29 March 2021 — British Medical Journal
BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n810 (Published 29 March 2021) Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n810
Dear Editor
I have had more vaccines in my life than most people and come from a place of significant personal and professional experience in relation to this pandemic, having managed a service during the first 2 waves and all the contingencies that go with that.
7 April 2021 — Drone Wars
A new survey by Drone Wars has begun the process of mapping the involvement of information technology corporations in military artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics programmes, an area of rapidly increasing focus for the military. ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age’, the recently published integrated review of security, defence, development, and foreign policy, highlighted the key roles that new military technologies will play in the government’s vision for the future of the armed forces and aspirations for the UK to become a “science superpower”.
7 April 2021 — Pesticide Action Network
As we head into spring, you will probably start to spot the tell-tale signs that pesticides have been used in your town or city, such as yellowing strips of grass or dead, brown plants along the edges of pavements. Across most of the UK, pesticides are still being sprayed in parks, playgrounds, pavements, schools and other public spaces. Many of these pesticides have been linked to serious health problems and contribute to biodiversity decline.
6 April 2021 — Origin: Generation Rent
| We need a London Mayor that will tackle the renting crisis and ensure renters have access to safe, secure and genuinely affordable homes.
Will you join us in our call for a London Mayor for Renters? Ask the candidates if they will adopt Generation Rent’s policies to fix London’s housing crisis here. |
6 April 2021 — GMWatch
1. Why new genetic techniques need to be stringently regulated – comment on new study
2. Differentiated impacts of human interventions on nature: Scaling the conversation on regulation of gene technologies – new study abstract
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6 April 2021 — Media Reform Coalition
We produced our first comprehensive report on media ownership in the UK back in 2015 when we argued concentrated ownership was a significant problem for any modern democracy. In 2019, we produced an updated version that suggests that, not only does concentrated ownership persist but that the problem may be getting worse. Sadly, the situation has deteriorated since then so make sure you read our very latest report on UK Media ownership – available HERE.
5 April 2021 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Part One: Commodity Cod and Factory Ships
Part Two: Exploiting the New Land
The Spanish Armada in the English Channel, 1588
by Ian Angus
In 1575, a moderately successful Bristol merchant named Anthony Parkhurst purchased a mid-sized ship and began organizing annual cod fishing expeditions to Newfoundland. Unlike most of his peers, he travelled with the fishworkers; while they were catching and drying cod, he explored “the harbors, creekes and havens and also the land, much more than ever any Englishman hath done.” In 1578, he estimated that about 350 European ships were active in the Newfoundland cod fishery — 150 French, 100 Spanish, 50 Portuguese, and 30 to 50 English — as well as 20 to 30 Basque whalers.[1]
1 April 2021 — Indian Punchline
The China-Iran joint statement of last Saturday has made waves in the international media and among regional analysts from Israel to India. Israel is anxious that there is going to be security cooperation between China and Iran. Indians are brooding over the fate of their Chabahar port project in eastern Iran, integral to its “regional connectivity”.
6 April 2021 — Global Research
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an assortment of high-profile figures and policy makers are pushing for unregulated gene-editing technologies, the rollout of bio-synthetic food created in laboratories, the expanded use of patented seeds and the roll back of subsidies and support for farmers in places like India.
31 March 2021 — Lockdown Sceptics
by Oliver May
Professor Martin Kulldorff
Now that we are allowed to meet up in groups of six outside their homes, Matt Hancock is warning us not to do anything foolish, like hug one another or breach the two metre rule. “Do it safely,” he tweeted. “Don’t blow it now”.
5 April 2021 — Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Two Black Martyrs’ Mothers Confront Black Lives Matter / Black Is Back Coalition: When Colonialism Turned on Whites, They Called it Fascism / Black Alliance for Peace: Fascism Born in the Colonies, Not Europe
(more…)
5 April 2021 — The Defender
Since the first COVID-19 vaccine received Emergency Use Authorization in the U.S., some physicians and scientists have challenged the recommendation by U.S. health agencies that people who have already had COVID and as a result acquired natural immunity still get the vaccine.
