The Wuhan lab in China at the source of speculation about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic kept live bats at the facility - despite a WHO investigator insisting they did not - according to a new report.
The footage, which aired Sunday on Sky News Australia, was reportedly filmed inside the lab and showed a series of cages containing live bats.
A coordinator for the group Drastic, which is independently crowd-sourcing ideas about the origins of the pandemic, provided the footage of the bats to Sky.
The coordinator goes by the pseudonym of Billy Bostickson, for safety reasons, and has long insisted that bats were housed in the Wuhan laboratories.
The footage of the bats, which Sky News' Sharri Markson insisted was from the Wuhan lab, contradicts assertions made by a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team who visited the site in late January.
Peter Daszak, a British zoologist, said it was a conspiracy to suggest bats were held at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In one tweet dated December 2020 he said, according to Sky: 'No BATS were sent to Wuhan lab for genetic analysis of viruses collected in the field. That's now how this science works. We collect bat samples, send them to the lab. We RELEASE bats where we catch them!'
In another tweet, Sky said, dated December 11, 2020, Daszak said: 'This is a widely circulated conspiracy theory. This piece describes work I'm the lead on and labs I've collaborated with for 15 years.
'They DO NOT have live or dead bats in them. There is no evidence anywhere that this happened. It's an error I hope will be corrected.'
He has since deleted the tweets.
Daszak this month appeared to retract his earlier denials and admitted the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have housed bats, but admitted he had not asked them.
Sky then aired a second video, produced by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and also unearthed by Drastic.
The video shows a worker at the lab, Yuan Zhiming, director of the top-level P4 lab at the facility, explaining their systems.
He states: 'This is our central control room. Staff in our central control room remain in close contact with our staff in our laboratory. Providing necessary technical support for their experiments as well as for any accidents.'
Tucker Carlson, who featured Markson on his show on Monday night, said that Zhiming's comments showed there was the expectation that accidents could happen.
His remarks support those by the director of the bat research, Shi Zhengli, in April 2020.
She told colleagues that she was concerned there could have been a 'lab leak', at the start of the pandemic, but was reassured when the virus' genetic sequence did not match those in her lab, according to The Wall Street Journal at the time.
The paper reported that a number of Chinese media reports, including those claiming that a lab accident was responsible for the new coronavirus, suggested in the spring of 2020 that she raised bats in her labs in Wuhan.
Dr Daszak told the paper he had never seen any evidence of that.
'I'm pretty sure they don't have bats in Wuhan,' he said, noting that the horseshoe variety they have studied the most closely fares poorly in captivity.
Vox reported that the lab had been handling coronavirus samples at biosafety level 2 precautions when most other labs recommend a biosafety level of 3 or higher.
At biosafety level 2, lab access is restricted, researchers must wear personal protective equipment like gloves, lab coats, and eye protection, and much of the experimental work is conducted in biosafety cabinets that filter air rather than open lab benches.
Biosafety level 3 includes all the precautions of lower levels and adds medical surveillance for lab workers, the use of respirator masks, and lab access controlled with two sets of self-closing and locking doors.
The biosafety level 3 measures are aimed at controlling potentially lethal respiratory pathogens that spread through the air, while biosafety level 2 is meant for pathogens that pose a 'moderate hazard.'
Refs: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9687121/Unearthed-video-proves-bats-kept-Wuhan-lab-member-tweeted-NOT-bats.html?ito=push-notification&ci=240313&si=29714469&ai=9687121, https://staygate.blogspot.com/2021/06/wuhan-laboratory-raises-live-bats.html
News (2) to (8) / https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/6/14/n13022185.htm / Research, extract translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
News (2)
People rush to get Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccination in New Taipei, Avoid covi vaccination within two weeks
Editor : Lin Baohong / Direct translation
Japan’s donation of 1.24 million doses of AZ vaccine to Taiwan arrived in Taiwan on the 4th. This batch of vaccines has been delivered to counties and cities under the distribution of the Central Epidemic Command Center, and began to be administered in the morning of 15 June.
There is a shortage of domestic vaccines. Recently, it is a topic on administering "Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine" to reduce chance of covi infection. The New Taipei City Government responded that the number of Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccines is sufficient, but it should be reminded that the covi vaccine cannot be given within two weeks after the Streptococcus pneumoniae is given.
The covi vaccine has begun to be administered on a large scale on 15 June in Taiwan. In addition to the first three categories of people, the elderly over the age of 85 are given priority. It’s just that many ethnic groups are still worried about not being able to get a vaccine, so recently it was posted on the Internet that if the covi vaccine is not available, the 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine should be given first, which can also fight against covid. This issue has not only triggered public discussion, there are even people who just want to vaccinate.
