China Services PMI Crashes In March As COVID Crisis Worsens

China Services PMI Crashes In March As COVID Crisis Worsens

Activity in China’s services industry contracted sharply in March, adding to the evidence that the current COVID outbreaks and the zero-COVID-policy-based-lockdowns to control them are dealing a devastating blow to the world’s second-largest economy.

While (reported) deaths remain negligible, China’s new wave of COVID cases has hit a new record high today as CCP reports 20,472 new daily Covid cases for Tuesday, driven by surging infections in Shanghai where local officials are building the world’s largest makeshift isolation facility to help contain the outbreak there. 

Problematically for China’s Zero-COVID policy, the number of cases continues to rise in Shanghai and Jilin, despite the provinces being almost impenetrably locked-down since mid-March (exposing the difficulty of halting the spread of omicron once it has deeply penetrated a population).

All of which is reflected in tonight’s report that China’s Caixin Services PMI crashed to 42.0 in March from 50.2 in February, the largest single-month decline since February 2020 (at the same scale as the sequential decline last August amid the local outbreak of delta variant in Jiangsu).

The new business sub-index fell in the services sector likely on the back of tightened restriction measures in March according to Caixin. Surveyed firms’ confidence (after seasonal adjustment) dropped on concerns over the pandemic and the Russia/Ukraine war.

As Goldman details, their proprietary Effective Lockdown Index (ELI) increased by more than ten points on average in March from February…

Price indicators suggest cost pressures persisted in the services sector. The input prices sub-index rose to 54.2 from 52.5 in February, while the output prices sub-index decreased to 50.8 from 51.4. Surveyed companies commented higher costs of raw materials, energy, food, transportation and higher Covid-related expenditures were the major drivers of rising costs, while they faced difficulties in passing through the higher costs to consumers due to weak domestic services demand amid the worsened Covid situation.

The sub-index of expectation of future output, after seasonal adjustment, fell to 58.4 in March (vs. 60.7 in February). And given the very recent surge in cases – and consequently harsher restrictions – we suspect the pain is far from over in China’s Services sector (and neither its manufacturing base). And that should be an ominous sign for the growing anxiety over global stagflation spreading virally through the world’s developed economies.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/06/2022 – 00:33

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When Will Democrats Get Serious About Repealing Pot Prohibition?


marijuana-Democrats-illustration

When Republicans who oppose federal marijuana prohibition vote against your legalization bill, you probably are doing something wrong. That is what happened last week, when the House of Representatives approved the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act by a vote of 220 to 204.

The ayes included 217 Democrats but only three Republicans, two fewer than voted for the MORE Act when the House passed it in 2020. The meager and waning GOP support for the bill suggests that Democrats want credit for trying to legalize marijuana but are not really interested in building the bipartisan coalition that would be necessary to accomplish that goal.

The 2020 vote was the first time that either chamber of Congress had approved legislation that would remove marijuana from the list of federally prohibited drugs. But as expected, the MORE Act went nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Senate is now evenly divided between the two parties, with Democratic control depending on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. So even if Democrats unanimously supported a legalization bill, they would still need the support of 10 Republicans to overcome a filibuster.

Democrats seem determined to ignore that political reality. Both the MORE Act and the legalization bill that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) plans to introduce this spring include unnecessarily contentious provisions that are bound to alienate Republicans who might otherwise be inclined to resolve the untenable conflict between federal prohibition and the laws that allow medical or recreational use of cannabis in 37 states.

According to the latest Gallup poll, 68 percent of Americans think marijuana should be legal, including 83 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans. Even Republicans who are not crazy about the idea should be able to get behind legislation that would let states set their own marijuana policies without federal interference.

Such legislation can be straightforward. The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017, sponsored by then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R–Calif.), consisted of a single sentence that said the federal marijuana ban would not apply to conduct authorized by state law. Its 46 cosponsors included 14 Republicans—11 more than voted for the MORE Act last week.

