90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Worrying new clues about the origins of Covid: How scientists at Wuhan lab helped Chinese army in secret project to find animal viruses

Scientists at Wuhan lab were on massive project investigating animal viruses
Documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday have revealed a nationwide scheme
It was being directed by leading state body, which was launched nine years ago
Its aim was to find new viruses and detect 'dark matter' of biology involved in spreading disease - alongside military officials, despite denials of any such links

Scientists studying bat diseases at China's maximum-security laboratory in Wuhan were engaged in a massive project to investigate animal viruses alongside leading military officials – despite their denials of any such links.

Documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal that a nationwide scheme, directed by a leading state body, was launched nine years ago to discover new viruses and detect the 'dark matter' of biology involved in spreading diseases.

One leading Chinese scientist, who published the first genetic sequence of the Covid-19 virus in January last year, found 143 new diseases in the first three years of the project alone.

The fact that such a virus-detection project is led by both civilian and military scientists appears to confirm incendiary claims from the United States alleging collaboration between the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the country's 2.1 million-strong armed forces.

The scheme's five team leaders include Shi Zhengli, the WIV virologist nicknamed 'Bat Woman' for her trips to find samples in caves, and Cao Wuchun, a senior army officer and government adviser on bioterrorism.

Prof Shi denied the US allegations last month, saying: 'I don't know of any military work at the WIV. That info is incorrect.'

Yet Colonel Cao is listed on project reports as a researcher from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences of the People's Liberation Army, works closely with other military scientists and is director of the Military Biosafety Expert Committee.

Cao, an epidemiologist who studied at Cambridge University, even sits on the Wuhan Institute of Virology's advisory board. He was second-in-command of the military team sent into the city under Major General Chen Wei, the country's top biodefence expert, to respond to the new virus and develop a vaccine.

The US State Department also raised concerns over risky 'gain of function' experiments to manipulate coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab and suggested researchers fell sick with Covid-like symptoms weeks before the outbreak emerged more widely in the Chinese city.

Last month, Britain, the US and 12 other countries criticised Beijing for refusing to share key data and samples after a joint World Health Organisation and Chinese study into the pandemic's origins dismissed a lab leak as 'extremely unlikely'.

Filippa Lentzos, a biosecurity expert at King's College London, said the latest disclosures fitted 'the pattern of inconsistencies' coming from Beijing.

'They are still not being transparent with us,' she said. 'We have no hard data on...

Insane new anti-drone system zaps UAVs out of the sky with targeted microwaves

In July 2019, multiple drones were reportedly used to swarm Navy destroyers off the coast of California. The mysterious drones, around six in total, appeared over the course of several nights, flashing lights and performing “brazen maneuvers” close to the warships. They flew at speeds of 16 knots, and stayed aloft for upward of 90 minutes, longer than commercially available drones.

It’s not known where they originated from. News of the incident was only made public in March 2021, following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from The Drive, which rested in the disclosure of deck logs from the ships involved in the incident.

Troublesome drones are not a new phenomenon. In one highly publicized incident a couple of years ago, unauthorized drones were spotted near London’s Gatwick Airport, a major hub that approximately 60,000 people fly out of each day during normal, non-COVID times. Concerned about the possibility of a drone colliding with an aircraft, authorities made the call to ground all aircraft for 36 hours, affecting 1,000 flights and costing an estimated $70 million.Epirus

According to Leigh Madden, CEO of Los Angeles-based startup Epirus, drones are fast becoming a “staple of 21st-century warfare.” U.S. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who heads up the nation’s Central Command, has branded them the “most concerning tactical development” since the widespread rise of IEDs, or improvised explosive devices. As with IEDs, the use of drones represents an example of asymmetric warfare, in which smaller, less well-equipped insurgents can challenge much larger powers. Like a couple of drones shutting down an international airport. Or several drones striking fear into the crew of a 510-foot Navy destroyer.

Anti-drone energy weapons

To address this growing problem, Epirus, which builds modern defense systems to address 21st-century threats, has created Leonidas, a portable, powerful microwave energy weapon that can be used to disable a swarm of drones simultaneously or knock out individual drones within a group with extremely high precision. It works by overloading the electronics on board a drone, causing it to instantly fall out of the sky. It is referred to as a Counter-UAS — or Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems — tool.

“Leonidas is a first-of-its-kind Counter-UAS system that uses solid-state, software-defined high-power microwave (HPM) to disable electronic targets, delivering unparalleled control and safety to operators,” Madden told Digital Trends. “Digital beamforming capabilities enable pinpoint accuracy so that operators can disable enemy threats, [without disrupting anything] else. Leonidas utilizes solid-state Gallium Nitride power amplifiers to give the system deep magazines and rapid firing rates, while dramatically...

These two articles from the New York Times make for an interesting contrast.

The first article from 2018, "The Religion of Whiteness Becomes a Suicide Cult," argued that white people stole everything they have and will destroy the planet.

New York Times contributor Damon Young just a few weeks ago wrote a column for The Root stating that "whiteness is a pandemic" and "the only way to stop it is to locate it, isolate it, extract it, and kill it."

The second article from Friday, "When Blackness Is a Superpower," argued that black people stealing white comic book characters and recasting them as black will save the world.

