Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Activists Arrested

Hong Kong officials carried out a sweeping operation this weekend arresting a number of high profile individuals who were at the centre of the pro-demoncracy demonstrations which took the city by storm this last year.

Among those attested were business tycoon and founder of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, Jimmy Lai. Also former lawmakers Martin Lee, Margaret Ng, Albert Ho, Leung Kwok-hung, Au Nok-hin and current lawmaker Leung Yiu-chung.

“Finally I’ve become a defendant. How do I feel? I’m very much relieved,” Lee, known as the father of democracy in Hong Kong, told media after he was bailed.

“For so many years, so many months, so many good youngsters were arrested and charged, while I was not arrested. I feel sorry about it,” the 81-year-old barrister and founding chairman of the city’s first political party said.

The rallies and demonstrations have died down party due to exhaustion, and arrests; but more recently due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Beijing have refused to accede to the protesters’ demands. These include free elections, as well as a full investigation into police conduct during the protests and an amnesty for the 70,000 people who were arrested in connection with the demonstrations, many of them under 20.

Read More: France 24

Adm. Giroir Outlines Public Health Infrastructure to Reopen America

Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health has outlines the plans to develop a broad-based infrastructure consisting of testing, and contact tracing to control the spread of Coronavirus once the President reopens the country.

“Let me put it into context: All of the testing that we’ve done thus far is testing for the virus in your nose or nasopharynx, meaning you’re actively infected with the virus,” Giroir said when asked about the testing scaling up especially on the serological side. “The antibody test will get us an idea of if you have been infected in the past and are presumably—not 100 percent certain but probably by all known medical computation—that you would be immune to getting the virus again at least in the intermediate term. It is an important component, but it is not really the whole foundation of where we’re going. I call it a component because it will tell us who had the virus and give us a good sort of understanding of what happened, but we still expect only a minority of people will have had the virus and have recovered from it. The outer estimates—and again we don’t know—maybe it’s as much as five or ten percent in some places, and that’s going to be very important to know who those five or ten percent of people are both for themselves and others, but it’s not the total solution.

“To get everyone back together, and I’m sorry to be geeky; it’s very important to have a number of things in place,” Giroir said. “Number one, surveillance. So is this virus circulating in the country? Right now, I think we had 22,000 new cases yesterday. But as it gets lower, sort of is it circulating and where is it circulating? This is apparent from both testing and what the CDC says would be syndromic surveillance, like if you come in with a cough and a fever and influenza-like illness. This is a very good system to understand. In the summer, if you see people like that, it’s not flu—it’s going to be COVID-19. The second component is actively testing people with symptoms. That’s what we’re doing now. But we need it on a sort of generally available sort of scale. It depends on how many cases there are. If there’s 20,000 cases, or let’s say there’s 10,000 cases a day in the U.S., then you need 10,000 tests and you probably need to oversample. For every positive test, you want five to ten negative tests. So, then for every positive person you’re going to contact trace four to five people. So that’s kind of the milieu of what happens—surveillance, testing, and contact tracing is really defining it, plus the antibody on the other side. As I said last week, we are going to have for a test—we’re going to be in the range of the number of tests that we need to do this in a very short period of time, just a few weeks.”

Read More: Breitbart

President Trump Signs Order to Mine Space

President Trump has signed an executive order which will allow the U.S. to mine the moon for minerals.

The hope would be that mining the moon would extend our ability to travel into space, in particular a launch pad to Mars.

Scientists have also pointed to the depletion of mineral resources on earth. It is thought lunar minerals could help with our need to build renewal energy sources, and long life batteries. Such technologies require rare minerals, which we have only a limited supply of on earth.

“Metals such as lithium or cobalt – which you need – are mainly in places like China, Russia or Congo. And it’s difficult to get them.” said  Professor Benjamin Sovacool of Sussex University.

Read More: BBC

Apple and Google Unite to Contact Trace Covid-19

The big tech giants Apple and Google are teaming up to help develop technology to contact users if they have been in contact with someone who has Covid-19.

Initially they hope to work with third party apps.

However, they hope the need for users to download an app will not be needed as users will be encouraged to have such a feature as standard.

They hope to use bluetooth technology to trace who a person has been in contact with, how close and for how long. This data would then determine the risk that a person could have contracted the virus.

However, many are alarmed at the privacy concerns us technology poses.

“Privacy, transparency and consent are of utmost importance in this effort and we look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders,” Apple and Google said in a joint statement.

“We will openly publish information about our work for others to analyse.”

President Trump said his administration needed time to consider the development.

