Tag Archives: contact

Israel issues impossible ultimatum to Red Cross

The problem in a nutshell: while Israel is dropping bombs on Gaza, the Red Cross cannot visit Israeli hostages held by Hamas, in accordance with Israel’s demand.

What do Benjamin Netanyahu and his cronies think they’re achieving with all these increasingly-bizarre demands of the rest of the world?

Are they seeing how much they can get away with before international authorities call an end to their nonsense?

The latest is an attempt to give orders to the International Committee of the Red Cross:

“The Red Cross has no right to exist if it does not succeed in visiting the hostages being held captive by the Hamas,” [Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli] Cohen said in a telephone conversation on Wednesday with ICRC director Miriana Spolijaric, according to a summary released by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

“The Red Cross must act decisively and with a clear voice and utilize all leverage it has to push for a visit to the hostages as soon as possible,” Cohen said, according to the transcript, noting that “children, women and Holocaust survivors” are among the captives.

“The Red Cross’ reputation is at stake if it cannot secure a visit to those being held captive by Hamas,” he said.

Bilge.

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Red Cross spokesperson Alyona Synenko has pointed out that the Red Cross is making every effort to contact the 240 or so Israeli hostages who were taken by Hamas on October 7 – and would probably have succeeded by now…

… if Israel didn’t keep dropping bombs all over Gaza, all the time.

The spokesperson said:

“When the bombs continue to fall, it is also impossible for our teams to do their jobs.”

“For us it is a priority to get access and to visit all the hostages. The amount of suffering they endure is also unimaginable. We have been constantly calling on the Hamas authorities to give us access so that we can provide medicine, that we can give news to the families of the hostages.”

“We cannot do that unless we are given the needed humanitarian space and the access to be able to do our job,” Synenko said. “We cannot force our way through bombs. We just need all the parties to show goodwill and also to respect their obligation under the international humanitarian law.”

Open mouth, insert booted foot. Israel has again made itself look stupid by demanding something that cannot be achieved because of it’s own military actions.

Source: Israel issues ultimatum to Red Cross


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‘Private healthcare’ is an oxymoron. Its supporters are ordinary morons

If you’re British, and haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll know that the Tory Bill to accelerate privatisation in the National Health Service is to be debated by MPs again tomorrow (Monday, November 22).

It has come under sustained attack from health experts and campaigners who are committed to maintaining the high quality of care that we have come to expect from the NHS – quality that will be abandoned in favour of profit if the Tory Bill is passed into law.

And let’s make this clear: Profit Harms Patients.

Of course it does. If you’re running a health service to make money, then you don’t want people to get better.

You want them to stay sick so you can keep leeching money off of them.

And private health companies are likely to achieve that prolonged sickness in any event as many of their operations are botched so badly that the NHS needs to come in and clear up the mess in many cases. Or it did, the last time I heard anything about it.

That’s why people are saying things like

and

If you haven’t contacted your MP to demand they oppose the Bill, there’s an obvious question you need to ask yourself: Why not?

Don’t tell us, “Aw, well, s/he is a Tory so there’s no point.” There is always a point. If you show these people there’s enough opposition out here to mount a serious challenge to their career come election time, they’re going to start wondering whether it’s worth the risk.

If you’re outside England, don’t tell us, “Aw, well, it’s only in England so it won’t affect us.” It will affect you. I live in Wales and some procedures aren’t available here; if I need them, I’ll have to go across the border. The same applies in Scotland and I understand in Northern Ireland too.

And don’t tell us, “Aw, well, Labour’s going to try to amend it so it’s not quite as bad.” Labour cannot amend this Bill in any way that will help! And the simple fact is that Keir Starmer’s party doesn’t want to. It’s filled with Red Tory weasels who say they don’t like private health while actually supporting it (with a few honourable exceptions).

It’s past time ordinary people in the UK woke up and realised what they voted for.

My honest opinion is that it’s probably too late. I doubt many Vox Political readers were stupid enough to vote for the NHS Privatisation Party (Conservatives) in 2019 but your neighbours probably did, or you have family or friends who did, on the basis that the guy who opposed it once saw a mural (or for some other nonsense reason).

And we all politely let them vote to turn healthcare in the UK from a right into a privilege for the very wealthy.

