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“This Is No Free Country”: Anti-Lockdown Protests Rage In London, Dozens Arrested

Over 60 protesters were arrested in anti-lockdown demonstrations on Saturday, as activists clashed with police who sought to break it up.

If only it was a BLM demonstration.

According to The Guardian, “officers were attempting to disperse the protesters after the Metropolitan police argued the demonstration was unlawful under coronavirus bans on gatherings after the removal of the specific protest exemption.”

Rights groups, however, believe the protests should be permitted under the “reasonable excuse” law, and called the de-facto ban as “alarming.”

Officers faced jeers from demonstrators and chants of “shame on you” and “choose your side” as they sought to end the protest and enter crowds to make arrests, some forcibly. They were also pelted with missiles on at least one occasion, video footage showed.

The Metropolitan police tweeted: “Officers have made over 60 arrests following groups gathering in London today. These were for a number of different offences, including breaching coronavirus restrictions. We expect this number to rise. We continue to urge people to go home.” –The Guardian

“Please ensure you have access to social media throughout the day, as the rally will need to be reactive to circumstances,” wrote anti-lockdown group StandUpX in a Telegram post. “Bring pots, pans, whistles, party horns and anything you can to be heard,” the post continues.

“I got pushed about by police for no reason earlier, just cause they’re squashing up anybody that wants to complain. This is no free country,” one protester told Sky News, while another held a sign saying “Your fear leads to losing our liberty.”

The protest comes weeks after 190 people were arrested on Nov. 5 during another lockdown demonstration.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Flour Power: The Miller’s Tale

As the first COVID-19 lockdown hit the UK in early 2020, our nation suddenly looked very different. Supermarket shelves were empty and, for the first time in most people’s lives, we started to question how we were going to feed ourselves and our families. Almost overnight, localised food systems went from being niche fantasies to a vital source of sustenance for many people around the country.

One thing this pandemic has made clear is that food doesn’t come from supermarket shelves. It never did. Food comes from the soil, the sea – and the hands of people.

In the series, we hear from those people – people who stepped up back in March to feed the nation, who are still feeding us today – and who we’re all relying on to feed us in the future. This is a celebration of these key workers, a thank you and a call to action – so we don’t forget just how ‘key’ they are.

One of those key workers is Abigail Holsborough, lead miller at Brixton Windmill. Abigail’s story – and that of Brixton Windmill – encapsulates for me a lot of the key themes of ‘Who Feeds Us?’: the call for dignity in our food system, the power of community and localised production models, and the need for wholesome food that nourishes the soul as well as the body.

Abby Rose


…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the Unemployment Fiasco in Europe Is Kept out of Official Unemployment Rates

How the Unemployment Fiasco in Europe Is Kept out of Official Unemployment Rates

The massive and once-again extended Pandemic-era furlough programs serve their purpose, but…

In Europe, people who are furloughed are paid under government programs via their employers. Many of these programs have been created during the Pandemic. In theory, these people still have jobs. In practice, they’re not working, or are working heavily reduced hours. But they do not count as “unemployed” and are not reflected in the “unemployment” numbers. So throughout the Pandemic, the official unemployment rates barely ticked up, compared to the last crisis, and remain low for the EU era, despite tens of millions of people who’d stopped working due to the lockdowns (chart via Eurostat):

Under these furlough programs, the government pays companies, who in turn pay employees between 60% and 84% of their monthly wage. In some cases, the workers work fewer hours for less pay; in others, they don’t work at all. The workers take a hit to their income but their jobs remain intact, at least for the duration of the program.

The UK adopted a sweeping furlough program at the beginning of its last lockdown. Businesses can claim 80% of a staff member’s regular monthly salary, up to a maximum of £2,500. The money must be passed on to the employee and can also be topped up by the employer.

