Anti-vax mandate protesters rally outside Israeli PM’s house (VIDEO)

https://www.rt.com/news/544424-israel-anti-vaxxer-rally/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Israelis decried compulsory vaccination and tough Covid restrictions in front of the prime minister’s home on Saturday, after government experts recommended a fourth dose of the vaccine to fight Omicron.

People gathered outside Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s home in Ra’anana. They beat drums, sang songs, and held candles, with signs reading, “We have no trust in Ministry of Health.”

“I’m not against vaccination. Everybody who wants to be vaccinated – fine,” a man attending the protest told Ruptly video agency. “I’m against forcing. There is no way that any human being can force anybody else [into] vaccination.”

Another protester said the government should not interfere in decisions regarding people’s own health. “In order to live in a free country, we have to let people decide for themselves about their medical conditions,” he said, adding that the Health Ministry must be more transparent and explain its recommendations better, instead of “hiding information.”

Police deployed mounted officers and water cannons to disperse a similar rally outside Bennett’s home on December 18. Several protesters claimed that officers whipped them, but police said they only used reins to control and restrain their horses.

This week, a Health Ministry expert panel recommended a fourth dose of the vaccine for those aged 60 and older and other vulnerable groups. Bennett said the measure will “help us overcome the Omicron wave that is spreading around the world.”

‘One of the greatest comeback stories’: Bone-breaking vulture back above Europe

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/one-of-the-greatest-comeback-stories-bone-breaking-vulture-back-above-europe-20211225-p59k4f.html

Rome: They were known as “lamb killers” and “bone crunchers” – and it was even rumoured that they were able to snatch small children.

But after centuries of intense persecution, the bearded vulture, one of the world’s most imposing birds of prey with a wingspan of up to almost three metres, is staging a comeback across its former range in Europe.

The species was on the verge of extinction in the late 20th century.

It has been brought back from the brink with the help of a captive breeding programme, which has just clocked up one of its most successful years ever.

A total of 26 chicks were released into the wild at locations in the Alps, Andalusia in southern Spain and the Massif Central in France.

“We had a really good release season this year,” said José Tavares, the director of the Vulture Conservation Foundation. “We managed to release a really high number of birds.”

The species is surrounded by myth and legend.

In German, it is known as the lammergeier, meaning “lamb vulture”, from the long-held belief that it preyed on sheep.

In Spanish, it is called the quebrantahuesos, meaning “bone breaker”, a reference to its tactic of dropping animal bones from great heights to smash on rocks below, allowing it feed on the nutritious marrow inside.

The return of the bearded vulture has been hailed as one of the greatest wildlife comeback stories of recent times.

Back in the early 1980s, the species was struggling in Europe, with the population reduced to around 40 pairs that held out in remote parts of Crete, Corsica and the Pyrenees.

A captive breeding and reintroduction project was launched, with the first bearded vultures released in the Alps in 1986.

In 2006, vultures were reintroduced to the mountains of Andalusia, and four years later to the wild open spaces of the Massif Central.

In the next two to three years, a reintroduction project will be launched in Bulgaria.

“Across Europe there are now around 250 pairs,” said Tavares.

“It is a conservation project that has captured people’s imagination. The bearded vulture is an iconic species, a symbol of the high mountains.

“We can engage with farmers and foresters and hunters without finding the entrenched opposition that you have when you deal with animals like lynx and bears, wolves and golden eagles.”

As the species bounces back, it finds plenty of food to eat - populations of ibex and chamois, which were once under threat, are now at healthy levels, particularly in the Alps where they are now routinely seen by hikers and climbers.

In Italy, one of the places where the bearded vulture soars again is the Stelvio National Park, a vast wilderness area in the Alps.

A ranger at the national park visitor centre in the village of Valfurva explained how the vulture gets its distinctive russet-coloured neck feathers.

“The birds are attracted to springs and streams with a high content of iron oxide. They wash themselves in the water and their feathers become dyed red by the mud,” he said.

The vultures are also thriving in Spain, where conservationists just celebrated a record breeding season - 10 chicks hatched at a breeding centre in Andalusia.