The Common Sense Cannabis Reform Act, which Rep. Dave Joyce (R–Ohio) introduced last May, is 14 pages long. So far it has just eight cosponsors, including four Republicans, but that still means it has more GOP support than Democrats managed to attract for the 92-page MORE Act, which includes new taxes, regulations, and spending programs.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) thinks Congress never should have banned marijuana, because it had no constitutional authority to do so. He nevertheless voted against the MORE Act, objecting to the “new marijuana crimes” its tax and regulatory provisions would create, with each violation punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The 163-page preliminary version of Schumer’s bill doubles down on the MORE Act’s overly prescriptive and burdensome approach. It would levy a 25 percent federal excise tax on top of frequently hefty state and local taxes, impose picayune federal regulations, and create the sort of “social equity” programs that gave pause even to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.), the MORE Act’s lone Republican cosponsor.

GOP support for marijuana federalism is clear from the fact that 106 Republicans voted last April for the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which would protect financial institutions that serve state-licensed marijuana businesses from federal prosecution, forfeiture, and regulatory penalties. The SAFE Banking Act would already be law if it had not been blocked by Schumer, who insisted that his own bill take priority.

Instead of building on the Republican appetite for letting states go their own way on this issue, Schumer is effectively telling GOP senators their views don’t matter. That makes sense only if he is more interested in scoring political points than in reversing a morally, scientifically, and constitutionally bankrupt policy that should have been abandoned long ago.

© Copyright 2022 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

The post When Will Democrats Get Serious About Repealing Pot Prohibition? appeared first on Reason.com.

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African Union, Covax Refuse To Buy More Vaccines From Moderna As Demand Plummets

African Union, Covax Refuse To Buy More Vaccines From Moderna As Demand Plummets

Get ready for another wave of COVID fearmongering as Big Pharma tries to push a second (then a third, then a fourth…) booster dose as demand wanes (even as scientists warn about a new hybrid mutant strain).

Moderna shares are tumbling on Tuesday after two of the world’s most critical supranational bodies representing low- and middle-income countries have decided not to purchase hundreds of millions of additional doses of the company’s vaccine as a result of waning demand.

The African Union and Covax, the Bill Gates and WHO-backed group dedicated to spreading (low cost) vaccines across the world, made the decision to pass on buying more jabs (while the US rolls out a second booster for older patients) as developing nations struggle to find enough customers eager to be inoculated.

Of course, it’s not just demand that’s keeping vaccination numbers low: According to Bloomberg, developing nations have struggled to turn supplies into inoculations. Lower-income countries left behind in the global rollout are now grappling with a lack of funds, hesitancy, supply-chain obstacles and other factors that are hampering distribution.

Source: Bloomberg

But outside of China and Hong Kong, COVID cases, deaths and hospitalizations have waned dramatically. This in turn has undermined demand.

What’s more, after more than a year of getting the short end of the stick from Western vaccine makers, developing nations have become resentful, as more consumers take the view that, if they have made it this far without the jabs, then they certainly don’t need them now.

“The vaccine landscape has changed drastically in recent months,” said Safura Abdool Karim, a public-health lawyer and researcher in Johannesburg who’s focused on equity in the pandemic. “We went from really needing vaccines super urgently to now having them.”

While the African Union agreed to purchase 50 million doses during Q1, the organization opted not to acquire another 60 million doses in the second quarter.

Covax, meanwhile, opted not to buy 166 million doses for delivery in Q3, and also turned down another alternative for 166 million doses in Q4. Although a spokesperson for the organization said talks for another round of purchases have continued to drag on.

Africa has the world’s lowest immunization rate, with only 15% of the continent’s population counted as fully vaccinated. That’s compared with a global average of 57%, the WHO said last month. Only about 400 million of the more than 700 million doses Africa has received have been administered, leaving hundreds of millions of doses to rot on the shelves.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/05/2022 – 23:20

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What’s Behind The Renewed Drone Attacks On The UAE?

