Summary:
Nearly 200 Ships Navigated Strait Last Week, Up From 150 the Previous Week
Trump Views Hormuz As "an American Territory"
Axios: 40 Tankers Transited Hormuz Friday Night, But Real Crisis Is Diesel
WHO Says Pandemic Determinations Can Be Made Without 'Evidence Of Illness'
The World Health Organization (WHO) says evidence that a person is actually sick is not required for a "laboratory-confirmed" human influenza infection with "the potential to cause a pandemic" to trigger mandatory international reporting.
"Evidence of illness is not required for this report," WHO states in its latest Influenza at the Human-Animal Interface assessment, which covered July 8 through August 7, 2026.
WHO says countries must "immediately notify WHO of any laboratory-confirmed case of a recent human infection caused by an influenza A virus with the potential to cause a pandemic."
Then, immediately afterward:
"Evidence of illness is not required for this report."
The statement raises an obvious question: If evidence of illness is not required to set off a chain of events that could trigger authoritarian international pandemic response, what evidence is required?
WHO points to a "laboratory-confirmed" finding.
But WHO's own influenza laboratory manual shows that such determinations are made using real-time RT-PCR tests.
But PCR does not directly observe a virus.
It measures fluorescence (the amount of light emitted) from test chemicals mixed with a sample.
WHO describes PCR methods using fluorescent dyes and probes carrying a fluorescent reporter and quencher.
But fluorescence can also increase through unintended pathways, potentially contributing to a false-positive reading.
Those pathways include reagent cross-reactions, probe cleavage or degradation, reporter or quencher detachment or degradation, optical cross-talk, and changes in reporter - quencher behavior caused by heat - which PCR intentionally applies to the sample over and over during testing.
WHO's manual confirms that PCR repeatedly heats the test material, including to 95°C, and that real-time PCR results are evaluated by whether fluorescence rises above a threshold.
It also explicitly acknowledges background signal, contamination, and false-positive results.
The implications are difficult to ignore.
WHO is saying evidence of illness is not required at the gateway to its pandemic-potential reporting system, while the "laboratory-confirmed" evidence that can substitute for illness may itself rest on light readings susceptible to false-positive signals.
Bottom Line
The world saw what can follow a pandemic determination during COVID-19: lockdowns, business and school closures, masking and distancing mandates, travel restrictions, and vaccination requirements.
WHO now says "Evidence of illness is not required" for certain "laboratory-confirmed" infections with pandemic potential to trigger international reporting.
If nobody has to be sick, and "laboratory confirmation" can ultimately rest on a fluorescence reading, what evidence of actual disease must exist before governments begin exercising pandemic powers?
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/who-says-pandemic-determinations-can-be-made-without-evidence-illness
Why is NASA garbage in notables?
WTF does half of these notes have to do with Q?
fucking clown show
US court reverses Trump’s 75-country visa ban
Denying people entry on nationality grounds is against the law, a judge has ruled
A US court has overturned a Trump administration rule that suspended the issuing of immigrant visas to people from 75 countries.
The State Department announced the restrictions in Janurary, which did not apply to tourist or student visas, saying they were needed to prevent the entry of those who would “take welfare and public benefits.” Russia, Brazil, Colombia, Albania, Egypt, Haiti, Somalia, and Pakistan were among the nations covered by the policy.
Judge Jeannette Vargas of Manhattan said in her ruling on Friday that US consular staff had been ordered to reject visas for all applicants from the blacklisted countries even if they were able to support themselves.
Under American laws, an immigrant’s application can only be turned down if the person is determined likely to become a “public charge” by a review of their finances, health, and skills.
“The Policy, which categorically prohibits the issuance of immigrant visas based upon the nationality of the applicant, represents a direct abrogation of this statutory scheme,” the judge stated.
Vargas, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, also found that Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have the authority to impose the visa ban.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by immigrant rights groups, along with applicants for immigrant visas and American citizens whose relatives had been denied visas to the country. The Trump administration can still appeal.
https://www.rt.com/news/644550-us-trump-immigrant-visa/
Escobar: How Trump Tried To Bribe The Head Of The IRGC
Empire of Chaos, Lies, Plunder, Piracy. And bribes.
Mike Pompeo, former aspiring Tony Soprano, admitted: “We lie, we cheat, we steal.” And we bribe.