But the unemployment rate has begun to rise as people come off furlough, and those whose jobs disappeared entered official unemployment. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.8% in the three months to September, from 4.5% in Q2 and from 3.9% a year earlier, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In London, the unemployment rate surged by 1.2 percentage points from the previous quarter, to 6%, the largest quarterly increase in unemployment since the ONS started tracking the data in 1992.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It doesn’t have to be this way

This is insane. Even when something dead-nuts safe like Vitamin D finally emerges, irrefutably, to be of massive benefit, what does the UK NHS do? They decide to ship only 400 IU per patient/day.

That’s roughly 1/10th what’s needed to boost serum levels to the safe and effective range of 50 ng/ml.

A ‘futurecast’ from Hannibal Spotsbury explains what comes next.

Also the Drug Which Shall Not Be Named (DWSNBN) is back in the news.  This time from India where it conferred a 90% reduction in Covid cases among high risk health care workers. Add it all up and there’s a TON that we could be doing to effectively limit the spread and severity of Covid…but aren’t.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Links: Covid and Sun’s incidence https://twitter.com/SebastianHantel/status/1325484241442975750

Vitamin D above 50 ng/ml https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4437692/#:~:text=Without%20significant%20sun%20exposure%2C%20achieving,vitamin%20D%20by%20the%20IOM.

Robin Whittle Vitamin D Twitter https://twitter.com/RobinWhittle3/status/1324455772198072320

Sweden Vit D in food https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2015/05/28/Sweden-to-expand-mandatory-vitamin-D-fortification

Thousands Gather Across UK To Denounce National Lockdown 

England started its second covid lockdown on Thursday amid concerns of the virus pandemic’s reemergence over September and October has resulted in soaring hospital admissions across the country. Nearly three days into the lockdown, on Sunday, anti-lockdown protesters flooded the streets in several cities, denouncing the latest round of restrictions.

In early October, Prime Minister Boris Johnson introduced a three-tier system that would restrict travel among residents in virus hot spot regions. Then, on Oct. 31, Johnson announced the second lockdown would begin on Thursday.

The new measures have been introduced to mitigate the second wave of the virus pandemic, leading to record daily caseloads in the country. People are now confined to their homes for a month except for essential travel. All non-essential businesses have been closed, along with pubs and restaurants.

Three days into the new restrictions, anti-lockdown protesters rallied in Liverpool and Manchester on Sunday, creating a stir as they scuffled with police.

A video published by the Ruptly video agency shows thousands of demonstrators marching across Liverpool, defying a ban on rallies as they chanted “Shame on you!” and “Choose your side!”

Anti-lockdown protesters were also spotted in Manchester. Again, the turnout appears to be in the thousands.

One protester held a sign that read, “Covid1984 – survival rate 99.997% – you can shove the new world order up your arse! cause we are the 99%.”

Huge crowds in Manchester despite restrictions banning rallies.

Many people were spotted without masks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK To Ban Protests Of Two Or More People Ahead Of National Lockdown 

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a one-month lockdown beginning Nov. 5 through Dec. 2. Under these new measures, people will be confined to their homes except for essential travel, including medical reasons, education, and purchasing food.

Two days before lockdowns begin, The Times sheds new light on just how draconian the UK-wide coronavirus lockdown will be, which prohibits two or more people from protesting.

During England’s second national lockdown, the ban on demonstrations, beginning on Thursday, is expected to be passed by MPs in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, The Times reported that home secretary Priti Patel recently informed law enforcement officials across the country about enforcing the protest ban. Some senior police officials were concerned about the new measures, calling them too draconian for a liberal society.

Quoting a Whitehall source, The Times said, “the government was not explicitly banning protests but a previous exemption, which allowed demonstrations to go forward under certain conditions despite the pandemic, would be removed.”

In particular, Black Lives Matter protests were allowed during the first round of lockdowns, despite complaints from the public who couldn’t travel across town to see their families.

A Home Office spokesman told The Times:

“The right to peaceful protest is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. In these unprecedented circumstances, any gathering risks spreading the disease, leading to more deaths, so it is vital we all play our part in controlling the virus. People must follow the rules on meeting with others, which apply to all gatherings and therefore protests too.