Weng Zimin, a physician at Yadong Hospital, said that vaccination with Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine will not effectively prevent covi infection but it can reduce the probability of severe and persistent infection after infection. At present, there are not many pneumococcal vaccines left in various medical hospitals in New Taipei City. Even Yadong Hospital’s inquiry rate is four times higher than in the past, and the number of injections is more than twice.
Weng Zimin said that many people have indeed asked recently, and even the youngest have encountered young people in their 20s. He suggested that people over 50 should be vaccinated again. After all, young people's resistance is better. Compared with the elders, the chance of becoming severely ill after infection is greater, or the resistance is affected by a chronic disease, and the Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine can be administered.
Rumor has it that the Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine in New Taipei City is about to bottom out? Health Director Chen Runqiu said that the amount of Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine in New Taipei City is sufficient in the 29 district health centers, and people can go to the health centres if they want to use them. After the Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine is given, the covi vaccine cannot be given for two weeks. Therefore, the elderly are reminded that if they want to get covi vaccination in two weeks' time, do not get the pneumonia vaccine for the time being.
Ref: news.tvbs.com.tw/life/1528363?from=Copy_content
News (15)
The 75-year-old bedridden elder came for vaccination. Here comes Taipei's "Mobile Vaccination Team"
Reporter : Chen Yuwen / Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
Taipei on 15 June starts the covid vaccination for elders over 85 years old and aboriginal elders over 65 years old. "Mobile vaccination teams" are also activated for long-term elderly care institutions. It is expected that the number of bedridden elderly to be vaccinated will reach 224 next week.
Deputy Mayor Cai Bingkun revealed that there are currently 119 people making appointments. Vaccination instructions are for elderly over 85 years old in Taipei.
Taipei's "Mobile Vaccination Team" took the initiative to target long-term care institutions. It is estimated that 100 institutions will be vaccinated this week, and next week, all 224 elderly and 10993 residents in Taipei will be vaccinated, and long-term caregivers will be vaccinated.
According to 2.0 Service disability levels 7 and 8, bedridden elders over 75 years of age who need vaccination can also make an appointment to the home vaccination service. In response to the vaccination shelf life is 6 hours, each person rests after vaccination for at least 30 minutes while each team can administer a daily dose 8 to 10 people.
Cai Bingkun pointed out that there are currently 119 people making appointments. Neighboring families will be scheduled for a single shot. Time will also be properly planned to maximize the effectiveness of the vaccine. Due to the influx of too many people on the 1966 long-term care line after the explosion, Cai Bingkun also reminded that people could call 1999 to report, and the Health Bureau would take the initiative to contact and inform the appointment time.
Ref: news.tvbs.com.tw/life/1528394?from=Copy_content
News (16)
Covid tally of Taiwan on 15 June 2021
Report by : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
On 15 June 2021, Taiwan reports an increase of 135 confirmed covid cases including 132 new local covid cases and 3 inbound covid cases. Among the total number of 11,722 infections, 8 more covid patients have passed away, including the first covid death record for Kaohsiung.
Among the cities and counties, New Taipei has 65 new covid cases, Taipei has 26 new covid cases, 18 cases in Miaoli, 12 cases in Taoyuan, 3 cases in Keelung, 2 cases each in Tainan, Taichung, Hualien, and 1 case each in Chiayi and Changhua.
Among the 11,722 cases, 6188 cases have ended quarantine.
Ref: https://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/1528310
News (17)
Another shipping crisis Guangdong epidemic caused port traffic congestion
Editor : Lu Yongxin / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2021/06/15/a103142999.html / Direct translation
The outbreak of a local epidemic in Guangdong, China, spreading to Foshan, Maoming, Zhanjiang and other places, may cause the latest challenge to the global supply chain. A large number of cargo ships choose to transfer to other ports, which in turn affects the outbound container volume of South ports such as Yantian. Lu Media pointed out that due to the detention of goods, uncertain delivery time, and rising transshipment costs, the cost pressure of enterprises has increased and China's exports have been affected.
Since the end of May in Guangdong Province, there have been more than 100 cases of the CCP virus epidemic. The authorities have taken blockade actions to prevent the rapid spread of the virus. Guangdong is a major shipping hub, accounting for about 24% of China's total exports. According to data from the World Shipping Council, Shenzhen Port and Guangzhou Port are the world's third and fifth largest container ports.
The Central News Agency reported that recently in Yantian, a container port in Shenzhen, due to a diagnosis of a terminal worker, the authorities ordered strict quarantine measures for incoming ships, and the capacity of the operating terminal was also reduced by nearly half, directly affecting the port's transportation operations.