The Telegraph, London

China-bound passengers in limbo after flight turns back to United States

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3161080/china-bound-passengers-limbo-after-flight-turns-back-united

Chinese consulate says it has protested to unnamed carrier over delayed and aborted services

Chinese student says Delta Air Lines aircraft returned to Seattle more than six hours into the journey

A Chinese consulate in the United States has lodged a protest with an American airline after one of its China-bound flights returned to the US midway through the journey.

“Several China-bound flights have been delayed or canceled recently, with one plane returning to the US after flying half of the journey,” the Chinese consulate in San Francisco said in its Twitter-like WeChat account on Sunday.

“The consulate has lodged protests to the related airline.”

It also reminded travellers to China to monitor schedules for changes and ensure they had completed tests for boarding.

“The consulate will continue to urge US airlines to guarantee passengers’ legitimate rights and [travellers] not to travel to China unless necessary,” it said.

“Please choose airlines with caution to ensure smooth travel.”

The consulate did not name the airline but a 23-year-old Chinese film studies student, who would only identify herself as Runtu, said she was aboard Delta Air Lines flight DL287 to Shanghai on Wednesday when it returned to Seattle six hours into the journey.

The pilot said the aircraft had to return because “China’s entry policy has temporarily changed, and the health code of all persons on the flight cannot be authenticated”, she said.

Runtu said the flight from Seattle had already been delayed for a day. She said she was told that it was cancelled on Tuesday because there was a delay in take-off and the crew could not work overtime.

Delta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reason for the flight’s return.

China has adopted a zero-tolerance policy on Covid-19, and has rolled out even more stringent Covid-19 quarantine and border control rules to counter the threat of the Omicron variant, according to new measures announced on Monday.

An employee at Shanghai Pudong International Airport said the requirements for international flights remained unchanged in the past few days, and the cancellation of the Delta flight was not related to the airport.

“Other flights arrived normally that day, even some from the US,” the staff member said.

Seattle TV channel KIRO7 quoted Delta as saying that many of their cancellations were because of staffing shortages caused by the rise in Covid-19 cases, particularly the Omicron variant.

But it was not the case in this instance, according to the report.

“[The] cancellation of flight DL287 from Seattle to Shanghai is not related to the staff shortages from Covid-19 that is impacting hundreds of other flights across the country,” KIRO7 quoted an airline spokesman as saying, without elaborating.

Runtu said she was staying at a hotel arranged by the airline and was told that she might not be able to board another flight home until January 9.

She said there were a number of other Chinese students on the flight and they were concerned that re-entering the US could affect their visas.

They were also concerned about the need for further coronavirus tests to board rescheduled flights and whether their health codes to enter China would remain valid.

“I am just taking it one day at a time,” Runtu said.

Israeli 'psychic' Uri Geller still baffling fans at 75

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59609232

By the entrance to the new Uri Geller Museum, overlooking the sparkling sea in Jaffa, lies, appropriately enough, the world's largest steel spoon - 16.18m (53ft 1in) long.

The eclectic collection housed inside includes hundreds more spoons - many of which are bent - testimony to the Israeli self-proclaimed psychic's signature skills.

But it also tells the story of an extraordinary life and career threaded through five decades of pop culture.

"I came from a poor background and I wanted to be a psychic superstar so I pushed myself into the limelight," Geller tells me.

"What I had that other people didn't have is Israeli chutzpah. It's that cheekiness. I had the guts to approach Elton John and say: 'Can I have a photograph with you? Can I visit you?'

"Famous people started talking and saying: 'Hey, I just met a guy called Uri Geller and he bent a spoon in front of my eyes. Wow!' So, that's how I started climbing on the ladder of success."

The charismatic showman - who turned 75 this month - takes me on an energetic tour rich in anecdotes.

Alongside pop memorabilia, there are all kinds of curiosities: a crystal ball from Salvador Dali, which is said to have belonged to Leonardo da Vinci; a model plane from the late Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi; and a golden egg, which John Lennon claimed came from aliens.

Rise to fame

A black-and-white photograph on the wall of the museum shows Geller's humble childhood home, not far away, in Tel Aviv.

He was born in 1946, in what was then British Mandate Palestine. He describes how at five years old, he bent his first spoon while eating a bowl of soup and was soon showing off his seemingly supernatural talents at school.

"Our teachers kind of freaked out," he says, grinning. "I could look at the clock on the wall and move it with the power of my mind."