One senior police officer told the Times that the new measure is “going to cause a lot of trouble. People are going to be extremely angry and there are concerns they’ll protest the fact they can’t protest.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Media is So Corrupt a Used Car Salesman Looks Far More Honest

Proof that the media has become so corrupt is that Nigel Farage has formed a new party, the Reform Party, to try to save Britain. Mainstream media is refusing to cover anything because it is anti-lockdown. These journalists are committing crimes against humanity, for they are refusing to tell the truth. In the process, they are advocating the overthrow of democracy and the installation of a totalitarian state.

UK Grid Warns Of Electricity Shortage Due To Drop In Wind

The UK’s electricity grid operator has warned of a short supply over the next few days due to generator outages and a lull in autumn winds.

The National Grid said on Oct. 14 that it was exploring various measures to create a buffer to avoid potential outages, like the one last summer that left 1 million homes without power.

“We’re forecasting tight margins on the electricity system over the next few days owing to a number of factors including weather, import and export levels and availability of generators over periods of the day with higher demand,” the National Grid said in a statement.

“Unusually low wind output coinciding with a number of generator outages means the cushion of spare capacity we operate the system with has been reduced.”

Power outages in the UK are rare. The last blackout was over a year ago and lasted for only one hour.

In an update on Oct. 15, the National Grid said that margins are currently “adequate” and it will continue to monitor the situation through the weekend.

According to the National Grid, last month one-fifth of the power supply came from wind, “in spite of unusually calm British weather during the middle of September.”

The latest announcement may fan concerns about over-reliance on wind power, which critics say is unreliable compared to gas or nuclear power.

Growth in Renewable Energy

Renewable energy has been a rapidly growing source of electricity in the UK. According to government data, 47 percent of UK electricity generation came from renewables in the first quarter of 2020, compared to 36 percent from the same time in the previous year.

A maintenance boat works next to the turbines of the new Burbo Bank offshore wind farm in the mouth of the River Mersey on May 12, 2008, in Liverpool, England. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Imperialism on Trial: 8th September 2020 ‘The Phone Hacking Scandal and the Case of Assange: a Comparison’

Imperialism on Trial: 8th September 2020 ‘The Phone Hacking Scandal and the Case of Assange: a Comparison’

The event was held on the second day of the extradition trial of Julian Assange at the Old Bailey.

I gave a short talk comparing the phone hacking scandal with the Assange case.

For anyone unfamiliar with the former, here is a summary:

The UK phone hacking scandal started around 2005 and peaked around 2012. The journalistic malpractices and illegal practices on which it focused long pre-date 2005, and continue today. It came to light through the testimony of victims, and the investigative journalism of publications such as The Guardian, that several publications owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International (UK subsidiary of News Corp), and others including Daily Mirror andSunday Mirror, were engaged in practices including hacking individuals’ phones and bribing the police in order to obtain stories. Rupert Murdoch’s influence over UK politicians was also scrutinised. Victims of phone hacking included members of the royal family, politicians, murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of British soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and victims of the 7th July 2005 London bombings.

The public outcry at these revelations and resultant investigations resulted in high-profile resignations including those of Rupert Murdoch as director of News Corporation, his son James as its executive chairman, and the commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Force. There were multiple charges and seven convictions in criminal trials held between 2004 and 2014. News of the World, a News International outlet, closed down after 168 years of publication.

In 2011 Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron established a public inquiry into the culture and ethics of the UK press under Lord Justice Leveson. This inquiry resulted in the 2012 Leveson Report, which made several recommendations concerning regulation of the UK press by an independent regulator, which would give alleged press victims access to arbitration without financial risk.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

London Police Attack COVID Protestors on Saturday 9/26/2020

Once again, the London police continue to support the government and attacked peaceful protestors in Trafalgar Square. No matter what the evidence, the government is maintaining these Draconian lockdowns. We can see that the protest was peaceful until the police showed up to brutally abuse the rights of the people that will suppress their own family’s future.

