Today's Must-Reads - 13 July 2024

Exposing the narrative with the latest news, studies, reports and articles!

Welcome to your daily dose of curated news and insights from across the globe!

There’s a lot of news to get through every day. To save you time and help you avoid inane headlines, I’ve done the work for you. So grab a cup of tea or coffee, sit down, and read the news that really matters.

Today’s post is for all readers but will usually be only for paid subscribers. So sign up today (for less than 20 cents/pence per day) and join a growing band of independent minds from around the world.

• Books

• The Counter Signal - Trudeau gives NATO speech to empty room

  The Prime Minister is getting mocked online after social media users learned his final speech at the NATO summit in Washington was given to an empty room. Trudeau stood alongside Defence Minister Bill Blair, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Joly, in front of what appears to be forty empty chairs.

• The Telegraph - What has Britain done? Labour is already showing its sinister true colours

  We are only one week into the new Government and, in thoroughly British fashion, the appalling decisions are already forming an orderly queue. Sir Keir Starmer won a little over a third of the vote, and yet the Prime Minister now commands a majority of 172 and can enact any policy he pleases. He’s seized the opportunity – and in the process is demonstrating that this is going to be a government far more Left-wing, and far more willing to make terrible choices, than many people had perhaps anticipated.

• Modernity News - Biden Advisors Threaten To “Beat The Shit Out Of” Staffers Who Don’t Keep Quiet

  CNN reports that a prominent Democrat has claimed Biden’s advisors have threatened White House staffers, saying they will “beat the shit out” of anyone who says anything about Biden’s health that runs contrary to their narrative.

• TrialSite News - Spanish Study Team Finds COVID-19 Vaccines Leads to Bladder Problems

  The authors of the study report in Frontiers In Medicine that COVID-19 vaccination in fact, has been impacting the lower urinary tract (LUT) and overactive bladder (OAB). At first LUT symptoms worsened, and OABSS-S scores surged after the first vaccine dose in individuals under 45 years old. Symptoms improved after receiving the third and fourth doses. Gender differences were observed with Men vaccinated with AstraZeneca reporting a higher number of nighttime voids, while women vaccinated with Moderna reported more daytime voids.

• The US spent $140 billion to service its debt in one month.

  

• CATO Institute - Bahamians Didn’t Want CBDCs–So Now They’re Being Forced to Use Them

  The Bahamian government will soon start forcing commercial banks to distribute its central bank digital currency (CBDC). Known locally as the Sand Dollar, the CBDC accounts for less than 0.41 percent of the currency in circulation and the Central Bank of The Bahamas reported that the CBDC has been used less and less as time goes on. Facing similar circumstances, any private business would likely be preparing to go out of business. The central bank, however, seems to have other plans in mind.

• BBC - Practice admits breach of duty over vaccine death

  A medical practice has accepted that a 26-year-old man who died within two weeks of taking AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine was not told the correct risk. Jack Hurn, from Redditch, developed blood clots on the brain in June 2021 after he got the jab at the Revival Fires Clinic in Dudley. At the time, the advice was to offer alternative vaccines to people under 30 because of known risks. Anchor Medical Practice has admitted a breach of duty but has not accepted liability for Mr Hurn’s death.

• Off-Guardian - War on Farmers: World Bank Sowing Seed-Colonialism in Africa

  In Kenya, a law was passed in 2012 that prohibits farmers’ rights to save, share, exchange or sell unregistered seeds. Farmers could face up to two years in prison and a fine of up to 1 million Kenyan shillings (equivalent to nearly four years’ wages for a farmer). However, in 2022, Kenyan smallholder farmers launched a legal case against the government calling for reform of the 2012 seed law to stop criminalising them for sharing seeds. There is a hearing scheduled for 24 July 2024.

• Nature - Bird flu could become a human pandemic. How are countries preparing?

  As cases of avian influenza continue to rise in cattle in the United States, countries are preparing for the possibility that the virus could start spreading in people. Many nations are ramping up surveillance, as well as purchasing vaccines or developing new ones.

• Dances with Bears - The Kiev Children’s Hospital, The Russian Z-101 Missile and the Ukraine Nasams Missile - The Warhead Evidence, Medical and Autopsy Reports are Misisng

  In the public media trial of the Russian military of guilt for the air raid which hit part of the Okhmatdet Children’s Hospital in Kiev on Monday morning, July 8, the US, NATO and Ukrainian charge is that a Russian missile struck the hospital and exploded, killing 27, and injuring 17 out of more than 1,200 patients and staff in the hospital at the time; 4 children have been counted among the dead, 7 among the wounded. So what exactly happened? Sources who are experts in civil electrical engineering and a NATO veteran who specializes in electric warfare on the battlefield were asked this question.

• The Guardian - Elon Musk promises ‘battle in court’ over EU’s crackdown on X’s blue checks

  Elon Musk’s X has been warned by the EU it potentially faces large fines after regulators said its blue-tick system for users is deceptive and in breach of its landmark social media rules. Musk responded with “We look forward to a very public battle in court” late on Friday. Announcing preliminary findings from an investigation, the European Commission said the platform did not comply with the Digital Services Act.

• Jo Nova - French government fines TV news for allowing a skeptic to speak without being challenged

  In France, the second largest news network let an economist go on air and declare he thought global warming was a lie and a scam used to justify State intervention. He even went on to say it is a form of totalitarianism. Shockingly (to the regulators Arcom), the CNEWS TV hosts did not contest this, and nor did anyone else in the studio. For this, 11 months later, the TV channel is being fined €20,000.

• Independent - Hold the phone: AT&T reveals hack stole data of ‘nearly all’ customers in 2022

  A cyber attack on telecommunications giant AT&T obtained data on “nearly all” of its more than 100m cellphone subscribers.

• Financial Times - Unilever to slash a third of office jobs in Europe

  The FTSE 100 company, which is under pressure from shareholders including activist investor Nelson Peltz, told senior executives on Wednesday that as many as 3,200 roles would be cut in Europe by the end of 2025.

• Spiked - Miliband’s Net Zero militancy is a disaster in the making

  Having barely been in power for a week, the Labour government is already pursuing a radical Net Zero agenda. Yesterday, it was reported in the Telegraph that Ed Miliband, the new energy secretary, would be immediately banning all new offshore drilling licences in the North Sea. The move would deny the UK 600million barrels of oil and a fair amount of gas besides. Yet it now seems that Miliband might be taking a leaf out of notorious flip-flopper Keir Starmer’s book. One spokesman told the Telegraph that some outstanding applications would still be considered. But another then said that no new licences would be approved.

• Watts Up With That? No, USA Today, Rising Seas Aren’t to Blame for ‘disappearance of rare cactus in Florida’

  A recent article in USA TODAY claims that a rare cactus in the Florida Keys has gone extinct due to sea level rise. This is false. Many factors have contributed to the decline of this cactus and much of it began over 100 years ago. USA TODAY and many other news outlets are misleading their readers into believing climate change is at fault by not reporting the full set of facts.

• Paul Craig Roberts - Why Is the West Preparing for War?

  Now that the Biden regime is supplying F-16s and long-range missiles to Ukraine, weapon systems that Biden said would never be given to the Ukrainians, along with targeting information, clearly Washington’s intent is to further widen the war by carrying it deep into civilian areas of Russia. Simultaneously, Washington is using its NGOs in Georgia to orchestrate a color revolution there in order to open a second front against Russia. Putin’s slow forever war in Ukraine has played directly into Washington’s hands.