https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/01/afghanistan-commandos-evacuated-secret-cia-base-508646
Hundreds of U.S. citizens, Afghan commandos successfully evacuated through secret CIA base
The details of the operation are based on documents provided to POLITICO and conversations with a senior administration official, a defense official and a congressional official, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
https://twitter.com/NaheedD/status/1433249726317699079
Your personal rights to not be vaccinated aren't more important than our collective rights to stay COVID free!
Palliative care physician. Health justice activist. Believer, sometimes dreamer. Faculty @UofTMedicine @MacHealthSci.
https://twitter.com/UofTMedicine
https://twitter.com/MacHealthSci
"Your children belong to the state."
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Dominic_Cardy.jpg/800px-Dominic_Cardy.jpg
>Dominic_Cardy
https://twitter.com/DominicCardy/status/1432679900574593028
In the race between vaccines and new variants, antivaxxers are holding us back.
The antivaxxers and COVID are on the same team.
At some point we have to stand up and say no, we want this pandemic to end. It ends with vaccines.
>It ends with vaccines.
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1167893911/dominic_400x400.JPG
>I’m afraid that your first encounter with the real world remains before you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal
The word "Yalta" came to stand for the appeasement of world communism and abandonment of freedom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw
The destruction of Warsaw was Nazi Germany's substantially effected razing of the city in late 1944, after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising of the Polish resistance. The uprising infuriated German leaders, who decided to destroy the city as retaliation.
The German razing of the city had long been planned. Warsaw had been selected for destruction and major reconstruction as part of the Nazis' planned Germanization of Central Europe, under the Nazi Generalplan Ost. However, by late 1944, with the war clearly lost, the Germans had abandoned their plans of colonizing the East. Thus, the destruction of Warsaw did not serve any military or colonial purpose; it was carried out solely as an act of reprisal.
German forces dedicated an unprecedented effort to razing the city, destroying 80–90% of Warsaw's buildings, including the vast majority of museums, art galleries, theaters, churches, parks, and historical buildings such as castles and palaces. They deliberately demolished, burned, or stole an immense part of Warsaw's cultural heritage. After the war, extensive work was put into rebuilding the city according to pre-war plans and historical documents.
>“if you are trying to, you know, get at me as a public health official and a scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you’re attacking science.”
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles for Afghan Mujahideen fighting the Soviets
https://azsos.gov/sites/default/files/2020_Ballot_Review_Report_ver20210819-03_Review.pdf
In a report issued last week, Hobbs' office said the Cyber Ninjas review "fails to meet industry standards for any credible audit, much less for an election audit."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-protests-covid-election-1.6161679
Protests dogging Trudeau on the campaign trail are being loosely organized online
"We have been closely following the conspiracy theories behind these protests but do not have detailed information about the specific individuals or groups that have organized these protests at the moment," he said. "Given the number of people participating, we suspect that some of this organization might occur in private groups or forums."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/latest-coronavirus-variants-mu-c12-1.6161194
From mu to C.1.2, here are the latest coronavirus variants scientists are watching closely
New variants keep emerging, but 'no need for panic yet' in Canada as delta maintains its grip
Scientists have warned the coronavirus will keep evolving as it spreads around the world, and there are now multiple new variants being watched closely by global research teams.
One of those, B.1.621, also known as mu, has been dubbed the latest variant of interest by the World Health Organization (WHO). Another, C.1.2, is the subject of headline-making new research exploring how it behaves. Other variants are likely waiting in the wings, yet to be detected.
So why do these new variants matter, what are they capable of, and how much should Canadians care?
Right now, the highly-contagious delta variant — deemed a variant of concern by the WHO back in May — is dominating Canada's COVID-19 cases, making up more than 90 per cent of reported recent infections according to federal data.
But that doesn't mean other emerging variants don't warrant close observation.
"Looking at this virus, it's obvious that we will have new variants," said Alyson Kelvin, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan.
"What we need to do is to be ready for identifying cases … as well as other variants that are inevitably going to start emerging around the world."
What is the B.1.621 — or mu — variant?
B.1.621 is the latest variant of interest, according to the WHO, and was given the designation — and a catchier Greek alphabet-based name, "mu" — on August 30.
"The mu variant has a constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape," reads the WHO's latest weekly epidemiological update.
That means those with some level of immunity to earlier strains, either by previous infection or vaccination, might be susceptible to infection from mu — but that's only according to preliminary data and "needs to be confirmed by further studies," the update continued.
The variant was first detected in Colombia back in January, and since then, the country has experienced hundreds of cases and the variant has also been reported in 39 other countries around the world.
Here in Canada, it's barely making a splash: Mu cases have been reported for weeks, but so far, the variant hasn't made up more than three per cent of cases in any given week and recently totalled just 0.3 per cent — though federal data since mid-July is still accumulating and could change.
What is the C.1.2 variant?
The variant C.1.2 isn't deemed a variant of interest or concern yet by the WHO, but researchers are pushing the organization to watch it closely.
A team of scientists from South Africa detected the new variant, which was first observed in May and has since spread to seven other countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and Oceania, according to a preprint study that hasn't yet been peer-reviewed.
"It's still not clear where this came from," noted Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases specialist with McMaster University in Hamilton. "It was first identified in South Africa but people need to know that South Africa has actually quite good sequencing networks and so it may not be the origin."
Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist and one of the authors of the research on C.1.2, told Reuters the variant may have even more immune-evasion properties than delta, based on its pattern of mutations, and that the findings had been flagged to the WHO.
However, it's not known yet if the variant is actually more contagious, or more capable of evading the immunity provided by either vaccines or a prior coronavirus infection.
"These things need time to see," Chagla said. "Delta is incredibly fit, and incredibly virulent and replaces [other strains] aggressively. We still haven't seen suggestions of this yet [with C.1.2]."
>learn to speak Russian
https://twitter.com/SenFeinstein