Jade Mine Collapses in Burma Burying and Killing More Than 162 People in a Wave of Mud

On July 2, 2020 a deadly landslide descended on a jade mine in northern Myanmar.

According to first countings, at least 162 people were buried to death and 54 others gravely injured.

On July 2, 2020 a deadly landslide descended on a jade mine in northern Myanmar.

According to first countings, at least 162 people were buried to death and 54 others gravely injured.

‘No one could help’

Maung Khaing, a 38-year-old miner from the area, said he saw a towering pile of waste that looked on the verge of collapse and was about to take a picture when people began shouting “run, run!”

“Within a minute, all the people at the bottom [of the hill] just disappeared,” he told Reuters news agency by phone.

“I feel empty in my heart. I still have goosebumps … There were people stuck in the mud shouting for help, but no one could help them.“

Than Hlaing, a member of a local civil society group helping in the aftermath of the disaster, said those killed were informal workers scavenging the waste left by a larger mining company.

https://youtu.be/R6FTi555yo0

https://strangesounds.org/2020/07/jade-mine-landslide-myanmar-burma-162-deaths.html

https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1278743753390387200

So Gavin Newsom is closing down restaurants and bars and destroying family-owned businesses all over California. Oh wait, here’s one that’s still open!

Attorneys representing Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre must destroy evidence from her case against Ghislaine Maxwell after improperly gaining access to documents, court rules

Senior district judge ruled lawyers had improperly gained access to documents

Lawyers from Cooper & Kirk were ordered to destroy the evidence

Former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz also denied access to the documents

A U.S. district judge has ordered attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre to destroy evidence from her case against Ghislaine Maxwell.

Senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled Wednesday that the lawyers from Cooper & Kirk had improperly gained access to the documents.

Former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, who had been seeking to gain full access to the Maxwell documents, was also denied them.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8483209/Attorneys-representing-Virginia-Giuffre-ordered-destroy-evidence.html

UK court recognizes Juan Guaido as ‘unequivocally’ Venezuela’s president in legal fight for tons of gold

The UK High Court has ruled that Venezuela’s legitimate president is in fact its self-proclaimed leader Juan Guaido, and not the elected Nicolas Maduro, in a bizarre legal battle for $1 billion of gold bullion.

The Bank of England (BOE) holds close to $2 billion of Venezuela’s gold for safekeeping. With both the Venezuelan government and the opposition laying claim to the fortune, the High Court has been tasked with deciding who deserves the funds, and said on Thursday that the UK “unequivocally recognizes” self-proclaimed leader Guaido as president.

“Whatever the basis for the recognition, her majesty’s government has unequivocally recognized Mr Guaido as president of Venezuela,” Justice Nigel Teare said on Thursday. “It necessarily follows that her majesty’s government no longer recognizes Mr Maduro as president of Venezuela.”

Venezuela’s central bank wants the gold back so it can be sold to buy medicine and equipment to battle Covid-19. It has said the funds would be transferred to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to ensure it isn’t used for anything else, but the opposition objects to this and claims Maduro wants to use the money to pay off his foreign allies.

Guaido, who has self-identified as the country’s interim president since 2019, with backing from Western nations, claims the gold is his to control and alleged the bank would be “financing torture” if Maduro won. The British government is among more than 50 nations that have recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s leader.

A lawyer for Venezuela’s central bank said that they would appeal the judgement which “entirely ignores the reality of the situation on the ground.”

https://www.rt.com/news/493562-guaido-maduro-gold-court/

Tech experts warn of new Mac ransomware spreading via internet piracy & taking files hostage

Security experts have warned of new Mac ransomware being spread via pirated software from torrent sites. The virus is so new that there is currently no known way to recover lost files.

Once installed, the malware begins to spread itself “liberally” around the hard drive, though much of the nefarious software’s behavior is still not really understood.

For example, it was found that the malware – dubbed ‘ThiefQuest’ – modified executable GoogleSoftwareUpdate files, commonly found on machines with Google Chrome installed.

However, according to anti-malware company Malwarebytes, Google automatically resets these files upon launch, meaning that “it’s unclear what the purpose here is” for the malware to make such changes as it would seem like a pointless addition.

As with all ransomware, ThiefQuest eventually begins encrypting as many files as it can, locking users out of their digital property until a ransom is paid for their return. These files are often confidential in nature as they are more valuable to the user.

The author of the article detailing the malware, Thomas Reed, goes on to say that while many affected users have reported that they were asked to pay a ransom to retrieve the encrypted files, he “was unable to duplicate any of these [demands], despite waiting quite a while for the ransomware to finish.”

However, as this ransomware is so new, it is not yet clear whether once these files are encrypted, they can ever be decrypted.

