In Rare Rebuke, World Health Organization Chief Says China’s Delay Of Virus Study Is ‘Disappointing’

The head of the World Health Organization issued a rare rebuke of the Chinese government on Tuesday, saying that it was “disappointing” that authorities there have delayed allowing a team of scientists into the country to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus.

“Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief, said at a press conference held in Geneva, the Associated Press reported.

“I’m very disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute.”

A team of 10 scientists is slated to visit Wuhan, the origin of the coronavirus outbreak last year. The delay comes in the wake of a new report that raises the question of whether the virus originated from a science lab in Wuhan.

Tedros said at the press conference that he had been “assured” that China “is speeding up the internal procedures for the earliest possible deployment.”

“We are eager to get the mission underway as soon as possible,” he said.

WHO and Tedros have been criticized for accepting Chinese officials’ claims about the coronavirus. On Jan. 14, WHO’s Twitter account circulated Chinese officials’ now-debunked claim that the virus was not transmitted through person-to-person contact.

Republicans in the U.S. have faulted WHO for not aggressively confronting the Chinese regime over misleading statements about the transmission of the virus in the early days of the pandemic. President Donald Trump has threatened to cut off U.S. government funding for WHO, citing its soft posture towards China.

Tedros was also an early critic of President Donald Trump’s decision last January to shut down travel from China to the U.S.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/05/tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus-china/

Romney Boards Flight to DC FILLED With Patriots Who Chanted ‘Traitor’ and Grilled Him About Ties to Biden

Mitt Romney was met with a plane full of angry patriots who chanted “traitor” as he boarded a flight to DC.

Airplanes heading to DC from across the nation are currently packed with Trump supporters ahead of the massive Stop the Steal rally on Tuesday.

As Romney got on the plane, a chant of “traitor” broke out after a woman yelled for the passengers to let him know what they think. As it dissipated, people began grilling him about why he is betraying his voters.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/watch-romney-boards-flight-dc-filled-patriots-chanted-traitor-grilled-ties-biden/

No Republican Observers Present at Fulton County Tabulation Center – Screens Facing Away From Media Pen

The Georgia twin senate runoff is going the way we expected.

Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are fighting for their Senate seats in Georgia’s twin runoff election against Democrats Ossoff and Warnock.

The Democrats are going for the steal in broad daylight.

There were several reports of Dominion machines breaking down in heavily Republican precincts where the voters were told the elections officials will scan their ballots later.

Now this…

Real America’s Voice reporter Heather Mullins captured video at the World Congress Center where single individuals were scanning and adjudicating ballots without Republican observers.

Screens are all facing away from media pen. No observers. No dual control. Single individuals scanning ballots into dominion while kept from public view.

Crooked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Tuesday said the runoff election was “running smoothly.”

The polls in Georgia closed at 7:00 PM ET however voters are still standing in line to vote.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/no-republican-observers-present-fulton-county-tabulation-center-screens-facing-away-media-pen-videos/

New Transparency Rule Ends EPA Reliance on 'Secret Science'

On Tuesday, Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new transparency rule to fight the EPA’s reliance on “secret science.” The rule directs the EPA to rely on studies that make their data public when it comes to rulemaking. Critics claim this excludes important studies, but Wheeler insisted that the rule will not undermine privacy concerns but rather hold the EPA accountable so the public can fact-check the science underlying its regulations.

“The work of the Environmental Protection Agency—to protect human health and the environment—shouldn’t be exempt from public scrutiny,” Wheeler wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining the rule. “Too often Congress shirks its responsibility and defers important decisions to regulatory agencies. These regulators then invoke science to justify their actions, often without letting the public study the underlying data.”

“When agencies defer to experts in private without review from citizens, distinctions get flattened and the testing and deliberation of science is precluded,” Wheeler warned.

Earlier versions of the rule sparked pushback from the agency’s independent science board, but Wheeler’s finalized version involves a narrower take on transparency. It requires transparency in dose-response studies that show how increasing levels of exposure to pollution, chemicals, and other substances impact human health and the environment, not in all studies. The rule also allows the administrator to make an exception for any study he or she deems important.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), notorious for comparing any scientific claims he dislikes to the tobacco industry’s deceptive practices, naturally claimed that the transparency rule is “a page ripped straight from the science denial playbook of the tobacco and lead paint industries. If capable of shame, the polluter toadies leading Trump’s EPA should be ashamed.”

