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funknrolll · 5 years ago

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Celebrating Prince: discovering a timeless artist and his meaningful and impactful art. Part 1. From the 1970s to early 1990s

Hi music lovers, it has been a while since my last post. Today is an important day and as a fan of Prince and as I’m extremely passionate about his art, my tribute could surely not miss. Since this article is extremely long I decided to divide it into more than 1 big post and do a whole week celebrating this immense artist, his life and his meaningful and astonishing art. Additionally let me say that I began this article in summer 2019 and I managed to finish it just now and to be honest, it is a 20 thousand words article. With this said, I hope you enjoy this new format, I hope you guys enjoy this article and I hope it will make you reflect on how impactful and important was and still is Prince’s art.

First, let me say that I have heard so many things about Prince’s artistry. Some comments came from uneducated people who did not even take a second of their lives to understand, and do research on his art. Hence, I think the time to shed some light on Prince’s art, has come (finally). I hope to help some of those people understand this artist better and to finally appreciate him the way he deserves. We owe Prince big time. Today’s music and musicians owe Prince everything. Without him, many of the artists we listen to today, WOULD NOT BE EXISTING. As we all know, Prince loved to experiment with music, trying out new music genres, new styles, new harmonies, melodies, rhythms and so on. This is one of the factors that led this legend to create a unique, wide and broad vault. There are so many songs of his that I love so much and that I find relevant for this article. The ones I chose, are going to prove that Prince and his music did not just revolve around sex and sexuality, (even if the artist through his music took the topic to another whole level). Through the article, we will see that Prince was more than all that I mentioned above. He was an extraordinary human being, blessed with so many enormous talents, with a beautiful mind, a uniquely pure soul. A true gift of God. With this in mind, let us start this article.

Starting with For You and the self-titled album “Prince” lyrically speaking they both are centered on the bittersweet feeling of love. However, what strikes me every time I listen to these masterpieces is that Prince was only 19 when he produced them. Moreover, the artist was skilled enough to produce, write all the lyrics, play all the harmonies and melodies and therefore compose all the arrangements for the songs and eventually record everything in the studio. He was only 19 with already an enormous talent.

The next album I will tell you about is Controversy. Specifically, I will analyze two songs contained in the album, which are exactly the homonymous song Controversy and Ronnie Talk to Russia. Controversy was released in 1981 right after For you, Prince and Dirty Mind. This album is totally different from the previous three. Indeed, if we listen closely and attentively, we will discover that the dissimilarities lay in the sounds, melodies, lyrics, and intention with which this masterpiece was crafted. Speaking about the song Controversy, I find it extremely relevant and unique. Melodically and rhythmically, we can listen to a Prince who was enormously far from the Prince who produced and crafted I wanna be your lover and For you. Besides what I just mentioned, what I find hugely relevant about this masterpiece are the contents. Indeed, in this song, we can investigate how open-minded Prince was. The song was the product of the artist’s intelligence who took all the rumors and the fake news made against him and turned them into this song which not only was a smart clap back but it also hid an extremely deep meaning which lays in its bridge and is characterized by a spoken almost rapped part:

“ People call me rude, I wish we all were nude

I wish there was no black and white, I wish there were no rules

People call me rude, I wish we all were nude

I wish there was no black and white, I wish there were no rules

People call me rude, I wish we all were nude

I wish there was no black and white, I wish there were no rules

People call me rude, I wish we all were nude

I wish there was no black and white, I wish there were no rules “

The message Prince was delivering with this was evident: it does not matter whether we’re straight or gay, black or white, female or male, we all should be one and we are all the same. In fact quoting the artist: “So life is just a game, we’re all just the same”. In my opinion, this song is such an anthem and a hymn of freedom, and through this masterpiece, Prince encourages each of us to be ourselves no matter what. Moreover, this masterpiece, I would say, was a predictor of Prince’s whole career, as from that moment on, through his music he had always delivered the message of freedom of mind, freedom of expression, freedom to be ourselves, and a message of love and unity. Another song that I find extremely relevant for this article is Ronnie Talk to Russia. As we can infer from the title, this track had social and political purposes. Indeed, the title refers to the 40th American President Ronald Regan. Through this song, we can see another side of the artist who was very much conscious and interested in social issues. Moreover, this song was written and composed in the 1980s which means it was in the middle of the Cold War between the United States and Russia and therefore the lyrics make even more sense. Prince with the extremely earnest masterpiece was encouraging the then-President of the United States of America, to open the dialogues with Russia before it had been too late. Indeed, as the artist sang:

“ Ronnie if you're dead before I get to meet ya

Before I get to meet ya

Ronnie if you're dead before I get to meet ya

Don't say I didn't warn ya

Ronnie talk to Russia before it's too late

Before it's too late

Ronnie talk to Russia before it's too late

Before they blow up the world”

After Controversy, 1999 was released. One of my favorite songs on this album is Free, which is probably one of the most underrated in Prince’s vault. A true hymn of freedom. In my opinion, the lyrics of this masterpiece are quite self-explanatory. Basically, in this song Prince is encouraging each of us to be glad about our freedom. The kind of freedom, Prince is talking about, is the freedom of the mind which is something extremely important and that should never be taken for granted. Besides that, another of the topics contained in this masterpiece is the fugacity of life, or else that life is so short and we should never take it for granted nor should we waste it as it is something extremely precious that needs to be cherished. Moreover, this song is introduced by the beat of a heart and some steps. Perhaps the artist had a specific motivation to use these two characteristics to the point that he even used them in the song. In my opinion, Prince might have used the heartbeat to symbolize life and therefore our freedom and the fact that we should be happy for what we have which is our freedom and our life; because as Prince said, it is something some people do not have. This peculiarity is well connected to the lyrics, indeed as Prince sings:

“I know your heart is beating, my drummer tells me so

If U take your life 4 granted, your beating heart will go”

Additionally, as regards the steps used to introduce the song, this is the second detail that is exceedingly well related to the lyrics as Prince sang to be glad that we are free to go anywhere we want. Musically speaking, there is another peculiarity that makes this song even more relevant. Prince’s voice and performance are two of the major key points of this masterpiece. Indeed, in my opinion, without the proper execution of a talented artist, this song would have lost its impact and hence would have been less meaningful. The heartfelt, emotional and genuine performance the artist delivered is what makes the song even more credible, and therefore impactful. Additionally, what I find mesmerizing about Prince, is how he had always been able to create a connection with the listener through his music.

Jumping forward in time, in 1987 Prince released Sign ‘o’ the Times such a meaningful album. The album was released after Purple Rain (1984), Around the World in A Day (1985) and Parade (1986). In this masterpiece, Prince is delving into a wide range of different topics that shift from love, social issues, climate change, sex, death, new diseases, poverty, religion and so forth. Not only can we see Prince’s musical evolution in this masterpiece, but also how he was unraveling his true beautiful self as an artist and human being. There are three songs that I find extremely relevant for this article and these are the homonymous Sign ‘o the Times, Starfish and Coffee and The Cross.

Starting with Sign O the Times, this song begins with an extremely strong bassline which is entirely played by Prince like all the other instruments in this song are. Indeed, this is the first album that is not played by the Revolution. Hence Prince with this masterpiece is showing one more time his immense musical skills. Also, the instrumental part of this masterpiece is, I would say, extremely simple and neat. Indeed, a few instruments were used to craft the song. However, the arrangement is quite complex. In my opinion, Prince might have kept the instrumental part simple and neat to confer more importance to the lyrics. This was an extremely well thought and ingenious choice as thanks to it the artist is having his listener to put all their attention to the monumental lyrics of the song. As I mentioned, the lyric is the fulcrum of this song. In fact, through the eloquent, self-explanatory and skillfully written lyric, Prince is delivering such an important message. Through this work the artist is externalizing all his concerns about climate changes and social issues such as the appearance of aids, drug addiction, and poverty. The relevance of this song is still extremely actual, now more than ever. The second song I mentioned, Starfish and Coffee, is probably my favorite in this album. Perhaps because it deals with a topic that is close to my heart. According to the internet, this song was inspired by a real person. Indeed, according to Prince’s then-girlfriend, Susannah Melvoin, the song is about one of her classmates who was extremely peculiar and ignored by all her classmates except Susannah. Needless to say, that when Prince heard the story and asked for more details and eventually Starfish and Coffee was born. In addition to that, Prince then confirmed on the old website love4oneanother that this song is specifically about a little girl with special needs. Lyrically speaking also this song, is extremely eloquent. The artist’s sensitivity and gentle personal touch in telling this moving story and depicting the main character is what makes the song unique. Besides the touching story behind the song, the extremely peculiar arrangements and melodies would suggest a happy song dealing with a happy story, rather than a sad story. However, Prince might have opted for this specific arrangement either to allure the listener to pay attention to the song, or to ease a song that would have been too painful if it had had an arrangement coherent with the lyrics. The third song I mentioned is The Cross. This masterpiece probably holds the most hermetic meaning among all the songs on this album. Although the title would suggest the Cross symbolizing Jesus Christ, his name is never mentioned. Moreover, the heartwarming and reassuring lyrics and the monumental, almost Beatles-like arrangement, are two of the major points of the song. Indeed, the song opens with a few instruments and then their number increase as the melodies build up and expand like a beautiful flower opening and showing its beautiful colors. The cherry on the top of the pie is the artist’s emotional and impressive performance that never ceases to give me chills. Last but not least, I don’t know if it is just me, but this song and the intention of the performance and the arrangements are giving me Beatles vibes.