Put it all together and calling on your MP to oppose the Bill is the least you can do.

You can write to them via They Work For You – it’s easy.

Will you?

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Climate change: let’s put pressure on the companies causing it


Did you know that just 100 corporations are responsible for 71 per cent of the pollutants that cause global warming?

That was the finding of the Carbon Majors report in 2017. And here are the names of the firms doing the damage (as it seems unlikely that many – or indeed any – of them will have gone out of business in the last four years). They are:

China (Coal)
Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco)
Gazprom OAO
National Iranian Oil Co
ExxonMobil Corp
Coal India
Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex)
Russia (Coal)
Royal Dutch Shell PLC
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC)
BP PLC
Chevron Corp
Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA)
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co
Poland Coal
Peabody Energy Corp
Sonatrach SPA
Kuwait Petroleum Corp
Total SA
BHP Billiton Ltd
ConocoPhillips
Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras)
Lukoil OAO
Rio Tinto
Nigerian National Petroleum Corp
Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas)
Rosneft OAO
Arch Coal Inc
Iraq National Oil Co
Eni SPA
Anglo American
Surgutneftegas OAO
Alpha Natural Resources Inc
Qatar Petroleum Corp
PT Pertamina
Kazakhstan Coal
Statoil ASA
National Oil Corporation of Libya
Consol Energy Inc
Ukraine Coal
RWE AG
Oil & Natural Gas Corp Ltd
Glencore PLC
TurkmenGaz
Sasol Ltd
Repsol SA
Anadarko Petroleum Corp
Egyptian General Petroleum Corp
Petroleum Development Oman LLC
Czech Republic Coal
China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec)
China National Offshore Oil Corp Ltc (CNOOC)
Ecopetrol SA
Singareni Collieries Company
Occidental Petroleum Corp
Sonangol EP
Tatneft OAO
North Korea Coal
Bumi Resources
Suncor Energy Inc
Petoro AS
Devon Energy Corp
Natural Resource Partners LP
Marathon Oil Corp
Vistra Energy
Encana Corp
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd
Hess Corp
Exxaro Resources Ltd
YPF SA
Apache Corp
Murray Coal
Alliance Resource Partners LP
Syrian Petroleum Co
Novatek OAO
NACCO Industries Inc
KazMunayGas
Adaro Energy PT
Petroleos del Ecuador
Inpex Corp
Kiewit Mining Group
AP Moller (Maersk)
Banpu Public Co Ltd
EOG Resources Inc
Husky Energy Inc
Kideco Jaya Agung PT
Bahrain Petroleum Co (BAPCO)
Westmoreland Coal Co
Cloud Peak Energy Inc
Chesapeake Energy Corp
Drummond Co
Teck Resources Ltd
Turkmennebit
OMV AG
Noble Energy Inc
Murphy Oil Corp
Berau Coal Energy Tbk PT
Bukit Asam (Persero) Tbk PT
Indika Energy Tbk PT
Southwestern Energy Co

These are the firms whose bosses need to be persuaded to rethink their business plans – and they won’t do that unless public opinion is mobilised against them.

That’s where you come in.

If you have any concerns about climate change at all, you need to get in touch with these firms and express your unhappiness with what they are doing. Call for them to reconsider their approach and to re-model their businesses to conform with a greener agenda.

I appreciate that many of these companies are not based in the United Kingdom. This is an international issue. They don’t just pollute their own countries; they pollute the whole world because we are all feeling the consequences of their irresponsibility.

That said, I would appreciate it if you would share this article with your friends – including those who live outside the UK. The more people take action – from as many countries as possible – the more likely these moguls are to pay attention.

I will try to look up contact details for these firms and add them to this article as they become available. If anybody can help with that, please do.

We cannot rely on our government(s) to do the right thing. The UK’s government is currently pushing legislation through Parliament to criminalise those protesting against the destruction of the planet. It is also providing tax relief to those reponsible for that destruction.

Government representatives and members of the party of government in the UK are lining up to pretend that there’s really no problem at all, and that the polluters should be allowed to carry on stinking up our homes in any way they please. Perhaps these people have shares in the companies concerned.

