Today's News: July 30, 2021

Planning ahead? Firms land Covid passport contracts that could last until 2023, even as UK govt hints plan could be dropped

(RT) – The British government has awarded potentially years-long contracts to help develop a domestic vaccine passport, as Downing Street simultaneously hints that the whole idea could be abandoned if enough people get the jab.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published information earlier this week on two new contracts with private tech firms hired to work on the country’s “Covid-19 certification programme.”

US-based Entrust will receive close to £840,000 ($1.2 million) for the development of the NHS health pass. The deal will last until at least July next year but pricing for a two-year contract is already detailed in official documents, suggesting that the UK government may be eyeing a long-term arrangement.

While the contract was made available to the public online, information about specific services that Entrust will be providing has been completely redacted, with several pages of the document blacked out.

The US tech company was awarded £250,000 earlier this year as part of its ongoing work on the health pass program. The contract raised eyebrows after it was revealed that Entrust had openly boasted about how Covid-19 vaccine passports could be retooled to create national IDs as part of the “infrastructure of the new normal.”

The DHSC also signed a second vaccine passport contract this week worth up to £873,000 with Cambridge, Massachusetts IT firm Akamai Technologies. Like the agreement with Entrust, the one-year deal is designed so that it can be seamlessly extended for an additional 12 months. The US firm pocketed £50,000 in May as part of its involvement in the creation of the digital vaccine ID.

Akamai, which specializes in cybersecurity technologies, purchased online identity management company Janrain in 2019.

In total, the government has now spent nearly £23.6 million ($32.9 million) on its Covid certification programme, iNews reported.

The new contracts coincide with the introduction of new features on the NHS app that will allow it to serve as a digital vaccine certificate.

Taking liberties: French fume at Macron’s vaccination push

In Marseille, president’s coronavirus health pass isn’t going down well with everyone.

(Politico) – s France rushes to vaccinate its population amid a surge in infections, President Emmanuel Macron is getting tough — essentially telling people to get the jab or forfeit a return to normal life.

It’s a strategy that has prompted waves of indignation in the country of Liberté, with protests bringing 160,000 people onto the streets across France last weekend. But nowhere is Macron’s tough-love recipe being put to a greater test than in Marseille, the Mediterranean port city that has emerged as a flagbearer for COVID skepticism.

High levels of poverty, a tradition of defiance against the state and the influence of controversial virologist Didier Raoult, who touted an antimalarial drug to treat the coronavirus, make the southern city fertile ground for discontent.

Near the old port, Robert Farina runs Le Vacon bar, a drinking hole that has maybe seen better days. Shirt unbuttoned, fists pressed against the counter, he quips that he is a “100 percent dissenter.”

“It’s a dictatorship,” he thundered. “Hasn’t Macron read what’s written on our coins? It says Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité — what happened to liberty?”

As of August 9, Farina will have to scan all his customers’ coronavirus immunity passes as access to bars, restaurants and hospitals — as well as trains, planes and coaches — will be conditional on customers showing digital or paper certificates proving immunity or vaccination. Businesses that break the rules risk temporary closure and a fine of up to €9,000.

“I have to do it, or I’ll get fined,” said Farina, who reluctantly got vaccinated. “They will unleash their guard dogs — the police — to check on us. But how am I going to manage, serving drinks, checking people inside and out there on the terrasse?”

Some of Farina’s drinkers already have their passes, but others don’t. One mischievously raised a tumbler of his own “medication” — a glass of pastis.

France achieves record Covid jabs with Macron’s ‘big stick’ approach

800,000 vaccinations in single day follows announcement that visits to many public venues will require a health pass

(The Guardian) – Within 72 hours of the French learning they would soon need to be vaccinated or tested to go to the cafe, more than 3 million had booked appointments and France had broken its vaccination record, administering 800,000 shots in a single day.

At the same time, daily infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, continued to climb, reaching nearly 9,000 on Wednesday – and on Bastille Day, about 20,000 demonstrators nationwide protested against what some called a “dictatorship”.

Polls show more than 65% public support for the range of measures unveiled by Emmanuel Macron on Monday, aimed, in the president’s words, not at “making vaccination immediately obligatory for everyone … but at pushing a maximum of you to go and get vaccinated”.

Critics, however, accuse the government of discriminating against vaccine sceptics and those who will not be fully inoculated before the rules come into effect, while others say the government is effectively imposing general vaccination by stealth, trampling on individual rights and freedoms.