More serious objections came from Andrew Rosenberg, director at the Center for Science and Democracy at the left-leaning Union of Concerned Scientists. Rosenberg argued that “[w]hether the data is available or not has nothing to do with whether science is strong and whether it’s showing strong evidence of a health impact.”

Even so, the accuracy of data is essential for scientific inquiry, and its availability is important for public accountability.

Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), where Wheeler announced the rule, praised it as a step forward for science.

“The final rule makes significant incremental improvements in the way scientific studies are used in the regulatory process. There is immense public support for more transparency in government, and there has been growing recognition in the scientific community that the use of secret science by EPA and other regulatory agencies not only leads to bad regulation; it also harms scientific research,” Ebell argued.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/01/05/new-transparency-rule-ends-epa-reliance-on-secret-science-n1308116

Amazon Buys 11 Boeing 767s From Delta, WestJet To Expand Amazon Air

The world's biggest online retailing monopoly, Amazon, announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its presence in the air freight logistics sector with the purchase of eleven Boeing 767-300 aircraft, which includes seven aircraft from Delta and four aircraft from WestJet. The new aircrafts will join the Prime Air network by 2022.

The four aircraft purchased from WestJet in March are currently undergoing passenger to cargo conversion and will join Amazon Air’s network in 2021. The seven aircraft from Delta will enter Amazon’s air cargo network in 2022.

The purchase price for the 11 Boeing's remains undisclosed; Amazon said it will rely on third-party carriers to operate the new aircraft.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/amazon-buys-11-boeing-767s-delta-westjet-expand-amazon-air

Human Rights Group Exposes China's Network Of Secret Political Prisons Where 2 Canadians Are Being Held

Following some rumblings late last week in the FT, which noted that Jack Ma, the Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder (and former Chairman) who recently had a disastrous falling out with the CCP, had apparently been fired from his own show, the western media apparently only just noticed on Sunday night that Ma hasn't been seen publicly in 2 months.

The story immediately sparked speculation about Ma's whereabouts - speculation that was exacerbated by the defeating silence from Beijing (the CCP essentially ignored the story while China's subservient media and its army of censors went to work).

On Twitter, reporters likened the apparent kidnapping of Ma (presumably by CCP thugs, as many assumed he might already be living in a reeducation camp, or one of China's many 'secret prisons') to the US federal government ordering the sudden arrest of Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg (on dubious charges).

But in the pages of the FT, the paper's reporters pointed out that Ma's disappearance isn't really that revolutionary, and that Beijing has been using the CCP's rule over the law to detain not just domestic dissidents, but foreigners as well. Beijing has ramped up these tactics over the last 2 years, since two Canadians - diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor - were arrested in late 2018 on national security related charges. Accused of spying, the men were confined to secret prisons, where they were subjected to torture, denied contact with family and Canadian diplomatic officials.

It's widely believed the two men were detained in retaliation for Canada's arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei, himself a prominent businessman. However, while Meng has spent most of this time on house arrest, Spavor and Kovrig have been treated abominably.

As the world waits to learn the fate of the two Canadians, for the first time, the FT has published details about the program under which Spavor, Kovrig and tens of thousands of others have been detained across mainland China. The information was reportedly provided by Swedish human-rights group Safeguard Defenders.

Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and entrepreneur Michael Spavor are among almost 30,000 people who have been held in the facilities from 2013-19, according to Safeguard Defenders, a human rights group co-founded by Swedish citizen Peter Dahlin, who was himself held in a secret prison.

Activists and former diplomats are urging the international community to maintain an assertive approach to Beijing, arguing that quiet diplomacy has proven ineffective. The Canadians were detained in December 2018 following the arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of the telecom group’s founder. Ms Meng was held after the US issued an extradition request over alleged violations of sanctions against Iran and has been living under house arrest since 2018.

Huawei has asserted that she is innocent of the charges. Mr Kovrig and Mr Spavor have spent six months in secret prisons under a programme started in 2013 known as “residential surveillance at a designated location” and were only allowed to meet consular officials once during that time.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/human-rights-group-exposes-chinas-network-secret-political-prisons

>>12334322

>https://twitter.com/JovanHPulitzer/status

https://gofile.io/d/rCkERb

BO stole 14 Pallets of cash in 2017 to pay for going after POTUS

>>12334634

NOTABLE

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