A Transition Protocol source, as we revealed live, is unequivocal: The President of the United States – despite having “won” the war on Iran countless times, at least in the Vociferation stakes – made a major attempt to induce IRGC Commander-in-Chief Gen. Ahmad Vahidi and senior Iranian military leadership to break with the government in Tehran through enormous financial inducements.
So here we have POTUS playing good ol’ Divide and Rule – which the Brits learned from the Roman Empire – to fracture the IRGC from the inside.
This was not a mere exploratory diplomatic contact. Trump did not merely want to determine whether Vahidi supported U.S.-Iran negotiations.
According to our source – placed in the tight inner circle of Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – this was a full leadership-buyout operation, modeled on the Venezuela playbook, to fracture the Iranian state.
The attempt miserably failed.
Because Ahmad Vahidi completely rejected it.
The Trump administration had already created a somewhat direct conduit to Vahidi through Nechirvan Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, way back in May 2026. Then-DNI Tulsi Gabbard contacted Barzani – fully authorized by Trump and Vice-President JD Vance – and an encrypted connection to Vahidi was subsequently established through Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The channel stayed dormant – or in coma, for nearly 3 months. This time though Trump attempted to turn the channel into a de facto fracturing of the Iranian leadership, employing the conceptual precedent in Venezuela: isolate the central command; handsomely bribe those immediately around it for “cooperation”; and create the internal conditions for regime decapitation.
The source describes “billions of dollars” being waved as inducements to several members of the senior IRGC leadership through Vahidi. All that while Trump was on Hardcore Vociferation mode threatening Tehran and spinning his “control” of the Strait of Hormuz.
Nothing so far has been independently confirmed in public. And probably will not. But that does not mean the source is not credible.
The source is part of Leader Mojtaba’s tight inner circle; heard all about it directly from Vahidi; and later was fully authorized to disclose the extremely sensitive information to Pakistani mediators, especially Field Marshal Asim Munir, who Trump keeps calling virtually every day asking for “help” getting the Iranians back at the negotiating table (when he in fact blew up the negotiating table).
I bribe, therefore I am
Vahidi is not a peripheral military figure. Far from it: he is the commander of the IRGC – the institutional center of gravity of Iranian hard power. The Trump administration wanted access to the top of the IRGC itself.
But they bet on the wrong man. The number two man in Iran right now, overseeing everything including top IRGC decisions, is Mohsen Rezaee: the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and personal representative of Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-how-trump-tried-bribe-head-irgc
Cyber polygon - blame todays enemy for Israeli tech turning on and off your shit as they backdoored all of it!
Cyber attack shut down UK power plant – Telegraph
The facility was reportedly put out of operation for four days after an Iran-linked hack
A small-scale British power plant was taken offline because of a cyber attack, with UK authorities blaming an Iranian-linked hacking group, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.
In the UK, dozens of small-scale power plants are connected to the national grid, many of them gas-fired facilities that operate for just a few hours a week.
The newspaper did not specify which facility was targeted but noted that it was out of operation for four days in July.
The authorities reportedly notified the National Cyber Security Centre, a public-facing branch of the Government Communications Headquarters, held emergency briefings for energy company executives and sent businesses guidance on strengthening security measures.
According to The Telegraph, the incident coincided with a series of cyberattacks targeting water infrastructure in the US that affected facilities in 12 states. Earlier this month, CBS News cited sources as saying that more than 30 community water systems had been impacted and that the attacks might be linked to Iran-backed hackers.
Some utilities reportedly lost critical remote-control capabilities, forcing operators to switch to manual mode. In several cases, the hackers gained remote access to pumps, valves, and water pressure.
Western intelligence agencies have repeatedly claimed that critical national infrastructure and government bodies face a constant threat from hackers in Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia – allegations that the authorities in each country have dismissed. Moscow says that the West habitually cites the supposed threat of external aggression to justify a massive military buildup and the development of offensive cyber capabilities.
https://www.rt.com/news/644555-iran-cyber-attack-uk-power/
Data Center Backlash Brings Thousands Of Projects To A Screeching Halt
Americans’ growing opposition to the prevalence of data centers has led many politicians to limit or pause their increase altogether.