The anti-malware company advises that to protect against ransomware attacks, the public should always have a host of backup copies of their data stored on a separate hard drive. Doing so strips any power bad actors attempt to exercise when they use ransomware for blackmail, as you always have a copy of your data safely stored elsewhere.

The malware was first discovered after being uploaded to a Russian torrent site tucked within a legitimate-looking copy of the macOS firewall, Little Snitch.

Originally dubbed EvilQuest, the malicious software has been renamed “due to a legitimate game of the same name from 2012.” Its new name is OSX.ThiefQuest.

The malware has since been found in other applications, such as Mixed In Key 8, a type of DJing software. Reed also notes that “there are undoubtedly other installers floating around as well that have not been seen.”

https://www.rt.com/news/493621-mac-malware-internet-piracy/

In an era of fake news, can we trust the MSM polls that show Trump badly trailing Biden in the race for the US presidency?

Consult just about any US media resource and a trend is quickly discernible: Donald Trump is sagging in popularity while his likely Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, soars like an eagle. Are these polls really to be believed?

Is there a conflict of interest greater than that of the US media conducting a public opinion poll on Donald J. Trump?

It appears to be a self-indulgent activity, a bit like climate change activists gathering opinions on the merits of air travel, for example, or a New York Yankees fan organizing a poll to determine who the best baseball player was, Babe Ruth or David Wright.

In other words, those asking the questions may be very tempted, in deference to their own prejudices, to get the answers they seek.

BIDEN LEADS NATIONALLY (by a long way)Biden: 49.5%Trump 40.3%The only good "internal polling numbers" Trump is getting are those generated inside his own mind!#Biden2020pic.twitter.com/OnOF5QX5B2

— MURRAY 🗽 (@murray_nyc) June 29, 2020

Perform a quick Google search on ‘Trump poll numbers’ and you will likely experience some deja vu. As in 2016, when the media showed Trump trailing far behind Hillary Clinton, the same media want us to believe that the presidential incumbent is now eating Joe Biden’s dust on the road to the White House.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/493615-trump-biden-us-presidency/

Euro Banks Seek To Form Unified Pan-European Payment System To Challenge Visa, Mastercard

A group of sixteen banks from euro zone countries are spearheading the project

The new system is expected to be up and running in two years

The project hopes to eventually control at least 60% of electronic payments in Europe.

A group of sixteen banks from euro zone countries said they will establish a "truly European" payments system that is designed to completely digitize a region where one-half of all retail transactions are still conducted in cash.

The new system, called ‘European Payments Initiative,’ or EPI, is expected to become operative in 2022 and would challenge the market dominance of U.S.-based payment firms Mastercard (MA) and Visa (V).

"It is aimed at strengthening Europe, at making it more independent and robust," said Thierry Laborde, deputy chief operating officer of France’s BNP Paribas, which is involved in the project. "We will do it collectively, by pooling our resources. As for distribution systems, prices will differ from one bank to another, but the infrastructure will be pan-European."

Laborde added that the major innovation arising from the project will be that people and businesses will be able to make payments throughout Europe “seven days out of seven, instantaneously and, for example, with the telephone number of the beneficiary.”

The cards that will be provided to consumers and retailers across Europe will cover various kinds of transactions, including in-store, online, cash withdrawal and 'peer-to-peer.’

Other banks involved in the enterprise include BBVA (BBVA), Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank (DB), Santander (SAN), ING Group (ING), UniCredit and Societe Generale.

The project, which is expected to cost several billion euros, seeks to eventually control at least 60% of electronic payments in Europe.

https://www.ibtimes.com/euro-banks-seek-form-unified-pan-european-payment-system-challenge-visa-mastercard-3004620

How the Media Used the Bounty Scandal to Stop the ‘Threat’ of Peace in Afghanistan

Peace seems to have exceedingly, ridiculously, laughably bad timing, this latest time in Afghanistan, says Lee Camp.

This is not a column defending Donald Trump.

Across my career, I have said more positive words about the scolex family of intestinal tapeworms than I have said about Donald Trump. (Scolex have been shown to read more.)

No, this is a column about context. When The New York Times reports anonymous sources from the intelligence community say Russia paid Taliban fighters to kill American soldiers, context is very important.

Some of that context is that Mike Pompeo said, “I was the CIA director – We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses.” So we know for certain that U.S. intelligence agencies lie to you and me. We saw it with WMD, and we might be seeing it again now.

But that’s not the context I’m referring to.

We could talk about the context of the fact that the Taliban does not need to be paid to kill American soldiers because their entire goal for the past twenty years has been to kill American soldiers. Paying them a bounty would be like offering the guy sleeping with your wife twenty bucks to sleep with your wife.