Among all the albums produced, Music from Graffiti Bridge is perhaps one of my favorite by Prince. After Lovesexy (1988) and Batman Soundtrack (1989), the artist released the soundtrack of his third movie: Graffiti Bridge. (I really recommend this movie in case you have not seen it yet). This movie despite all the comments and criticisms it received, is, in my opinion, a masterpiece that delivers such a hugely important message. It is a pity that some people are not able to look beyond appearances to search for something deeper. The album boasts the presence of a special guest and music legend or else Dr. Funk, Uncle Funk aka George Clinton. Among the songs on this masterpiece, the most meaningful and relevant are New Power Generation, Elephants and Flowers, and Still Would Stand All Time.

The first song I mentioned is New Power Generation. The message it delivers applies extremely well to music today. Indeed, the message Prince has always strived to send out through his music and life was that music’s most important and highest purpose is to change the world and people for the better. Therefore, artists should make efforts to create music with that specific aim. This lesson should be applied to music today as most of the artists today do not create music to inspire people but rather for their own advantage. Besides, the artistic and personal evolution of the singer is quite undeniable. The arrangement of the song vaunts the presence of some of Prince’s talented fellow artists such as Morris Day who skillfully executed the drumline and the beautiful singer Rosie Gaines who with her signature voice is performing the powerful background vocals. Additionally, with the soulful and expressive vocals, Prince gave proof of his skills using a good portion of his vocal extension and lastly giving proof of an extremely broad range of vocal techniques.

Another relevant song worth listening to is Elephants and Flowers. The song is perhaps one of the most spiritual on the album. The crystal-clear lyrics hide a deep meaning, lesson, and message of hope and love. In fact, through the metaphor of the Elephant and the flowers Prince is basically teaching that God created everything from something big as an Elephant to something as small as a flower. Hence, the lesson behind the metaphor is that God made us all and the prayers of those who believe in Him are not wasted in vain and He listens to them. Moreover, as in many of the artist’s songs, it could not be missed the implicit allusion to the afterworld which is being depicted as a beautiful place without sorrows, confusion, nor tears. Indeed as Prince sang:

Think I'm gonna fall in love tonight.

When I do, there won't be no more (confusion)

There won't be no more (no tears)

There won't be no more enemies, so that eliminates all the fear

And there won't be no sorrow, (sorrow)

There won't be no pain, (no pain)

There won't be no ball and no chain

Strip down, strip down, elephants and flowers.

Moreover, it is also important to pinpoint the instrumental part which is quite different from the artist’s previous works. The song is crafted with drums as the prevailing instrument followed by a skillfully played signature guitar solo. Although the relatively small number of instruments played, Prince has been able to craft an instrumental that sounds like a whole full orchestra. In my opinion, one of the reasons why the artist sometimes used a small number of instruments could be perhaps because he wanted to give importance to his vocals and the beautiful voices of the background singers. Another reason why might be that he wanted the audience to listen attentively to the lyrics. Moreover, another thing that I believe is of extreme importance, is that Prince played all the instruments in this masterpiece. Mind-blowing, isn’t it?

Another song that I find relevant is Still would Stand all Time. This was the last song played in the movie. Unlike all the other songs on the album, this one is different: firstly, because after 13 funk, rock, and pop songs, the artist decided to experiment with another music genre which is soul. Through some crystal-clear lyrics, the artist delivered a precise and straightforward message. There were no implicit messages, no inferring. Hence, the meaning is as simple as it gets: universal love, love for one another and the hope in a better world full of love, where people could finally join together, love each other, without dishonesty, anger, fear, jealousy, and greed. A world where people leave their pasts behind and join together against injustices. A world where no man will rule another man. This is basically the message Prince has lived up to his whole life. This message can be applied to today’s world and society, as we live in a world ruled by greed and anger and sorrow when instead we should be loving each other like brothers and sisters without hate, racism, greed. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we lost most of our humanity and kindness. Back to the song. Yet the peculiarity that makes the song monumental, besides the beautifully written lyrics is the instrumental. First of all, to make you understand better how brilliant Prince was, I need to say that in his song, the artist used a three-tone sampled flute from Prélude À L'Après-Midi D'Un Faune by Claude Debussy, from the cd Images For Orchestra. Besides the sampled flute, the vocal part is another relevant peculiarity. Indeed, Prince is giving one of the most touching, expressive and heartfelt performances that gets straight to the heart and soul of the listener. Additionally, not only are these vocals a joy for our ears but the choir and Prince are using an extremely wide range of vocals techniques that show how musically educated the artist was. Indeed, at the very beginning of the song we can listen to Prince singing the first line of the song and the choir using the echo technique repeats Prince’s line. The echo technique is used almost throughout the entire song, except for two lines where the vocal technique used is the call& response. Indeed, the first line where the vocal technique I mentioned, is used is:

Oh, love, love, oh love if you would just please give us a sign

Still would stand all time

In these two lines, Prince is singing the first one and the choir responds with the chorus. Moreover, the other part where this technique is used is:

Love, love, it’s not that far away if we all say yes and give it a try

(Got to give it, a try, yes!) still would stand all time (I say still)

(so many times) so many times, I thought I could not make it

(still would stand all time)

The first line is performed by the choir to which Prince responds with “Got to give it a try, yes”. The chorus is performed by the choir and Prince responds with “I say still”. In the third line, Prince and the choir switch their parts and Prince sings the mainline and the choir responds. Despite the vocal parts are dominant in this song, the instrumental is also deserving recognition. First of all, it is important to notice Prince’s ability to craft an extremely complex arrangement. Moreover, what I find mesmerizing is how this brilliant artist could use a broad spectrum of harmonies and melodies and still make them work perfectly. Indeed, if you listen attentively, you would hear Debussy flutes from the Prelude in perfect harmony with the melodies played on the piano and the beats of the drums. As regards to the piano, we can listen to several different and difficult techniques used to craft this beautiful melody. Also, it is relevant to mention the fact that Prince played each instrument you hear in this masterpiece. Moreover, I do not know if it is just me but this kind of song makes me miss Prince more and more. He had this beautiful ability to connect with people through his music and therefore touch our heart in a way only a few artists have been capable of. This song is one of them. A total monumental masterpiece.

This was the first part of a series of articles dedicated to Prince to celebrate his life and most importantly his art. Stay tuned for more. In the meantime stay home, stay safe and healthy. Peace and Love 4 one another. G💜

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miazeklos · 6 years ago

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I can’t believe I’m actually going to talk about Cersei Lannister’s character arc on tumblr dot com of all places given all the incredible (and insultingly shallow) takes I’ve had to read over the past couple of months, but here we are. Warning: this is long and discusses topics such as miscarriage and suicide and Cersei’s general cheerful state of mind, but I couldn’t resist.

It's just... honestly funny to me how so many people seem to have learnt that they scrapped Cersei's miscarriage plot and have taken in extremely personally, as if D&D decided to, I don't know, take away (yet another) instance of profound misery from this character just so that people who hate her won't have the pleasure of watching her suffer when, IMO, it's painfully obvious that what they actually wanted to give her was a tragic ending.

I mean, I already have an inkling what kind of doubtlessly nightmarish fate GRRM has got for her, but it's clear that the writers never had the same attitude towards Cersei, given the fact that they've entirely changed the character and only kept the bare, extremely necessary bones of her book plot (she’s so whitewashed at places that the High Sparrow plotline's credibility is hanging on a thread), so it makes sense that her death would be somewhat different as well. And sure, her losing the baby and then Jaime and being left with nothing but power would mean that she could go out guns blazing, face Drogon and walk backwards into Hell, but for anyone remotely invested in the character, it would feel incredibly hollow, because without the aforementioned things, Cersei has literally nothing to live for anyway. Therefore, the whole miscarriage subplot had to go.

Her attachment to her family has always been a central topic for show!Cersei, both when it comes to the children - being a mother and a queen are pretty much the only two things she readily identifies with - and to Jaime (”Without you, this is all for nothing”) and even to Tyrion, although I get that that’s not a meta the world is ready for yet. The first divergence that the show actually takes with her is giving her a backstory with child loss and adding the scene with Catelyn back at the very start, which is already a pretty major shift from book!Cersei, and it only goes further from there. Family is everything she truly cherishes. She’s suicidal and literally hates herself and the only thing that made her push forward after Tommen’s death was absolute power (a.k.a. something she’s wanted for herself all her life) and Jaime’s presence. Looking at the show from afar, she was left childless for four (4) episodes out of 73 before they gave her a new baby to look forward to.

The pregnancy was constantly mentioned. It was the reason behind Tyrion’s unwavering faith that she’d see the light because ‘she has something to live for now’ (repeated constantly in case the viewers missed it the first eighteen times), mainly because he was the only audience to windows into Cersei’s soul such as “If it weren't for my children, I would have thrown myself from the highest window of the Red Keep” and “All I could think about was keeping those gnashing teeth away from the ones that matter most, away from my family.”

(Jaime knew this too, even if he also knew that for her, power=safety and that her child’s safety was the exact reason why she wouldn’t budge. It’s followed by a very on the nose, “the worst things she’s done, she’s done for her children” as yet another reminder of the biggest running theme for her character - motherhood - right before the end.)

This is why that plotline matters. Even if the ‘WhAt WaS tHe PoInT aFtEr AlL’ complaints are not taken into account (of course Cersei was occupied with finding ways to explain her pregnancy because she’s a character in a story and is not an independent entity; unless you expect her to operate on ‘well, everyone involved in this situation will be dead by next episode so I shouldn’t bother’ basis, her actions make perfect sense), while it might not be important to the plotlines of other characters, it’s incredibly important for Cersei’s arc because it leads to where she was always going - the realisation that choosing life and freedom over the supposed safety that power gives her was always the best choice she could make for herself; that she’d always had that choice and that finally, finally she chose to run (even if she didn’t have a clear idea where she was going) and leave everything behind for the sake of what could come next. Death is so final. Life is full of possibilities.

