Anonymous ID: d59718 Feb. 26, 2023, 6:02 a.m. No.18413908   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3912 >>4031 >>4055

“The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.”

“The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.”

Anonymous ID: d59718 Feb. 26, 2023, 6:02 a.m. No.18413959   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>18413936

https://english.www.gov.cn/news/topnews/202006/17/content_WS5ee9726ec6d0a6946639c3e9.html

The goods on the train include chemical raw materials, agricultural machinery and equipment, aluminum frames, syringes, and backpacks that are manufactured in Wuhan and nearby areas.

Anonymous ID: d59718 Feb. 26, 2023, 6:02 a.m. No.18414045   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2023/02/26/us-energy-department-concludes-covid-came-from-lab-leak-n2619969

'Laboratory Leak': Department of Energy Updates Its Conclusion on COVID's Origin

As the drip, drip, drip of revelations about the COVID-19 pandemic continues some three years after its appearance in the United States saw the first lockdowns and restrictions instituted, a federal agency has changed its conclusion about the virus' origin.

According to an exclusive report in The Wall Street Journal published Sunday, the United States Department of Energy has concluded that COVID "most likely arose from a laboratory leak," an updated position for the Energy Department that was reportedly revealed in "a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress." Previously, the Department of Energy was officially "undecided" on the emergence of COVID-19.

Overall, the United States federal government remains at odds over the pandemic's origins, with the Energy Department and FBI both now concluding a lab leak was most likely to blame, while four other federal entities believe it was the result of a "natural transmission," and two remain "undecided," according to WSJ:

 

The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.

The Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report.

The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence” and still holds to this view.

The FBI employs a cadre of microbiologists, immunologists and other scientists and is supported by the National Bioforensic Analysis Center, which was established at Fort Detrick, Md., in 2004 to analyze anthrax and other possible biological threats.

 

Officials who spoke to WSJ "declined to give details on the fresh intelligence and analysis that led the Energy Department to change its position" but said the Department of Energy and FBI made their conclusions "for different reasons." An official did confirm "that the intelligence community had conducted the update…in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and consultation with experts outside government."

That type of research and intelligence gathering has become the United States' only hope of learning more about how COVID-19 became a global pandemic after the Chinese Communist Party closed ranks, restricted (and in some cases apparently "disappeared") its scientists from speaking to the outside world, and banned international and United Nations scientists from investigating the virus' origins at the apparent source.

As Townhall reported earlier in February, the World Health Organization unceremoniously abandoned its probe of COVID's origins, blaming the CCP for being secretive and unwilling to cooperate with researcher requests.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are planning an investigation of their own into the origins of COVID-19 with their majority power and committee chairmanships, specifically Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and the House Oversight Committee.

"Discovering the origin is vital to providing accountability and protecting Americans in the future," the Oversight Committee's "COVID origins" landing page says. "Mounting evidence points to the virus originating from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)," it adds, reflecting what the Department of Energy has concluded. But Oversight Republicans also plan to probe how "EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantee, awarded taxpayer funds to the WIV to conduct gain of function research on bat coronaviruses – research that may have started the pandemic."

The Oversight Committee has also come into possession of emails warning Dr. Fauci that a lab leak of a genetically engineered virus could explain COVID's origin, and even pointed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a potential culprit. Oversight Republicans say those emails show Fauci and former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins potentially colluding with scientists "to downplay the lab leak theory for their preferred narrative of natural origin."

Anonymous ID: d59718 Feb. 26, 2023, 7:02 a.m. No.18414125   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://t.me/intelslava/45130

An American mercenary is watching a night disco over the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Konstantinovka area. February 25, 2023.

Anonymous ID: d59718 Feb. 26, 2023, 7:02 a.m. No.18414193   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-company-metabiota-problems-during-ebola-outbreak/

Investigation: U.S. company bungled Ebola response

An American company that bills itself as a pioneer in tracking emerging epidemics made a series of costly mistakes during the 2014 Ebola outbreak that swept across West Africa - with employees feuding with fellow responders, contributing to misdiagnosed Ebola cases and repeatedly misreading the trajectory of the virus, an Associated Press investigation has found.

San Francisco-based Metabiota Inc. was tapped by the Sierra Leonean government and the World Health Organization to help monitor the spread of the virus and support the response after Ebola was discovered circulating in neighboring Guinea in March 2014. But emails obtained by AP and interviews with aid workers on the ground show that some of the company's actions made an already chaotic situation worse.

