Today's News: September 9, 2021

China extends $31m in emergency aid to Afghanistan

Al Jazeera – China has announced that it is offering at least $31m worth of emergency aid, including coronavirus vaccines to Afghanistan as the Taliban revealed the members of its new government.

IAEA to send experts to Japan in December to review plan for release of radioactive Fukushima water into Pacific Ocean

RT – Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will travel to Japan in December to look into Tokyo’s plan to release water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, the sides agreed on Thursday.

The decision was made during a three-day visit to Japan by the IAEA’s deputy director general and head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, Lydie Evrard. The trip included meetings with top officials in Tokyo and a tour of the Fukushima plant, which was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami back in 2011.

The UN nuclear watchdog’s mission is expected to arrive in Japan shortly before the New Year to assess the condition of the treated water to be released; the safety of the disposal procedure and the effects of radiation on the environment, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced.

A Virus With A Death Rate Of Up To 75 Percent Has Caused A Lockdown In India

Michael Snyder – As the world wrestles with the COVID pandemic, just about the last thing that we need is for an even deadlier pandemic to suddenly break out. So the fact that a confirmed case of the Nipah virus has just prompted authorities in India to completely lock down a two mile area is causing a lot of panic right now. The Nipah virus has a mortality rate that is similar to Ebola, but it is a respiratory virus that can spread fairly easily through human contact. The good news is that past outbreaks have always been contained, and so we have never seen a full-blown Nipah pandemic. But the bad news is that if this virus escapes containment the death toll could potentially be staggering.

In past Nipah outbreaks, it has been confirmed that human to human transmission does happen…

In Siliguri, India in 2001, transmission of the virus was also reported within a health-care setting, where 75% of cases occurred among hospital staff or visitors. From 2001 to 2008, around half of reported cases in Bangladesh were due to human-to-human transmission through providing care to infected patients.

After all these years, could Nipah have mutated into a form that is even more easy to transmit?

Australia Is Now Confiscating Booze Delivered To People Forced Into Lockdown

ZeroHedge – In but the latest sign that Covid locked-down Australia has abandoned all pretenses of a democratic society and has effectively become a police state, Aussies are now having their booze confiscated in the name of ‘health monitoring’.

Apartment blocks subject to lockdown measures in New South Wales, which is home to Sydney and other large population centers, are reportedly being monitored by the government’s NSW Health agency. “Residents in apartment blocks locked-down by NSW Health are having their alcohol deliveries policed as part of a policy to limit the number of drinks being consumed each day,” according to https://news.com.au.

Residents of one particular building have accused authorities of doing random searches of their private mail and care packages sent by family members and friends. “They are searching all bags and things coming into the building… They confiscated a series of gifts,” one resident of Mission Australia’s Common Ground building in Camperdown said. “So things like bottles of spirits, we weren’t allowed to have those and we still (aren’t).”

The President will impose stringent Covid vaccine rules and take steps to encourage private businesses to do the same today

CNN – President Joe Biden on Thursday will impose more stringent vaccine rules on federal workers by signing an executive order requiring all government employees be vaccinated against Covid-19, with no option of being regularly tested to opt out, according to a source familiar with the plans.

During a major speech meant to lay out a new approach to combating the coronavirus, the President will also sign an executive order directing the same standard be extended to employees of contractors who do business with the federal government. The Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service and National Institutes of Health will also complete their previously announced vaccination requirements, which the White House estimates covers 2.5 million workers.

Los Angeles Unified School District set to vote on mandating Covid-19 vaccines for eligible students

CNN – Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, is set to vote on mandating Covid-19 vaccines for all eligible students in a special meeting Thursday afternoon.

“We imagine by second semester, our middle school and high school campuses will be absolutely even safer than they are today,” LAUSD school board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin told CNN’s John Berman on Thursday morning.

According to a report included with an online copy of Thursday’s agenda, all students who are 12 or older and are attending school in-person would be required to have received their first dose no later than November 21 and be fully vaccinated by December 19. Students participating in extracurricular activities in-person would need to be fully vaccinated by the end of October.

The report says “students with qualified and approved exemptions and conditional admissions” would be excluded from the mandate, but it doesn’t provide additional detail about potential exemptions.

Report: Joe Biden to Withdraw David Chipman Nomination

Breitbart – President Joe Biden reportedly plans to withdraw the nomination of David Chipman, the Gabby Giffords’ gun control associate whom the administration put forward to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

Politico reported the pending withdrawal of Chipman’s nomination, citing “three sources close to the process.”