Somewhere around here is where the tragedy comes in. She knows what matters to her the most (Jaime, their baby, her own life - yes, explicitly in that order) now, and it’s too late for her to do anything about it. This is Cersei stripped to her core. After everything else is gone, this is who she is - she’s scared for Jaime, scared for their child and, in the end, she’s scared for herself because they were so close. That’s why, before it finally sinks in that this is it and nothing else matters and at least they’re together, it’s a constant litany of ‘not like this’ - Cersei knows what she wants now, what she’s always wanted, and it’s right there in her arms, seconds before she loses it all and her final comfort is, as Lena said, that at long last, she can know peace.

There were plenty of other ways for the actual, physical death to happen, of course, but it honestly feels to me that regardless of the circumstances, her dying in this precise company - essentially with her family - was always going to be her endgame in the show and a much more satisfying conclusion to her arc than her dying with absolutely nothing left. A miscarriage would have added nothing to her character and I don’t trust anyone claiming otherwise because, again, she’s already had a similar experience before. The only thing gained would be more pointless suffering, hence all the people complaining about not getting to see it. The concept of her future child was an enormous part of the catalyst that drove her to where she was mentally by the end of 8x05 and where she was mentally by the end of 8x05 was an ever-present part of Cersei’s characterisation brought to its natural (when combined with everything else about her) conclusion.

Of course, this only makes sense if you consider her an actual character with an actual arc instead of a plot device to inconvenience your faves, and I’ve seen maybe three people actually see her in that light, so I’m not entirely sure who the target audience for this post is, but it sure has been needing an outlet for a while.

TL;DR: Thank you, D&D, for suppressing the need for angst роrn for five seconds to give your best character a slightly better storyline and for actually taking the time to develop her as a person enough for it all to make sense in the end. I shall never forget it.

P.S.: This could not more obviously be an analysis on the show version of the character, so any potential arguments that include the phrase ‘but in the books...’ will be pursued with legal action on sight.

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kley-blog · 4 years ago

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Just for the Record: COVID

This is what any well-trained virologist will tell you:

My advice: Ignore it at your peril. To quote from the Conclusion below:

When one follows the science, and nothing but the science, it becomes extremely difficult to not label ongoing mass vaccination campaigns as a crime, not only to public health but also to individual health.

Thus, it will soon be clear whether “politicians” are taking notice of medical knowledge or have a hidden political agenda driving their behavior.

We must halt all ongoing Covid-19 mass vaccination campaigns as a temporary health benefit to the most vulnerable groups does not justify a public health disaster of international concern.

Geert Vanden Bossche, DVM, PhD virology, independent seasoned vaccine researcher, previous SPO at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and SPM at GAVI is urging WHO and world political leaders to immediately halt all ongoing Covid-19 mass vaccination campaigns as there is compelling evidence that they will soon dramatically worsen the consequences of the current pandemic.

Attached to this letter, you will find a summary of the manuscript I am currently in the process of finalizing. I initially intended to attach the manuscript in full to my letter. However, given the exceptional urgency of my call, I have no choice but to send you the summary (+ conclusion) in advance. I will post the manuscript in full on LinkedIn as soon as I can (presumably in the course of next week).

In the upcoming manuscript I will share my insights on the immune pathogenesis of Coronavirus pandemics. Those are based on an in-depth analysis of Covid-19-relevant scientific literature (key references will be appended) and backed by my deep vaccine knowledge and relentless perseverance in unraveling the host’s immune defense mechanisms and strategies viruses have evolved to escape those. Understanding the interplay between the virus and the host immune system is a prerequisite for designing vaccines able to counter the immune subversive strategy of infectious pathogens. I do not think that it is reasonable for WHO or any other health authority to approve ‘emergency use’ of vaccines aimed at conducting mass vaccination campaigns in the very heat of an infectious pandemic without having gained an in-depth understanding of how this may impact on the outcome of the pandemic.

In particular, lack of understanding of the consequences of immune pressure on highly mutable viruses has now allowed for the approval of a number of Covid-19 vaccines that are completely contraindicated for fighting a pandemic, regardless of the technology used. Although safe and efficacious and providing temporary relief to part of the population and to healthcare facilities, these vaccines will soon come with a heavy toll to be paid by the entire population if mass vaccination campaigns continue.

Again, given the urgency of my call, I will neither allow time for peer-review, nor for English proofreading, nor for fine-tuning the wording or for screening the manuscript for redundancy. As I merely seek to provide enough of compelling scientific proof for sounding this warning bell, I will not deal with relevant matters as exhaustively as I would normally do. Clearly, the upcoming manuscript is not meant to be submitted to a scientific peer-reviewed journal but to explain the scientific rationale behind my cry of distress and urgent wake-up call. May they for God’s sake draw the world’s attention to what I think is now likely to become the biggest and most tragic mistake made in the history of public health in general and in the field of vaccination in particular.

To support my wake-up call and credibility, I am not nearly as much relying on my credentials (which you can find at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geertvandenbossche/) as I am on a diversified set of relevant scientific reports from the literature and on the evolution of the pandemic itself. The latter is now featured by the emergence of much more infectious viral variants.

Nevertheless, you may still opt for now to not believe the statements, conclusions and forecasts that will be made in this manuscript and which have already been summarized as attached. However, I have no doubt that in the days and weeks to come ‘doubting Thomas’ will have to admit that he was proven wrong. In the meantime, these disastrous vaccination campaigns will likely be intensified and even extended to younger age groups. Given the power, influence and blind ambition of the stakeholders driving these campaigns, it is going to be incredibly difficult to stop this act of complete madness. When all of them will finally have to admit the catastrophic consequences of this ‘experiment’, precious time and, more importantly, many more lives will have been lost. Eventually, complete lockdowns will likely be imposed for an indefinite period of time as a last resort.

Although largely based on direct or indirect scientific evidence, the views expressed in the manuscript will be my personal views. Of course, I take full accountability of what I am saying and I can only hope that those who’re in charge will be sufficiently convinced to take their responsibility and stop all ongoing Covid-19 vaccination campaigns immediately. There should be no excuse and certainly no complaints about lack of warnings by dedicated experts. I cannot emphasize enough that continuing these vaccination endeavors will dramatically prolong, instead of shorten, the current pandemic and take a much higher toll in terms of disease and fatality rates in all of the population. It goes without saying that a such enhancement of this crisis will come with unbearable socio-economic consequences for many years to come.

The manuscript will provide compelling evidence that – as far as acute self-limiting viral infections are concerned - the natural course (i.e., without human intervention!) of a Coronavirus pandemic is typically featured by 3 waves that ultimately flatten as the infection merges into a seasonal ‘common cold.’ However, it is difficult to predict how long it would take a natural Covid-19 pandemic to ‘downgrade’ to yet another kind of seasonal ‘common cold’ without human intervention. Maybe somewhere between 2 to 4 years, but that’s a personal guess. This is, of course, not to say that in the meantime one should not do whatever is possible to mitigate the disease in those developing severe symptoms. But first, “do no harm” (“primum non nocere”): Given the huge amount of immune escape that will be provoked my mass vaccination campaigns and flanking containment measures, it is difficult to imagine how human interventions would not cause the Covid-19 pandemic to turn into an incredible disaster for global and individual health.

I would have been able to put the appended manuscript together without having dedicated the last 10 years of my career to designing an entirely new vaccine concept that aims at enabling our immune system to kill a multitude of infectious (and even, noninfectious) diseases without allowing the pathogen, or any ‘variant’ editions thereof, to escape the immune response induced. In contrast, all of the current Covid-19 vaccines rely on strengthening adaptive (as opposed to innate) immunity in general, and humoral (i.e. antibodies) in particular. Hence, none of them will prevent immune escape and, for that matter, all will be subject to anti-viral resistance. Adapting the composition to the new circulating variants does not solve the problem as science tells us that this will even accelerate the rate of immune escape (in asymptomatic Covid-19 carriers).

Isn’t it surprising that while we have now become so well aware of all dramatic consequences and threats surrounding microbial resistance to antibiotics, we still don’t believe that fighting viruses in ways

that do not completely kill them opens the door to vaccine resistance? While we have been taught to always take the medication for as long as prescribed, even if we were already feeling much better, we still don’t seem to believe that viruses can escape to specific antibodies if antibody concentrations or affinity are no longer sufficient to neutralize the virus. Widespread use of antibiotics is generally acknowledged to raise a serious global concern about antimicrobial resistance, but nobody seems to bother about resistance to vaccines that are used in mass vaccination campaigns in the context of an ongoing pandemic. Since those are conducted against a huge infectious background, a multitude of vaccinees will be in the process of seroconverting while being exposed to circulating infectious virus. Prophylactic vaccines against viral or other infectious diseases are typically administered well in advance of a likely risk of infectious exposure. While this is ensuring full-fledged protection to the infectious agent, it is also preventing immune escape and hence, resistance to the vaccine. Aren’t we not already witnessing an increasing number of cases of Covid-19 vaccinated people who still shed virus and sometimes even develop mild symptoms? Aren’t these cases compelling enough in proving how easily Covid-19 viruses can escape antibody responses? How can we then be so excited about current Covid- 19 vaccines knowing that they allow immune escape and thus, enable the virus to select more infectious variants? And do we really think that going for a one dose shot (instead of the prescribed 2-dose vaccination schedule), as some propose, is not going to even expedite immune escape?

In our naïve and simplistic attempt to prevent the pandemic from running its natural course, we are in fact providing the beast with an even much better opportunity to escape host immunity than natural infection does. The only way to do better than the natural pandemic is to eradicate Covid-19 right away. To do so, there is probably no other way but to concentrate on vaccination strategies that allow DURABLE priming of innate immune killer cells (i.e., NK cells), the activation of which has already been shown to correlate with full viral clearance in asymptomatically Covid-19-infected subjects. As innate cytotoxic cells enable non-antigen-specific killing of the virus, they don’t drive immune escape.