But that’s not the context I’m referring to.

We could talk about the fact that the U.S. has been funding the Taliban for years! Yes, we fund them, sometimes arm them, and then fight them. This is barely a secret. So for all intents and purposes, the U.S. does the same thing our corporate media is now accusing Russia of doing (with no proof).

But that’s not the context I’m referring to.

No, the context I’m referring to is how our military industrial complex (with the help of our ruling elite and our corporate media) have stopped Trump from pushing us toward the brink of peace. …Yes, the brink of peace.

Now, I’m not implying Trump is some kind of hippy peacenik. (He would look atrocious with no bra and flowers in his hair.) No, the military under Trump has dropped more bombs than under Obama, and that’s impressive since Obama dropped more bombs than ever before.

However, in certain areas of the world, Trump has threatened to create peace. Sure, he’s doing it for his own ego and because he thinks his base wants it, but whatever the reason, he has put forward plans or policies that go against the military industrial complex and the establishment war-hawks (which is 95 percent of the establishment).

And each time this has happened, he is quickly thwarted, usually with hilarious propaganda. (Well, hilarious to you and me. Apparently believable to people at The New York Times and former CIA intern Anderson Cooper.)

I know four things for sure in life. Paper beats rock. Rock beats scissors. Scissors beat paper. And propaganda beats peace. All one has to do is look at a calendar.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/connecting-dates-us-media-used-stop-threat-peace-afghanistan/269150/

House Democrats, Working With Liz Cheney, Restrict Trump’s Planned Withdrawal of Troops From Afghanistan and Germany

The U.S. military has been fighting in Afghanistan for almost nineteen years. House Democrats, working in tandem with key pro-war GOP lawmakers such as Rep. Liz Cheney, are ensuring that continues.

Last night, the House Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment — jointly sponsored by Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado and Congresswoman Cheney of Wyoming — prohibiting the expenditure of monies to reduce the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan below 8,000 without a series of conditions first being met.

The imposed conditions are by no means trivial: for these troop reductions from Afghanistan to be allowed, the Defense Department must be able to certify, among other things, that leaving Afghanistan “will not increase the risk for the expansion of existing or formation of new terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan” and “will not compromise or otherwise negatively affect the ongoing United States counter terrorism mission against the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and associated forces.”

The Crow/Cheney amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last night passed by a vote of 45-11. The NDAA was then unanimously approved by the Committee by a vote of 56-0. It authorizes $740.5 billion in military spending — roughly three times more than the world’s second-highest spender, China.

President Trump throughout the year has insisted that the Pentagon present plans for withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan prior to the end of 2020. Last week, reports indicated that “the Trump administration is close to finalizing a decision to withdraw more than 4,000 troops from Afghanistan by the fall.” Trump’s plan “would reduce the number of troops from 8,600 to 4,500 and would be the lowest number since the very earliest days of the war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001.” In February, Trump announced an agreement with the Taliban to end the war completely.

Shortly after those White House withdrawal plans were reported, anonymous intelligence officials leaked a series of claims to the New York Times regarding “bounties” allegedly being paid by Russia to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops. Those leaks emboldened opposition to troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on the ground that it would be capitulating to Russian treachery. It was that New York Times leak that Liz Cheney, along with GOP Congressman Mac Thornberry, cited in a joint statement on Monday to suggest troop withdrawal would be precipitous:

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/house-democrats-working-with-liz-cheney-restrict-trumps-planned-withdrawal-of-troops-from-afghanistan-and-germany/

Coronavirus Deaths in U.S. Plunge in Recent Weeks as New Cases Hit Record Levels

Coronavirus-linked deaths across the U.S. have been dropping over the past few weeks, even as the country hit record levels in the number of new confirmed cases in recent days, a Breitbart News analysis of the seven-day average of fatalities revealed.

Most coronavirus databases rely on moving averages of cases and deaths because the numbers fluctuate day-by-day.

Although the seven-day average of fatalities had been steadily dropping in recent weeks, it appears to have stabilized in the last few days at a level well below its peak.

Our daily update is now published.

States reported over 44k new cases, the new normal. The 7-day average of new cases per day has doubled since 6/13, and now exceeds 41k.

Current hospitalizations saw their biggest jump since 4/21.

For details, see: https://t.co/PZrmH4bl5Y pic.twitter.com/uhD6Ifv8oT

— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 30, 2020

Deaths are down week-over-week, which continues to be good news. However hospitalizations keep rising, now up 19% over their low point two weeks ago. FL may soon start reporting COVID hospitalizations, which is great news.

Big testing day! pic.twitter.com/gAS9uu1Uv5

— Conor Kelly (@CohoKelly) June 30, 2020

There were 332 reported deaths today. The 7-day average in deaths remains about unchanged.