One of the comics the Times highlighted features Harriet Tubman slaying white demons (see middle left).

Excerpt:

In fact, the notion of Harriet Tubman as a superhero is a favorite subject of comic book fan art. She is also the subject of a graphic novel series by David Crownson, which was funded by a Kickstarter campaign.

The slave catchers aren't just evil: They’re vampires. Harriet Tubman doesn't just defend the people she's guiding to freedom; she wields katanas and wordplay to outwit and overcome the white men who see her and her people as mere chattel.

All of these heroes are, in their own way, fighting for an equality that seems ever elusive. For Spellman, the opportunity to write stories about Black superheroes is part of a concerted effort to tip the scales.

"I absolutely believe that this helps re-contextualize us in a more universal way," he said. "If we are first and foremost perceived as less than, and I do believe that everybody on the planet looks at us that way, a superhero is greater than. That primal math, via a megaphone like Marvel -- that's powerful."

Note how the Times has begun capitalizing "Black" but not "white."

Demons can't be afforded the same reverence as...

Following the "defund the police" movement and the "abolish the police" movement, constant negative coverage of law enforcement by the media, anti-police sentiment becoming mainstream, and the threat of riots have contributed to a police shortage across the country.

The Philadelphia Police Department currently has 268 vacancies and is expecting even more shortages in the near future.

"From Jan. 1 through Thursday, 79 Philadelphia officers have been accepted into the city's Deferred Retirement Option Program, meaning they intend to retire within four years, according to Mayor Jim Kenney's office," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. "During the same time period last year, just 13 officers had been accepted into the program, the office said."

"It's the perfect storm. We are anticipating that the department is going to be understaffed by several hundred members, because hundreds of guys are either retiring or taking other jobs and leaving the department," Mike Neilon, spokesperson for the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, told the newspaper.

Neighboring New Jersey is facing a "recruiting crisis," according to Pat Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemen's Benevolent Association.

Colligan said that recent notorious police-involved deaths of citizens such as George Floyd, Tamir Rice, and Breonna Taylor have impacted recruiting efforts.

"Every action has a reaction. When you vilify every police officer for every bad police officer's decision, [people] don't want to take this job anymore," Colligan, head of New Jersey's largest police union, said. "It's been a very trying and difficult time to...

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Growing Calls for Moving or Boycotting the Beijing Olympics

A growing number of Western lawmakers and human rights groups are calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, in response to burgeoning evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China. Human rights experts say that at least one million Muslims are being detained in hundreds of internment camps. Pictured: Senior officials of the organizing committee of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics raise a toast at an event held for international media on April 12, 2021 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

"We're dealing with a government of intolerance, dictatorial, brooks no dissent, arrests people at a drop of a hat. I think there's a very strong case to be made that China should not be rewarded for its astonishingly bad behavior." — British MP Sir Ian Duncan Smith, Co-chair, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
"We therefore call on governments to boycott the Beijing 2022 Games — anything less will be seen as an endorsement of the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian rule and blatant disregard for civil and human rights." — A coalition of more than 180 human rights groups, in a letter to the International Olympic Committee.
"The IOC's failure to publicly confront Beijing's serious human rights violations makes a mockery of its own commitments and claims that the Olympics are a 'force for good.'" — Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.
"We must boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in China. It would be a terrible loss for our athletes, but that must be weighed against the genocide occurring in China and the prospect that empowering China will lead to even greater horrors down the road." — Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley.
"To be clear, I do not support a boycott. Boycotting these games will only hurt athletes who have spent their lives training to represent their country on the international stage. Instead, it should be the position of all democratic nations that the IOC can and should move the 2022 Games to a nation that respects human rights." — U.S. Senator Rick Scott, in a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"This is not about 'opposing views' between countries. There is no room for a middle ground. Either you make yourself an accomplice by closing your eyes, or you stand up for the values that are close to your heart — such as freedom and democracy." — Glacier Kwong, a human rights activist from Hong Kong who is currently residing in Germany.

A growing number of Western lawmakers and human rights groups are calling for a boycott of the next Winter Olympics, set to take place in Beijing in February 2022.

The calls for a boycott have come in response to burgeoning evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China. Human rights experts say that at least one million Muslims are being detained in hundreds of internment camps, where they are subject to torture, mass rapes, forced labor and sterilizations.

Anger is also simmering over China's political repression in Hong Kong, Tibet and Inner Mongolia; its increased intimidation of Taiwan; its threats to its other neighbors; as well as its continued lack of transparency over the origins of the Coronavirus pandemic, which has resulted in the deaths of more than three million people around the world, according Johns Hopkins University.

Boycott options include: 1) moving the Winter Olympics to another country; 2) an athletic boycott — prohibiting athletes from participating in the Games; 3) a diplomatic boycott — barring senior political representatives from travelling to Beijing to attend the opening ceremony; 4) an economic boycott — pressuring multinational corporations to cancel multi-million dollar Olympic sponsorship deals; or 5) a media boycott — limiting television coverage of the Games, thus depriving China of an important propaganda tool in the West.

Regardless of what transpires, China's human rights record is sure to be the focus of increased scrutiny during the months leading...