 

Unfortunately, the London police are supporting absolute tyranny. This is clearly part of this global agenda to hand sovereignty to the United Nations. It may sound more like a conspiracy theory, but already there is talk in London that they will next use these lockdowns to combat Climate Change. Keeping people from commuting to work to reduce fuel consumption. Mariana Mazzucato, a professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London and also a Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She has bought into the UN agenda and claims that the world is “approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilization will require dramatic interventions.”

Mazzucato is suggesting that if we do not reduce CO2, then these lockdowns will be justified to save the planet. We are already dealing with a fake pandemic, which is clearly being used to expand the powers of government. They have Europe in their back-pocket, New Zealand, and of course Australia under the insane control of the madman Daniels Andrews. Above, is street art in Melbourne against this orchestrated agenda. What has escaped most of the headline is what is going on in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who has suspended Parliament. This battle to overthrow Trump is part of this Globalist Agenda. If they can get rid of Trump, then all that stands in their way is China and Russia. They intend to impose sanctions to try to force them to comply with this UN Agenda.

Chris Hedges: The Cost of Resistance

Chris Hedges: The Cost of Resistance

You can measure the effectiveness of resistance by the fury of the response by ruling elites.

Two of the rebels I admire most, Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks publisher, and Roger Hallam, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, are in jail in Britain. That should not be surprising. You can measure the effectiveness of resistance by the fury of the response.

Julian courageously exposed the lies, deceit, war crimes and corruption of the ruling imperial elites. Roger has helped organized the largest acts of mass civil disobedience in British history, shutting down parts of London for weeks, in a bid to wrest power from a ruling class that has done nothing, and will do nothing, to halt the climate emergency and our death march to mass extinction.

The governing elites, when truly threatened, turn the rule of law into farce. Dissent becomes treason. They use the state mechanisms of control – intelligence agencies, police, courts, black propaganda and a compliant press that acts as their echo chamber, along with the jails and prisons, not only to marginalize and isolate rebels, but to psychologically and physically destroy them.

The list of rebels silenced or killed by ruling elites runs in a direct line from Socrates to the Haitian resistance leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, who led the only successful slave revolt in human history and died in a frigid French prison cell of malnutrition and exhaustion, to the imprisonment of the socialist Eugene V. Debs, whose health was also broken in a federal prison.

Detroit, 2009. (CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Rebel leaders from the 1960s, including Mumia Abu Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Kojo Bomani Sababu, Mutulu Shakur and Leonard Peltier, remain, decades later, in U.S. prisons. Muslim activists, including those who led the charity The Holy Land Foundation and Syed Fahad Hashmi, were arrested, often at the request of Israel, after the hysteria following 9/11, and given tawdry show trials. They also remain incarcerated.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Assange Extradition Hearing Resumes on Monday in London

Assange Extradition Hearing Resumes on Monday in London

If extradited to US, the WikiLeaks founder could face up to 175 years in prison

The extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is set to resume in London on Monday, September 7th. Assange is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison, and if extradited to the US, the publisher faces up to 175 years in prison.

The US has indicted Assange on 17 counts of espionage and one count of conspiring with a source to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The charges are related to WikiLeaks’ dissemination of a trove of documents released in 2010 that revealed classified information about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US prison in Guantanamo Bay.

The information was provided to WikiLeaks by former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who spent more almost seven years in prison for the leaks before President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. Manning was jailed again in March 2019 for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, and was not released until March 2020.

If Assange, an Australian citizen, is extradited to the US and prosecuted, it will be the first time a journalist is tried under the 1917 Espionage Act, and it will set a grave precedent for press freedom in the US and around the world.

Throughout Assange’s lock-up at Belmarsh, the publisher’s family and experts have warned of his deteriorating health. Nils Melzer, a UN special rapporteur for torture, has likened Assange’s treatment to psychological torture.

