Luis Elizondo, who claims to have led the US military’s defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, has voiced concerns over a lack of info on mysterious “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” – more commonly known as UFOs.
“There is something in our skies, we don’t know what it is, we don’t know how it works, we don’t know fully what it can do, we don’t know who is behind the wheel, we don’t know its intentions, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it,” Elizondo told the US Sun in an interview published on Friday.
If it turns out we have been leapfrogged technologically by a foreign adversary, then we are dealing with an intelligence failure on the level of 9/11.
“I am not a UFO guy, I am an investigator, my job was simple, to collect the data and speak the truth,” Elizondo emphasized.
The words of caution come as lawmakers await a report on UAPs from a special military task force established to track the strange sightings.
Though the Pentagon has previously claimed that the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program had been disbanded, a Senate report last year acknowledged the outfit’s work has carried on under a different name, deep in the recesses of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Now dubbed the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, the body is meant to “standardize collection and reporting” on sightings of unexplained aircraft, tasked with producing a report on its findings within 180 days after the passage of the last intelligence authorization act.
The military has also sought to deny Elizondo’s role in the first version of the threat identification program, though those denials were belied this week by ex-Senator Harry Reid, who insisted he was not only involved, but personally led the effort.
“As one of the original sponsors of AATIP, I can state as a matter of record Lue Elizondo’s involvement and leadership role in this program,” Reid said, adding that, as a lawmaker, he helped to secure $22 million in funding for the effort.
Mr. Elizondo is a former intelligence officer who has spent his career working tirelessly in the shadows on sensitive national security matters, including investigating UAPs...
Elizondo’s warning also comes just weeks after the military confirmed that several previously leaked photos and videos, captured by Navy personnel, are indeed authentic and depict unidentified phenomena.
“To maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough told CNN in confirming the authenticity of the images.
She added that the UAP task force is now investigating the entities seen in the footage, the latest of several rounds of similar images acknowledged by the military.
Many Americans and Brits will face de facto vaccine mandates, as a new poll shows that 56% of businesses will require at least some employees to be inoculated against Covid-19, in many cases under threat of losing their jobs.
The poll, which was conducted by Arizona State University and released on Thursday, showed that 40% of businesses will require all employees to be vaccinated against Covid-19, while 16% will mandate the jabs for at least some of their workers. All told, 88% of businesses will require or encourage their employees to be vaccinated, and 60% said they will demand some kind of proof of inoculation.
The survey, which was backed by the Rockefeller Foundation, paints a bleak picture for those who plan to resist getting the Covid-19 jabs. While the US and UK governments have refrained from making vaccines mandatory – and facing legal challenges that might ensue – the private sector may effectively do it for them. Businesses are already setting the stage to require so-called ‘vaccine passports,’ forcing customers to show proof of inoculation or a negative Covid test before accessing certain goods, services and events.
While many people can choose not to travel abroad or go to business venues that require proof of vaccination, an employer mandate could be more problematic. Arizona State said 31% of businesses plan to take disciplinary action, including possibly firing employees who refuse to comply with their vaccine policies.
A further 44% said non-compliant employees won't be allowed to return to the workplace, while 27% said they will change the work responsibilities of those who fail to obey. Only 15% said there will be no consequences, even though the vaccines are being administered under emergency authorizations and so far lack the long-term study needed for full regulatory approval.
The survey was conducted at 1,168 companies, mostly large businesses with 250 or more employees based in the US and UK. The average business in the poll still has 57% of employees working remotely. About 75% expect workers to be back on site within the next one to six months, but 72% said they plan to offer more flexible work-from-home policies after the pandemic.
Employee wellbeing has suffered greatly during the pandemic. Nearly 58% of businesses said their concerns over employee mental health have increased, while 52% were more concerned about worker engagement. Other troubling issues included Covid-19's impact on burnout, productivity and morale.
US President Joe Biden said all US military personnel may be forced to get Covid-19 vaccinations once the shots receive final approval by government regulators, either through an executive order or a Pentagon edict.
“I'm not saying I won't,” Biden said on Friday when asked by NBC News if he will order a military vaccination mandate himself. He said he prefers to leave the decision to military leaders, however.
“Once the FDA gives final approval for the vaccinations, not emergency use authorization, but final approval, will you order service members to get the COVID vaccine?” -@CraigMelvin asks President Biden pic.twitter.com/f9W50USvaa
The US reached a milestone of having more than 100 million people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 on Friday. But tens of thousands of American troops are reportedly declining inoculation. The Pentagon said earlier this month that nearly 40% of the 123,500 US Marines who had been offered the shots had chosen to pass. At Fort Bragg in North Carolina, less than 50% of Army troops were agreeing to be vaccinated.
“I think you're going to see more and more of them getting it,” Biden said. “And I think it's going to be a tough call as to whether or not they should be required to have to get it in the military because you're such close proximity with other military personnel – whether you're in a quarters where you're all sleeping or whether you're out on maneuvers.”
It is common for the US military to require vaccinations, but only those that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The three Covid-19 shots currently being offered in the US have received only emergency use authorization, not full FDA approval.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which received emergency use authorization last November, haven't yet applied to the FDA for formal approval. The third vaccine that's currently available, made by Johnson & Johnson, was authorized on February 27, putting it more than two months behind the other two in the approval timeline.
As the Pentagon declares a pullout from Afghanistan, the US corporate press is voicing concerns about an imminent terrorist resurgence, with CNN all but acting as an Al Qaeda mouthpiece, amplifying threats from nameless militants.
In a much-touted “exclusive interview” published on Friday, CNN spoke with two purported “Al Qaeda operatives,” playing up their threats of renewed attacks on the US while implying some connection to the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“War against the US will be continuing on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world,” the fighters, kept entirely anonymous, reportedly said. CNN added that the terrorist faction is “planning a comeback after US forces leave Afghanistan.”