The report pointed out that due to the congestion in Shenzhen Yantian Port and its surrounding ports, shipping prices have been affected. On the one hand, shipping companies have added container surcharges to Yantian Port, and on the other hand, shipping fees have continued to rise.
The report mentioned that some shipping companies have changed their operational plans and changed the locations of loading and unloading to Shenzhen Shekou Port, Guangzhou Nansha Port and other places.
Since June, Nansha Port has seen a surge in container volume, congestion at the terminal, drastically reduced trailer operation efficiency, doubling of costs, and difficulty in finding a single vehicle. A similar situation has also occurred in Shekou Port, and recent adjustments have been made to the relevant policies for receiving export containers.
The report quoted an electrical appliance export business as saying that due to the decrease in the closing of Yantian Port and Shekou Port, in order to allow the smooth export of goods, the goods have recently been transferred to Nansha Port to wait. "Because the queue time is too long, it is about After 7 to 8 hours, the cost soared. In the past, the towing fee to Nansha Port was 900 yuan (approximately US$140) per container, but now it has risen sharply to 2800 yuan (approximately US$437)."
Another person in the industry said that in addition to the transportation costs, the costs including the cost of hanging cabinets, the overnight charge of the car, the demurrage of the containers, the return of the containers, and the warehouse rent, etc., have also been increasing. In addition, on the routes from Nansha Port to Chicago, and Shekou Port to Cleveland, after the outbreak of the epidemic in Yantian Port, prices have also risen, causing cost pressures on enterprises.
The report also quoted Chen Hui, the general manager of market analysis agency AVC Revo, as an analysis, "The ports in East China will not be ruled out in the future and will also be affected, and there will be congestion." He said that the second half of the year is a critical period for Black Friday stocking in Europe and the United States, and delivery delays will affect the return of corporate funds.
JP Wiggins, vice president of corporate development at shipping software company 3GTMS, believes that China's port crisis will directly disrupt American consumers. In contrast, the Suez Canal blockage mainly affects products sold in Europe.
According to estimates by the National Retailers Association (NRF), from May to September, the nation’s port container imports will maintain a level of more than 2 million TEU (20-foot containers) in a single month, which is an upward revision from the previous forecast, mainly due to the gradual recovery of economic activities. However, the inventory of US retailers is still at a low point in the past 30 years, and the strong demand for restocking will further boost the demand for cargo. The market expects that the freight rate will rise more and less, and the peak season of the ocean line is expected to see a more prosperous market during the peak season.
News (18)
Pompeo: The U.S. has a lot of evidence and it’s time to hold the CCP to blame
Reporter : Luo Tingting / Editor: Fan Ming / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2021/06/15/a103142833.html / Direct translation
In an interview with "Fox News Sunday" on June 13, Pompeo said, "There is a lot of evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has leaked. There is a pile of 100-foot-tall evidence, there are very high The credibility shows that this is the case."
He said, "We really know what happened there (Wuhan Institute of Virology)." "We have put a lot of pressure on the CCP-not only the US State Department, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others. department."
Pompeo stated that the United States is "very close to being able to provide evidence for the actual occurrence of COVID-19 (origin)." "We know enough now. The (CCP) cover-up of the truth is still going on. Now is the time to hold accountable."
At present, the Biden administration is also focusing the origin of the CCP virus on the possibility of leakage from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. On May 26, President Biden ordered the intelligence service to submit a report within 90 days.
At the sunset of the G7 summit on June 13, the leaders of the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy, among other economic powers, rarely used a tough attitude against the CCP in the joint communiqué.
The leaders of the seven countries promised to strengthen the "transparency" and "accountability" of the investigation of the outbreak of the Chinese Communist Party virus. He also called on the WHO to conduct research in a timely, transparent, expert-led, and scientifically based manner when convening the next stage of the epidemic tracing work, including in China.
In addition, on the first day of the G7 summit (June 11), Yang Jiechi, the top diplomat of the Chinese Communist Party, and US Secretary of State Blinken spoke on the phone for the first time.
Brinken pointed out the importance of cooperation in investigating the source of the Chinese communist virus and the importance of maintaining transparency, including the need for the second phase of WHO's expert-led investigation and research in China.
Yang Jiechi claimed that the theory leaked by the laboratory was "ridiculous" and that the US side should not "politicize" the traceability issue.
In an interview with Fox Sunday News on the 13th, Blinken said that the WHO's first investigation on the origin of the CCP virus pandemic was "very flawed."
He said that the leaders of the Group of Seven countries will insist that the CCP cooperate with the WHO's second virus traceability investigation. "We need to figure out what happened, we need accountability."