WHO outbreak expert Dr. Eric Bertherat wrote to colleagues in a July 17, 2014, email about misdiagnoses and "total confusion" at the Sierra Leone government lab Metabiota shared with Tulane University in the city of Kenema. He said there was "no tracking of the samples" and "absolutely no control on what is being done."

"This is a situation that WHO can no longer endorse," he wrote.

Metabiota chief executive officer and founder Nathan Wolfe said there was no evidence his company was responsible for the lab blunders, that the reported squabbles were overblown and that any predictions made by his employees didn't reflect the company's position. He said Metabiota doesn't specialize in outbreak response and that his employees stepped in to help and performed admirably amid the carnage of the world's biggest-ever Ebola outbreak.

Anonymous ID: d59718 Feb. 26, 2023, 8:02 a.m. No.18414403   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://apnews.com/article/business-climate-and-environment-forests-animals-8c8ad33483c8a4710ffe1a13c6e82661

US gets OK for cattle-shooting operation in New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A U.S. district judge on Wednesday cleared the way for federal officials to move ahead with plans to take to the air and shoot dozens of wild cattle in a rugged area of southwestern New Mexico.

Ranchers had sought a delay, arguing that the potential mass slaughter of as many as 150 “unauthorized” cows on public land was a violation of federal regulations and amounted to animal cruelty.

After listening to arguments that stretched throughout the day, Judge James Browning denied the request, saying the ranchers failed to make their case. He also said the U.S. Forest Service is charged with managing the wilderness for the benefit of the public, and the operation would further that aim.

“No one disputes that the Gila cattle need to be removed and are doing significant damage to the Gila Wilderness,” Browning wrote. “The court does not see a legal prohibition on the operation. It would be contrary to the public interest to stop the operation from proceeding.”

Plans by the Forest Service call for shooting the cattle with a high-powered rifle from a helicopter and leaving the carcasses in the Gila Wilderness. It was estimated by attorneys for the ranchers that 65 tons of dead animals would be left in the forest for months until they decompose or are eaten by scavengers.

Officials closed a large swath of the forest Monday and were scheduled to begin the shooting operation Thursday.

The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, individual ranchers and the Humane Farming Association filed a complaint in federal court Tuesday, alleging that agency officials were violating their own regulations and overstepping their authority.

The complaint stated that court intervention was necessary to put an immediate stop to “this unlawful, cruel, and environmentally harmful action, both now and in the future.”

The ranchers had argued that the case could set a precedent for how federal officials handle unbranded livestock on vacant allotments or deal with other land management conflicts across the West.

“There’s a severe danger here, not just in this particular case and the horrific results that it will actually bare if this is allowed to go forward. But it also has long-term ramifications for the power of federal agencies to disregard their regulations that they themselves passed,” Daniel McGuire, an attorney for the ranchers, told the judge.

The Gila National Forest issued its final decision to gun down the wayward cattle last week amid pressure from environmental groups that have raised concerns that cattle are compromising water quality and habitat for other species as they trample stream banks in sensitive areas.

Much of the debate during Wednesday’s hearing centered on whether the animals were unauthorized livestock or feral cows, as the Forest Service has been referring to them.

Ranchers said the cattle in question were the descendants of cows that legally grazed the area in the 1970s before the owner went out of business. They pointed to DNA and genetic markers, saying the temperament of the animals doesn’t mean they cease to be domesticated livestock.

As defined in Forest Service regulations, unauthorized livestock refers to any cattle, sheep, goats or hogs that are not authorized by permit to be grazing on national forest land. The regulations calls for an impoundment order to be issued and the livestock rounded up, with lethal action being a final step for those that aren’t captured.

Despite issuing such an order earlier this month, the agency argued it wasn’t required to follow the removal procedures outlined by the regulations because the cattle don’t fit the definition of livestock since they aren’t domesticated or being kept or raised by any individual.

Government attorney Andrew Smith said the cows have no pedigree.

“So it does make a difference what these cows are. They’re multigenerations of wildness going on,” he said.

The judge agreed.

Smith also argued that Congress has charged the Forest Service with protecting national forest land and that eradicating the cattle would put an end to decades of damage. He said previous gathering efforts over the decades only put a dent in the population but that an aerial shooting operation in 2022 was able to take out 65 cows in two days.

Had the project been delayed, Smith suggested that the population would rebound and last year’s effort would be wasted.

McGuire countered that Congress conferred authority on the Forest Service to make rules and regulations to protect and preserve the forest, not a license for the agency to do anything it wants.