Security

Two months after the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Iran, we are seeing signs of a significant improvement for the total situation. The number of daily deaths has dropped below one hundred for a week in a row, the number of new COVID-19 cases has been on a continuous decline for more than three weeks, the restrictions are gradually being lifted and the streets are again vibrant.

On April 25 the White House published a heartening and most welcome “Joint Statement by President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia” to mark “the 75th Anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops, who shook hands on the damaged bridge over the Elbe River.

Far right-wingers in the United States and other countries are pushing the propaganda line that China was somehow involved in the creation or spread of the Covid-19 virus, formally known as SARS [Severe acute respiratory syndrome]-CoV-2, to the rest of the world either deliberately or from an accidental release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

End of the day, factory whistle cries,
Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes.
And you just better believe, boy,
somebody’s gonna get hurt tonight,
It’s the working, the working, just the working life
— Bruce Springsteen, “Factory” (1978)

China is being put in a no-win bind. It is accused of misleading the world over the Covid-19 outbreak, which is in turn prompting demands for financial compensation. The United States, Britain, France and Australia have pushed this narrative. Demonization of China involves claims that Beijing has fomented disinformation about the pandemic.
The publicly documented timeline of the pandemic confounds this “blame China” narrative. So too does the disproportionate mishandling of the crisis in the U.S., Britain and Europe.

Unfathomable as that may appear, yes, it was quite possible for the second-ranking slaughterhouse in Europe in recent memory to have slipped off the radar screen. Even such a renowned authority as Professor Gideon Greif is having an exceptionally difficult time of it in trying to put it back on.
Precisely because it has not been the theme of any Hollywood spectaculars, Jasenovac does not attract any school excursions and textbooks are largely silent about it. Some background information on Jasenovac therefore seems like a good place to start.

The U.S. President has a public response to his country’s being the only one that has over a million cases and over 62,000 deaths from Covid-19 when every other country has fewer than 250,000 cases and fewer than 30,000 deaths: he demonizes China’s Government, and is now publicly preparing to seek trillions of dollars in compensation from it for damages from the coronavirus-19.

U.S. pundits and politicians have with gusto taken to dusting off an old bogeyman – “evil communism” – in reference to China over the Covid-19 pandemic. Such retrograde rhetoric shows how politically bankrupt Washington is.

This April 16th, Dr. Luc Montagnier became a household name around the world. This occurred as the controversial virologist decided to publicly state his support for the theory that Covid-19 is indeed a laboratory-generated creation and not a naturally occurring effect of viral evolution.

Trump’s foray into Covid-19 disease treatment – proposing household bleach as a possible cure – really shows how idiotic this president is. His subsequent, quick damage-limitation attempt to disown the reckless remarks as “sarcasm” only show how dishonest and mercurial he is.
Seriously, if the tycoon-turned-president can contemplate injecting disinfectant into the human body as a way of “cleaning” a virus, then you know this guy has a primitive grasp of scientific knowledge.