Lawmakers in New York and Texas, for example, have effected stoppages of data center projects, while other states, such as Pennsylvania, have issued more restrictions on data center construction. Americans’ support for data centers has generally plummeted, as critics have linked them to higher utility bills — reflecting extraordinary water and energy usage — being experienced by local communities.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a sprawling data center moratorium in early August as residents soured on data centers. Abbott claimed his moratorium would protect Texans.
“My directive has halted up to 1,800 data center projects. I established guidelines & guardrails to protect Texas communities,” he wrote in a Wednesday post to social media, adding that data centers must not take water from communities, tax the Texas energy grid, or otherwise disrupt communities.
Abbott’s moratorium drew a range of responses from the private and public sectors.
“What Governor Abbott is doing is working. The Governor established clear guidelines: Data centers must invest their own money, provide their own power, reuse their own water, ensure that the power grid is gaining power— not losing power because of their operations — and must not disturb neighborhoods,” Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “Data centers across the state have announced their full compliance with those standards, which provide guardrails that protect our communities.”
“This is really unfortunate - I thought TX would be the last hold out against this ignorant thinking, and continue to be a place to build! Require them to bring their own power, and it’s a net positive all around,” Brian Armstrong, the co-founder and CEO of the digital currency exchange Coinbase, posted Thursday in response to Abbott.
Coinbase reincorporated from Delaware to Texas in November 2025, with Armstrong stating that “Texas has a strong culture of celebrating builders who are growing our economy, creating prosperity for all. They’ve also embraced crypto.”
“I saw Texas the other day is sort of against data centers. I think it’s a mistake. I think they are tremendously important for the economics. This is, for Texas to say ‘no’ to data centers, is a mistake — in the sense that it could be bigger than oil. Data centers could be bigger than oil,” President Donald Trump, after learning of the governor’s moratorium, said in a Punchbowl News interview published Aug. 7.
Texas’s data center moratorium will likely cut the state’s electricity demand in half, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. Notably, the Lone Star State’s power grid experienced significant power outages in 2021 as a result of Winter Storm Uri, which killed more than 240 people, POLITICO’s E&E News reported.
Many large data centers likewise failed reliability tests, which raised the risk of power outages, Reuters reported. Data centers often cut their connection to the grid when facing electrical fluctuations to protect its computer chips. This, however, often leads to surges involving excess electricity, the outlet noted.
Abbott also said the Texas energy grid was projected to add “five times the amount of power that we have available” thanks to data centers, The Center Square reported.
“This simply is not going to work,” he remarked.
Abbott added that the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) “requested every data center either currently operating or seeking to operate in Texas to give data to the state about how much power they are currently using and how much they would be using. The PUC got less than a 10% response.”
The Data Coalition, a trade group for data center companies, said its members remain committed to “ensuring data centers are true partners in every Texas community where we operate, protecting residential ratepayers, strengthening grid reliability, and promoting responsible water stewardship,” according to The Center Square.
https://dailycaller.com/2026/08/23/data-center-backlash-brings-thousands-projects-screeching-halt-texas-new-york/
you are defending a NASA CGI image being in notables.
No REAL Anon would ever do that.
Seems this place is full of glowies
Turkey issues fresh ‘genocide’ arrest warrant for Netanyahu amid growing Syria tensions
Ankara seeks arrest of PM and another Israeli for intercepting a Gaza-bound activist flotilla earlier this year; premier dismisses ‘Erdogan’s pathetic attempt to intimidate’ Israel
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government on Friday issued another arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, amid spiking tensions between the two countries over an Israeli strike in Syria.
Turkey has already issued warrants against Netanyahu and other top officials for “genocide” over Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel firmly denies accusations of genocide.
The new warrant accuses Netanyahu of “genocide” over the interception in May of a flotilla carrying some 430 activists to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which sparked international outcry. France, Italy and Australia have also launched judicial proceedings.
Turkey’s Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said on X that his ministry had asked the interior ministry to issue Interpol red notice alerts for Netanyahu and another Israeli, named as Afek Moskovitch, as part of a larger case against 35 people.
A red notice is a request to police forces worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition. Interpol reviews requests submitted by member states before deciding whether to issue red notices.
“As part of the judicial proceedings concerning the attack in international waters on the Flotilla activists (…) and in accordance with the arrest warrants issued on July 14, 2026, against Benjamin Netanyahu and Afek Moskovitch for ‘genocide,’ the ministry of justice has requested that the ministry of the interior issue red notices for their international arrest,” Gurlek stated.