How to follow the hearing:

Consortium News will be reporting on the hearing and live-tweeting throughout the process. Journalist Joe Lauria will be recapping each day on the CN Live! YouTube channel. The channel will also host a panel of experts every weekend while the hearing is ongoing; the trial is expected to last three to four weeks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A letter to real power: a letter to us

When I heard that Culture Declares Emergency was organizing a series of ‘Letters to Power’, I thought to myself: “Rupert, you should probably write one”. You see, I have spent much of my life attempting to talk to, persuade, even beg those with power – our elected leaders, heads of banks and businesses, big organisations or media companies, for example. I have written many, many letters to power before.

Though to be frank, it’s been largely pointless; while some appear to listen, most fail to hear and even more refuse to act.

Trying once again felt a bit like bashing my head against a brick wall. I felt my enthusiasm for the project draining away.

But then I stopped for a minute and really thought about power. Especially in the context of these last three tumultuous years.

I started to re-assess my assumption about who this letter would be directed to. When I looked up the dictionary definition – “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events” – and I recalled the way the world has changed since 2018, it became clearer where the power really is.

With us, the people.

We were the ones who, earlier this year, initiated precautionary action when, at least in the UK, our government was clearly going down a different, deadly, route of (non-) response to the Covid crisis.

We were the ones who supported our family, friends and neighbours with countless good deeds during lockdown, and who stood in public solidarity with the NHS and key workers.

We were the ones who questioned, and continue to question, the motives of our rudderless governments in their stance on coronavirus.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Post-Brexit Agrochemical Apocalypse for the UK?

Post-Brexit Agrochemical Apocalypse for the UK?

The British government, regulators and global agrochemical corporations are colluding with each other and are thus engaging in criminal behaviour. That’s the message put forward in a new report written by environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason and sent to the UK Environment Agency. It follows her January 2019 open letter to Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer CropScience, where she made it clear to him that she considers Bayer CropScience and Monsanto criminal corporations.

Her letter to Baumann outlined a cocktail of corporate duplicity, cover-ups and criminality which the public and the environment are paying the price for, not least in terms of the effects of glyphosate. Later in 2019, Mason wrote to Bayer Crop Science shareholders, appealing to them to put human health and nature ahead of profit and to stop funding Bayer.

Mason outlined with supporting evidence how the gradual onset of the global extinction of many species is largely the result of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture. She argued that Monsanto’s (now Bayer) glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide and Bayer’s clothianidin are largely responsible for the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and that the use of glyphosate and neonicotinoid insecticides are wiping out wildlife species across the globe.

In February 2020, Mason wrote the report ‘Bayer Crop Science rules Britain after Brexit – the public and the press are being poisoned by pesticides’. She noted that PM Boris Johnson plans to do a trade deal with the US that could see the gutting of food and environment standards. In a speech setting out his goals for trade after Brexit, Johnson talked up the prospect of an agreement with Washington and downplayed the need for one with Brussels – if the EU insists the UK must stick to its regulatory regime. In other words, he wants to ditch EU regulations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

London Is The Third Most-Surveilled City In The World

London Is The Third Most-Surveilled City In The World

According to a study by research website Comparitechmost of the world’s most surveilled cities are located in China.

The country has been making headlines for its intense use of surveillance technology and, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, is featured heavily throughout the whole ranking that looked at the 150 most populous cities worldwide, excluding those for which insufficient data was available.

The Chinese city of Taiyuan, located in the Shanxi province roughly 300 miles Southwest of Beijing, tops the list with 120 public CCTV cameras per 1,000 inhabitants.

Infographic: The Most Surveilled Cities in the World | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

The highest-ranked non-Chinese city is London, also notorious for its strict surveillance of public spaces, with 67 cameras per 1,000 people, with Los Angeles the highest-ranked U.S. city in the ranking with 6 cameras per 1,000 inhabitants.

CCTV technology is controversial in many places around the world, with proponents touting its benefits for fighting crime and opponents cautious about surveillance’s potential to be used as a tool of public control and to violate privacy rights.

The makers of the survey said that they found little correlation between lower crime rates or a heightened feeling of security and surveillance in the cities surveyed.

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