St. Louis County Council votes to overturn mask mandate

(NaturalNews) – The St. Louis County Council in Missouri voted on Tuesday, July 27, to stop the county executive’s attempt to reimpose the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) mask mandate.

County Executive Sam Page, a Democrat, attempted to implement the mask mandate supposedly because of the rapid spread of the post-vaccine delta variant of the coronavirus.

The county mask mandate took effect on Monday, July 26. It required everyone to wear a mask in indoor public spaces, regardless of whether or not they have been vaccinated. (Related: St. Louis orders all vaccinated residents to return to mandatory masking while indoors, effectively admitting that vaccines don’t work to stop the spread of covid.)

The county council said Page violated Missouri law by attempting to pass the mandate without consulting the council.

Because of this, five members of the seven-member council voted in favor of ending the mask mandate and rebuking Page for violating the law.

“Too many American men and women have given the last full measure of devotion for us to be cavalier with the very liberty they fought and died to provide,” said Councilman Ernie Trakas, a Republican. “I will not abide any measures that seek to compromise or erode our liberty and freedom.”

Trakas said Page could have easily called a special council meeting to get their input. He argued that this would have cleared the legal barrier to passing the mask mandate.

Trakas and two other Republicans voted in favor of ending the order.

“If Sam Page wants health mandates, this council stands ready to hear his arguments and act on his requests,” said Republican Councilman Tim Fitch. “This is the legal and proper way to do this.”

“Why weren’t we brought into the loop, why didn’t we have a chance to have an input on this?” said Fitch. “I represent 142,000 people, the vast majority do not want masks. The vast majority. I represent them, and I should be able to have a voice for them.”

Trakas, Fitch and the other Republican councilman were joined by two Democrats in voting to overturn the mandate, including council chairwoman Rita Heard Days. The two remaining Democrats in the council voted to uphold the mask mandate.

Mastercard submits new audit to India’s central bank to lift ban on card issuance – report

(RT) – One of the world’s leading financial services, Mastercard, has submitted a new audit report to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as the company seeks to overturn the latest ban on card issuance in the country.

The ban announced by the regulator earlier this month came amid concerns over the US credit card company’s handling of data processed abroad. The company had reportedly breached the 2018 law banning financial service firms from storing payments data on Indian customers outside of the country.

The RBI introduced the penalties, saying that a “system audit report” submitted by Mastercard’s auditor Deloitte in April was unsatisfactory. The ban applies to both debit and credit card issues to new customers, and doesn’t affect existing Mastercard clients in India.

Police discover an entire Texas hotel has been rented out for COVID-positive immigrants

(Activist Post) – A charity in the border town of La Joya, Texas, reportedly has rented an entire hotel to house illegal immigrants who have tested positive for COVID-19, giving no notification to the local community.

Fox News State Department Correspondent Rich Edson tweeted Wednesday night, “Police in La Joya, TX, a Border town, announce a charity has rented an entire hotel here for COVID-positive migrants. They say they only found out when a family, showing symptoms and staying there, ate at a restaurant next door. A customer flagged down a police officer.”

A later post added, “They’re advising La Joya to mask up and distance.”

“The La Joya Police Department said a patrol officer was waved down Monday by someone concerned about a group that appeared to be sick at a Whataburger fast food restaurant,” Fox News reported late Wednesday night.

“The officer found a family inside who were coughing and sneezing and not adhering to health guidelines, including the wearing of masks, authorities said during a news conference,” the report said.

La Joya Police Sgt. Manuel Casas said his department and the city had not been notified of the situation.

“We did not know this,” he said. “No one told the city of La Joya. No one told the police department that these people were here, and no one told us that these people were possibly ill.”

The reported individuals were staying at Texas Inn & Suites after being released by Border Patrol.

The report comes one week after the number of migrant detainees who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas soared by 900 percent.

Fox News reported, “There were 135 detainees who tested positive in the first two weeks of July alone, marking a 900% increase in confirmed positive cases compared to the previous 14 months.”

Woke IOC Declares ‘Transwomen are Women’ as Transgender Kiwi Readies for Weightlifting Debut

(Breitbart) -The International Olympic Committee (IOC) reaffirmed its full support of transgender athletes Friday when medical director Richard Budgett declared “transwomen are women” and should be included in women’s sport “when we possibly can.”