Why are deaths falling or holding steady while cases rise?

Probably for a few reasons: https://t.co/ZXFERIyS6I pic.twitter.com/FkkYBQ7U96

— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 29, 2020

The reported number of daily deaths related to COVID-19, the disease associated with the coronavirus, is not paralleling the number of new cases.

Not everyone who contracts COVID-19 succumbs to the disease. The vast majority of fatalities involve seniors and individuals with chronic underlying health conditions.

Some mainstream media outlets reported that the daily number of cases hit a daily record of more than 47,000 on Tuesday.

Last Friday, the United States reportedly saw its second-highest single-day number of new confirmed cases at over 45,000.

The number of confirmed cases is no longer falling in any region of the country.

The Northeast has been flat for 12 days. The Midwest is rising again. pic.twitter.com/ya0wuIXjt4

— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 30, 2020

There is a patchwork of guidelines across the United States for reporting deaths, with some states reporting probable coronavirus fatalities, while others do not.

Some databases provided a lower estimate for the reported number of deaths on Tuesday, while others offered a higher one.

There tends to be a lag time between infection and death, so the number of fatalities could spike in the next couple of weeks.

However, as of Tuesday, the seven-day average of deaths stood well below its peak level despite what the New York Times described as two “days with a data reporting anomaly” from NYC after the city released additional fatalities that drove the overall numbers in the U.S. up on June 25 and June 30.

Breitbart News learned of the fairly steady plunge over the last few weeks in the number of daily new deaths from several databases, maintained by the Times, COVID-Tracking Project, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, and USAFacts.org cited by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/01/coronavirus-deaths-in-u-s-plunge-in-recent-weeks-as-new-cases-hit-record-levels/

Bunny Ebola: Deadly Rabbit Virus Spreads in Southwestern US Killing Thousands of Animals

Earlier this week a study conducted by Chinese scientists identified a new strain of flu in pigs in the country, which researchers say has the potential to become a pandemic as it could mutate and spread from human to human.

Thousands of rabbits have died from a virus which veterinarians call "bunny Ebola" due to similarities with the hemorrhagic disease that ravaged in Western Africa between 2013 and 2016. The RHDV2 virus spread to seven states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Texas, since the first cases were reported in February.

According to a report from the University of the Iowa, the first cases of the RHDV2 were reported in China 1984. Since then it has spread worldwide and the United has seen several outbreaks. However, this is the first time that the disease spread from domesticated animals to wild animals.

"We still have no idea where it originated. It’s snowballed and moved like mad fanning out across the Southwest", Ralph Zimmerman, New Mexico state veterinarian, told The Cut.

RHVD2 has already hit pikas, hares and rabbits. Veterinarians say it is highly contagious and the only sign that animals have been infected with it appears after death, as after death, blood drips from their noses.

"We had one guy with 200 rabbits, and he lost them all between a Friday afternoon and Sunday evening. It just went through and killed everything", said Zimmerman.

While the virus cannot infect humans, it can spread, as it sticks to hair, shoes and clothing. The disease is also hard to kill, as it can survive for more than three months at room temperature and can withstand extreme temperatures both cold and hot (up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit). Like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is currently no cure or vaccine.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202007021079779394-bunny-ebola-deadly-rabbit-virus-spreads-in-southwestern-us-killing-thousands-of-animals/

Here’s A List Of The Rich And Famous Caught In Photos With Ghislaine Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell was finally caught Thursday after being on the lam for months following the death of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in August 2019.

The couple became known for their alleged perverted escapades on Epstein’s private plane, called the “Lolita Express,” and on Epstein’s private Caribbean island, sometimes called “Orgy Island” or the “Island of Sin,” following allegations that Epstein and Maxwell trafficked and abused underage girls. The two also allegedly passed the victims around to Epstein’s famous friends.

Here are some of the people who’ve allegedly schmoozed with Maxwell and have been caught on camera with her:

Donald and Melania Trump: At supermodel Heidi Klum’s 2000 Halloween party, Maxwell is allegedly seen posing next to the couple in a photo obtained by the Daily Mail, who were not married at the time. Prince Andrew was also allegedly at the party. Another photo shows Donald and Melania standing together in a photo at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in Feb. 2000. The president says he hadn’t spoken to Epstein since his guilty plea, and says he never liked him, according to NBC. The relationship is rumored to have gone sour when both men attempted to buy the same oceanfront mansion in Florida in 2004, according to the Cut.

Chris Tucker: The comedian and actor was also present on the 2002 trip to Africa with Maxwell and Clinton, according to the New York Post.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/02/ghislaine-maxwell-jeffrey-epstein-list-famous-friends-photos/