Despite a documented history of rocky relations between Al Qaeda and the Taliban, CNN took the unnamed jihadists at their word when they claimed ties had improved. The network claimed this was proof that the Taliban “is being less than honest” with Washington when it said to have severed links with Al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda promises 'war on all fronts' against America as Biden pulls out of Afghanistanhttps://t.co/WqoE4pMpOJ
Ominously headlined “Al Qaeda promises 'war on all fronts' against America as Biden pulls out of Afghanistan,” the CNN story comes less than a day after the White House confirmed that US forces had finally begun their exit from the war-torn country.
Excellent reporting and valuable journalistic insights by @SaleemMehsud in revealing al Qaeda and Taliban as connected now as they were before the ‘911 attacks’ https://t.co/SUHvEm0YiC
President Joe Biden delayed a planned May 1 pullout deadline set in the peace agreement with the Taliban under his predecessor, Donald Trump. Even his later September 11 deadline triggered a wave of hand-wringing in the US mainstream media, generating countless stories warning of a ‘hasty’ withdrawal despite nearly 20 years of war and occupation.
U.S. propagandists can be so crude. As the U.S. is pretending to leave Afghanistan all of a sudden al Qaeda decides to announce that it will target the U.S. CNN says al Qaeda usually avoids public statement and "It's unclear why the group has chosen to do so now."
“Will Afghanistan Become a Terrorism Safe Haven Once Again?”asked the New York Times in its typical pensive tone, while the Washington Post declared“After troops leave Afghanistan, US will face challenges maintaining counterterrorism capability.” The Los Angeles Times similarly informed readers“US troops are leaving Afghanistan, but Al Qaeda remains,” and another Post piece – a column from the hawkish Marc Thiessen – claimed“Biden is making an al-Qaeda mastermind’s prophecy come true” by leaving the country.
In lockstep with the corporate media, the US national security state has also expressed dire warnings about ending America’s longest war, with Biden’s CIA chief William Burns telling Congress earlier this month that it would create a “significant risk” of increased terrorism in the region. General Frank McKenzie, who heads CENTCOM – the US military command covering the Middle East and Central Asia – also argued the fight against terrorist groups would become “harder” after the pullout.
Those concerns may be premature, however. Despite Biden’s declared plan to leave the country by September 11, it remains unclear what will become of the 18,000 Pentagon contractors currently deployed alongside some 2,500 uniformed troops. The Defense Department recently suggested some of them would remain in Afghanistan after US forces leave, potentially maintaining some military footprint there.
Biden himself, meanwhile, has spoken of the need for an “over-the-horizon capability” in the region to monitor future threats, with Pentagon officials telling the Times that US troops could simply move to nearby countries, to be redeployed in an instant if needed.
The White House’s ambitious new “peace plan” for Afghanistan might also give pause to the critics of withdrawal, as the administration wants to rewrite the country’s constitution, arrange fresh elections and work out a long-elusive ceasefire deal between the Taliban and the government in Kabul. The lofty project virtually guarantees continued US involvement in Afghan politics, potentially setting up new tripwires for future military intervention should the negotiations go sideways.
While Biden called for an end to the “forever war” in his first joint address to Congress earlier this week, many in the media – as well as in Biden’s own administration – have apparently not had enough. Despite two decades of bloodshed, trillions in tax dollars and countless failed objectives, the drumbeat for continued occupation is only growing louder, even as the pullout looms on the horizon.
Elon Musk’s joy over SpaceX getting the Artemis lunar lander contract may have been premature, as legal challenges from rivals Dynetics and Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origins have caused NASA to suspend work on the project.
“NASA instructed SpaceX that progress on the HLS contract has been suspended until GAO resolves all outstanding litigation related to this procurement,” spokeswoman Monica Witt said on Friday, citing protests from the two rivals.
HLS refers to the human landing system, NASA-speak for the lunar lander intended to be used in the Artemis program, the ambitious US project to land the first woman and “the first person of color” on the Moon.
The decision comes just two weeks after NASA announced that SpaceX would get the “firm-fixed price, milestone-based contract” with a $2.89 billion total award value. Musk’s Starship was selected as the basis for the HLS, beating out the proposals by Blue Origins and Dynetics, a division of Leidos. Back in April 2020, NASA had signed a 10-month contract for $135 million with SpaceX, while giving $579 million to Blue Origins and $253 million to Dynetics for further design work on the landers.
Dynetics, the Alabama-based division of the mammoth Pentagon contractor Leidos, complained that NASA has ignored the fact that four Starships have “have exploded at various stages of their test flights in recent months,” according to Space News.
NASA should have revised its approach to the Human Landing System program or withdrawn the solicitation entirely once it was clear the agency didn’t have the funding to support two companies, Dynetics argues in its protest of the award. https://t.co/4typoMB7l8
In the complaint, filed Monday with the Government Accountability Office, Dynetics argued that “the anti-competitive impact and downstream effect of NASA’s changed acquisition strategy cannot be overstated.”
NASA should have amended their solicitation or asked the bidders to revise their proposals, once it was clear Congress would give it only 25% of the $3.3 billion requested for the fiscal year 2021, the company said.
Blue Origins also challenged the decision on Monday, arguing that there were “errors” in the process that “needed to be addressed and remedied.” SpaceX founder Elon Musk responded by taunting the rival company on social media.
The corporate infighting is another setback for NASA’s play to resurrect the American lunar program. Artemis, named after the twin sister of Apollo – the Olympian deity for which the original US moonshot was named after in the 1960s – was launched by the Trump administration in 2017, with the aim of landing on the moon by 2024.
That timeline has slipped further away as Congress declined to fully fund the project, which is among the few Trump-era initiatives not scrapped by the new Biden administration. It remains to be seen whether the new NASA administrator – long-time Democrat lawmaker Bill Nelson, confirmed unanimously by the Senate on Thursday – will be able to turn things around.