Jamie Metzl, a member of the Advisory Committee of the World Health Organization, told Fox News last week that with the attention of the outside world on the Wuhan laboratory leak theory, the CCP is still carrying out a “large-scale response to the news of the Chinese Communist virus (COVID-19). cover".
Metzl said, “China has carried out large-scale cover-ups that continue to this day, including destroying samples, concealing records, issuing a unified password to Chinese scientists, and imprisoning Chinese citizen journalists who ask the most basic questions.”
However, Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in the United States, said that even if the CCP does not cooperate, the United States is still able to initiate investigations into the origin of the CCP virus in the United States.
VOA reported on 12 June that Ebright said that Wuhan Institute of Virology's research on bat SARS-related coronaviruses is in cooperation with the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-governmental organization headquartered in New York City, USA. ongoing. Therefore, the Eco-Health Alliance may have important information to solve the origin problem, including the original data and analysis data of the Wuhan laboratory, as well as the draft scientific papers and a large number of communication records written by both parties.
He said, “These are the information that the American public and American policymakers need to obtain because we pay for it. We provided $123 million, which was provided by the federal government to the Eco-Health Alliance for this and other projects.”
Ebright was one of the first scientists to propose that the CCP virus may have come from a laboratory leak or accident. He called on the US Congress or the Department of Justice to initiate an investigation as soon as possible and summon relevant personnel.
News (19)
Experts call for investigation into "Nature" and other journals to review virus traceability papers
Reporter : Chen Ting / Editor : Ye Ziwei / https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/6/15/n13023139.htm / Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
It has been more than 18 months since the first SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. However, the origin of the virus is still a mystery.
Some experts called for investigations into first-class scientific journals. They questioned that important Western scientific and medical journals such as "Nature" and "The Lancet" might be out of interest, and rejected dozens of papers that suspected that the virus might have been leaked by the Wuhan laboratory.
According to a report by the Voice of America, Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor of medicine at Flinders University in Australia, said: "The operators of these journals may want to appease the CCP because they have more and more income from China, and China also knows that the journals it supports must comply with its policies."
"Many papers questioning the origin of the virus were quickly rejected by the editors of journals such as Nature and The Lancet without even being submitted for review," he said. "This approach may not be based primarily on scientific reasons, but on top of these journals. The political or other reasons for the decision."
The editors of The Lancet and Nature denied these allegations, saying that the value of science determines the works they choose to publish, not political factors.
Earlier this year, a scientific team led by the World Health Organization (WHO) believed that the laboratory leak theory was "extremely low" and agreed that COVID-19 may be transmitted to humans by an animal (perhaps a bat or pangolin) .
However, more and more scientists and Western governments have begun to criticize WHO's conclusions. They believed that the Chinese authorities had obstructed the investigation by the WHO team, rendering the international investigation worthless.
Petrovsky is one of dozens of skeptical scientists. They believe that after they pointed out the loopholes in the standard narrative, they were rejected and hostile by major Western scientific journals.
Another scientist, Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, pointed out that some papers that have not been peer-reviewed will be published hastily if they support official discourse.
They believe that these papers also set the tone for the mass media, thus affecting readers and audiences around the world.
Ebright said, "Starting in January 2020 and continuing through early 2021, a small group of scientists and more science journalists established and reinforced this false statement, saying that scientific evidence supports the theory of natural infection and further strengthens another. A false statement, that is, this is the consensus of the scientific community."
But Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature magazine, said that is not the case.
She told VOA, “I want to make it very clear that Nature has never rejected a paper because it does not conform to a particular narrative or traditional saying.”
Skippo is a British geneticist and she is also the first female editor-in-chief of Nature magazine in 150 years. She stated that the editorial decision is separate from the commercial interests of Springer Nature, which owns the magazine.
The editor of The Lancet also stated that the interests of the publisher will not affect editorial decisions.
However, Voice of America quoted a report from the Financial Times four years ago that the company admitted that hundreds of academic papers were not accessible in China because they involved "sensitive topics" of the Chinese Communist government.
VOA pointed out that Springer-Nature has signed dozens of cooperation and funding agreements with Chinese education and government research institutions. The same goes for the Dutch-based publishing company Elsevier, the owner of The Lancet.
Last month, U.S. President Biden instructed U.S. intelligence agencies to re-investigate whether COVID-19 may have been leaked by the Wuhan laboratory. The President asked the US intelligence community to report to him within 90 days.
The report pointed out that British and other Western European intelligence agencies also support the new US-led investigation.
In addition to Petrovsky and Ebright, a team of Paris scientists also believes that it is necessary to investigate major scientific journals.