By implementing immune intervention strategies that capitalize on empowering these innate immune cells to acquire immunologic memory, it must be possible to fully, broadly and durably protect human populations against all Covid-19 editions, and even against Coronaviruses at large. The ‘sterilizing’ immunity they provide would not only protect people who would ‘naturally’ become asymptomatically infected (but, unfortunately, only enjoy natural protection for as long as they keep their innate immune system well-trained through moderate but regular pathogen exposure) but also subjects who would ‘naturally’ develop (severe) symptoms or even succumb to the disease.

In conclusion, fostering the development of NK cell-based vaccines should become a public health priority. As will become obvious from the manuscript, NK-cell based hold great promise for stopping this pandemic at its source while also ensuring future preparedness to emerging pandemic threats at large.

Immediate cancellation of all ongoing Covid-19 mass vaccination campaigns should now become THE most acute health emergency of international concern.

Executive summary

The manuscript, which is in now in the process of being finalized, should shed some light on how the virus and especially its interaction with the host immune system determines the natural course (i.e., without human intervention) of a Coronavirus (CoV) pandemic. The interplay between host immune defense and viral immune escape determines the course of a natural CoV pandemic (including a natural Covid-19 pandemic).

In the clinic, viral immune escape is known to occur when the neutralizing capacity of serum antibodies (Abs) does not suffice to fully eliminate highly mutable viruses (e.g., CoV) for lack of their concentration or affinity. In a CoV pandemic setting, seroconversion occurs against a background of high infectious pressure and is, therefore, prone to promote viral immune escape.

The first wave of disease 1 (and mortality) primarily affects elderly people (or otherwise immunocompromised subjects). Selective (i.e., adaptive) immune escape is expected to cause this wave to transition into a more severe, second wave in younger age groups. Subsequently, non-selective (i.e., innate) as well as selective immune escape operated by increasingly infectious viral variants will trigger a third wave. The latter would primarily affect subjects who recovered from disease they contracted during the first wave as their seroneutralising Abs do no longer properly match the new circulating viral variants. This third wave of disease (and mortality) would come to an end when those who recovered from the disease will have mounted new functional Abs against these immune escape variants. As seroconversion in this population will now occur much faster (due to recall of cross-reactive T helper memory cells) and as the majority of the young and middle-aged population will either be seronegative or have seroconverted already by the time the third wave starts to expand, chances are slim for the virus to escape the host’s Ab response. Asymptomatic 2, seronegative individuals (i.e., the vast majority of young and middle-aged people) may spread virus upon (re-)infection and hence, constitute a relevant source of viral transmission. However, CoV infection in these asymptomatic carriers is abrogated after a short period of viral shedding. Viral clearance in these subjects is likely to occur through activation of NK cells. The latter are capable of recognizing CoV-associated, antigen (Ag)-nonspecific patterns on the surface of CoV-infected epithelial target cells. As killing by NK cells is, therefore, not Ag-specific and as seroconversion

1. For the purpose of the manuscript, ‘disease’ refers to severe Covid-19 disease with involvement of lower respiratory airways 2. For the purpose of the manuscript, ‘asymptomatic’ infection refers to CoV infection which does not cause clinically relevant symptoms or only causes a mild level of disease (i.e., only involving upper respiratory airways) in asymptomatically infected subjects is only short-lived, viral immune escape does not normally occur. Consequently, new, more infectious, variants are unlikely to emerge from this population as long as viral infectiousness does not dramatically increase.

At the point of ‘no immune escape’, the pandemic will be under control and merge into an endemic infection. However, as long as the point of ‘no immune escape’ isn’t reached, any additional immune selection pressure, for example as a result of suboptimal concentration or affinity of Ag-specific (e.g., spike protein-specific) Abs, will allow the virus to rapidly unfold more infectious, immune escape variants. Additional immune selection pressure, especially when exerted during the second wave of a CoV pandemic, is likely to precipitate and amplify viral immune escape. This might even cause the second and third wave to merge into a single huge wave of mortality and disease that affects all layers of the population (possibly, with the exception of small children).

Especially mass vaccination campaigns, particularly when conducted in the midst of a pandemic, are prone to exerting enormous immune pressure on circulating virus strains. This is because the vaccine is used in an increasingly infectious context (as escape variants are more infectious). Mass vaccination campaigns will accelerate the emergence of even more infectious immune escape variants. This because the number of vaccine recipients who seroconvert within a given time period will dramatically increase . In addition, Ag-specific, high affinity Abs induced by any of the current vaccines will outcompete natural, broadly protective mucosal IgM antibodies as the latter only bind with low affinity to the receptor-binding domain of CoV (RBD). This will particularly affect natural resistance of younger age groups which - thanks to a well-trained innate immune system- resisted disease during the first wave. The new circulating CoV variants may now even be able to escape the host’s CoV variant-nonspecific line of immune defense at the mucosal portal of entry. These age groups may, therefore, become more susceptible to symptomatic infection and shedding caused by more infectious variants.

But mass vaccination campaigns will also have severe consequences for those who got vaccinated first (mostly the elderly or people with underlying disease or those who are otherwise immunocompromised). In the highly likely event that mass vaccination will soon result in antiviral resistance (see below), these people will have no single bit of immunity left to rely upon. In contrast to the infectious circulating virus, current vaccines do either not contain any critical killer cell motif or fail to activate dedicated killer cells. It goes, therefore, without saying that vaccine-induced immune responses will inevitably result in a dramatic enhancement of morbidity and mortality rates in all of the human population (except for small children?).

Alike naturally infected subjects, vaccine recipients need time to mount a full-fledged Ag-specific Ab response. Further to all of the above, low exposure to circulating CoV strains (e.g., due to stringent containment measures) will increasingly weaken innate mucosal immunity for lack of training. Again, this is particularly relevant for those who - thanks to their sufficient and adequate innate immune defense – got away with asymptomatic infection during the first wave. Stringent and widespread infection prevention measures are now increasingly compromising their innate immunity and rendering them more susceptible to symptomatic infection. Especially the younger age groups may, therefore, end up with relatively higher morbidity and mortality rates, even regardless of the emergence of more infectious viral variants. This is to say that broadly implemented infection prevention measures will only amplify the already detrimental consequences of ongoing mass vaccination campaigns. It is reasonable to assume that the combination of non-selective and selective immune escape will cause morbidity and mortality rates in younger age groups to explode.

The more Covid-19 vaccination campaigns in the young and middle-age groups will be delayed (i.e., relative to their initiation in the elderly), the more they will enhance morbidity and mortality rates in this group: By the time mass vaccination campaigns are about to start in the young and middle-aged groups, a substantial number of these people will already have been infected with Covid-19. Enhanced rates of infection by highly infectiousness viral variants significantly has now increased the likelihood for them to become re-infected while being in the process of seroconverting. So, by the time vaccinations will be initiated, viral immune escape in this group may already be fueling a vicious circle of enhanced viral infectiousness resulting in more seroconversion and hence, more immune escape. Mass vaccination campaigns in this group will only dramatically deteriorate the situation as they will lead to a fast and massive increase in the number of asymptomatic subjects that are in the process of seroconverting against a highly infectious background. and, therefore, prone to promoting viral immune escape. As there is naturally no reason for them to isolate, there will be plenty of opportunity for the highly infectious circulating strains to replicate in the presence of suboptimal Ab titers and, therefore, to escape the host’s immune control.

Hence, the more vaccination campaigns in this group get delayed, the more selection of even more infectious viral variants will be expedited. The ensuing exponential increase in viral immune escape rates will ultimately enable viral variants to even break through vaccine- mediated protection in the vaccinated elderly. As their Abs increasingly mismatch the ever more infectious emerging variants, they will no longer manage to control viral replication and shedding and rapidly allow for massive viral immune escape. Because seroprotective Abs primarily confer protection through targeting Covid-19’s RBD, the virus will now increasingly select mutations in this particular part of the spike protein as those most readily enable the virus to escape vaccine-induced Abs. This will inevitably precipitate resistance to the vaccine. As a result of mass vaccination, people who got the vaccine first will suddenly no longer be protected and, despite vaccination, fall prey to a wave of catastrophic morbidity and mortality.

There can, therefore, be no doubt that current vaccination strategies are rendering the impact of mass vaccination campaigns even more catastrophic and only adding to the magnitude of a pending global health disaster. However, mass vaccination also harms individual health as vaccine-induced variant-specific Abs will outcompete natural variant-nonspecific mucosal Abs for binding to CoV variants and thereby deprive individuals from their broadly protective natural (life)line of immune defense.

As large scale vaccination campaigns combined with the sustained implementation of several containment measures will only expedite the occurrence of viral escape mutations, the illusory hope that current Covid-19 vaccines could generate herd immunity should once and for all be thrown overboard. Along the same line of reasoning, it is not unthinkable that Covid-19 will, once again, cross species barriers. One can definitely not rule out that with growing immune- mediated selection of virus variants, Covid-19 is ultimately going to be able to jump to other animal species, especially industrial livestock (e.g., intensive pig and poultry farms with high stocking density) as i) these species are already known to host several different Coronaviruses and ii) variability/ mutations in the very same spike protein, and particularly in the RBD, are known to be responsible for shifts in host tropism/ susceptibility. Similar to the situation with influenza virus, these animal species could then constitute a reservoir for SARS-COVID-2 virus. Depending on the prevalence of circulating animal CoVs in those farms (and hence, the level of trained immunity), those animals could now serve as asymptomatic carriers, thereby constituting a serious threat to humans.