What’s Behind The Renewed Drone Attacks On The UAE?

By Global Risk Inisghts, Submitted by OilPrice.com,

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been exposed to a recent wave of drone and missile strikes from Houthi militants in Yemen. These attacks are in retaliation to a change in the UAE’s strategy in its intervention in Yemen’s civil war. The UAE’s robust defense systems have been able to thwart Houthi attacks. However, the UAE’s continued intervention in Yemen risks provoking Houthi rebels into adopting military tactics that target civilians. The mere risk of such an attack would negatively affect the UAE’s perception of security, which is crucial for the UAE’s success as an economic powerhouse in the Middle East. 

A not-so-local Civil War

Since 2014, Yemen has been ensnared in a Civil War with multiple international participants. The conflict began when the Houthis, an Iran-backed Shia militia from Yemen’s North, violently attempted to overthrow the internationally recognized government of President Saleh. As the Houthi insurgency accelerated, Sunni-majority countries in the Gulf intervened in a coalition to support government forces. 

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have engaged in hostilities through a military campaign that has seen the use of airstrikes and the backing of local militias to prevent a Houthi takeover. The involvement of regional powers has essentially turned the civil war into a proxy war between Sunni Gulf states and Iran. The protracted conflict has destroyed the country and created what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

By late 2020, the conflict in Yemen was heading toward a stalemate with the coalition forces being unable to end Houthi control over the capital city, Sana’a. As a result, the UAE announced it would start disengaging from the war. However, in late 2021, the Houthis moved toward the oil-rich governorate of Marib. To prevent the group from controlling oil rents, the UAE renewed its involvement in the conflict by backing the Giant’s Brigade, a local Sunni militia, to fight against Houthi advancements.

Houthi Response to the UAE

In response to revamped UAE intervention, the Houthis, and other groups sympathetic to their struggle, have retaliated through a campaign of attacks against the UAE using low-cost missile and drone systems. On February 2, 2022, the UAE’s Defense Ministry announced that it had successfully destroyed three drones heading toward the UAE with “hostile intent”. The attempted attack was claimed by the Iraqi True Promise Brigades, a relatively unknown terrorist organization that sympathizes with the struggle of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The attempted strike in February is just the latest in a string of attacks. On January 31, 2022, an official spokesperson announced that the country’s defense forces had successfully repelled a ballistic missile strike originating from Yemen. A similar incident happened on January 24, when U.S. Central Command announced that it had stopped two ballistic missiles launched from Yemen and headed toward the capital Abu Dhabi. On January 17, drones laced with explosives flew into an oil storage facility on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. The attack came at the hands of Houthi rebels in Yemen and left three people dead, and destroyed three petroleum tanker trucks.

Is the UAE safe?

While this recent wave of attacks is worrying, the UAE’s defensive capabilities ensure that it can protect itself from a barrage of aerial attacks from abroad. However, these attacks and the UAE’s reaction to them risk undermining the perception of the country’s security

For decades, the UAE has been an island of stability in a region noted for political and economic turmoil. The country ranks as one of the safest countries and its pro-business environment has attracted foreign investment that has turned the UAE into a hub for international commerce. While domestic stability is ensured through authoritative governance, defense from foreign threats is possible through initiatives that have provided the UAE with sophisticated weapons systems. In recent years, the UAE has spent billions on state-of-the-art security systems to defend its borders. This has included U.S. manufactured THAAD and Patriot PAC-3 missile systems. On January 16, just a day before the lethal Houthi drone strike, the UAE signed a $3.5 billion deal with South Korean weapons manufacturers to provide surface-to-air missile systems. Alongside these purchases, the US cooperates with the UAE by providing air and naval power. Indeed, the UAE’s focus on protecting itself makes some security analysts believe it is one of the best-defended countries in the world.