On the same day Nelson was confirmed, China launched the core module of its own permanent orbital space station. This is a major step forward in space exploration for Beijing, which only sent its first astronaut into orbit in 2003.
Once Tianhe, or ‘Harmony of the Heavens, is completed, China will become only the third nation ever to operate an orbital station. The Soviet Union was the first, with its Salyut program, which evolved into Mir and later the International Space Station (ISS). The only US space outpost, Skylab, was crewed for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974, before it was abandoned.
Earlier this week, Russian space authorities brought up the possibility of launching their own space station to replace the aging ISS as early as 2025. Moscow has also struck a deal with Beijing to potentially build a joint research station on the moon.
Anxiety has caused adverse reactions to Johnson & Johnson jab in 64 patients in just three days, prompting a temporary shutdown of four vaccination sites in the US, said a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After receiving reports of “clusters of anxiety-related events,” the CDC has been studying such reactions in the recipients of the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) coronavirus vaccines at five vaccination sites in California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina between April 7 and 9. Out of 8,624 people who received the J&J shot during this period, 64 experienced anxiety-related events, with 17 of them fainting, the health authority said on Friday.
The adverse reactions led to a temporary suspension of vaccination at four out of the five facilities, but further investigation revealed that none of the events were serious.
Various anxiety-related events such as dizziness, excessive sweating, fainting, nausea, vomiting and hypotension, among other things, are relatively common and can occur immediately after a shot of any vaccine, the CDC noted. More serious complications that require hospitalization or result in permanent disability or even death are also possible – but extremely rare.
However, the CDC pointed out that during the five weeks that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been in use in the US, reports of people fainting were 164 times more frequent compared to influenza jabs – at the rate of 8.2 and 0.05 cases per 100,000 shots, respectively. Fainting and other reactions “might be caused by anxiety about receiving an injection,” the CDC said.
Around a quarter of those who suffered such complications had a prior history of anxiety-related events. The overall stress of the pandemic, witnessing adverse reactions on site and media reports of complication caused by the vaccines might also provoke additional anxiety-related episodes, the CDC said.
US health authorities have actually proposed the Janssen jab as the “more attractive option for persons who have needle aversion,” given that it requires only a single dose, rather than two shots like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against Covid-19.
Use of the J&J vaccine in the US had been suspended for 11 days earlier this month, as 15 patients out of 7 million developed serious blood clots after the injections and three of them died. The CDC resumed the rollout of the jab last week, ruling that it was safe enough and that risk of thrombosis was “very low.”
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The UK plans to roll out certificates that act as proof of Covid-19 vaccination and testing status so that people from England can travel abroad freely from May 17, as Europe gets ready to welcome British tourists.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Covid-19 Vaccine Deployment Nadhim Zahawi told ‘BBC Breakfast’ that a number of foreign nations are requesting some form of Covid-19 certification, which can be proof of vaccination or a negative test result.
Zahawi said that the NHSX – a National Health Service unit responsible for apps and data sharing – was working on making vaccination passports “operationally possible” by May 17. “Clearly a number of countries are going to do this – we’d much rather do it in a co-ordinated way,” he said.
May 17 is when the UK government wants to allow international leisure travel from England for the first time in 19 weeks. Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said on Thursday he was “quite positive” about the plan, adding that he will chair a G7 meeting next week where international Covid-19 certification will be discussed further.
Shapps confirmed that authorities were working on letting UK nationals use the existing NHS smartphone app to demonstrate their vaccination and testing status abroad. However, the BBC cited a government source on Thursday saying that the app would not be ready “imminently.”
One of the most popular tourist destinations for UK travellers is Spain. The Iberian nation’s government told UK newspapers this week that British nationals will be allowed to visit Spain in June, but only if they have a digital vaccination certificate or a negative Covid-19 test result. Greece and Portugal said they will ask UK tourists to present certificates as well.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that international travellers will be allowed into the country from June 9 if they carry a “health pass” that would serve as evidence of vaccination or a negative test result. The Telegraph reported on Thursday that France will likely be put on the so-called “amber list” of countries, which means that holidaymakers will have to self-isolate at home for 10 days upon their return.
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The US Embassy in Moscow is to halt issuing all non-immigrant visas and will dramatically limit the range of services for Americans, following a Russian government decision to ban states dubbed "unfriendly" from employing locals.
In a Friday press release, the embassy announced that, effective May 12, it will only offer emergency US citizen services, and "a very limited number of age-out and life or death emergency immigrant visas."
"Embassy Moscow will not offer routine notarial services, Consular Reports of Birth Abroad, or renewal passport services for the foreseeable future," the statement explained.
The announcement comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to ban diplomatic missions of countries that commit "unfriendly acts" against Russia from hiring locals. Although the list of "unfriendly states" has yet to be announced, it is likely that the US will be included.
According to the Americans, this restriction will mean that the US Embassy will be forced to cut its consular workforce by 75%.
"Provision of emergency services to US citizens in Russia may also be delayed or limited due to staff's constrained ability to travel outside of Moscow," the statement continued.
Speaking on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that the decision to ban the US from employing locals comes after Washington introduced new rules for Russian diplomats, restricting them for a maximum of three years in the country.
"When we asked why and how that rule correlated with the United States' obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, we were told that the Vienna Convention is an independent document and it is customary for US diplomats to serve abroad for around three years," Lavrov explained, on Wednesday.
Therefore, according to the foreign minister, Moscow has opted to transfer its own practices to the US mission in Russia.
"It is not our practice to hire citizens of the countries where Russian diplomatic missions are based," he said.
In the last seven years, the diplomatic relationship between Russia and the US has severely deteriorated. In that time, both countries have forced each other to dramatically reduce the size of their diplomatic missions and have even demanded the closure of certain consulates. In 2018, Moscow told the US to shut down its consulate in Saint Petersburg in a tit-for-tat move following Washington's order to Russia to close its mission in Seattle.