Conclusion:

The combination of mass vaccination and infection prevention measures is a recipe for a global health disaster. Following the science, one has to conclude that all age groups (possibly with the exception of small children) will be heavily affected and subject to rates of morbidity and mortality that raise much faster and much higher than those expected to occur during the natural course of a CoV pandemic. This will particularly apply if the sequence of mass vaccinations following the first infectious wave parallels that of natural infection (i.e., immunocompromised people and elderly first, followed by the younger age groups).

No one, for that matter, should be granted a right to implement large-scale pharmaceutic and non-pharmaceutic immune interventions, especially not during a viral pandemic, and certainly not without an in-depth understanding of the immune pathogenesis of a viral pandemic. When one follows the science, and nothing but the science, it becomes extremely difficult to not label ongoing mass vaccination campaigns as a crime, not only to public health but also to individual health.

To substantiate the reasoning above, the manuscript will first explain how components of the innate immune system can protect against Covid-19 and render infections asymptomatic. It will then go on to explain in more detail why and how, in an immunologically Covid-19-naïve population, selective (i.e., adaptive) immune escape shifts the first wave of disease and death from the elderly (and immunocompromised) subjects to those who at the outset of the pandemic got away with asymptomatic infection (i.e., the younger and middle-aged population segment). Similarly, it will be explained how viral immune escape in the asymptomatically infected population finally shifts back the burst of morbidity and mortality to the elderly, and how the population eventually controls the pandemic by controlling viral immune escape. This will already illustrate the critical importance of desiccating the changing contribution of innate and adaptive immunity to the population’s overall immune defense against a viral pandemic. Understanding these dynamics helps to comprehend the sophisticated course of a natural CoV pandemic, how it eventually merges into an endemic infection and why human intervention has a highly detrimental impact on the refined interplay between the virus and its host. In regard of the latter, the devastating global health impact of ongoing mass vaccination campaigns and accompanying stringent and widespread containment measures will be explained in more detail as the global and individual health consequences could simply be unbearable for many years to come.

After the introductory section on innate immune defense mechanisms relevant to Covid-19, other relevant topics will be addressed in form of questions and answers. Last, a section will be dedicated to the scientific rationale for using NK cell-based vaccines that could provide sterilizing immunity and hence, wipe out Covid-19 and related variants all together.

The natural course of a CoV pandemic is controlled by the population’s innate and adaptive immunity and dramatically aggravated by antibody-based vaccines when used in mass vaccination campaigns conducted in the course of the pandemic and flanked by stringent containment measures.

NAC:

Natural asymptomatic carrier : for the purpose of this manuscript, NAC is defined as a subject disposing upon a level of innate immunity high enough to resist disease

nonNAC:

For the purpose of this manuscript, nonNAC is defined as a subject who is not endowed with a level of innate immunity high enough to be able to resist disease when exposed to infectious virus during the first wave

Author: G. Vanden Bossche, DVM, PhD; 26 February 2021

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Borat 2: Rudy Giuliani ‘Tucking Shirt’ Excuse is Irrelevant

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Having been online for a little more than a weekend, the climax to Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat 2—or its full title of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan—has already become the stuff of legend. Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, once dubiously titled “America’s Mayor,” and current personal attorney of President Donald Trump, appeared to be sticking his hand down his pants while in the hotel room of a young woman.

At least that’s how the news started trickling out last week when the review embargo lifted on Borat 2, and it’s a public perception that Giuliani and his cohorts in the White House immediately began trying to discredit before anyone in the general audience saw the movie on Amazon Prime Video.

The moment in question occurs late in the film, with Giuliani reclined on a bed after Maria Bakalova takes off his lavender microphone. Bakalova is playing the character of Tutar Sagdiyev, who is in turn pretending to be an alt-right conservative journalist from eastern Europe, hence how she’s ensnared Giuliani into a pseudo-prank. For the moment occurs after he’s followed her into a hotel bedroom to “have a drink.” Once she takes off his mic, he lies down on his back and over the course of several shots edited together from several hidden cameras around the room, he is seen with his hand in his pants.

The obvious implication to many when the news broke, and possibly to the filmmakers, is that Giuliani’s hand is on his genitals. And it’s a reading of the moment that the controversial politician flatly denies.

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Giuliani attempted to get ahead of the movie when he tweeted, “(1) The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar. In fact, the NY Post today reports ‘it looks to me like an exaggeration through editing.’”

And to be completely fair, his clinging to The New York Post’s reading may not be unfounded. It’s clear in the now widely available film that the moment with his hand in his pants is cut together in a way that extends the length of the scene for dramatic (or comedic) effect. He does, in fact, appear to be tucking his shirt in (at least initially), and the way the story was first broken last week emphasized that Baron Cohen’s character cried, “She was 15,” when Barkalova is actually 24.

Yet even if he was only tucking in his shirt, the distinction matters little for an increasingly disgraced politician who’s inserted himself into the center of a shady conspiracy theory—and after he played a central role in the scandal that got President Trump impeached earlier this year.

For starters, whether or not Giuliani kept his hand in his pants for longer than necessary, the fact that he was in the situation as a public figure of his age and position of power is already inappropriate. Here is a 76-year-old man, with two children in their 30s, happily allowing himself to be lured into a bedroom by a woman he is supposed to be having a professional interaction with—a woman in her early 20s and who he was tricked into believing was a teenager. Even before lying on his back, he was visibly flirting with Bakalova and suggested, “You can give me your phone number and your address” while she was taking off his mic. To reaffirm his apparent interest, he placed a hand on her hip and reclined on his back. It’s a strange position for any person to be in to tuck in their shirt, to put it mildly.

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But the bigger, and more important, reason his and some media outlets’ equivocating is irrelevant is because Giuliani finding himself in this situation demonstrates extraordinarily bad judgment. The kind of bad judgment that Giuliani, by his own design, has attempted to make a focal point in the 2020 presidential election.

In a handful of minutes, a pretty smile and some flattering words convinced Giuliani to place himself in a compromising situation that’s turned him into a laughing stock around the world. In essence, he handed “Borat,” of all people, the kind of video Russian intelligence officials would deem “kompromat.” Kompromat is a term that originated inside the KGB during the Soviet reign of Joseph Stalin, but it’s become popularized in the 21st century as “compromising material” that Russian intelligence services are accused of regularly collecting on public figures as a resource for blackmail, extortion, and control.

This is important to know since The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the White House was warned in December 2019 of Giuliani being the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence. The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, which showed the president’s personal lawyer interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence. At the time, he was on a quest to obtain information that could be used to incriminate, or at least smear, Hunter Biden and his father, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Apparently National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien personally warned Trump that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered “contaminated.” The president responded to the intelligence by allegedly saying, “That’s Rudy.”

Cut to October 2020 and Giuliani has attempted to engineer a damaging October surprise at Democratic nominee Biden’s expense by sharing with The New York Post a computer hard drive he claims belonged to Hunter Biden, and which he and the New York tabloid assert proves Hunter traded on his father’s influence on American foreign policy in exchange for money.

Giuliani’s story does not directly implicate Ukraine as the source of the laptop and its allegedly damning intelligence. He and computer repairman John Paul Mac Isaac claim that Hunter Biden dropped the laptop off in Mac Isaac’s Delaware repair shop, even though Hunter does not live in Delaware, and is said to have forgotten he left the incriminating laptop there because he was drunk at the time—it’s also worth noting that Mac Isaac is legally blind.

This has led to a fair amount of skepticism about the actual source of the laptop, including by Fox News, whose newsroom refused to publish images from Giuliani’s “laptop from hell” without further evidence or separate sourcing to corroborate it. Indeed, the New York Post journalist who actually wrote the piece to Giuliani’s specifications refused to have his name on the byline due to questions about the validity of the laptop.

Meanwhile the conspiracy theory Giuliani’s attempted “surprise” tries to feed into has been repeatedly discredited and dismissed, including last month by Republican senators who released an 87-page report from the joint findings of the U.S. Senate Security and Finance Committees. They found no evidence of wrongdoing or improper influence by then-Vice President Biden.

Whether more news actually comes from Giuliani’s “laptop from hell,” its association with Giuliani is, in the words of the national security adviser, “contaminated,” just as Giuliani’s credibility is further demolished by the fact he found himself compromised by Borat.

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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OPINION

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: A Partnership Too Important To Fail

Strategic partnerships between two countries take years of patient hard work to build. They are unlikely to founder with the rhetoric that became the basis of the alleged Saudi-Pak rift, writes former senior Saudi diplomat Dr. Ali Awadh Asseri

The strategic relationship assumed added significance when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman paid a state visit to Pakistan in 2019. (AFP)

In recent days, disturbing reports have appeared in Pakistani media and then picked up by foreign media that aim to sabotage the historic partnership between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Their apparent motivation is to create a rift in the Muslim Ummah, by questioning the principled position of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) on Kashmir and linking it with Saudi Arabia’s economic support to Pakistan.

Even more worrisome is the fact that these damaging reports draw upon the remarks made by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, in an interview to a local new channel on August 5.

In that interview, he warned that if the OIC failed to meet Pakistan’s expectation for calling a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, he would be “compelled to ask Prime Minister Imran Khan to call a meeting of the Islamic countries that are ready to stand with us on the issue of Kashmir and support the oppressed Kashmiris.”

FM Qureshi’s remarks have been followed up by speculative media accounts about Saudi Arabia suspending its emergency economic support to Pakistan. So much so that the OIC and, by implication, founder Saudi Arabia were blamed for not doing enough for the Kashmir cause.

Sadly, no one has yet bothered to seek the Saudi perspective on the two issues, which are neither remotely connected nor are they factually correct. So, a clarification is very much in order to set the record straight.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have always enjoyed an incomparable level of understanding and friendship based on common religious, cultural and social values.

