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- Police across Canada are bracing for a fresh bout of trucker-led protests against Covid-19 vaccination mandates and other pandemic restrictions on the weekend. Brian Peckford, the former Newfoundland premier who helped draft Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 under Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, is suing the federal government headed by Trudeau’s son Justin, arguing that its vaccine mandates for air travel are unconstitutional. Peckford, 79, joined five other applicants in a case filed with the Federal Court against the Canada’s minister of transport and the attorney general.
- [ Not Real? ]Lady Victoria Hervey, who is a former girlfriend of Prince Andrew, has alleged in her Instagram stories that the notorious photo of Prince Andrew and his accuser-to-be Virginia Roberts Giuffre was not real. Hervey rolled out what appears to be an image of Giuffre cut out from the widely-known picture, asking “Anyone familiar with this photo?”
- Elon Musk is being wooed by states run by parties opposed to the federally governing BJP after the billionaire said how frustrating he finds the delay to Tesla’s debut in India. Narendra Modi’s government, which controls tax breaks, remains adamant about not offering incentives to set up an assembly line for the US electric car-maker. In a significant setback to Tesla, India’s top tax official has categorically stated that US electric car-makers will not receive any specific incentive to import their models to the Indian market.
- A mysterious gold cube worth an estimated $11.7million appeared in New York’s Central Park on Wednesday morning accompanied by its very own security detail. The cube, composed of 186 kilograms of pure 24-karat gold, was rolled out in front of a snowy Naumburg Bandshell at 5am in the morning surrounded by photographers and NYPD officers. The cube was created by German artist Niclas Castello. According to the Daily Mail, the artist dropped it in the middle of Central Park as a publicity stunt to draw attention to a new cryptocoin.
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has dropped out of the world’s top 10 richest people, tumbling to 12th on Forbes’ billionaire list after Thursday’s fiasco on Wall Street. Bloomberg has called it one of “the biggest one-day drops in wealth ever” after Meta fell short of its profit expectations. Zuckerberg lost as much as $31 billion and Facebook had its very first stagnation in history.
- The Indonesian Embassy in Kyiv has prepared contingency plans for its citizens residing in Ukraine, according to Judha Nugraha, the Foreign Ministry’s citizen protection director. “Specifically for Ukraine, of course, the Indonesian Embassy in Kyiv has updated its threat assessment for the current security situation and has prepared a contingency plan,” he told reporters on Thursday. According to data from the embassy in Kyiv, 131 Indonesian citizens reside across Ukraine. “The Indonesian Embassy in Kyiv has also created a WhatsApp group for all 131 Indonesian citizens to ensure communication lines among residents there are always open,” Judha said.
- The Dutch port city of Rotterdam has not received a request for a permit to temporarily dismantle an historic bridge to allow a superyacht built for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to pass, local media reported Thursday. The municipality will make its decision after a permit application is filed and the impact has been assessed, including if it can be done without damaging the bridge and whether Bezos will foot the bill, the mayor said. “It’s about the facts. I want to know them first,” he said.
- Pedaling bicycles for food delivery is a new trend in Kathmandu, Nepal. E-commerce companies are hiring more delivery staff to fill a swelling tide of orders and many low-income adults have opted for food delivery jobs using bicycles. “The good thing about using a bicycle is that during the pandemic even if the government imposed the odd-even number plate rule, it does not apply to us,” said Thakuri, a delivery cyclist. “We don’t have to spend on fuel either.”
- [ The Truth Shall Set You Free (John 8:32) ] Appearing before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 to make the US case for war in Iraq, then-Bush-era Secretary of State Powell famously held up a model vial of anthrax, citing it as evidence of the kinds of chemical and biological weapons being created by Saddam Hussein’s regime. His speech, and the famous image of him holding up the vial, has since become a universal symbol representing false pretexts serving as a justification for war. On Thursday, Pentagon and State Department officials told reporters that the US military had intelligence that Russia was working on fake videos of Ukrainian aggression in the Donbass region which could serve as a pretext for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has dismissed the claims as absolute drivel.
- European officials have threatened to include restrictions against the brand new pipeline among other sanctions to be levied against Moscow in the event of a Russian “invasion” of Ukraine. The European Union is actively looking for alternatives to Russian gas supplies, primarily from the United States, and the fate of the recently-completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will depend on Russia’s actions, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.
- Facebook has now become the living room of boomers and fake news gullible. End of an era. For the first time in 18 years, daily users of Zuckerberg’s social network have dropped. The young people moved to TikTok, leaving Facebook to 50-60 year olds who can’t tell a hoax from a photo of kittens. ~ D’Agostino
- A team of researchers from several US universities has detected what it called “cryptic SARS-CoV-2 lineages” in New York City’s wastewater. The findings were published in Nature Communications on Thursday.
- Yet another high-ranking Kamala Harris staffer is getting ready to leave the White House: Kate Childs Graham, Harris’ chief speechwriter, will quit at the end of the month, Fox News reported, citing sources. “Kate is leaving the office, but not the family. The vice president is grateful for her service to the administration,” the source is quoted by Fox News as saying.
- Earlier on Thursday, four senior aides to Boris Johnson announced their resignation, among them the prime minister’s director of policy, chief of staff, director of communication and principal private secretary. Number Ten Policy Unit member Elena Narozanski has announced that she will leave Downing Street amid the ongoing scandal around the “partygate” allegations, according to Conservative Home.
- During a recent MSNBC live broadcast, reporter Mike Memoli was covering Joe Biden’s New York City visit amid a surge in crime; several people appeared behind him at the moment when the host was asking a reporter about Joe Biden’s press conference. One man seized the moment and displayed a flag bearing the slogan “Let’s Go Brandon.” Everything happened so quickly that no one had time to react.
News Burst 5 February 2022
Rose Rambles... 