Acclaimed British actor and filmmaker Noel Clarke has been accused by multiple women of being a serial sexual predator, who has been abusing his professional position of power to harass subordinates. He denied the allegations.
Clarke is a prolific actor, producer, screenwriter and director best known for productions like ‘The Hood Trilogy’ and ‘Bulletproof’ TV series. On April 10, he received the prize for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta), his latest professional award.
A damning expose published by the Guardian on Thursday paints him as an abusive sexual predator, who for years has been using his industry position to sexually harass female co-workers. The newspaper interviewed 20 women, many of whom went on record under their real names, who described incidents of misconduct by Clarke that allegedly happened between 2004 and 2019.
He was accused of secretly filming a nude audition with actress Jahannah James and showing the footage to other people, including producer Gina Powell, who worked for Clarke between 2014 and 2017, producing ‘Brotherhood’.
Norwegian film producer Synne Seltveit said Clarke smacked her buttocks and sent her a photo of an erect penis through Snapchat.
Anna Avramenko, who worked as an intern during the filming of ‘Doghouse’, said Clarke tried to kiss her several times on set.
Actress Jing Lusi, who worked with Clarke on the film ‘SAS: Red Notice’, said he told her he wanted to go have sex with her, and after she refused he threatened her with reprecautions unless she kept the episode to herself.
Helen Atherton, an art director on ‘Brotherhood’, said Clarke broke industry norms for filming nude and sex scenes. At times he pressured actresses into taking part in what was “porn basically”.
Philippa Crabb, who worked as a runner on ‘Brotherhood’, said Clarke bombarded her with inappropriate comments. The experience was so bad that she quit the film industry and moved to Switzerland, the report said.
Similar detailed allegations of inappropriate conversations, unwanted physical contact, humiliation and emotional abuse came from other women who remained anonymous.
Clarke denied the allegations, saying in a statement: “In a 20-year career, I have put inclusivity and diversity at the forefront of my work and never had a complaint made against me. If anyone who has worked with me has ever felt uncomfortable or disrespected, I sincerely apologise. I vehemently deny any sexual misconduct or wrongdoing and intend to defend myself against these false allegations.”
The only incident that he acknowledged happening was described by Ieva Sabaliauskaite, a production assistant on ‘Brotherhood’. At a party, she demonstrated her skills as a former gymnast, including doing the splits, and Clarke took a picture of her that showed her underwear. She said she was humiliated when she saw her boss showing the image to colleagues and lunged for the phone, which caused it to drop, breaking the screen. She was further humiliated when she was ordered to take it to a repair shop.
Clarke’s lawyers said the photo only showed what Sabaliauskaite did publicly on a dancefloor and that taking the phone to be fixed was part of her job. They said Clarke was simply joking when he showed the image to others.
Bafta was aware of the allegations before awarding its prize to Clarke, the Guardian reported, but said it could not investigate the credibility of an anonymous email it had received regarding the filmmaker. The organization took a different stance after the expose was published. The report “provided for the first time detailed accounts outlining serious allegations regarding Noel Clarke’s conduct,” so Bafta has “immediately suspended the award and Noel Clarke’s membership of Bafta until further notice,” it said.
The newspaper alleged that Clarke and his business partner, Jason Maza, had been contacting people about its ongoing investigation. Clarke reportedly called James, the actress whose nude audition he allegedly secretly filmed, to ask her if she was talking to the press.
“I would just ask you if the good times meant anything. Do not speak to this woman [the Guardian journalist] … Do not entertain it. Just f***ing – just please do not, that’s all,” he was quoted as saying.
“If there’s someone that was like a consensual that’s changed their mind five years later, well, firstly, that’s fucking ridiculous. Secondly, they still have to prove it. And I’m not trying to be that guy that’s like: hahaha I’m guilty, prove it. I’m not trying to be that guy. But they still have to prove it,” he reportedly added.
Maza allegedly called a different woman after Clarke received the Bafta award to tell her that the story had been buried. “Obviously, this article hasn’t broken in the Guardian and it won’t run in the Guardian now,” he allegedly said. “As far as we’re concerned, the thing has now gone away as much as Noel can do in his power.”
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Republican South Carolina Senator Tim Scott has accused liberals of engaging in the same type of racial discrimination which they so often rail against, after the lawmaker was targeted by a woke Twitter mob.
Scott delivered his party’s response to Joe Biden’s first address before Congress on Wednesday, using the rebuttal to argue that the Democrats have turned race issues into a “political weapon” in order to further their own agenda.
He claimed that children were being taught that the color of their skin defines them, a “backwards” belief which essentially uses discrimination to fight racial prejudice. The senator also noted that he has been labeled “Uncle Tom and the n-word by progressives and liberals” for holding such views.
The term “Uncle Tim” began trending on Twitter as liberals began lashing out at Scott over his remarks. Although some pundits decried the hashtag as racist, many seemed unapologetic for suggesting that Scott was a “race traitor.”
Reflecting on the barrage of social media hate that he received, the GOP lawmaker told ‘Fox & Friends’ on Thursday that it was “stunning” that the same people who crusade against anything that can be perceived as racist would engage in such behavior.
“[T]hose who speak about ending discrimination want to end it by more discrimination,” he said, noting that it was bizarre that the same people claim to be victims due to “liberal oppression.”
The Left has doubled down that they are going to, not attack my policies, but they're literally attacking the color of my skin.
While acknowledging that racism and discrimination still exist in the United States, Scott stressed that the issue is not nearly as widespread as some make it seem. He urged his fellow Americans to “add value” to the country and reject “destructive conversations that belittle individuals.”
The senator also took aim at a recent Washington Post story which attempted to ‘fact check’ his family background, arguing that the paper had maliciously tried to paint him as more “privileged” than other black people. He claimed that he was targeted because “it doesn’t fit the narrative that in America, it's impossible for people who look like me to rise to this position."