Biden administration begins removing Trump appointees from military academy boards

USA Today – The Biden administration asked 11 officials appointed by former President Donald Trump to military service academy advisory boards to resign or be dismissed, CNN first reported Wednesday.

The list includes prominent members of Trump’s cabinet, such as former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former senior counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and former national security advisor H.R. McMaster.

Spicer was appointed to the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Naval Academy, Conway to the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Air Force Academy and McMaster to the Board of Visitors of the United States Military Academy West Point.

The dismissals come after The Pentagon reorganized its advisory boards after a purge of former Trump appointees in February.

Why Are Food Prices Going Up So Rapidly?

Michael Snyder – For a long time I have been warning that global food prices would rise dramatically, and that is precisely what we have witnessed over the past 12 months. Unfortunately, global wages are not rising nearly as quickly as global food prices are, and so this has pushed millions and millions more people into poverty and hunger.

Here in the United States, nobody is currently in danger of starving to death, but many Americans have been getting a severe case of sticker shock when they go to the grocery store. Not since the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s have we seen prices escalate like this, and people are starting to get angry.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. When I first started writing about this, certain individuals derisively dismissed what I had to say, but now the truth is becoming apparent to everyone.

Very tight supplies and growing demand have pushed global food prices 32.9 percent higher over the past year…

Central banks and mainstream media continue to peddle the notion that soaring food inflation is temporary and the average Joe and Jane should not worry about it. But in a new report via the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global food prices are on the rise, once again, and back to near-decade highs.

FAO released a statement Thursday that detailed after two consecutive months of declines, world food prices in August jumped due to solid gains in sugar, vegetable oils, and cereals.

FAO’s food price index, which follows international prices of globally traded food commodities, averaged 127.4 points in August, up 3.9 points (3.1%) from July and 31.5 points (32.9%) from the same period last year.

Unfortunately, experts are telling us that food prices are going to continue to climb.

License Plate Readers Use Footage From Ring, Smartphones And ATMs To ID Vehicles

MassPrivateI – Flock Safety’s license plate readers can now ID vehicles from any camera source. Basically, Flock Safety has turned every camera in the country into potential license plate readers.

Two years ago CBS News revealed, that America is nearly as bad as China when it comes to spying on its citizens.

In 2019, the U.S. trailed only China in the number of surveillance cameras per-person, with at least 70 million surveillance cameras or one surveillance camera for every 4.6 people.

“During the past few years, coverage of the surveillance market has focused heavily on China’s massive deployments of cameras and artificial intelligence technology. What’s received far less attention is the high level of penetration of surveillance cameras in the United States,” report author Oliver Philippou, an analyst at IHS Markit, said in a note. “With the U.S. nearly on par with China in terms of camera penetration, future debate over mass surveillance is likely to concern America as much as China.”

The U.S. has more surveillance cameras per person than Taiwan, (5.5 people per camera), the United Kingdom (6.5) and Singapore (7.1).

With that in mind, Flock Safety’s new “Advanced Search package” allows law enforcement and Home Owners Associations (HOAs) to ID any vehicle using whatever cameras are at their disposal.

As GovTech pointed out:

“Flock Safety’s software allows it to ID vehicles from a security camera at an ATM, a homeowner’s Ring doorbell, even a photo somebody took on their cellphone. The company’s new Advanced Search package — which costs between $2,500 and $5,000 a year, depending on how many of Flock Safety’s cameras the agency operates — includes a feature that allows users to upload a picture of a vehicle from any source and then perform a search to see if any of the company’s cameras have seen it.”

Flock Safety’s “Fingerprint Technology” allows HOAs and neighborhood associations to ID a vehicle[s] by its roof rack and bumper sticker.

“Flock Safety’s patented Vehicle Fingerprint technology lets you search by vehicle make, color, type, license plate, state of the license plate, missing plate, covered plate, paper plate, and unique vehicle details like roof racks, bumper stickers, and more.”

What better way to turn Americans into Big Brother operatives, right Flock Safety? Let’s “unite civilians and law enforcement with Flock Safety to build safer communities together.”

Google ‘Antiracism’ Training Says 3-Month-Old Babies Are Racist

Breitbart – A series of “antiracism” training sessions at Google taught employees of the tech giant that children as young as three months old are racist, and that listening to Ben Shapiro is a step on the ladder to committing acts of racial violence. Google’s ultra-progressive vision of “antiracism” is influenced by the notorious author and professor Ibram X. Kendi.

The documents were published by Critical Race Theory researcher Christopher Rufo yesterday on Twitter and in City Journal.