Today's Must-Reads - 31 May 2023 - Climate Defence - 2019 US Lab Leak - $1 Trillion Credit Card Debt - 10 Grams Of Meat/Day - British Journalist Interrogated In Britain - Epstein Files - AI Extinction

A selection of the latest news, studies, reports and articles

I spend a lot of time each day gathering new information and interesting articles. I then pick the most interesting topic and write about it but that leaves a lot of information that I’m not sharing.

Below is a summary of all the latest articles and information that I’ve found. Today, this is a slimmed down version for all subscribers but on other days will be for only paid subscribers.

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Climate Change

• Last week, John Kerry came to the UK to appear before the Defence Committee. Did he talk about Russia or China? No, just climate change. The session covered the impact of climate change on the UK’s defence and security.

Covid

• Dangerous lab leaks happen far more often than the public is aware. Biological facilities in the US and around the world suffer breaches, including of potentially pandemic-causing pathogens, but are shrouded in secrecy. For example, when a safety breach occurred in 2019 at a University of Wisconsin-Madison lab experimenting with a dangerous and highly controversial lab-created H5N1 avian influenza virus, the university never told the public – or local and state public health officials.

• Why Are Hospitals Still Using Remdesivir? Nobody believes in Remdesivir anymore. How can you possibly make a case for it? Remdesivir is so lethal it got nicknamed “Run Death Is Near” after it started killing thousands of Covid patients in the hospital. The experts claimed that Remdesivir would stop Covid; instead, it stopped kidney function, then blasted the liver and other organs.

• Over 300 COVID-19 Papers Withdrawn for Not Meeting Standards of Scientific Soundness. During the pandemic, researchers have compromised on ethical standards and tried to either get more publications approved or to take shortcuts around ethics, senior researcher Gunnveig Grødeland at the Institute of Immunology at the University of Oslo says, after going through the list of articles that have been withdrawn, and the reasons for some of them.

Covid Mandates & Lockdowns

• At 34, Jon has incurable bowel cancer – all because the NHS turned into a Covid-only service. Jon Chapple’s diagnosis was delayed due to the pandemic; now his only hope is to crowdfund treatment in Germany. He trusted the NHS. “That was a mistake. I thought if there was any chance it could be serious the doctors wouldn’t leave me hanging on for so long.”

• COVID outbreak at CDC gathering infects 181 disease detectives. Nearly all of the attendees were vaccinated, but 70% said they didn't mask. Overall, 181 or (13 percent of the total survey takers) reported testing positive for COVID-19, and 52 percent of the COVID-positive responders indicated it was their first known bout of COVID-19. Nearly all of the survey takers, 1,435 (99.4 percent), reported having received at least one COVID-19 vaccine. But 70 percent of the survey takers reported going unmasked during the gathering. The CDC notes that the conference occurred when transmission levels were low, during which the CDC does not recommend wearing masks.

Economy/Energy/Finance

• A majority of global central banks now expect gold to grow as a reserve asset while views on the US dollar turn dimmer. According to a World Gold Council survey, 62% of banks expect gold to account for a greater share of total reserves over the next five years, compared with last year's reading of 46%. Meanwhile, the survey found that half of respondents expect the dollar to account for 40%-50% of reserves in five years.

• Consumer confidence slips to six-month low. Americans ‘gloomy’ about economy. A survey of consumer confidence slipped in May to a six-month low of 102.3. Americans remained gloomy about the economy and said jobs were getting harder to find.

• Americans owe $1 trillion in credit card debt. Just two years ago, the national credit card narrative seemed headed in the opposite direction. Card balances declined from about $850 billion at the start of 2020 to less than $750 billion in the spring of 2021, a time of pandemic penny-pinching and federal stimulus-payment largesse. And then, everything changed. Spending picked up. Saving slowed down. The Federal Reserve commenced an unprecedented campaign of interest rate hikes.