Responding to the abuse Scott received, Twitter confirmed that it had blocked the phrase “Uncle Tim” from trending on its platform, but stopped short of banning the term altogether. Many observers argued that the phrase violated the site’s ‘hateful conduct policy’ which forbids “slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone.”
Scotland’s first minister has said she doesn’t want to propose a referendum now as her party prepares for an election on May 6, citing bigger challenges in the economy as support for independence falls.
“I don’t believe we should propose a referendum right at this moment,” Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told BBC Radio 4 on Friday morning, adding that the country's current problems had to be tackled first.
In what may be seen as a U-turn for the Scottish leader, Sturgeon said she thought “being cautious” on independence was the right thing to do with the nation’s economic challenges exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first minister dismissed the chances of her former colleague and fellow independence campaigner, Alex Salmond, who leads the Alba Party, at the May 6 election. She claimed his attempts to “game the system” to achieve independence won’t help win over the voters they would need if there were an Indyref 2.
Questioned on the practicalities of an independent Scotland, Sturgeon claimed that the country would thrive but brushed off criticism that cutting Edinburgh off from London to join the European Union would be more harmful than beneficial.On Thursday, NatWest Bank reinforced widespread scepticism in the economic viability of Scotland’s independence movement, vowing to move its HQ from Edinburgh to London should the nation eventually vote to split from the UK.
NatWest CEO Alison Rose said the company would simply be too big for Edinburgh. “In the event that there was independence for Scotland our balance sheet would be too big for an independent Scottish economy. And so we would move our registered headquarters, in the event of independence, to London,” she told reporters.
Sturgeon’s announcement on Friday comes as support for independence in Scotland falls to its lowest level in years, with the latest poll only showing 42% of Scots back the move.
The Scottish National Party leader has campaigned for independence throughout her political career and called for a second referendum after the UK voted for Brexit in 2016, despite losing her own independence referendum in 2014 by 55% to 45%. Only four of Scotland’s 32 council areas voted in favour of independence.
Budapest has stockpiled enough Covid-19 vaccines for everyone who has applied to receive the shot, PM Viktor Orban said, as the country prepares to reopen most public services and venues to those vaccinated.
Hungary is entering a new stage in the fight against the coronavirus, Orban said on Friday as he spoke to Kossuth radio.
“In the past, we defended ourselves by closing, thereby slowing the spread of the virus. But now we are on the attack,” he said. “The vaccine is like a bulletproof vest, the virus bounces off of it.”
As of late Thursday, over 3.91 million people had already been vaccinated, Orban said. The country is expected to meet its 40% inoculation rate goal on Friday. Reaching the milestone will trigger the long-anticipated reopening of Hungary’s public services and most venues.
Over the weekend, hotels, theaters and cinemas, restaurants and bars with indoor seating, and other venues will open their doors across the nation for people with ‘immunity certificates’. The certificates are issued to those who have been vaccinated or have contracted the coronavirus and have successfully recovered. While certificates for the latter are only valid for six months, certificates for those who have been vaccinated do not expire.
The vaccination drive is expected to go ahead uninterrupted, as the country has stockpiled enough vaccines for everyone who has applied, Orban said.
“There are so many vaccines in Hungary that they are enough for everyone who applied to be vaccinated. It is now up to people to get the shot.”
Hungary enjoys one of the highest vaccination rates in the EU and has also imported the highest number of doses per capita among member states. The country has approved multiple vaccines from around the world without waiting for the EU regulators, importing China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines.
Hungary has suffered the highest daily per capita Covid-related deaths in the world in recent weeks. The effects of the vaccination drive, however, have apparently begun to show, as the situation improved in late April.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Hungary has registered more than 776,000 coronavirus cases, with roughly 7% of the country’s population of around 10 million being infected. Over 27,000 people have succumbed to the disease across the country.
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The manufacturing and services sectors in China slowed their expansion in the first month of the second quarter, as companies faced supply and logistics problems.
The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 51.1 in April from 51.9 in March, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday. While a reading above 50 reflects growth in factory output, it was lower than economists’ expectations, with polls of analysts by Reuters and Bloomberg both having predicted a slight drop, to 51.7 and 51.8 respectively.
China’s official non-manufacturing PMI, which reflects sentiment among larger businesses in the service and construction sectors, also fell short of the forecast. The reading fell to 54.9 in April from 56.3 a month earlier, dragged down by construction activity.
“Surveyed companies said that the problems such as chip shortage, clogged international logistics, container shortage and rising freight rates were still serious,” senior NBS statistician Zhao Qinghe said, as cited by media.
The official noted that, despite the slower pace of growth in the manufacturing sector in April, it still performed better than during the same period in 2019 and 2020.
The results of the official PMI were worse than the findings of the Caixin/Markit survey, which reflects sentiment among smaller firms. The private survey, released on Friday, showed that manufacturing PMI rose to 51.9 in April from 50.6 in March.
“The reading was the highest this year, indicating an accelerated recovery of manufacturing activity,” senior economist at the Caixin Insight Group Wang Zhe was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.
While the private survey showed that both output and new orders expanded at the fastest pace this year, it also revealed that manufacturing costs rose dramatically. According to Wang, this was due to increased prices for raw materials, including industrial metals. The rising prices may impede further economic recovery, he noted.
Earlier this month, China said that its economy had expanded by 18.3% in the first three months of 2021. The record growth came a year after the coronavirus outbreak paralyzed the world’s second-largest economy. Analysts now forecast the Chinese economy to grow more than 8% this year, well above Beijing’s GDP growth target of around 6%.
Crude oil prices got a major boost this week thanks to optimistic expectations about demand from OPEC+ and rebalancing fuel inventories in the United States.