These defense systems ensure the well-being of the UAE’s infrastructure and population. Yet, they are not as effective in protecting the perception of safety, a necessity in the growth of the UAE’s economically vital business and tourism sector. Following the January 17th drone strike that killed three, UAE markets dipped as investors feared further attacks. When the Houthi launched more strikes, local markets again slumped despite being intercepted by the UAE’s defenses.

Forecast

The analysis above shows that whilst the UAE is militarily superior and can repel any material threat posed by the Houthis, the mere perception of a threat is sufficient to erode the domestic perception of stability and therefore influence the UAE’s business climate. This illustrates a particular vulnerability that the Houthis can exploit: fear. The Houthis do not need to score a massive attack on the country’s heavy industry to damage its economy. Rather, a targeted attack on the country’s softer targets can shatter the country’s perception of safety inducing reputational costs that are harder to repair. The Houthis will utilize terrorism against the UAE so long as they remain engaged. 

Indeed, the likelihood of Houthi terrorism in the UAE is more pronounced than ever given its offensive posture in the war in Yemen. In response to Houthi aerial attacks, the UAE has bombed locations in Yemen said to store weapons intended for the UAE. This action, coupled with continued intervention in the civil war, will possibly goad the Houthis to seek retribution. Hampered by a reduced weapons stockpile that, regardless, is ineffective against Emirati defenses, the Houthis may turn to terror tactics that can skirt past expensive missile defense systems. 

The Houthis have already implemented terror tactics such as suicide bombings in Yemen. Therefore, it is foreseeable that similar tactics be exported to the UAE. Attacks against civilians in the lavish shopping malls and hotels of Abu Dhabi and Dubai would rock the country’s economy, impacting the sectors of the economy that rely most on the perception of security to flourish. In particular,  the tourism sector, which is particularly susceptible to terrorism and accounts for 12.2 percent of the UAE’s GDP, may be the worst impacted sector as a result of potential Houthi terror attacks.

Knowing full well the cost a terror attack would induce on the UAE economy, it can be expected that the UAE may seek to mitigate this threat by deploying more police throughout major cities. While effective, this defensive presence comes with its own series of costs. The image of armed troops on busy street corners and outside landmarks might make civilians feel protected, but in doing so it evidences the existence of a threat. With threat comes the concern, one which complicates the idea of UAE as a pillar of stability and security in a region otherwise known for the opposite. 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/05/2022 – 23:00

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President Xi Faces An Impossible Dilemma In Shanghai As COVID Outbreak Worsens Despite Lockdown

President Xi Faces An Impossible Dilemma In Shanghai As COVID Outbreak Worsens Despite Lockdown

In the span of just over a week, CCP authorities have gone from denying plans for a citywide lockdown of Shanghai to announcing what was supposed to be a two-part staggered lockdown – to simply locking down the entire city and sending in the military and a contingent of medical workers as locals accuse the government of violating its social compact to put the people’s interests first.

Now, as the entire city of roughly 26 million faces what’s already shaping up to be the most punishing lockdown in China since the original three-month Wuhan lockdown nightmare, Nikkei reports that Beijing has found itself in an incredibly difficult position.

On Sunday, Shanghai counted 9,006 mainly asymptomatic infections, more than two-thirds of the national tally.

The reason the situation in Shanghai presents such a difficult conundrum is that backing down from its lockdown in Shanghai would mean admitting that the “Zero COVID” approach has been an abject failure.

But continuing with the heavy-handed lockdown risks spurring even more unrest – something the CCP has bent over backwards to avoid. For the CCP, it’s an impossible dilemma.

Already, social media has been flooded with reports of locals dying from neglect as hospital resources have been stretched thin (and not from COVID; it’s other ailments that are killing people now).

While the entire city has been locked down for less than a week, many individual residential compounds have been locked down for much longer – some since mid-March.

“It is so uncharacteristic of Shanghai to have to go through this,” said Zhong Lei, a teacher in the city, whose residential compound was locked down even earlier, in mid-March.