Remember: There is no planet B. Where are you going to go when the billionaires have poisoned the Earth so badly that you can no longer live on it?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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As police get access to #trackandtrace data, the public swaps stories about #ToryLiars

A load of bull: how many people believe the childish chatter the Tories give us every day in place of facts?

Public patience with the lies of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is running out.

The latest revelation of their duplicity – that supposedly confidential information provided by people who use the Tories’ silly ‘contact tracing’ app is being passed to the police – has triggered a wave of social media posts under the hashtag #ToryLiars.

Here’s the story that triggered it:

It states that there is a legal requirement for contacts of people who’ve had a positive Covid-19 test to self-isolate for 14 days, but fewer than 11 per cent are actually doing so.

Police are being given their identity details in order to chase up enforcement.

Reasons given for breaking self-isolation include believing there was no point isolating from strangers if you cannot properly distance from those in your household; not developing symptoms; or visiting shops or a pharmacy.

Obviously the second excuse is made by idiots; we’ve already been told symptoms may develop over a period of up to 14 days, so failure to see them before the full period is over is no excuse for ending self-isolation.

But the point about not isolating from strangers if you can’t isolate from other members of your household who don’t have to self-isolate under Tory government rules is a good one. I have said before that, if symptoms develop, then the housemates may have spent many days merrily spreading the virus.

And my own knowledge of friends and family who were told to “shield” from the virus by isolating themselves while healthy is enough for me to understand why people have been forced to give up self-isolation to buy food and/or seek medication.

It isn’t a failure of intelligence because it was easy to see these problems coming and while I do believe our government ministers are stupid, I don’t believe they were not warned. I think they chose to ignore those warnings and left people to struggle – and spread the virus.

You see, a partial lockdown is as useless as no lockdown at all, when you’re trying to contain a disease.

So the Tories have created a situation where their own failure to create proper conditions for self-isolation has created a need for police enforcement that should not be there.

The public know this and resent it. Hence the charge that the Tories have lied about the app’s confidentiality.

I know some have pointed out that no information on the app itself is being shared – just registration details – but of course people hand those details over in order to use the app so it is a very flimsy excuse.

The claim that this is a lie has led to further comments on other recent Tory lies. And there have been a lot of them:

Undoubtedly the list is lengthening as I type this.

Look up the #ToryLiars hashtag on Twitter and learn something.

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After This Site suggested it, Tories are letting experts tackle Covid-19 instead of their chums

I know. It’s just a coincidence.

But isn’t it interesting that, the day after This Site asked, “Don’t you agree that giving control of the response to Coronavirus back to people who actually know what they’re doing might turn the tide?” the Tories are talking about doing just that?

I had suggested, “Let’s see the Tories reopen the contract system to multiple tenders, with assignments of Covid-related contracts going to the firms best-suited for the work. Or – indeed – to the public organisations and authorities best-placed to handle it.”

Housing secretary Robert Jenrick made the admission that this will happen on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show today (October 11): “People who know their own community… are bound to be better than Whitehall or national contact tracers.”

Here’s the clip:

There’s an obvious question to be answered here:

Yes – why weren’t they used in the first place?

The obvious answer is that individuals within the Johnson government have corruptly and opportunistically used the pandemic as a chance to funnel cash to their fellow-Tory friends. Certainly there is a movement now to find out how much money has been wasted on so-called services that haven’t worked at all:

That question of wasted time is crucial because many people have died.

What happens if we find that those deaths happened because the Tories were giving money to their friends – for nothing – rather than to people who could actually keep that death toll down?

Will there be any accountability?

Or will Boris Johnson just shrug his shoulders, say “Now is not the time,” and forget about it?

For further information, here‘s the Mirror‘s piece.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Why can’t the ‘NHS’ Covid-19 contact tracing app register NHS test results?

I think we all know the answer to that: it isn’t an NHS app after all.

After This Site was criticised – quite harshly by some – for connecting the ‘NHS’ Covid-19 contact tracing app with Serco and suggesting that it is a data harvesting tool for private contractor Serco, and had to publish a story yesterday (September 25) providing the information on the government’s press release…

It seems I may have been right in the first place after all.