Netanyahu and Moskovitch are being prosecuted for “crimes against humanity, genocide, aggravated deprivation of liberty, ‘intentional assault and battery,’ torture, destruction of property, aggravated looting, and hijacking of transport vehicles,” the ministry said.
The Turkish statement didn’t provide any additional details about Moskovitch and no additional information about him could be found.
In response, Netanyahu’s office said that Erdogan “now seeks to extend his aggression against Israel into Syria. Israel will not tolerate it.” The Israeli statement reiterated past accusations by Jerusalem against Erdogan, calling him “an antisemitic dictator who has massacred Kurds, harbors Hamas terrorists, occupies half of Cyprus, and jails record numbers of journalists and politicians who oppose him.”
“Erdogan’s pathetic attempt to intimidate the leaders and soldiers of Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, will go nowhere,” the statement added.
In a separate Hebrew-language statement, the Prime Minister’s Office asserted that “Israel will continue to act forcefully against Turkey’s attempts to destabilize the region and against any threat to its security.”
Erdogan’s office in turn denounced Netanyahu’s “petty political tactics.”
In a statement posted on X, the Turkish presidency condemned what it called the Netanyahu government’s attempt “to present Turkey as a new threat.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/turkey-issues-fresh-genocide-arrest-warrant-for-netanyahu-amid-growing-syria-tensions/
Tucker Carlson: Americans are being killed in settler pogroms
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/–w4DwTvFOg
Science by press release: Moderna cashes in on mRNA cancer vaccine without publishing trial results
"These corporations have learned how to play the medical-scientific establishment like a Stradivarius," Johns Hopkins cardiology operations chief says after Moderna share price spikes. Its mRNA flu vaccine trial data are still hidden.
When the Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna's mRNA flu vaccine, the first ever, two weeks ago, the pharmaceutical company that reaped billions from federal taxpayers with its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine didn't wait for the agency to even publicly post the approval. Moderna rushed out the news at 10 p.m., with a 4% increase in its share price the next morning.
It was a promising market signal for a drugmaker whose revenue cratered following the collapse in demand for COVID vaccines, which also led Pfizer to cancel a trial this spring for its own updated mRNA COVID jab.
What Moderna left out of the release Wednesday, and the media ignored: the mRNA flu jab's disproportionately high rate of serious adverse events compared to a normal flu shot – the same problem with its Omicron-specific COVID vaccine three years ago – and the number of jabs required to prevent a single hospitalization, 5,000.
Yet the market and the media went crazy for Moderna this week when it announced "positive topline results" from a late-stage trial of its cancer vaccine with Merck, with a 177% spike in its share price on top of a 357% increase this year before the cancer vaccine news, despite no published trial data or FDA approval.
The jargon-laden press release said the melanoma trial met its primary and secondary endpoints: "recurrence-free survival" and "distant metastasis-free survival."
What it obscured: Taken with Merck's cancer therapy Keytruda following removal of cancerous tumors, the treatment – technically not a "vaccine" – lengthened cancer patients' lives and halted their cancer's progress for an unspecified period of time.
The company has laid out a potential media-tested roadmap for other drugmakers, at least those working with mRNA technology: A glowing but vague press release is enough to juice their coffers and create demand for as-yet unapproved products with unknown risk profiles.
'Essential' to WHO and stockpiled by governments without a rigorous trial
Some doctors are asking why Moderna gets a pass from scrutiny by withholding data while juicing its share price. (Moderna has promised its cancer vaccine data will be "presented at an upcoming international medical meeting and shared with regulatory authorities.")
Data from its "pivotal clinical trial" for the recently approved mRNA flu vaccine is still missing from the National Institutes of Health's ClinicalTrials.gov, FDA adviser Retsef Levi, whose 2022 peer-reviewed study found COVID vaccination "significantly associated" with emergency heart problems in young Israelis, wrote on X.
"Is it not mandated?" he asked, tagging Director Jay Bhattacharya and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "How come the data from the major trial used for approval [is] not publicly reported?" Robert Malone, the mRNA pioneer, deadpanned "Rules for thee but not for me."
The scrutiny of the hidden flu trial data comes as a new randomized trial of Roche's $18 billion flu antiviral Tamiflu (oseltamivir) suggests it's harmful to the most vulnerable patients, with fatality rates around 20% for those who took it for 5-10 days and 14% for the control group.