“It’s very interesting, but a lot of people worry about it in terms of a person’s freedom,” he said during a White House press conference.

“We’re going to take… a very strong long at it, and we’ll let you know pretty soon.”

Read More: BBC

VP Pence is Blocking Health Officials from Appearing on CNN

The Vice President is blocking top health officials from appearing on CNN, until the network airs the President’s daily briefings in full.

“When you guys cover the briefings with the health officials then you can expect them back on your air,” a representative for Pence told CNN.

CNN was one of several networks to stop airing the briefings in the entirety claiming the President’s information was not always accurate.

Read More: Yahoo

Archbishops Asks Clergy to Pray Exorcism at this Time

Catholic Archbishop Vigano has asked bishops, and priests to pray exorcism at this time of “terrible tribulation”. He has said the Evil One has gone on a “frenzy” and has increase his attempts to “tempt souls into sin”.

The Archbishop has called on clergy to use Holy Saturday, traditionally a day of quiet meditation to be used. It is the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. And according to Catholic tradition is when Christ descended into hell to preach to the souls in torment.

Vilano said, “I should like to ask all my brother Bishops and Priests to join me as I recite this Exorcism, knowing the power of this Sacramental – especially when it is recited together with all other Priests – to help the Church in Her fight against Satan. I should also like to recommend that all of you wear a stole, the sign of your Priestly power, and Holy Water.”

Read More: Life Site News

Bernie Sanders Quits Race to be Democrats Nominee

Bernie Sanders has quit the race to become the democrats nominee. This means Joe Biden will stand against Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential Election.

Biden has said he is keen to have a female running mate.

Although Sanders was the early favourite for the nomination, Biden received healthy support from Black voters in the South. Then as other hopefuls quit the race they backed Biden strengthening his position against Sanders.

Read More: Huffington Post

Switzerland Halts 5G Rollout Indefinitely Over Health Fears

Switzerland announced that it is halting the roll out of their 5G program indefinitely over health concerns. The European nation has one of the most advanced 5G networks in Europe with 2,000 antennas already in place to upgrade their network.

Other countries across Europe are scrambling to upgrade their networks to 5G, against the backdrop of the US and China wrangling over the use of Huawei technology. Most of Europe’s 5G infrastructure relies on Huawei technology, however the US has said this is a major security risk.

The Swiss environment agency, Bafu, who issues licences for the building of the antennae has said, it cannot yet provide universal criteria without further testing of the impact of 5G radiation.

The agency said it was “not aware of any standard worldwide” that could be used to benchmark recommendations. “Therefore Bafu will examine exposure through adaptive [5G] antennas in depth, if possible in real-world operational conditions. This work will take some time,” it said.

The Swiss Medical Association has argued that caution should be taken in the implementation of 5G technology as not enough testing has been conducted to show the affects of the radiation on the nervous system or on the risk of cancer.

Read More: FT

Universities Accepted $10 billion Foreign Aid

A new report into university funding has found that institutions received  $10 billion from foreign governments between 2013 and 2018. Countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar made significant donations to universities. In exchange for the funding these countries had influence over campus discourse on foreign affairs.

The study also found that $1 billion of aid was unaccounted for. The US government is currently investigating the relationship between China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar; with US universities.

Many institutions have opened campuses in these countries in exchange for funding.

“These colleges and universities actively solicit foreign governments, corporations, and nationals for funds although some donors are known to be hostile to the United States and may be seeking to project ‘soft power,’ steal sensitive and proprietary research and development data and other intellectual property, and spread propaganda benefitting foreign governments,” the Department of Education wrote.

Read More: Breitbart

5G Masts Torched in UK Over Coronavirus Fears

After posts on social media began to link Coronavirus with 5G mobile phone networks being rolled out, masts in northern England were set fire to. Masts belonging to Vodaphone were destroyed, and telecom workers in one city were attacked by locals.

In response to the attacks Youtube has said they will remove any videos that claim 5G causes Coronavirus, or is in anyway linked to the pandemic. Medical experts have said that such theories are absolute nonsense.

Celebrities were among those spreading the conspiracy theories to their thousands of followers, with Woody Harrelson from the TV series Cheers sharing on Twitter:

“I haven’t fully vetted it I find it very interesting,” he wrote of the report claiming that “5G radiation” is “exacerbating” the contagion’s spread and making it more lethal.

Youtube told the media:

“clear policies that prohibit videos promoting medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment,” adding that it had started “reducing recommendations of borderline content such as conspiracy theories related to 5G and coronavirus, that could misinform users in harmful ways.”

Read More: NBC News 

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