On Tuesday, authorities reiterated that they must try to keep the city’s port and its factories running at full capacity. But accomplishing this – as we have already reported – will require even more draconian measures like forcing workers to essentially live inside the city’s factories.

Here’s a rundown of some of the obstacles that have led to the surge in cases and deaths, which local authorities have been accused of obscuring and underreporting.

  • Experts are divided over what those costs are. Some warn of heavy economic losses, while others suggest the strict measures ensure industrial stability, not to mention saving lives. Likewise, there is division over China’s vaccination program. Authorities say nearly 90% of the population of 1.4 billion has been inoculated, a staggering feat by any measure. Yet the rate among the most vulnerable seniors lags behind, and China continues to insist on using homegrown shots despite questions over efficacy.
  • What seems evident is that there is no clear path for China to join the growing number of countries “living with COVID” anytime soon, which presents profound risks to China’s economy, as well as its status in global trade.
  • “If we stop all containment measures now, it means all the previous efforts are for nothing,” Liang Wannian, a top official at the National Health Commission, said in late March in response to a reporter’s query on why China is not shifting toward treating COVID as endemic, like influenza.
  • “The recent fine-tuning is an indication that the country is experimenting with a less costly – and thus more sustainable – zero-COVID approach,” Xu Tianchen, a China economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told Nikkei Asia.

Nikkei added that despite China’s efforts to reform and build up its health care infrastructure over the past decade, the country still faces capacity limitations. The latest available data shows the country had 3.34 registered nurses per 1,000 people, compared to 11.8 in the US. China’s health spending per capita was $459 in 2018, while US spending came to $9,054 in 2019.

Another major issue, as we mentioned above, is the low vaccination rates among seniors.

But it’s not just seniors who are vulnerable. China’s refusal to approve western vaccines in favor of its home-brewed concoctions has hurt immunity levels in the broader population. One UK health data provider in the UK estimated in March that due to the lower efficacy of China’s vaccines, less than 30% of the population is protected from infection. “Should infections hit China in the same magnitude as Hong Kong, deaths could exceed 1 million.”

If that happens, China would surpass Hong Kong as the country with the highest contemporary COVID death rate.

Unsurprisingly, economists the world over are bracing for the worst as they increasingly expect the Shanghai lockdown to lop an entire percentage point – or more – off China’s GDP growth.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/05/2022 – 22:40

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Biden Admin Quietly Pushing Anti-Charter Policies, School Choice Advocates Warn

Biden Admin Quietly Pushing Anti-Charter Policies, School Choice Advocates Warn

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Amid nationwide calls for giving parents more choices in their children’s education, the Biden administration has quietly proposed changes that critics say will make it harder for new public charter schools to open and for existing ones to survive.

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona delivers remarks in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 27, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

On March 14, the U.S. Department of Education released a 14-page regulatory proposal regarding the priorities, requirements, and criteria that public charters should meet when they apply for federal funds.

The department argued the changes are to “create results-driven policies” to help “promote promising practices and accountability,” and are expected to serve as a model for state regulations.

Under the proposed new rules, which have been given an unusually short public comment period of one month lasting until April 13, public charters would have to “collaborate with at least one traditional public school” in order to be prioritized for federal funding. Specifically, a charter seeking federal money must provide a letter signed by the public school it collaborates with, as well as a plan detailing resources it is willing to contribute to the partnership, including curriculum materials, educator development opportunities, and transportation.

Many commenters argue that forcing such collaborations as a contingency of funding potential will create unwarranted burden for charters, particularly those that are built in a way district school administrators oppose. Some noted that, given the history of traditional school antagonism towards charters, the inclusion of this priority is more likely to hinder than advance further charter school development.

In addition, those who plan to open new charters must prepare a “community impact analysis” that demonstrates their commitment to social justice, especially in combating so-called re-segregation in public schools, which the progressives have been blaming on school choice programs.

