any others who live in the country, including foreign workers.

U.S. President Joe Biden declared his intention that humanitarian aid would be sent to Gaza coordinated with the Palestinian Authority which governs the West Bank "in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal". An interesting statement when in reality it is Israel and Israel alone to which the task of prevention of restocking of military arms prevention for Hamas rests with, along with some assistance from Egypt. Both Israel and Egypt know the tunnel network Hamas so diligently constructs carries smuggled weaponry along circuitous international routes from Iran through to Egypt and into Gaza.

Of the 4,350 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza, an estimated 640 fell short of their targets, landing back into the Gaza Strip, while 90 percent of the remainder that crossed the border were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system. Of the 640 that fell back into Gaza, a number were involved in killing Palestinians and wounding many others. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are guilty of war crimes, firing weapons purposely at civilians, both in Israel and indirectly in Gaza itself. With the ceasefire, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards issued a warning to Israel to expect "deadly blows".

Rubble of the al Jalaal building in Gaza, after a ceasefire   AP