Concerns have been raised after a user discovered he could not enter details of a test he undertook that was processed at an NHS/Public Health England laboratory. It seems the app can only take details of Serco tests:

We in the general public aren’t stupid. We asked questions and we drew conclusions:

The BBC got the story wrong; the headline mentions nothing about the failure to accommodate NHS/PHE results…

… but it did tell us about a few other cock-ups:

  • People who test negative can’t share the result with the app if the test wasn’t booked through the app.
  • People who enter their symptoms but not a test result find the app puts them onto a self-isolation countdown anyway.
  • They cannot stop the countdown, even if they enter a negative test result later.

And it does mention the main issue – but buried low in the story, possibly in the hope that the mass of the general public (70 per cent of the UK public gets its news from the BBC, apparently) will not notice and will carry on along its brainwashed way.

The Department for Health and Social Care has said the app will be updated (although it hasn’t said that these problems will be resolved).

This Site ran a Twitter survey when the app was launched, asking if it would be withdrawn by the weekend. There was a low take-up but the result was decisive:

It isn’t being withdrawn but it seems clear that it should be.

The DHSC is still claiming – somewhat desperately – that “by downloading the app you are helping protect yourself and others”. But it seems clear that the app’s real purpose is entirely different:

This is what we’re finding. And as long as the government keeps lying to us about what it is doing, it is also sapping away public trust in anything Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock and the other crooks are doing.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Value for money? Serco contact tracer app cost £12,000 per person and harvests your data

CORRECTION: It seems the NHS contact tracer app wasn’t developed by Serco and won’t harvest your data. See this article for further details. I’m leaving the piece below on the site as an example of the mistakes that can happen when a prime minister lies – Boris Johnson has repeatedly claimed that the Serco test and trace business belonged to the NHS, so when an NHS contact tracer came along, we all automatically accepted that it was run by Serco, and subject to the same privacy issues as the Serco system.

The BBC is reporting that a million people have downloaded the Covid-19 contact tracing app developed by the private money-grubbers at Serco.

At the same time, we have learned that Rishi Sunak has handed over another £2 billion to Serco for its test-and-trace… work… bringing the total up to £12 billion.

So, that’s a cost of £12,000 per user (so far).

Here’s what it’s supposed to do:

NHS Covid-19 instructs users to self-isolate for 14 days if it detects they were nearby someone who has the virus.
It also has a check-in scanner to alert owners if a venue they have visited is found to be an outbreak hotspot.

First, let’s get something straight. It’s being called the NHS contact tracing app. Is it really being run by the National Health Service?

Bad news, Mike…

So it’s a money pit for corporate beasts.

Is the price right? Well..

And does it do what it’s supposed to do – and nothing else?

Oh dear.

But there is a bright side:

That’s the bright side. You’ve got to really want to see it.

So! If you haven’t done it already, are you looking forward to downloading the app?

Source: NHS Covid-19 app: One million downloads of contact tracer for England and Wales – BBC News

Boris Johnson lied when he said all Covid-19 tests were carried out within 24 hours

One day soon, a Mastermind contestant will do a round on “the life and lies of Boris Johnson”.

There will be a lot of material from which to choose questions. This Writer is thinking of running a daily column. I’ve already got another piece lined up.

This case concerns the following claim, made on June 3:

“We already turn around 90% of tests within 48 hours. The tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile test centres, are all done within 24 hours, and I can undertake to him now to get all tests turned around in 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that.”

The claim was – of course – untrue, as Full Fact explains:

When this was said, on 3 June, 19 per cent of tests at regional testing sites and five per cent of tests at mobile test centres were done within 24 hours.

In fact, it turns out that even by the end of June – four weeks later – the government was still failing to turn around every test within 24 hours.

Here‘s the Mirror:

NHS Test and Trace data shows that in the final week of the month only around a quarter of tests carried out at hospitals and care homes were turned around this quickly.

When it came to tests at regional drive through and mobile testing sites nine out of ten tests saw results delivered on time.

Turning around times for home testing performed even worse with just 2% of people getting results in 24 hours.

You may be wondering why the 24-hour turnaround is important. Here’s the reason:

The 24 hour target is key to allowing tracers to get hold of contacts before they start spreading the virus to others.

So one lie leads to another. When Johnson says his contact tracing projects are running at 100 per cent efficiency, you’ll already know it isn’t true.