5 April 2021 — Indian Punchline
By M.K. Bhadrakumar
“What happens in the Middle East has a way of making itself felt everywhere around the world,” Jordan’s King Abdullah II ibn Al-Hussein while addressing the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 15th January 2021A coup attempt is an orphan unless it succeeds. Therefore, all we can say is that a coup was in the making in Jordan. In a televised news conference on Sunday in Amman, all that Deputy Prime Minister Ayman al-Safadi would admit was that “These were efforts that threatened Jordan’s security and stability, and these efforts were foiled.”
5 April 2021 — Counter Currents
Written by Neve Gordon and Mark LeVine
Was Albert Einstein an anti-Semite? Was Hannah Arendt? These questions may sound ludicrous. Yet, according to the definition of anti-Semitism that more than 30 countries — including the United States through the Biden Administration — recently adopted, these two leading intellectuals could very well be labeled as such. This is due to an open letter they sent on December 4, 1948 to the New York Times, claiming that the right-wing Herut Party in the newly formed State of Israel was “closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”
5 April 2021 — Craig Murray
[To be clear, I’m neither a supporter or opponent of Scottish independence, my concern here is the role of the British security state via MI5 and the state and corporate media, in smearing and villifying supporters of Scottish independence. WB]
On 24 March, two of the SNP MP’s most closely aligned to Nicola Sturgeon, Stewart MacDonald and Alyn Smith, asked for a meeting with the British internal security service MI5 to discuss cooperation against Russia. MI5 is the agency charged with countering perceived internal threats to the UK state; Scottish nationalists, environmentalists and anti-nuclear campaigners are among MI5’s major targets. Until a few years ago, the vast majority of Scottish Independence supporters would have regarded MI5 as a particularly egregious manifestation of their traditional enemy, the British state. Yet here was the SNP officially – MacDonald and Smith are the party’s Westminster defence and foreign affairs spokesmen – calling for cooperation with MI5.
5 April 2021 — Moon of Alabama
Last night Brian MacDonald, an Irish journalist currently working for RT, picked up on a theme we previously noted here.
Bryan MacDonald @27khv – 19:21 UTC · Apr 4, 2021
With the US/UK press in full Russia hysteria mode, right now, it’s time for a thread on things the Anglo-American media has accused Moscow of “weaponising.”
We shall start with Charlie Sheen.
Yes. Really. Not a joke.
Take a bow, @ak_mack & @ForeignPolicy
Brian MacDonald’s thread is a good opportunity to update our list of all the issues, ideas and things Russia has weaponized.
5 April 2021 — Jonathan Cook
Middle East Eye – 5 April 2021
The completion of Keir Starmer’s first year as Labour leader might have passed without note, had it not been the occasion for senior party figures to express mounting concern at Labour’s dismal performance in opposition to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government.
3 April 2021 — Global Research
On March 25, 2021, the European Parliament voted 468 to 203 in favour of the Digital Vaccine Passport or “Green Pass” which requires EU citizens to get vaccinated if they want to travel, or even have access to various social and cultural activities within their respective communities.
The EU Digital Vaccine Passport is part of the infamous ID2020 project sponsored by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) “ which uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity“.
5 April 2021 — National Security Archive
Washington, D.C., April 5, 2021 – President Bill Clinton’s climate policy faced some of its biggest challenges from two very different quarters – China and the Congress – according to a collection of recently declassified internal papers posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive.
5 April 2021 — Good Law Project
The 2019 Towns Fund made unhappy reading for those who believe public money should not be used to promote Party interests. As a leading academic put it: “there is robust evidence that ministers chose towns so as to benefit the Conservatives in marginal Westminster seats”. And the Public Accounts Committee criticised the Government for transparency failures “which fuelled accusations of political bias in the selection process”.
The New Dark Age 