Their unique relations are rooted in the mutual love of the people and, hence, have historically been immune from any changes in government or leadership in the two great nations.

That is why, with each passing decade, the Saudi-Pak cooperation in political, security and economic spheres has grown by leaps and bounds.

In February 2019, the strategic relationship assumed added significance when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman paid a state visit to Pakistan, where he was graciously driven by Prime Minister Imran Khan from the Islamabad airport to the Prime Minister House.

Their personal chemistry, developed through frequent interactions in the year before, paid its dividends, as the Crown Prince signed on the emergency economic relief package worth $6.2 billion for Pakistan, including $3 billion in loan and $3.2 oil credit facility on annual basis for the next three years, to shore up its foreign exchange reserves and avert a balance-of-payments crisis.

This emergency relief package conformed to a familiar pattern persisting in the past over two decades, whereby Saudi Arabia would provide oil on deferred payments to Pakistan whenever it ran into economic difficulty. However, the economic crisis was much worse this time, as Pakistan faced the risk of defaulting on its foreign debt obligations.

“If Foreign Minister Qureshi’s veiled reference is towards another Kuala Lumpur-style gathering, then it is a dangerous proposition that could be least expected from a brotherly country” — Dr. Ali Awadh Asseri

Hence, Saudi Arabia was the first to come to its rescue in November 2018 by offering the $6.2 billion relief package. The UAE also joined hands later. This was several months before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved its $6 billion bailout for Pakistan in July 2019.

However, a far more important development during the Crown Prince’s visit was the conclusion of the largest-ever Saudi investment deals worth $20 billion in Pakistan, including an oil refinery in Gwadar worth $10 billion and the remaining investments in petrochemical complex, mining and renewable energy sectors.

It signified that Saudi Arabia was now interested in Pakistan’s long-term economic development, as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that ends at the strategic Gwadar port.

It is worth mentioning here that China is the largest importer of Saudi oil, and Saudi Arabia is also diversifying its global economic links through participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and by expanding trade ties with the rest of Asia’s emerging economies.

Thus, while the recent expansion in Saudi-Pak economic cooperation is mutually inclusive and not at cross purposes with the BRI or CPEC, it is also important to state that the two brotherly Muslim nations have always stood shoulder to shoulder with each other in difficult times.

For instance, in 1990, Pakistan sent its ground forces to defend Saudi Arabia against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Three decades later, Pakistan’s former army chief General Raheel Sharif leads the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism, which is comprised of 41 Muslim nations.

From defending the sanctity of Haramain Sharifain to defeating the scourge of terrorism, Pakistan has always been a key Saudi partner and a major Muslim player.

Having served as the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan during the tumultuous period from 2001 to 2009, I vividly remember the gravity of terrorism that both nations faced post-9/11 and how we confronted this menace together in the heyday of the War on Terror.

I maintained close interaction with the civilian and military leadership to ensure Pakistan remains secure and stable. I also remember the fateful days when a devastating earthquake hit the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Saudi Arabia instantly established an air corridor to provide emergency relief to its victims.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have also closely cooperated to achieve the common goals of regional peace and stability in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Thus, out of my personal conviction, on August 5, when Pakistan officially observed Youm-e-Istehsal-e-Kashmir to express solidarity with the suffering Kashmiris, I penned a piece in these columns to highlight the plight of the Kashmiri Muslims and the urgency of resolving the longstanding Kashmir dispute.

However, the very next morning, I was saddened to come across FM Qureshi’s comments on the OIC’s role in Kashmir, which are far from reality. The fact is that the OIC’s Contact Group on Kashmir, led by Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador Yousef M. Aldobeay, had visited the AJK, including the Line of Control, for almost a week in March this year.

The Contact Group subsequently held a virtual meeting in June, inaugurated by OIC Secretary General Dr. Yousef A. Al-Othaimeen, who reiterated the “OIC's commitment to finding a peaceful settlement for the Jammu and Kashmir issue as per the relevant resolutions of the Islamic Summit, the Council of Foreign Ministers, and the international legitimacy.”

Also, deferring to Pakistani sensitivities on Kashmir post-August 5, the statement issued after the Contact Group’s meeting rejected the ‘Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Order 2020’ and the ‘Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate Rules 2020’ aimed at changing the demographic structure of the disputed territory.

It “reaffirmed the OIC’s continued support for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and called on the UN Secretary General to use his good offices to make India abide by the UN Security Council resolutions.”

Such a resolute response to the evolving Kashmir tragedy by the OIC Secretary General and the Contact Group on Kashmir, preceded by its fact-finding mission to the AJK, left little scope for yet another declaration by the Council of Foreign Ministers on Kashmir.

Moreover, the global pandemic had limited the scope of holding major diplomatic gatherings. Yet, FM Qureshi has chosen to tarnish the OIC’s credibility by insisting on the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting.

“Let us not allow baseless rhetoric to jeopardize a time-tested relationship or create a rift within the Ummah.”

A year ago, Pakistan had, indeed, achieved a major success by managing to convene an emergency consultative session of the UN Security Council immediately after India’s annexation of Jammu and Kashmir and imposition of lockdown in the disputed territory.

Unfortunately, since then, the Foreign Ministry under Mr. Qureshi has been unable to build upon this initial success in international diplomacy on Kashmir. So, one plausible explanation for his frustrating bid to blame the OIC is to cover up his own failure in Kashmir.

However, from the Saudi standpoint, FM Qureshi’s threat to organize “a meeting of the Islamic countries” on Kashmir without the OIC mandate is more worrying. Saudi Arabia is the citadel of Islam, for being the location of Islam’s holiest places of worship at Makkah and Madinah. Therefore, it has always struggled against any effort or instance aimed at dividing the Muslim Ummah.

Last December, Pakistan had acted wisely by boycotting one such gathering in Kuala Lumpur, which was an attempt orchestrated primarily by Turkey and Iran to challenge the leadership of the OIC.

If FM Qureshi’s veiled reference is towards any such gathering, then it is a dangerous proposition that could be least expected from a brotherly country whose people, like those of Turkey and Iran, have always craved the unity of Ummah.

Such a step would benefit the current Turkish and Iranian regimes and leaders, who thrive on dividing the Ummah. From Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and Libya, their hands are soaked in the blood of suffering Muslim populations. They support terrorist proxies, and have created mess and mayhem in Muslim lands.

For 40 years, Iran has intruded into Arab affairs for heinous ends. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has confirmed in his June report to the Security Council, it is arming the rebellious Houthis in Yemen, and sponsoring their missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Last month, FM Qureshi was himself talking on phone with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud to share Pakistan’s deep concern on the armed attacks against Saudi Arabia. Then, how come he now contemplates an option sponsored by Tehran?

It is quite unfortunate for Turkey that it is led by a megalomaniac neo-Ottoman whose insatiable quest for domestic control and regional hegemony knows no bounds. For almost two decades, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invoked old wounds to upset domestic peace and regional geopolitics. His personal spree for dividing the Islamic world has gained momentum more recently.

Why should Pakistan fall into this trap?

Strategic partnerships between two nation states take years of patient hard work to build. Hence, they are unlikely to founder with the baseless rhetoric of a misguided individual that became the basis of the alleged rift in Saudi-Pak ties. An exemplary spirit of reciprocity characterizes these ties, whereby both Riyadh and Islamabad understand each other’s national sensitivities and limitations.

For this reason, Saudi Arabia did not raise an eyebrow when the Pakistani parliament in 2015 decided not to support its military effort to restore an internationally recognized government in Yemen. The irony in Kashmir’s case is that neither Saudi Arabia nor its Gulf allies intend any ill-will that goes against Pakistani interests or Kashmiri aspirations. Then, how can anyone even think of blaming them for not doing enough on Kashmir?

“Even if any differences have emerged over any issue due to some misunder-standing, the standard practice is to resolve them mutually through political and diplomatic channels available to both nations.”

Of course, it is a reality that Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in India as part of its growing economic engagement with Asia. India also has as many workers in Saudi Arabia, if not more, as Pakistan does, numbering close to 3 million and contributing billions of dollars in remittances back home.

Does such a deepening economic engagement or interlocking dependence not provide Saudi Arabia with a realistic clout to influence India’s policy for Kashmir peace? Also, has Pakistan itself ever unilaterally given up the bilateral process for Kashmir settlement with India while simultaneously pressing for the implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir?

As for the reported issues in Saudi emergency economic relief package for Pakistan, first of all, the media has not verified them from official Saudi sources. Like those of its Gulf allies, Saudi Arabia’s economy has come under severe strain due to the coronavirus pandemic and consequent slide in global oil prices. Both the people and foreign workers are bearing its brunt.

Then, Pakistan, despite the pandemic, does not face the sort of economic crisis it did prior to its economic deal with the IMF. However, even if any differences have emerged over this issue due to some misunderstanding, the standard practice is to resolve them mutually through a multitude or political and diplomatic channels available to both nations.

By bringing such differences into the public domain, as FM Qureshi did through his emotional outburst over OIC’s position on Kashmir or the unverified media reports did on the Saudi economic support to Pakistan, we allow the forces inimical to the interests of both nations to sabotage their historic partnership.

Fortunately, the Saudi-Pak ties are so exceptionally rooted in the deep religious, political and social aspirations of the people that they tend to survive untoward instances such as the current one.

In fact, the level of Saudi-Pak defense cooperation is so deep and wide that the present conspiracy to jeopardize our time-tested ties seems to be fizzling out as quickly as it surfaced on the scene.

Little surprise that on the eve of the current visit of Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa to Riyadh, Major-General Babar Iftikhar, Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations, has categorically said: Saudi-Pak “relations are historic, very important, have always been excellent and will remain so. There should be no doubt of this … Nobody should doubt the centrality of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Muslim world. Our hearts beat with the people of Saudi Arabia. So, there is no need to raise any questions on our relations with one another.”