The focus of criticism was on The Lancet and Nature, while other major journals were also criticized, including the academic journal Science of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Petrovsky said that this pandemic has exposed how vulnerable scientific institutions are to political influence.
He said, "While exerting bad influence on Western periodicals, China has issued hundreds of periodicals on its own, and it will directly control these periodicals."
Petrovsky called on, "Congressional investigation of this may be a good first step, although this is a broader international issue that should eventually involve international efforts to resolve it."
News (20)
B.1.617.2 ravages the UK with symptoms like a bad cold
Research, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
The researchers said that they were in the UK recently. The most common associated symptoms of B.1.617.2 strain (Covi72) of SARS-CoV-2 include headache, sore throat and runny nose. Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, who led the research, said that according to the data collected, Covi72 had symptoms like a "severe cold." The data collected through the app is part of the ZOE COVID Symptom Study. ZOE is a health science company co-founded by Spector.
Spector said: "The new covid...now behaves differently, it's more like a bad cold." "People might think they got some kind of seasonal flu, but they still go out to party...We think this creates many problems. Since the beginning of the month, we have been paying attention to the top symptoms of all app users, which are very different from the past. Therefore, the most common symptoms are headache... followed by sore throat, runny nose and fever.”
According to the National Health Service (NHS), the typical symptoms of covid are fever, cough and loss of smell and taste. Spector pointed out that in terms of the most common symptoms caused by Covi72, cough ranks fifth, while loss of smell did not enter the top 10.
Ref: news.tvbs.com.tw/world/1528428?from=Copy_content
News (21)
Yuan Guoyong inspects the places visited by the patients of the variant virus, does not rule out the hidden transmission chain in the community
Editor : Li Wei / https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/6/15/n13022391.htm / Extract translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
Earlier in June 2021, a 17-year-old girl was diagnosed with a variant virus strain N501Y in Hong Kong. Her mother and sister were also diagnosed one after another but their source is unknown. Yuen Guoyong, a government expert consultant and Chair Professor of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Hong Kong, visited the girl’s home and places of visit on 14 June. He described the mutant virus as not spreading in the community and may just be "good luck", and does not rule out a hidden chain of transmission in the community.
On the 14th, Yuen Guoyong visited Shengyu House, Tin Shing Court, Tin Shui Wai, the girl’s residence, the "Little Boss" pet shop in Mong Kok he visited, and the Tak Wing Industrial Building in Tuen Mun where the tutorial school was located. He said that the source of the infection of the 17-year-old girl is unknown, and the investigation will be conducted in three directions, including "human-to-human transmission," "animal-to-human transmission," and "object-to-human transmission." Yuen Guoyong believes that there is a great chance of human-to-human transmission of the virus, and will also investigate the possibility of human-to-human transmission of animals or refrigerated food packaging.
In addition, the Center for Health Protection of the Department of Health announced that as of 15 June, there were no locally confirmed cases, and one new imported case was a 40-year-old female patient who arrived in Hong Kong from Indonesia. There are a total of 11,878 confirmed cases and one suspected case in Hong Kong.
News (22) to (23) / Editor : Xu Menger / https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/6/15/n13022347.htm / Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA
News (22)
Guangzhou Baiyun 2 districts upgraded by risk-level
The CCP virus epidemic in Guangdong is still continuing. On 14 June, two places in Baiyun District, Guangzhou were upgraded to medium-risk areas, and two places in Huangpu District were implemented. Closed-off management. In addition, Zhan Zhanjiang entertainment venues are temporarily closed.
Guangzhou officials reported on 14 June that Huangpu District will implement closed management of Block B, Building 10, Longguangfeng Jinghuating, Lianhe Street, and Northwest Beef Noodle Guangzhou Huangpu Store, No. 12 Kejing Road, Vanke City. In addition, the Lianhe Street Longguangfeng Jinghuating Community will be closed and controlled; the Lianhe Street will be subject to nucleic acid testing for all employees.
Starting from 14 June, No. 3, Ji'an Street, Jixian Road, Yongping Street, Baiyun District, Guangzhou City, and No. 109, Jixian Road, will be adjusted from low-risk areas to medium-risk areas. Haitang Pavilion, Nanzhou Mingyuan, Ruibao Street, Haizhu District (Buildings A, B, C), Zhonghai Oak Park (Buildings H1, H2, H3, H4) in Shayuan Street, and Jinxiu East District, Jinxiu Peninsula Community, Luopu Street, Panyu District (16 Buildings, 17 Buildings, 18 Buildings) are adjusted to low-risk areas.