Brent jumped to over $68 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate neared $65 per barrel by the middle of the week and could rise even further unless headwinds appear.
Earlier in the week, OPEC+ forecast that oil demand this year would increase by 5.95 million barrels per day (bpd). This was an upward revision of 70,000 bpd from an earlier projection, and this fact injected optimism in traders, as did OPEC+'s decision to forego a meeting this week and keep producing at previously agreed rates.
Meanwhile, the US Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday that crude oil inventories are within the five-year average for the season—for the first time in months—and that middle distillate inventories were down by a sizeable 3.3 million barrels last week.
Middle distillates, mainly diesel, have been a headache for refiners during the pandemic as inventories reached excessive levels due to the slowdown in various activities involving freight transport. Now, businesses are returning to normal operation, according to the data, and demand for diesel is picking up.
"Between planting season and online truck deliveries, you have a nice number in the diesel," Bob Yawger, energy futures director at Mizuho, said as quoted by Reuters. "Planting season is doing wonders for the distillate market."
It seems the latest fuel demand developments in the United States were enough to eclipse earlier worry about Indian fuel demand amid a resurgence of infections there.
"There's a lot of green shoots in demand," according to Matt Sallee, portfolio manager at asset manager TortoiseEcofin, as quoted by Bloomberg. According to him, the situation in India is "clearly a headwind, but looking at what's going on in the US, it's a completely different story."
"The market expects a major revitalization for global oil demand from this summer onwards," Rystad Energy's head of oil markets Bjornar Tonhaugen told Bloomberg. "As vaccination campaigns progress and as lockdowns are set to soon be lifted in Europe and other recovering economies, the need for road and jet fuels will increase and the result will be felt."
Indeed, optimism appears to be on the rise. Goldman Sachs, which has been particularly bullish on oil, has stuck to its forecast that Brent could hit $80 a barrel in the second half of this year. The investment bank also said in a new note that it expected global oil demand to book its strongest rebound ever over the next six months.
At 5.2 million bpd, according to Goldman, the demand jump will be the result of accelerating vaccinations in Europe, which would, in turn, lead to greater demand for travel. This will also lead to an uptick in jet fuel demand—the worst hit segment of the fuel industry—to the tune of 1.5 million bpd, according to the investment bank.
If the rally continues as forecast, it will provide a much-needed breathing space for the Persian Gulf's oil-dependent economies, most of which need Brent to trade much higher than current prices to avoid another budget deficit. A price of $70 per barrel of the most traded benchmark may be high enough for some, such as Saudi Arabia. Still, others, notably Bahrain, need oil at $100 per barrel to make their budget ends meet.
At the same time, however, it would undermine calls for a green recovery from the pandemic. The IEA has already warned that emissions are once again on the rise after last year's lull because of lockdowns. The rebound in oil demand that banks and analysts expect appears to be proof that the transition to all-electric transport might be more challenging than some hope.
Democrats on social media have been accused of overstating Americans’ enthusiasm for President Joe Biden’s speech to Congress, after omitting some rather important details about a poll conducted by CBS.
The US leader gave his first joint address to lawmakers on Wednesday night, touching on a range of topics from infrastructure to immigration.
Judging by television viewership, the speech wasn’t exactly a blockbuster event. It’s estimated that approximately 22.6 million Americans watched Biden speak on broadcast TV channels, compared to the 43 million who tuned in for Donald Trump’s first address to Congress in 2017.
However, Biden received high marks from his audience. A CBS poll found that 85% of Americans who watched the US president speak “overwhelmingly” approved of his speech.
While revealing the polling results, CBS News’ director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvanto, said his organization spoke to “a representative sample of the audience nationwide who watched the speech,” and ultimately found that 85% of people liked what they heard. Salvanto stressed, however, that “the audience was majority Democrats watching it” – a distinction that “you've got to know” to properly understand the data.
Conducted with the help of YouGov, the survey included 943 adults who watched Biden’s address. Of those, 54% were Democrats and 25% were independents, while only 18% identified as Republicans.
While the political leanings of the poll’s participants clearly favored Biden, CBS never claimed that the results were representative of the entire country, stating that the 85% approval rating was limited to “speech watchers.”
This minor detail didn’t stop Biden fans from taking victory laps on Twitter, though.
Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner dubiously declared that “85% of Americans” applauded Biden’s speech. “It’s time for Republicans in Congress, who stand for nothing, to get out of the way and let the majority rule,” he wrote.
85% of people who watched the speech approved. Not 85% of Americans. That's an important distinction, seeing as people who do not approve of Biden would likely not have watched the speech. This tweet is misleading.
Numerous others on social media identified themselves as among the “85% of Americans” who supported what the president told Congress.
The misleading claims did not go unnoticed. Many noted that far, far less than 85% of Americans actually tuned in to watch the speech, making Reiner’s pronouncement highly suspect. Some pointed to the number of ‘dislikes’ that the speech received on YouTube as anecdotal evidence suggesting that Biden’s address was actually a flop.
Controversial “fact check” site Snopes.com even ran an article labeling the actor’s tweet as “False,” noting that the statistic “refers to the approval rating among Americans who watched the speech, not the country as a whole.”
Others took aim at CBS. The conservative National Pulse accused the outlet of running a “stunningly duplicitous story” based on the survey data, claiming that CBS failed to make it clear that most people who watched the speech were Democrats.
Democrats weren’t alone in twisting the facts, however. In a tweet, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) incorrectly stated that CBS had reported that “85% of Americans approved of Joe Biden’s speech last night.”
Hi, Lauren. You committed a stupid again, so it's time for help.
They said that 85% of the people who watched the speech approved of it.
Can you tell the difference between that and what you said? Yes? No?
We'll do this again the next time you say something stupid.
Portugal will lift travel restrictions on its land border with Spain on Saturday. Travelers from high-risk countries will still have to quarantine themselves upon arrival.