Where does FM Qureshi’s diatribe stand after this? Will PM Imran Khan remind him to be careful in future, as any damage to our brotherly ties goes against our respective national interests and public aspirations?

As Saudi Arabia diversifies its economy away from oil under its Vision 2030, a strategic plan that is the brainchild of our young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, we expect millions of more Pakistanis to contribute to Saudi infrastructure and technological development. The Saudi government has already extended scores of scholarships to educate and train Pakistani youth for this great opportunity.

We have long-term political and economic stakes in Pakistan and are gratified to see greater interaction between the businessmen and traders of the two countries in the past couple of years. Is it not wonderful to note that even amid the current pandemic, Pakistani exports to Saudi Arabia were reported to have increased by 34 percent in June?

Let me conclude by saying that the Saudi-Pak historic partnership is too important to fail. It will blossom in future, just as it did in history, defeating any attempt to sabotage it along the way, with the love and devotion of our two peoples.

— Dr. Ali Awadh Asseri is a former senior Saudi diplomat who served as ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Pakistan from 2001 to 2009. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Beirut Arab University and has written a book titled “Combating Terrorism: Saudi Arabia’s Role in the War on Terror.”

— Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

— Arab News | DR. ALI AWADH ASSERI | August 17, 2020

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doesitreallywork · 6 years ago

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Find all the info you could ever want on The Procrastination Fix inside this post – we reviewed exactly what you can find inside and expect from it!

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The Procrastination Fix Review – Does It Really Work?

Without a doubt college should have been the one location that brought you to very first recognizing this weed of future past, laziness. Ask the individuals behind newest developments in professions and also freelance. You’ll be informed someplace along the line they by-passed laziness.

You might not comprehend the term itself significantly however trust me; it’s something you carry out in your day-to-day tasks. Like I discussed to you in the past, Laziness is a weed of the future past.

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That best there people is the common most repercussion of laziness. About, the subject translates to our propensity of brushing off right stuff that appears much less appropriate till we find it was of different value.

Does the above circumstance ever before connect to your individual life? Or you’re so badgered by a close friend or bro that has the propensity to put things off? You remain in good luck since this evaluation has the excellent method to minimize these old practices.

Laziness Fix- What its capability?

When you hear of a solution for your problems, you’re possibly so fast right into getting right into the suggestion without totally recognizing the entire idea. The function of this testimonial is to bring this fix right into the light, initially.

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Simply put what this overview does, like various other testimonials on Laziness fix, it primarily cords your mind on just how to hack previous laziness. The item likewise called The Halo Technique as directly described by the writer shows you very easy lessons on exactly how to place an end to laziness. You can call it a mind course if you please.

The Procrastination Fix- Exactly how does it function?

Miraculous assurance that this item will use you a solution is due to the fact that it covers the reasons individuals usually have right prior to laziness. The lessons have pre-modal actions that might resemble absolutely nothing in the beginning however cover the justifications individuals have prior to their minds deal with to hesitate.

So if you run into the electronic book, this testimonial has actually provided you an advantage on what to seek and also quit your laziness practices. The lessons as recommended by the writer are as adheres to:

Beginning line

15 mins

Carrot

Split as well as dominate

Nit-picker

3 containers

Under stress

Zen

Extensive it might appear however these lessons as disrobed in the evaluation can finish all your laziness issues if you dedicate on your own to the overview. What’s even more valuable is that the writer has actually every lesson furnished to obliterate whatever phase of laziness you feel you go to.

The Procrastination Fix- The whole lesson break down

It is our nature as human beings to resought faster ways. I imply, why go the lengthy methods when you seek on your own something that is not in the long-run. The lesson malfunction aids you explain easily what lesson can revitalize your life.

The 15 Minutes mind hack

Offer it a great assumption. For how long does your vigor sustain prior to you ultimately give up whatever you’re seeking during that time? Unless precepts have actually wired deep right into you, your commitment period need to take concerning the very first 5 mins, and even much less.

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The Carrot mind hack

Possibly your reasoning just how lined up is a carrot to this lesson? Not surprising that the writer utilized it as a recommendation factor. I do not understand the response to that either however allow us figure out with each other.

This lesson aids you to get over those downturns as well as animosity you really feel when your inspiration passes away out, making you to fix postponing relating a particular job.

Most likely the carrot symbolizes a treatment right here, as it provides for view.

The Split as well as Dominate mind hack

This lesson stimulates some believed in you does not it? It must due to the fact that it is prominent as well as can make you strive much less instead of doing effort.

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This lesson supplies a warning due to the fact that it educates you exactly how to separate a duty or job that has you dragging your feet as a result of the extent or dimension of the job handy.

The Nit-picker mind hack

Have you ever before been propounded job whether alone or in a group and also you seem like your initiatives aren’t simply sufficient? Or have you ever before seemed like you’re unsatisfactory to execute an appointed job?

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The Beginning Line mind hack

Your mind can generate an excellent concept however you’re opposed concerning the most effective technique to take. You remain in good luck if this is your circumstance since this lesson instructs your mind on just how to choose the very best technique with which you can begin your job.

3 pails mind hack

This lesson is a great dish for assisting you learn just how to develop an order of business that actually obtains you to doing the job. You can call it a job simplifier.

Under stress mind hack The capacity of this lesson to lower Laziness is wonderful since it reveals you just how to group construct. Via the lesson, you can learn just how to harness the power of calling out or assist from those around you. So handy do not you assume?

The Zen mind hack

Ever before been encountered by downturns that reduce you to the degree of practically making you surrender? If so, you remain in a lot good luck due to the fact that this lesson can aid you surpass such a trouble.

Within no time at all, you return on your feet as well as concentrate on whatever you require to do.

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Does the Procrastination Fix job?

For some item that can be the stumbling block to this scourge of laziness, you certainly would wish to validate Laziness Fix’s credibility, whether it’s a rip-off or otherwise.

Right from the viewers’s remarks of various other evaluations of the item, one incredibly captured my eye. On Mind Devices, a one Tatenda contacted give thanks to the Mind Devices group for their evaluation on laziness. The evaluation obviously offered her a strong as well as tactical strategy that aided her give up on laziness.

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Conclusion

This program is the essential to opening your covert possibility that has actually been prowling behind doors of laziness. The lessons supplied above make certain fire as well as can entirely re-route your capacity to deal with laziness.

Pros

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– It is rather budget-friendly to everybody hence will not drain your whole cost savings.

Cons

– You require to comply with the actions as suggested by the writer lest the program will not work.

– If you look for the soft duplicate variation of the program, you’ll remain in a fix due to the fact that the item is available in just paper copy kind.

– If you do not have net link for the on-line item, you’re doomed.

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The post The Procrastination Fix Review – Does It Really Work? appeared first on Does It Really Work?.

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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PETER OBORNE reveals why the PM ruled out No Deal

For most of her premiership, Theresa May refused to rule out a hard Brexit. ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ was her mantra, endlessly repeated. It made her the heroine of the Tory party’s hard Brexiteers.

She consolidated this position with her Lancaster House speech in January 2017, when she set out her vision of the future of Britain outside the single market, outside the customs union and, of course, no longer subject to the European Court of Justice.

Continuing to entertain the prospect of a No Deal was a crucial part of Mrs May’s strategy of keeping the Tory party together. The Prime Minister is conscious that Europe has broken the last three Conservative prime ministers. She did not want to be remembered as the leader of the Tory party which finally and decisively split over the European Union.

But even more importantly, nor does she want to be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Theresa May did not want to be remembered as the leader of the Tory party which finally and decisively split over the European Union. But even more importantly, nor does she want to be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

According to numerous sources I’ve spoken to this week, that is why, after the historic seven-hour long Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the Prime Minister effectively ruled out a No Deal Brexit in her statement to the nation. It was a momentous occasion in which she tore up her long-standing political strategy. She would no longer be pressing on with her vision of Brexit with the support of (some of) the Conservative party and its Democratic Unionist Party allies alone.

Instead she was turning her back on many of her own Tory supporters and, by inviting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to participate in talks, looking towards gaining Labour votes for her deal instead.

The brutal conclusion must be that Mrs May is going to find it very difficult to keep the Tory party together. She knows that perhaps half of her backbench MPs will vote against a customs union, which is the likely outcome of any deal with Jeremy Corbyn.

But for the sake of delivering Brexit, she has risked her dream of Tory unity because patriotism comes first.

I am told that she first woke up to the huge dangers inherent in a No Deal Brexit on her visit to Northern Ireland in February.

She returned deeply shaken after being warned that a hard Brexit would lead, as night follows day, to the destruction of the United Kingdom. ‘If any one thing changed the Prime Minister’s mind, it was this,’ a Downing Street source told me. ‘She was told of the tensions that No Deal would cause.’

Sinn Fein has already been campaigning for a fresh referendum on Northern Ireland’s future in the United Kingdom.

She knows that perhaps half of her backbench MPs will vote against a customs union, which is the likely outcome of any deal with Jeremy Corbyn. But for the sake of delivering Brexit, she has risked her dream of Tory unity because patriotism comes first

May was told that pressure for such a poll would become irresistible if a hard border was put up between the North and South in the event of No Deal — such an arrangement would breach the Good Friday Agreement.

Furthermore, sentiment is changing in Northern Ireland. They have seen the rebirth of prosperity in the South — due largely to the largesse of the EU — and they want the same. It is by no means certain that the Unionists’ support will hold.

Meanwhile, a No Deal Brexit would trigger calls for another EU referendum in Scotland, which overwhelmingly voted Remain and, many believe, would re-ignite calls for independence.