Health

• Only 10 grams of meat per day! New policy for Germans. This should be the new upper limit when it comes to the German Society for Nutrition (DGE). The “Bild” has excerpts from an internal document on the subject of the new food strategy. Although the information is only recommendations, these are actually implemented in various places.

Politics

• British police detain journalist Kit Klarenberg, interrogate him about The Grayzone. As soon as journalist Kit Klarenberg landed in his home country of Britain on May 17, 2023, six anonymous plainclothes counter-terror officers detained him. They quickly escorted him to a back room, where they grilled him for over five hours about his reporting for this outlet. They also inquired about his personal opinion on everything from the current British political leadership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• The Jeffrey Epstein Files: Trove of never-before-seen emails and calendars gives unprecedented insight into late pedophile's network of power and influence that includes Chris Rock, Richard Branson and Irina Shayk. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, early Facebook investor Sean Parker, artist Jeff Koons, JP Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon and music industry executive Tommy Mottola, who used to be married to Mariah Carey, are also among those who appear in the documents.

• Horowitz: The shocking degree of political betrayal from Kevin McCarthy. The central flaw in McCarthy’s approach to this deal was his entire messaging in the lead-up to this act of political adultery. Rather than drawing a line in the sand on the GOP-passed bill and then making the battle about debt, inflation, and the weaponization of government, he made the battle about getting Biden to negotiate and about not defaulting on the debt. In other words, he conveyed the message that Republicans fear not raising the debt limit just as much as the Democrats.

• Mossad agent killed in shipwreck in Italy. The Israeli citizen killed in a shipwreck in Italy has been revealed to be a Mossad agent. Earlier, it was announced that there were 20 Italian and Israeli intelligence agents on the boat. It was also reported that after the incident, 10 Israeli agents were transferred on an emergency military flight back to Israel.

Ukraine

• Ukraine and Allies Plan Peace Summit Without Russia. Kyiv has strong European backing for a gathering before NATO meeting in July. “We require a unified plan of the responsible civilized world that really wants to live in peace,” said Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff. Yermak told The Wall Street Journal that direct negotiations with Russia weren’t possible as long as its troops remain in the country. Ukraine won’t compromise on its territorial integrity, he said.

• Putin say 2-3 days ago Russia hit Ukraine’s military intelligence center. "We have already mentioned the possibility of strikes against decision-making headquarters and centers. Of course, the Ukrainian military intelligence headquarters, which was hit two or three days ago, also falls into this category," Putin said during a visit to the Zotov Center, while answering a question from the head of the non-commercial organization Agency of Strategic Initiatives Svetlana Chupsheva regarding Tuesday’s UAV attack on Moscow.

• Alleged Russian 'Spy' Whale Reappears Off Sweden's Coast. A harness-wearing Beluga whale discovered in Norway's far northern region of Finnmark in 2019 has reappeared off Sweden's coast. It's believed the Russian military trained the whale. Russia and the US have used marine mammals, including beluga whales, for decades for various underwater tasks, such as finding underwater mines.

Technology

• AI Poses 'Extinction' Risk, Say Experts. Global leaders should be working to reduce "the risk of extinction" from artificial intelligence technology, a group of industry chiefs and experts warned on Tuesday. A one-line statement signed by dozens of specialists, including Sam Altman whose firm OpenAI created the ChatGPT bot, said tackling the risks from AI should be "a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war".

Vaccines

• Inquiries for Unvaccinated Donor Blood on the Rise, Contractor Says. Questions also arising about changes to HIV screening rules. Kirby Winn, public relations manager of ImpactLife, says that while the hospitals his company serves have not expressed any interest in receiving unvaccinated blood, he has noticed the demand for “pure blood” rising from the general population.

• Africa Opens First mRNA Vax Facility in Cape Town. Set up with WHO support, the Cape Town project is run by South African bio-pharmaceutical company Biovac, biotechnology firm Afrigen and the South African Medical Research Council. The hub has the potential to expand manufacturing capacity for other vaccines and products, such as insulin to treat diabetes, cancer medicines and, potentially, vaccines for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.