Lisbon initially planned to ease border control measures on May 3, but decided to do it two days ahead of schedule. The decision was announced after Portuguese businesses and local officials complained about the loss of revenue inflicted by the quarantine measures.
Travel was restricted in January when the both nations experienced a rise in Covid-19 infections. Currently, only people travelling for work, as well as vehicles transporting goods and performing emergency services, are allowed to cross through 18 checkpoints.
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that people coming from countries with high infection rates will still have to be quarantined. “We must remember that nothing is guaranteed in the future. It’s a daily fight. We can’t lose what we have accomplished,” Costa said on Thursday.
Portugal will downgrade the status of the health emergency, which has been in place since November, to a “calamity situation” starting Saturday, when the next phase of reopening begins. People will be allowed to play sports indoors and outdoors, and attend weddings and other gatherings in venues filled up to 50% of capacity. Shops and malls will have their hours extended to 9pm on weekdays and 7pm for weekends and holidays.
Podcaster Joe Rogan has elaborated on remarks about coronavirus vaccines after triggering major backlash, including from the White House, saying he is not “anti-vax” but merely questions whether the young and healthy need the jab.
Spotify’s number-one podcaster took to his show on Thursday to clarify comments made on a previous episode, where he suggested vaccination may not be necessary for groups less vulnerable to the virus, such as healthy 21-year-olds or younger teenagers and children.
“The thing about… people being upset at me – I’m not an anti-vax person. In fact, I said I believe they’re safe, and I encourage many people to take them. My parents were vaccinated,” Rogan said.
I just said I don’t think that if you’re a young, healthy person that you need it.
Though he largely stuck to that stance, the 53-year-old fight commentator said critics had pointed out the risk that even the young and healthy could spread the virus to other, more vulnerable people. “That makes more sense, but that’s a different argument; that’s a different conversation,” Rogan went on.
His original hot-button statement came on an April 23 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, where he spoke at length about Covid-19, inoculations and vaccine passports with comedian and libertarian commentator Dave Smith. It didn’t take long before the show prompted scorn from detractors online, with even White House coronavirus advisor Anthony Fauci weighing in.
“You're talking about yourself in a vacuum,” Fauci said of Rogan. “You're worried about yourself getting infected and the likelihood that you're not going to get any symptoms. But you can get infected, and will get infected, if you put yourself at risk.”
President Joe Biden’s communications director, Kate Bedingfield, was even more snarky in her response, asking “did Joe Rogan become a medical doctor while we weren’t looking?”
“I’m not sure that taking scientific and medical advice from Joe Rogan is perhaps the most productive way for people to get their information,” she added.
Rogan apparently agrees with that statement, acknowledging on Thursday that “I’m not a doctor. I’m a f**king moron,” and that he should not be considered a “respected source of information.” Nonetheless, he said “at least I try to be honest about what I’m saying.”
Despite the uproar over the episode, including demands that Spotify send it down the memory hole and delete it from Rogan’s catalogue, the streaming platform has so far given no indication that it will do so. A source cited by the Verge earlier this week noted that the episode is within Spotify’s policies, as it does not outwardly advocate against vaccines or urge listeners not to take them.
The bout of controversy is not the first time Rogan enraged critics with commentary on vaccines, previously kicking off a wave of anger in February after saying that he would not receive a coronavirus immunization because he felt he did not need one. He has since clarified that, at one point, he was scheduled to receive the Johnson & Johnson shot, but other obligations conflicted with his appointment. Not long after, he said the J&J vaccine rollout was temporarily halted in the US over multiple reports of dangerous blood clotting in recipients, though health authorities cleared it to resume last week.
The US military has begun its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the White House said, pulling out after occupying the war torn country for more than 20 years. For now, however, troop levels will grow to “protect” the departing forces.
The White House confirmed that the exit had begun on Thursday night, with deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters on Air Force One that “a drawdown is underway.”
“Potential adversaries should know that if they attack us in our withdrawal, we will defend ourselves, [and] our partners, with all the tools at our disposal,” she said, adding that the American presence would temporarily grow before a final pullout.
While these actions will initially result in increased forces levels, we remain committed to having all US military personnel out of Afghanistan by September 11, 2021.
Multiple long-range B-52H Stratofortress bombers were made available to CENTCOM, the US military command that covers the Middle East and Central Asia, CNBC reported, while a Navy carrier strike group is also in the region to provide support if needed.
While former President Donald Trump had signed a deal with the Taliban last year that committed the US to a full withdrawal by May 1, 2021, his successor, Joe Biden, scrapped the agreement, instead pushing back the deadline to September 11. The Taliban previously vowed to resume attacks on US forces if all foreign troops were not out of the country by May, warning Washington would face “compounded problems” after Biden announced the later date earlier this month.
Beyond military involvement, the Biden administration has given itself a tall order in the country, with officials announcing a new plan to rewrite the Afghan constitution, arrange fresh elections and ink a power-sharing deal between the Taliban and the Kabul government last month. It remains to be seen what will come of the project, as months of bilateral negotiations in Qatar have made little progress in reaching a long-term peace deal between the two parties.
In Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, he decried the “forever war in Afghanistan,” celebrating the planned withdrawal even while calling to maintain an “over-the-horizon capacity” in the region “to suppress future threats to the homeland.”
Exactly what shape that “over-the-horizon capacity” will take is not yet clear, but according to a recent report in the New York Times, the Pentagon is now discussing repositioning forces to neighboring states in the event they need to redeploy, suggesting Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as candidates. Such a move is not without precedent, with many American soldiers now “commuting” to work in Somalia from foreign bases after Trump ordered a withdrawal from the African nation late last year.