Later, after a spell living in Cyprus where he learned English, Geller returned to Israel. He joined the Paratroopers' Brigade during his military service and fought in the 1967 Middle East War.

By his early 20s he was working as an entertainer. His acts - which he attributed to psychokinesis and telepathy - included bending spoons and keys, making clocks stop or run faster, and describing hidden drawings.

At a private event he impressed the then-Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, whom he credits with his rise to national prominence.

Soon he was drawing the attention of international intelligence agencies.

"As a result of Geller's success in this experimental period, we consider that he has demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner," states a contemporary CIA report which Geller proudly displays on the wall.

Bouncing back

But not all were so easily convinced. Back in 1973, soon after he launched himself in the US, Geller suffered a crushing humiliation on a hugely popular programme, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

The host had prepared a table with silverware - which Geller proved unable to bend with his mental powers, something he blamed on the hostile atmosphere.

"I thought: 'I'm finished,'" Geller remembers. "I went back to my hotel and started packing to return to Israel because that was it. I was destroyed."

However, early the next morning a rival of Carson was on the phone asking him to appear on his TV show. The experience served as a lesson for the "psychic" who has since been subjected to many more set-ups - but says he has learned to embrace his critics.

"There's so much controversy around me: is it real or not? Is it a trick?" he reflects.

"I have to go with what Oscar Wilde said: 'There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.'"

However, he is frank about the toll that working in showbusiness can have.

"I was on such an ego trip that I became bulimic and had anorexia nervosa," Geller says, looking back to the decade he spent in New York. "I couldn't take being in the limelight, the pressure and the sceptics."

He believes spending a year in Japan with his family helped turn his life around. Later, they moved to the UK, living in the quiet Berkshire village of Sonning-on-Thames for some 35 years.

Gifts from stars

>>15256399

Our fast-paced museum tour involves bewildering name-dropping. Geller first explains how he is a distant relative of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, through his mother.

Many of the 2,600 shining spoons stuck to a Cadillac once belonged to historic figures or celebrities from Winston Churchill to John F Kennedy and James Dean.

There are Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves; a football top belonging to Diego Maradona; and many gifts from the surrealist artist Dali, who was a mentor of Geller's and encouraged him in his own artistic pursuits.

The model aircraft sent to Geller by Gaddafi after they met in New York had a sinister message. It is a replica of a Libyan Arab Airlines plane downed by the Israeli air force in 1973; the psychic believes the leader saw him as a channel to convey his anger to Israel.

Several items dating to the '80s and '90s belonged to Michael Jackson, who was then a close friend of the entertainer.

Some visitors whom I speak to question the decision to show these, given new allegations of sex abuse which have been made since the pop star's death. However, Geller maintains the singer's innocence.

'No-one like me'

It was six years ago that Geller returned to Israel with his wife, Hanna. Their grown-up children now live in London and Los Angeles.

"In every Israeli's heart, there's a kind of spiritual, burning desire to come back to their homeland," he says. "For me, it was massively important."

Much of his personal wealth comes from dowsing for oil and mineral companies, as well as entertainment, but he does not think of retirement.

He remains a favourite of the British press. A perusal of recent headlines has him predicting football scores; threatening to stop Brexit; and taking credit for moving a cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal using telepathy.

The idea of creating the museum in a former Ottoman-era soap factory came about after a chance encounter with a real estate agent, who showed him the empty property in Old Jaffa.

"I just immediately knew that everything I had in Sonning-on-Thames, I was going to bring here," Geller tells me. "I guess I'm a hoarder. I didn't even know I had so much stuff. It was strewn all over my house. It was stored in sheds, in suitcases."

With walls plastered with posters and personal tours - complete with a spoon-bending demonstration and Geller's own recorded rendition of the song My Way - it has turned into a memorable showcase for a unique character.

"I'm so pleased and satisfied when visitors leave, I just ask them: 'Did you enjoy it?' Everyone says: 'Wow! It was amazing,'" says Geller with his contagious smile.

"It is an unusual museum," he exclaims. "You won't find anything like it anywhere around the world and you won't find a guide anywhere like me!"