According to the proposal, this analysis must include a proposed charter’s demographic projections and a comparison with that of the community’s public schools. It also needs to include a plan to make sure the proposed charter “would not hamper, delay, or in any manner negatively affect any desegregation efforts in the public school districts.”

In reality, many charters serve predominately black and Hispanic communities and don’t prioritize racial diversity in their enrollment or hiring models. The proposal states that they still need to provide a community impact analysis when applying for federal grants.

As for charter schools contracting for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) for services, the new rules would make them ineligible to apply for federal grant money, although it’s not rare for public schools to contract basic services from for-profit EMOs.

A total of 702 charter schools servicing nearly 450,000 students are operated by EMOs, according to pro-charter advocacy group National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

“Both charter schools and traditional districts contract with EMOs,” the Alliance says on its website. “Many EMOs serve as vendors for specific management-related services, such as back-office support, hosting web platforms, or staffing assistance.”

Charter school proponents see the new proposal as a political move to appease powerful teachers unions at the expense of families that could have benefited from more education options. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the two largest teachers’ unions, are traditionally considered bastions of Democrats and endorsed President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

It’s outrageous that Washington would target charter schools in this way—particularly when more families than ever are turning to charter schools,” the Alliance said in a statement. “It’s not okay to play politics with our children or our schools. New policies should put kids first, not systems.”

Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/05/2022 – 22:20

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Numerous Health Problems More Likely Due To COVID-19 Vaccines Than Coincidence: VAERS Data Analysis

Numerous Health Problems More Likely Due To COVID-19 Vaccines Than Coincidence: VAERS Data Analysis

Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times,

Various health problems reported by people after receiving one of the COVID-19 vaccine shots are more likely caused by the vaccines than being merely coincidental, according to an analysis of data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

A pharmacist prepares a vaccine dose at a COVID-19 vaccination site in New York on Feb. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

VAERS has been flooded with more than a million reports of various health problems and more than 21,000 death reports since the introduction of the vaccines in late 2020. Some experts and public officials have downplayed the significance of the reports, noting that just because a health problem occurs after getting the shot, it doesn’t mean it was caused by it.

A deeper analysis of the data, however, indicates that many of the adverse effects are more than just a coincidence, according to Jessica Rose, a computational biologist who’s been studying the data for at least nine months.

“The safety signals being thrown off in VAERS now are off the charts across the board,” she told The Epoch Times.

There are multiple ways to parse the data in order to flush out whether the causal link between an adverse event and the vaccination is real or illusory. For example, the vaccines usually come in two doses. A random adverse event unrelated to the vaccine should be dose agnostic. A stroke randomly coinciding with a vaccination shouldn’t be picky about which dose it was. In the VAERS data, however, a number of the reported problems are dose-dependent. Myocarditis in teenagers, for example, is reported several times more often after the second dose than after the first one. Following a booster shot, in contrast, the frequency is significantly lower than after the first dose, Rose found.

A graph showing age against absolute number of myocarditis reports filed to VAERS according to doses 1, 2 and 3 of the COVID-19 vaccines. (Jessica Rose)

Other researchers and health authorities have already acknowledged that the shots are associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis, especially in teenage boys, though they usually also say the risk is low.

Yet dose-dependency shows up in the VAERS data for other problems too, including fainting and dizziness, which are more common after the first dose.

A graph showing age against absolute number of syncope (fainting) reports filed to VAERS according to doses 1 and 2 of the COVID-19 vaccines. (Jessica Rose)

Rose acknowledged that statistical analysis seldom provides definitive answers. There could be, for instance, some unknown factor that leads to more reports of unrelated health events after the first or second shot. In her view, however, the data leans away from such a conclusion. Previous research showed that the majority of VAERS reports are filed by medical staff, who shouldn’t fail to report adverse events based on which dose is being administered. To Rose, it seems more likely that if people suffer health problems after an injection of a novel substance and if the problems substantially change between the first and the second shot, the substance probably had something to do with it.