“After 100 years of promoting women’s sport, it’s up to each of the international federations to ensure that they try and protect women’s sport,” he told a briefing in Tokyo. “Science will help, experience will help, and time will help.”

Budgett spoke as New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard prepared to become the first openly transgender woman at the Olympics when she competes in the +87kg category on Monday, as AFP reports.

The 43-year-old was born male and competed as a man before transitioning to female in her 30s, taking up the sport at elite level again after meeting IOC guidelines for transgender athletes and sparking a global response.

New Zealand Olympic Committee spokeswoman Ashley Abbott said Hubbard was keeping a low profile in Japan, despite the “particularly high level of interest” in her Olympic debut.

While she acknowledged Hubbard’s appearance raised complex issues, the AFP report said Abbott also pointed out: “We all need to remember that there’s a person behind all these technical questions.”

“As an organisation we would look to shield our athlete, or any athlete, from anything negative in the social media space,” she said.

An International Weightlifting Federation spokesman said Hubbard would be under no obligation to speak to journalists after her event.

Critics argue Hubbard has an unfair advantage over female rivals due to physical attributes locked into her body during her formative years as a male.

First flight of Afghans who risked lives to help American troops arrive in US

(CNN) – The first group of translators and interpreters who helped US soldiers and diplomats in Afghanistan arrived in the US on Friday, even as thousands more wait in Afghanistan in increasing fear of Taliban reprisals.

The first group of approved Afghan applicants for a Special Immigrant Visa touched down and traveled to Fort Lee, Virginia, on Friday, according to the Biden administration. The flight carried about 200 people, including applicants and their families, part of a priority group of 700 Afghan SIV applicants who have completed the majority of the background process required to get a visa. Along with their families, they number about 2,500.

CDC now admits that everything it pushed to “cure” COVID-19 has failed, including “vaccines”

(NaturalNews) – The verdict is in: Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccines” are a bust, and so are masks, which takes us back to square one as far as the “pandemic” is concerned.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s (CDC) latest declaration states that “fully vaccinated” people can still catch and spread the “delta variant.” For this reason, the CDC is urging all injected people to wear a mask whenever they are around other people.

But wait: When were the masks ever effective? The answer is never, as the number of new “cases” of the Chinese Virus only continued to rise all last year the more people covered their faces with Fauci Flu veils.

What this means, of course, is that everything the CDC and other government “authorities” told us all to do for the past year and a half was a fraud. And now the agency has the gall to try to tell us all to do it again a second time for some unknown reason.

Antisocially distancing, staying at home, living in fear, modifying our DNA, and muzzling our faces all utterly failed to contain the Wuhan Flu. Meanwhile, the only things that actually work to protect immunity were decried as “misinformation” by the CDC.

So where does that leave us? Back in a Chinese Virus hell, at least until the world says enough! to the merry-go-round of government tyranny, none of which has done a single thing to save lives.

The medical establishment’s circus act of pushing masks, then not pushing masks, then pushing masks again, has made a total mockery of “public health.” Even worse, this same medical establishment claimed, then claimed otherwise, that getting jabbed with a Trump Vaccine would be a surefire way to bring about a disease-free “new normal.”

Action Item: Stop FDA Threat to Consumer-preferred Supplements

Their “New Dietary Ingredient” Guidance will Bankrupt Thousands of Supplements, and Congress is Making it Worse

Background: The 50% of Americans using dietary supplements will not be pleased to learn that Congress and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are colluding to threaten consumer access to cherished health care – and during a pandemic when supplements rise in importance to save lives. Will you please oppose the unconscionable legislative or regulatory proposals for the FDA to place dietary supplements on a list for market elimination?

THIS MATTER IS VERY URGENT, because the FDA has stated it will finalize next year its draft Guidance on New Dietary Ingredients (NDIs), first proposed in 2011, which would subject more than 30,000 “new” supplements to harsh and unnecessary drug-like regulations to prove their safety. We already know that supplements are about the safest consumer product someone can ingest, safer even than food. Why drive their cost up just to satisfy unnecessary and costly regulations? Many supplements will even be driven out of the market because they will not be worth the time and money to “prove” to the FDA’s satisfaction that they are safe.

Action: Please visit the link and input your zip code at the bottom of the page, to trigger the sending of NHF’s letter to your U.S. Representative and both Senators. We need them to protect our supplements.