South Korean-born US student Inyoung You gets suspended sentence for texting boyfriend to kill himself

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3160924/south-korean-born-us-student-inyoung-you-gets-suspended

The former Boston College student pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and will be on probation for 10 years but will avoid prison

She sent her boyfriend Alexander Urtula 47,000 text messages including many urging him to ‘go kill yourself’. He died by suicide in May 2019

A former Boston College student who prosecutors say drove her boyfriend to take his own life with thousands of text messages pleaded guilty on Thursday to involuntary manslaughter.

Under terms of a plea deal, Inyoung You, 23, received a two-and-a-half year suspended jail sentence and 10 years of probation and was barred by a judge in Suffolk Superior Court from profiting from her case in any way. The sentence means You can avoid time behind bars if she adheres to all the terms of her probation, which includes continued mental health treatment and community service.

Prosecutors said You sent Alexander Urtula, 22, of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, 47,000 messages in the last two months of their relationship, including many urging him to “go kill yourself”. Urtula died in Boston in May 2019, the day of his Boston College graduation.

The investigation described You and Urtula’s 18-month-long relationship as “tumultuous, dysfunctional, and unhealthy”, and found You “engaged in deeply disturbing and at times relentless verbally, physically and psychologically abusive behaviour toward Mr Urtula”, according to a statement from the office of Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins released after Thursday’s hearing.

Those actions intensified in the days and hours before Urtula’s death, the office said.

You, who was born in South Korea and is a naturalised US citizen, “repeatedly told the victim that he should kill himself or die and waged a campaign of abuse that stripped the victim of his free will,” the office said.

“Words matter,” Rollins said in the statement. “Demeaning language, ridicule and verbal abuse can deeply impact people.”

The plea deal was reached in consultation with the Urtula family, Rollins said.

The family in a statement read in court described driving to Boston for a day of celebration and instead finding themselves planning a funeral.

“We bear no feelings of anger or reprisal. We believe that time will take us through in the moments we mourn and celebrate his life,” the family said.

Before her arraignment in November 2019 when she originally pleaded not guilty, You, through a public relations firm, released some of the text messages suggesting she tried to stop Urtula and alerted Urtula’s brother in the moments before his death.

You was given the opportunity to speak in court, but declined. Her lawyer said she was “very distraught”.

Lawyer Steven Kim said You is a “wonderful young woman who has deep, deep remorse”.

The case was compared to that of Michelle Carter, who garnered headlines in the US and an HBO film. The young Massachusetts woman was sentenced to 15 months in jail after she was convicted in 2017 of involuntary manslaughter for using text messages and phone calls to encourage her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to kill himself in 2014. Her lawyer argued that her messages were protected free speech.

If you are having suicidal thoughts, or you know someone who is, help is available. For Hong Kong, dial +852 2896 0000 for The Samaritans or +852 2382 0000 for Suicide Prevention Services. In the US, call The National Suicide Prevention Helpline on +1 800 273 8255. For a list of other nations’ helplines, see this page.

>>15256405

>I imagine that the spoon bending

Maskless COVID Cultist Oprah Winfrey and Family Celebrate Christmas Feast In Mansion Alongside Masked Servants

https://www.planet-today.com/2021/12/maskless-covid-cultist-oprah-winfrey.html

Billionaire Oprah Winfrey took to social media to showcase her Christmas decorations.

An unmasked Winfrey gleams over the acorns her masked servants assembled along the railing of her stairway.

Common sense and numerous studies prove masks do not prevent the transmission of aerosols like coronavirus.

But from the vantage point of pretentious elites who support mask decrees, vaccine masking belongs to the staff.

In an Instagram post showcasing the arrival of a guest at Winfrey’s mansion, Winfrey warns anyone visiting her home must comply with “The Policy.”

“Everyone who is spending Christmas at my house has to be vaccinated, boosted, tested, and quarantined. Stedman calls it ‘The Policy’ cause I’m that serious about it, Winfrey notes.

In another Instagram post, an unmasked Winfrey gloats over monkey bread made by her baker.

The servant she highlights for cooking the baked good is was able to breathe the air freely momentarily for the cameras, but the other servants in Winfrey’s mansion are all seen wearing face coverings.

This two-tiered system is a trademark of all evil, totalitarian corrupt systems.

Masks are for the little people.

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