Regarding the upgrade of prevention and control, local netizens lamented: “I just said that the previous 11 districts were unblocked, and now Huangpu Baiyun has fallen again. This epidemic prevention is a bit confusing.” “The newly closed and upgraded ones must have stories!” Some are unblocked and some are closed. This is true every day, how can the new area be closed for control? It's almost a month." "Slap face? Those who are less than 14 days old are strangely unblocked. We have been sleepy for 17 days with nucleic acids six or seven times, and there is no movement at all!” “Every day in the elevator, in the community, in the vegetable market, and even in the office, at least 10% of the people don’t wear masks. Guangzhou epidemic prevention can’t see it. At the end." "Is the Guangzhou Municipal Government's epidemic prevention work in place?! There are fires everywhere this day."
At about 8 pm on 12 June, Zhang (male, 28 years old, from Sandu, Guizhou), a construction worker at a construction site in Liwan District, Guangzhou, launched from the water pier near Zhoutouzui Tunnel in Liwan District, swimming across the Pearl River to Yongzhou in Haizhu District. Xingjie Wharf was punished for leaving the epidemic prevention and control zone.
As of 15 June, there were two newly confirmed cases in Guangdong, one in Guangzhou and one in Shenzhen.
On 15 June, Guangzhou officials reported that from 21 May to 15 June, a total of 147 cases of infection were reported in the city, including 140 local confirmed cases and 7 asymptomatic infections.
Since the CCP has consistently concealed the truth of the epidemic, the outside world generally believes that the official data is not true.
Guangzhou has unblocked 11 areas of 5 districts, but on the other hand, risks in some areas have been escalated. There are many signs that the authorities may adopt a policy of loosening externally and tightening internally.
News (23)
Zhanjiang entertainment venues to suspend business
From 14 June 2021, Zhanjiang's Internet services, song and dance entertainment, amusement entertainment, movie theaters and other places will be temporarily closed, and the reopening time will be notified separately.
Arizona AG warns DOJ he will not tolerate efforts to thwart election audit in Maricopa County
Reporter : Mimi Nguyen Ly / Publisher : The Epoch Times PREMIUM / Image : Matt York / AP Photo/ Pool
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told the Department of Justice (DOJ) that his office “will not tolerate” any efforts to thwart the 2020 election audit currently underway in Maricopa County, the largest county in the state.
“My office is not amused by the DOJ’s posturing and will not tolerate any effort to undermine or interfere with our State Senate’s audit to reassure Arizonans of the accuracy of our elections,” Brnovich told Attorney General Merrick Garland in a letter on Monday. “We stand ready to defend federalism and state sovereignty against any partisan attacks or federal overreach.”
It comes days after Garland announced on June 11 that the DOJ “will double the division’s enforcement staff for protecting the right to vote.” The DOJ is also scrutinizing new laws that Garland said “seek to curb voter access” and “will apply the same scrutiny to post-election audits.”
Brnovich, citing the 10th Amendment and the election provisions in Articles I and II under the U.S. Constitution, told Garland that his statements on June 11 were “troubling” and “displayed an alarming disdain for state sovereignty.”
The Republican attorney general also criticized the contents of a previous DOJ letter issued to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann. Pamela Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, had expressed concerns on May 5 over the security of the ballots and over the potential for voter intimidation related to the Maricopa audit.
Brnovich said that Karlan’s letter appeared “more interested in supporting the hysterical outcries of leftist pundits on cable television, rather than the rule of law.”
He continued to assert state sovereignty in his letter, reminding Garland that “The states created the federal government, not the other way around.”
“There are no issues more important for states to prioritize than the integrity of our elections. This is the cornerstone of our republic, binding together the people’s trust in the whole of government,” he wrote. “Today, we see mistrust in our elections from Americans on all sides of the political spectrum. This should not be a partisan issue. States can and should take every opportunity to reassure all citizens that their vote counts.”
“My office looks for ways to work alongside the federal government to uphold our laws within the constraints of the 10th Amendment and the election provisions in Articles I and II,” Brnovich added. “As I have demonstrated several times, Arizona will not sit back and let the Biden administration abuse its authority, refuse to uphold laws, or attempt to commandeer our state’s sovereignty.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the DOJ for comment.
News (28)
Arizona's top election official tells Maricopa County to get new election machines
Reporter : Zachary Stieber / Publisher : The Epoch Times PREMIUM
Arizona’s secretary of state has warned the state’s largest county not to try to use election machines that are being audited or she would decertify the equipment.
“I have grave concerns regarding the security and integrity of these machines, given that the chain of custody, a critical security tenet, has been compromised and election officials do not know what was done to the machines while under Cyber Ninjas’ control,” Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, wrote in a May 20 letter to Maricopa County officials.