And of course this means the Tories aren’t controlling Covid-19 – no matter what they say in their press conferences.

Source: New data reveals PM’s testing speeds claims as wrong – Full Fact

Humiliation for Hancock as Apple denies talking with Tories over contact tracing app

Matt Hancock: he has a lot of bare-faced cheek.

How did Matt Hancock think he would get away with this one?

It seems he has tried to hide the failure of the Tory government’s attempt to create a Covid-19 contact tracing app for mobile phones by saying the government was merging its app with one already created by Apple and Google.

Apple has said it is unaware of any such agreement and the government has not held any discussions with the firm.

In other words: Hancock was lying.

That’s the only logical conclusion. Right?

Apple says it did not know the UK was working on a “hybrid” version of the NHS coronavirus contact-tracing app using tech it developed with Google.

The firm took the unusual step of saying it was also unaware of an issue regarding distance-measuring, which was flagged by Health Secretary Matt Hancock in Thursday’s daily briefing.

“We’ve agreed to join forces with Google and Apple, to bring the best bits of both systems together,” Mr Hancock said.

However, Apple said: “We don’t know what they mean by this hybrid model. They haven’t spoken to us about it.”

Apple said it was “difficult to understand” the claims.

Downing Street said the government had “worked closely with Apple and Google”.

In tests carried out in the UK, there were occasions when software tools developed by Apple and Google could not differentiate between a phone in a user’s pocket 1m (3.3ft) away and a phone in a user’s hand 3m (9.8ft) away.

During the briefing, Mr Hancock said: “Measuring distance is clearly mission critical to any contact-tracing app.”

However, speaking to the Times, Apple said: “It is difficult to understand what these claims are as they haven’t spoken to us.”

It gets worse. The government doubled down on its claim, with disastrous consequences:

On Friday, the Department of Health said the NHS’s digital innovation unit had indeed discussed its ambitions with Apple.

A Downing Street spokesman said the government continued to work closely with both Apple and Google on the app, and had done so since development began.

“We’ve agreed with them to take forward our work on estimating distance through the app that we’ve developed and work to incorporate that into their app,” he said.

Apple and Google have not created an app.

It’s not irredeemable for the Tories.

Apple is a commercial firm and will undoubtedly be happy to enter a commercial agreement with the UK government to create the track-and-trace system the Tories want.

The big question is whether this new system will have the facility to download people’s private information and make it available to other commercial operators, in the way the Tories’ – failed – app did.

Source: Apple ‘not told’ about UK’s latest app plans – BBC News

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Conservative contact tracer app may be a front for covert surveillance

Is this yet another conspiracy theory? Maybe not – it seems to have the ring of truth about it.

The Tories are using the Isle of Wight to test a new contact tracing app – ostensibly to help the treatment of coronavirus, but possibly as a means of quietly watching everything users do.

Conservative governments have form with regard to covert surveillance. David Cameron’s Investigatory Powers Act of 2016 granted the government huge powers to watch your communications – albeit with safeguards demanded by MPs who were concerned about the erosion of civil liberties.

Now, concerns have been raised that the Tory app will infringe people’s civil liberties by gathering data on their movements and uploading their contact lists.

It seems Tories like Matt Hancock want everybody in the UK to download and use the app, providing the government with an enormous amount of data on their personal lives.

The demand is meeting resistance:

In the Commons, Marcus Fysh warned “widespread surveillance” was “not acceptable” in Britain, and it was essential the system was voluntary.

“We’re not a people who take well to surveillance and it’s a little ironic that the country that has probably been surveilling its population more than any other appears to have been the source of this virus,” he said, referring to China.

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said… “We’re extremely concerned that the Government may be planning to route private data through a central database, opening the door to pervasive state surveillance and privacy infringement, with potentially discriminatory effects,” she said.

Tory officials insist the app is designed with privacy and security “front of mind” with the data stored on an individual’s phone until the point they contact the NHS to report symptoms and request a test.

But Tory officials also supported Hancock when he lied to us all that he had reached his target of 100,000 coronavirus tests per day. He should have been forced to resign over that but he hasn’t even apologised.

On Twitter, matters seem straightforward:

Source: Trial of coronavirus contact-tracing app begins on Isle of Wight – ITV News

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