Not yet peer-reviewed, the study is the first to compare Tamiflu to "no antiviral treatment in a randomized trial of critically ill patients with influenza," Harvard Med professor Paul Sax wrote in New England Journal of Medicine Voices this week.
"We somehow reached a point where a drug was routinely given, endorsed by guidelines, placed on the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines List specifically for severe influenza, and stockpiled by governments – all without that trial ever having been done," Sax wrote.
Former New York Times drug industry journalist Alex Berenson, who flagged the Tamiflu trial, previously noted the perils of hyping a treatment without a rigorous trial, judging by a gonorrhea vaccine study in NEJM this summer.
The randomized placebo-controlled trial of men who have sex with men, following supposedly positive observational studies, found the vaccine didn't benefit the treatment group but seriously hurt some of them.
"Not one mainstream American news outlet reported the vaccine’s failure" and England is "so far still recommending it despite the new results," Berenson wrote.
Played the 'medical-scientific establishment like a Stradivarius'
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/health/science-press-release-moderna-cashes-mrna-cancer-vaccine-while-hiding-trial
The Tears We Cry Under the Rain: A Desperate Plea from the Shadows
"There is a particular kind of silence that descends upon a village when hope has been systematically dismantled. It is not peaceful; it is heavy, thick with the scent of unfulfilled potential and the lingering fear of the next knock at the door. I am writing this from that silence, a place that the world seems to have agreed to forget.
Returning to the village was not a choice; it was a surrender. After narrowly cheating death at the hands of the Amba rebels and finding that the city of Bamenda offered only the crushing weight of unemployment, constant harassment, and the sight of bodies on the streets, I retreated to what I thought would be my sanctuary.
But the village holds its own brand of agony.
Determined not to be consumed by the hopelessness surrounding me, I decided to fight back–not with weapons, but with work. I poured my soul into a vision: small-scale pig farming. I joined a Njangi (a community investment group), and with the trust of my neighbors, I secured a loan of XAF 1,700,000.
I spent months sweating under the sun, building the sty with my own hands, tilling the land to plant maize to lower feed costs, and investing every franc into my sows and boars.
It was my lifeline. It was my proof that, even in a war-torn land, I could carve out a future.
Then came the swine fever. In a matter of weeks, it decimated everything. It didn't leave a single pig alive.
When the last animal died, something inside me broke. The suicidal thoughts became a daily, deafening whisper. End it all, they said. The debt is too large. The reality is too cruel. But every time those thoughts reached a fever pitch, I looked at my parents and my younger siblings. My life is not mine alone; if I leave, the debt remains, a crushing legacy for them to bear. So, I stay. I wake up, and I go to clear farmlands for others, penny by penny, trying to pay back the Njangi.
As September approaches, the air in our village grows even more suffocating. It is the time of school resumption, but here, there is no school. The Amba rebels have declared that no government functions shall exist within their territory. Schools that dare to open are trapped in an impossible, fatal dilemma: hoist the separatist flag and be executed by the military, or remain closed and watch an entire generation be lost to illiteracy, crime, and drug abuse.
I watch my parents weep–not just for our poverty, but for the future of my younger siblings. We are a people living in a pressure cooker, caught between the iron fist of the state and the volatility of the insurgency.
The Invisible Crisis
Our suffering is not just limited to the violence. It is in the malaria that claims lives because a hospital visit is a luxury we cannot afford.
It is in the desperate, futile reliance on herbs that cannot stop the parasites. It is in the feeling that we are crying under the rain–
our tears are shed, but because the sky is already weeping, no one notices.
We are neglected by our government and invisible to the international community.
A Call for the Forgotten
I have planssmall, practical, human-scale projectsthat could revitalize this community and provide a sense of purpose for our youth.
But in a place where survival is the only currency, capital is non-existent. Without help from the outside world, these dreams remain cruel illusions.
I am not asking for pity; I am asking to be remembered. We are a people standing in the middle of a storm, holding on to the faint, flickering hope that someone, somewhere, will look our way. We are still here. We are still striving. And we are still praying for a light at the end of this tunnel.
The world may have turned its back, but we are still here, hoping for a savior.
Unseen Cameroon: A Journey Through Turmoil
From Feb 21, 2026
by Atumo Ezekiel Acha