“In lieu of being able to explain this happening for any other reason, it satisfies the dose-response point quite well, in my opinion,” she said of the myocarditis results.

As for why the reports dropped after the “booster” shots, she said she hasn’t found a definitive explanation. It could be that people who didn’t feel well after the first two shots would think twice about getting more. As such, those most at risk for an adverse reaction would be less likely to get the booster.

Rose arrived at the results after she evaluated the VAERS data from the perspective of the Bradford Hill criteria—a set of nine questions that are used by epidemiologists to determine whether any given factor is likely the cause of an observed health effect.

She said she found evidence to answer positively all of the questions.

Rose has encountered resistance in the establishment science circles when she first tried to publicize her analyses. Last year, right before her paper on VAERS myocarditis data was printed, the publisher pulled the paper for unclear reasons.

Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/05/2022 – 21:40

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HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED:  Conservative or libertarian lawyer, 1 to 5 years experience, D.C. area.  Must be fearless, principled, and able to deal politely individuals with very different views of the world.  Must be able to talk about issues of race, ethnicity, religion, and sex without getting a deer in the headlights look and trying to hide under a table.  Sense of humor a plus for this job … and for everything else in life.

The post HELP WANTED appeared first on Reason.com.

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HELP WANTED

HELP WANTED:  Conservative or libertarian lawyer, 1 to 5 years experience, D.C. area.  Must be fearless, principled, and able to deal politely individuals with very different views of the world.  Must be able to talk about issues of race, ethnicity, religion, and sex without getting a deer in the headlights look and trying to hide under a table.  Sense of humor a plus for this job … and for everything else in life.

The post HELP WANTED appeared first on Reason.com.

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Biden To Unveil US, UK, & Australia In New Trilateral Security Hypersonic Pact

Biden To Unveil US, UK, & Australia In New Trilateral Security Hypersonic Pact

The world has evolved into a dangerous multipolar nuclear environment where the US and its allies and China and Russia are rapidly developing and deploying hypersonic weapons.

A collection of our past reports show the West has yet to field hypersonic weapons, while China and Russia have been rapidly testing and deploying. Russia has even used hypersonic weapons in the invasion of Ukraine, and China just flew a hypersonic weapon around the world. 

China’s rapid expansion of its military modernization efforts has spooked the West. That’s why President Biden is expected to announce a new trilateral security pact with the UK and Australia as early as Tuesday to advance hypersonic technology, according to FT

Biden’s new trilateral security pact will be called “Aukus.” According to three people familiar with the situation, it will include Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, and Boris Johnson, the British prime minister. 

The move to co-operate on the development of hypersonic weapons comes as the West has no hypersonic weapons fielded, only in the development stages. US hypersonic testing has been hit with multiple setbacks, and the Pentagon might not have its Lockheed-Martin’s ARRW (Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon) ready until later this year. Meanwhile, China has conducted hundreds of tests. 

Hypersonic weapons are problematic for the US military. These high-tech weapons travel more than five times the speed of sound and can evade Western missile defense shields. 

US Admiral John Aquilino, head of Indo-Pacific Command, and General James Dickinson, director of Space Command, recently told FT that the US and Australia were expanding cooperation in space and cyber domains, mainly because of China’s hypersonic weapons.

“The ability to identify and track, and defend against those hypersonics is really the key,” Aquilino said.

General Dickinson said his main focus is improving “space domain awareness,” which indicates Western powers are also working on new advanced counter-systems to detect and track these high-speed weapons.

Responding to the news, China was absolutely furious with Washington. China’s UN Envoy warned that a hypersonic pact between the three countries could “lead other parts of the world into a crisis like Ukraine.” 

In a multipolar world, countries will choose their partners, as it appears the West will form a new hypersonic pact; this may push China and Russia closer together. 

 

Tyler Durden
Tue, 04/05/2022 – 21:20

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