By far America’s longest war, the conflict has claimed the lives of around 2,400 US soldiers, 3,800 contractors, more than 47,000 Afghan civilians, and cost American taxpayers in excess of $2 trillion, according to the Costs of War Project. Despite fighting for more than 20 years, with US troop levels swelling beyond 100,000 during President Barack Obama’s 2009 “surge,” the Taliban continues to control wide swathes of Afghanistan, as recent local estimates indicate the militant group holds sway over more than half of the country.
Muay Thai stars Jackie Buntan and Ekaterina Vandaryeva fought out a tight scrap as the kickboxer known as 'barbie' suffered a second defeat with the promotion – although Buntan admitted her opponent had thrown more shots than her.
Some fans felt that glamorous Vandaryeva should have won on the scorecards at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, where US brawler Buntan earned a majority decision after upping her workrate towards the end of the showdown.
Boasting a height and reach advantage, Vandaryeva went on the attack in the first round and took control of the second stanza before Buntan landed a clean combo late on, catching the eyes of the judges to improve her record to 22 wins from 27 outings.
Arguably best known for her striking looks, Belarusian Vandaryeva showed the experience she has gained from more than 60 kickboxing bouts, collecting Muay Thai IFMA world and European titles, a World Kickboxing Network belt and a notable victory in 2011 over future UFC strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
The 28-year-old shook her head as the decision was announced and later promoted a post from a management company account on Instagram that said: "We both know who was the winner of this fight."
Vandaryeva did not immediately comment after the contest but shared messages she had been sent and told her followers: "Thank you very much for your support. I am getting stronger."
Undefeated Buntan earned her second professional win. "I wasn't able to talk to her," she said of Vandaryeva, with whom she shared the briefest of embraces afterwards.
"I agree it was a close fight but I was able to pick it up, especially in the last round, and score more shots that landed.
"I feel like she may have been throwing more but I was missing a whole lot of her shots, whereas I was landing more.
"I think I scored the clear shots which were landing, which helped me out with the scorecards going in my favor."
Not everyone agreed. "Nope," said one viewer upon learning the result. "I had round one even, round two Vandaryeva, round three Vandaryeva.
"Buntan's corner kept pressing her to get inside but she was either getting caught with a right or low kick when she came in.
"Vandaryeva touched her up and really only took one clean one-two in that last round."
In an appraisal that most of the audience reacting on social media seemed to agree with, another declared: "Too bad there had to be a winner. It's a draw from me."
The official fight report from the promotion suggested that Buntan has put herself in line for a crack at the strawweight title with her win.
After pushing her all the way, Vandaryeva will undoubtedly feel that she should also be in the reckoning at the top of the division.
A nuclear waste storage tank at a defunct plutonium reactor in Washington state has sprung a leak, the Department of Energy said, as local officials warn the aging vessel will emit 1,300 gallons of chemicals over the next year.
The leaking tank, located at the Hanford site in southeast Washington, just 8 miles west of the Columbia River, was announced on Thursday by the Energy Department. A breach in the 75-year-old storage reservoir was suspected more than a year ago but only confirmed recently, one of several decrepit tanks at the facility.
“It’s a serious matter whenever a Hanford tank leaks its radioactive and dangerous chemical waste,” the state’s ecology director, Laura Watson, said in a statement, adding that that officials do not believe the breach poses “increased risk to workers or the public,” though it does contribute to “the ongoing environmental threat at Hanford.”
This leak is adding to the estimated one million gallons of tank waste already in the soil across the Hanford site. This highlights the critical need for resources to address Hanford’s aging tanks, which will continue to fail and leak over time.
— 😷Ecology - Hanford😷 (@ecyHanford) April 29, 2021
While the problematic tank, designated B-109, is only the second officially confirmed leak at Hanford, (the first was detected in 2013), many of the site’s 149 storage tanks are suspected to have issues, with the Washington Ecology Department estimating that more than 200,000 gallons of waste have escaped from the “B Farm” alone, where B-109 is located. Across the whole Hanford facility, they believe 1 million gallons have poured from compromised tanks.
With B-109 leaking an estimated 3.5 gallons each day, or 1,300 gallons per year, the concerns are compounded by the tank’s close proximity to the water table, sitting just over 200 feet above, as well as the Columbia River.
Wells near Tank B-109 have been pumping groundwater and sending it to Hanford’s central treatment facility since 2012. The wells will capture any contamination from B-109 if it gets to groundwater about 200 feet below the tank. pic.twitter.com/sft1ulLhEL
A formal leak assessment was launched last year after the tank’s levels were found to be dropping, and though a breach was discovered, local officials’ hands remain tied under an agreement governing clean-up operations at Hanford. Environmental agencies can only take “immediate action” in response to a leak if it is deemed “necessary to abate an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health or welfare or the environment.” For now, the state, as well as federal agencies, have assessed no immediate danger from B-109, despite the confirmed leak.
“Contamination in this area is not new and mitigation actions have been in place for decades to protect workers, the public and the environment,” Energy Department spokesman Geoff Tyree told the Associated Press, adding “There is no increased health or safety risk to the Hanford workforce or the public.”
Hanford has seen a years-long, multi-billion dollar clean-up effort due to its ailing equipment, which itself has become controversial. In 2019, the federal government sued arms dealer Lockheed Martin, which was awarded a $3.2 billion contract in the clean-up project alongside another private company, alleging it defrauded American taxpayers with illegal kickback payments.
The site’s management has also come under fire in recent years, with workers accused of deliberately dumping toxic waste into the environment in 2017.
The Hanford facility has a rich history stretching back to the days of the Manhattan Project, becoming the site for the world’s first large-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium manufactured there was used in the first nuclear bomb test at the Trinity site, as well as in Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in the waning days of the World War II.
The B-109 tank came online in 1946, running for 30 years before it was shut down, while the entire facility was shuttered in 1987, leaving behind some 53 million gallons of waste. Since then, local authorities have worked to stabilize the remaining storage vessels, but problems keep piling up, as thousands of gallons of hazardous materials continue to flow into the soil unabated.