Auditors hired by the Arizona Senate, including Cyber Ninjas, have been reviewing more than 2 million ballots cast and 385 tabulators used in the 2020 election, along with other materials.
Auditors have said they’re following strict forensics protocols.
“We don’t turn on a system if it’s delivered to us in a powered-off state. We remove the hard drives, we perform forensics imaging with write blocks to prevent any changes to those hard drives, and we produce a bit for bit forensics copy of that particular drive,” Ben Cotton, founder of CyFIR, the company leading the technology component of the audit, told Arizona senators in a May 18 meeting.
Ken Bennett, the former Republican Arizona secretary of state who is serving as the liaison for the state Senate for the audit, added that immediately upon receiving the machines on April 21, the equipment and ballots were placed into locked cages and have been under armed guard the entire time.
“We have not had any breaches of the cages where the ballots or the machines have been kept,” he said.
But Hobbs alleged that it’s unclear what security procedures, if any, were put into place to secure the machines.
“Indeed, our expert observers, as well as multiple news reports, have noted troubling security lapses. And Cyber Ninjas has failed to provide full transparency into what they did with the equipment,” she wrote to Maricopa County officials.
“The lack of physical security and transparency means we cannot be certain who accessed the voting equipment and what might have been done to them.”
A county judge in April declined to grant an Arizona Democratic Party request to block the audit. The request, backed by Hobbs, was made because Democrats alleged there were security issues with the audit. But the judge said Democrats didn’t provide “substantive evidence” backing up their claims.
In the May 20 letter, Hobbs said there are no comprehensive methods to fully rehabilitate compromised equipment, meaning the county “should acquire new machines to ensure secure and accurate elections” moving forward.
If the county chooses to re-deploy the subpoenaed equipment for use in future elections, Hobbs’s office may consider moving to decertify it.
Before the audit began, Arizona Republican Senate President Karen Fann signed a document that provided indemnification to Maricopa County against third-party claims of any damages occurring to materials the county gave over to auditors.
Representatives for the audit team and the Arizona Senate Republicans didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ requests for comment.
The county is reviewing Hobbs’s letter, a county spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.
“That letter is being reviewed by our attorneys and they will advise Board members before they take next steps.”
A spokesperson for the Elections Department told news outlets before the letter arrived that subpoenaing tabulation equipment was “an unprecedented action in Arizona.”
“State statutes and the Elections Procedures Manual never contemplated the tabulation equipment leaving the custody of the Elections Department. While the central count tabulators and other equipment were returned, the Senate still has 385 precinct-based tabulators that were subject to the subpoena,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
“We are working with our attorneys on next steps, costs and what will be needed to ensure only certified equipment is used in Maricopa County. We will not use any of the returned tabulation equipment unless the county, state and vendor are confident that there is no malicious hardware or software installed on the devices.
“The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured that we will not use any equipment—ever—that could pose a risk to free and fair elections. The Elections Department has implemented back up plans that included using new tabulation equipment for elections in 2021, which was first used for the March Jurisdictional Election.”
Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors in June 2019 approved a three-year contract to lease election equipment from Dominion Voting Systems through July 2022. The contract was worth $6.1 million.
According to Hobbs, her concerns don’t involve the Dominion voting system, which remains certified for use in Arizona, nor any election equipment that wasn’t turned over to auditors.
News (29)
Georgia to investigate after Fulton County election forms went missing
Reporter : Zachary Stieber / Publisher : The Epoch Times PREMIUM
Georgia’s secretary of state said Monday that his office will probe Fulton County after an election official there said forms verifying the chain of custody for some mail-in ballots went missing.
“New revelations that Fulton County is unable to produce all ballot drop box transfer documents will be investigated thoroughly, as we have with other counties that failed to follow Georgia rules and regulations regarding drop boxes. This cannot continue,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a statement.
Raffensperger previously announced similar probes in Coffee, Grady, and Taylor counties. In doing so, he alleged that the state’s other 120 counties had properly completed absentee ballot transfer forms.
Earlier Monday, Mariska Bodison with the county’s Board of Registration and Elections told the Georgia Star News that “a few forms are missing” when asked for documentation on approximately 19,000 absentee ballots that were said to have been placed in drop boxes.
The forms that are not available at this time would detail the chain of custody for the ballots. They are required by law.
A Fulton County spokeswoman told The Epoch Times in an email that the county “followed procedures for the collection of absentee ballots from Fulton County drop boxes.”
“We maintain a large quantity of documents and researching our files from last year to produce the ballot transfer forms. We have been in communication with the Secretary of State’s office to update them of our progress on this matter,” she said.
Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia by under 12,000 votes. Biden typically received more mail-in ballots in each state, and Georgia was no exception. While former President Donald Trump received over 254,000 more Election Day votes than Biden, Biden received over 848,000 absentee ballots compared to Trump’s 450,522.
Trump has said the 2020 election was rife with fraud, particularly in the swing states like Georgia.
“Whether it be voting machines, underaged people, dead people, illegal aliens, ballot drops, ballot cheating, absentee ballots, post office delivery (or lack thereof!), lock boxes, people being paid to vote, or other things, the 2020 Presidential Election is, in my mind, the Crime of the Century,” he claimed in a June 12 statement.
A group of Georgia voters that alleged in a petition last year that they witnessed an “abnormal” increase in Biden’s vote count in Fulton County while performing election observation was slated to obtain images of the county’s absentee ballots late last month.
But the judge overseeing the case decided to delay the visit to the county’s ballot storage warehouse, where the images were to be taken by county workers while petitioners or their representatives watched, until he rules on motions to dismiss filed by the county’s Board of Registrations and Elections and two other county agencies.
Garland Favorito, head of the Voter GA election integrity group, and a petitioner, told The Epoch Times that the new admission of missing forms could be used in the ongoing case at some point, but he would have to discuss that matter with his attorney.
Favorito believes the missing forms “could explain why we saw counterfeit ballots.”
Those ballots “could have originated from these drop boxes that don’t have chain of custody forms,” he added. “So I think there is a connection there.”
Susan Voyles, a poll manager who worked on a recount in November 2020, has said she handled ballots she believes were fraudulent or fabricated. Her affidavit was cited in the Fulton County petition, as were affidavits from others who participated in the recount and said they saw ballots they believe were fake. Voyles was later terminated by the county.
News (30)
Scientists find conclusive evidence for the cause of aurora for the first time
Reporter : Gao Wensen / Editor : Ye Ziwei / https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/6/15/n13022262.htm / Direct translation
Image : Researchers have proved for the first time through experiments that the Alfvén waves emitted by the sun accelerate electrons into the earth’s magnetic field, creating the beautiful phenomenon of aurora. This is a schematic diagram given by the researcher. (Austin Montelius, University of Iowa)
Aurora is a brilliant optical phenomenon that occasionally appears in high latitudes. Scientists have made various speculations about its cause for centuries. A study published in the journal Nature Communications on 7 June 2021 said that it finally provided conclusive evidence for the cause of the aurora.
The research team of The University of Iowa in the United States has proved through experiments for the first time that the Alfvén wave emitted by the sun accelerates electrons into the earth’s magnetic field, creating this beautiful phenomenon.
The Alfvén wave is a specific energy wave produced by the large-scale activity of a large number of plasmas in the sun, and has the ability to carry a large amount of energy over a long distance. This wave, in the form of solar magnetic flux tubes (solar magnetic flux tubes), transports huge energy directly from the inner part of the sun to the outer atmosphere of the sun-the corona layer, causing the sun's coronal layer to be warmer than the layer below it- -The photosphere is a thousand times higher.
This study shows that Alfvén waves accelerate some electrons to produce aurora. "Measurements show that a small part of electrons 'resonantly accelerate' under the action of the Alvin wave electric field, just like a surfer riding a sea wave and being driven by the wave and accelerating." One of the researchers Hao, associate professor of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa (Greg Howes) said.
Prior to this, scientists’ theory of the cause of aurora was that high-energy particles emitted by the sun, such as electrons, fell into the upper atmosphere of the earth along the earth’s magnetic field at a high speed of 45 million miles per hour. The oxygen atoms and nitrogen atoms in this region are triggered by these high-energy particles to become excited states. When they want to return to a lower energy state, the released energy will be emitted in the form of photons, forming the aurora that people see.
In recent years, a number of space observers have detected Alfvén waves in areas above the aurora, and scientists speculate that Alvin waves have driven these electrons to such high speeds. However, due to the limitations of observations from the air, this theory cannot be confirmed.
This study used the large-scale plasma device (LPD) of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to simulate the environment where the earth’s magnetic field encounters plasma in space, and then used a special device to introduce Alfvén waves. The results confirmed that some of the electrons in the plasma were accelerated to High-speed theory.
House said that although the aurora was not seen in the laboratory equipment, it was confirmed that electrons can indeed be accelerated by Alfvén waves to a speed of 45 million miles per hour.
"The difficulty of this experiment is to detect that only a small number of electrons are accelerated to the speed of Alfvén waves, and less than one thousandth of the electrons in the plasma are accelerated to this state." UCLA Professor of Physics, Troy Carter, said.
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