In light of this, it is scarcely surprising that there are widespread rumours among senior ministers that the Queen herself has expressed concern — as well she might — about the future of the Union.

It is, of course, the case that the weekly meetings between the Queen and her Prime Minister at Buckingham Palace are entirely private. But Palace sources told me yesterday that it was ‘impossible that the Queen would have made such an intervention in British politics’.

That may well be the case, but I can reveal the contents of another private conversation that has certainly contributed to the Prime Minister’s thinking.

Recently, she had a 20-minute conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who took the opportunity to warn her of the ‘dire consequences’ of Brexit.

A hard Brexit would be ‘immoral’ because of the economic impact on poorer people, he said.

Mrs May is the daughter of the Reverend Hubert Brasier, the former vicar of St Mary’s in Wheatley, Oxfordshire. These sombre words struck home.

It is fair to say the woman who has been derided for so long as stubborn beyond imagining has not only changed her political strategy regarding a hard Brexit, she has also changed her mind.

Hence her letter yesterday to the EU President Donald Tusk requesting a further delay to Brexit until June 30.

Initially, it seemed there was grounds for optimism. Even before the letter was dispatched, Tusk himself was suggesting a 12-month Brexit ‘flextension’.

Unfortunately, other EU leaders proved less sympathetic yesterday with the Germans, Dutch and French questioning a fresh Brexit delay when Britain has no credible new plan.

As I write, only six days remain until Britain is set to leave the EU by automatic operation of law —unless there is some extraordinary intervention or more hardline Brexiteers and the DUP suddenly see sense and back Mrs May’s withdrawal deal.

Of course, the PM may, against all odds, be successful in coming to an agreement with Jeremy Corbyn — sufficient to get her deal through. But I am pessimistic.

Remember Mrs May has pledged to resign the moment that Britain leaves the EU.

There will then be a leadership contest which is highly likely to be won by a hard Brexiteer who would immediately set about pulling to pieces whatever commitments she had made to get Labour votes.

This is why those around the Labour leader warn him not to trust Mrs May, however well-intentioned she may be.

Terrifyingly, we remain too close to the cliff edge. Chaos and confusion still reign. And I fear that not even the Archbishop of Canterbury can dispel them.

In the same week that he tried (and failed) to recruit Sky News presenter Kay Burley as his Press secretary, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt successfully hired human rights barrister Amal Clooney as his ‘special envoy on media freedom’.

No doubt, when the Prime Minister inevitably steps down, Clooney will be swiftly drafted into Hunt’s leadership campaign team.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt successfully hired human rights barrister Amal Clooney as his ‘special envoy on media freedom’

Hunt should, of course, be careful. The last Tory politician to go on a celebrity hiring spree was William Hague — first with Olympic athlete Lord Coe, as his chief of staff, then with Hollywood siren Angelina Jolie on a sexual violence initiative. Unsurprisingly, neither ploy went down well with the public.

The truth hurts for Brexiteers who try to fake a poll position

Thursday saw senior Brexiteers such as former cabinet minister Peter Lilley — as well as 25 Labour MPs — claim a new poll showed the majority of the public wants a No Deal Brexit.

As so often with hardcore Brexiteers, they were being disingenuous. Indeed, so misleading were they that the pollster YouGov issued a statement explaining that the opposite was true: ‘Only 25 per cent of people would consider a No Deal Brexit to be a positive outcome. Twice as many (50 per cent) would see it as a negative, and 37 per cent as a “very bad” outcome.

Even among Leave voters, only half of them see a No Deal conclusion as positive.’

That the No Deal brigade should resort to blatant falsehoods shows how desperate they have become.

According to the Conservative magazine, The Spectator, embittered Tory rivals have dubbed Home Secretary Sajid Javid ‘Sajid Chavid’. Why? Because despite being Culture Secretary four years ago, he has never seen an opera, apparently.

These Tory snobs evidently forget that, unlike many public school alumni, sons of Pakistani bus drivers rarely have a family box at the Royal Opera House.

I have no brief with Javid, but it is disgusting that he should be gratuitously smeared in such an ugly manner.

The post PETER OBORNE reveals why the PM ruled out No Deal appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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nguyenhoang168 · 6 years ago

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9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications – Malicious Codes On Google Play Store

9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications – Malicious Codes On Google Play Store 9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications – Malicious Codes On Google Play Store

https://ift.tt/2DUpOLh

Even though Google has been regularly inspecting, reviewing applications, removing fake applications and malwares, their spread on Google Play Store remain unstoppable. So, how can you detect and avoid downloading fake applications? These will be 9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications - Malicious Codes On Google Play Store

1.Accessing the official Play Store

Google’s official store on Android devices is Google Play Store, which contains every application before they are published. After being automatically inspected, programming experts will focus on reviewing codes to detect the nature of the application. This is how Google censors applications.

[caption id="attachment_1455" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Accessing_the_official_Play_Store[/caption]

However, there are some applications made available on the Store as some loopholes have been detected by programmers.

2.Checking application search results on Play Store

Let’s spend a few seconds to check the search results being displayed. Fake applications tend to use icons which are similar to the original ones in order to deceive users. Hence, be aware of applications having similar icons and ones appear multiple times.

[caption id="attachment_1456" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Checking_application_search_results_on_Play_Store[/caption]

3.Checking application name and the developer

Not only icons, you also need to check applications’ names and their developers carefully.

Definitely, fake applications usually come along with similar names (different symbols) to the original developers; but in fact, the original developers will be authenticated by Google (blue check marks).

In the case of fake WhatsApp, developers’ names are exactly the same, but in other applications, there will be no “Update” in an authentic name.

The fake SwiftKey application has recently been detected as “Swift Keyboard”. However, the developer is “Designer Superman”, so users are able to recognize this as a fake application since SwiftKey is developed by a company with the same name (and being a Microsoft affiliate).

[caption id="attachment_1457" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Checking_application_name_and_the_developer[/caption]

If the name of the application and the developer are both sophisticatedly counterfeit, check other applications of that developer. On your smartphone, you will only need to scroll down to the description to check other applications published by the developer. If all of or most of them are unusual applications, there is a high chance that the application you want to download is fake.

4.Checking application description

Most of the legitimate developers always leave clear contact information with nice layout in the application description so that users are able to report any issues. Fake applications tend to be different, and hackers never want their information to be disclosed.

5.Reading application reviews

If it is an official application with favorable features, users will usually leave high reviews rates. However, hackers tend to leave a number of positive reviews, but users who installed the application and detected it would have left some warnings. Therefore, you should spend some time to check the reviews.

6.Checking the release date

Every application on Google Play Store has a release date when the application was uploaded for the first time or the date of the most recent update. This could be the sign to check whether the application is new and reliable or not. The more update the application has, the more stabilize it is.

7.Checking the number of downloads

Most of the time, popular applications have a great number of downloads on Google Play, and the more downloads it has, the higher the reputation is.

Thus, if you encounter any popular application with only 1,000 downloads, it must be a fake application.

[caption id="attachment_1458" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Checking the number of downloads[/caption]

8.Checking the developer’s website and support email

Authentic developers not only want to sell their applications, but they also want to create a community, to widen and develop their brand. By providing emails and websites, they will take responsibility for any issue caused by the application to users, which enhances their credibility and improve, develop the application. If the developer doesn’t provide any contact information, you should be cautious and check the release date, other users’ reviews and rates for the application.

Obviously, you need to find out the signs of a safe website, which is easily identified by checking the SSL certificate or “HTTPS” address. This will prove that the connection has been encrypted between your device and the developer’s server.

9.Checking relevant photos

Fake developers may steal photos from the legitimate Play Store list (similar to icons), but you should take a closer look to these photos. Photos of fake applications are mostly quite nice, but their captions are usually meaningless. Hence, you shouldn’t install these applications.

In order to prevent fake applications, Google has been utilizing Google Play Protect, a security system that authenticate applications on Play Store.

Read more: Google’s Action Against Malicious Applications On Google Play Store

These are 9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications - Malicious Codes On Google Play Store. I hope that this will help you to protect your device from malicious and imitated applications. Good luck!

See the prototype post at : %% postlink %%

See original post : https://skyplaystore.com/tips-avoid-malicious-codes/ See original post : https://skyplaystore.blogspot.com/2018/11/9-tips-to-avoid-fake-applications.html

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tranmanhducblr · 6 years ago

Text

9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications – Malicious Codes On Google Play Store

9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications – Malicious Codes On Google Play Store 9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications – Malicious Codes On Google Play Store 9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications – Malicious Codes On Google Play Store

https://ift.tt/2DUpOLh

1.Accessing the official Play Store

[caption id="attachment_1455" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Accessing_the_official_Play_Store[/caption]

However, there are some applications made available on the Store as some loopholes have been detected by programmers.

2.Checking application search results on Play Store

[caption id="attachment_1456" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Checking_application_search_results_on_Play_Store[/caption]

3.Checking application name and the developer

Not only icons, you also need to check applications’ names and their developers carefully.

In the case of fake WhatsApp, developers’ names are exactly the same, but in other applications, there will be no “Update” in an authentic name.

[caption id="attachment_1457" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Checking_application_name_and_the_developer[/caption]

4.Checking application description

5.Reading application reviews

6.Checking the release date

7.Checking the number of downloads

Most of the time, popular applications have a great number of downloads on Google Play, and the more downloads it has, the higher the reputation is.

Thus, if you encounter any popular application with only 1,000 downloads, it must be a fake application.

[caption id="attachment_1458" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Checking the number of downloads[/caption]

8.Checking the developer’s website and support email

9.Checking relevant photos

In order to prevent fake applications, Google has been utilizing Google Play Protect, a security system that authenticate applications on Play Store.

Read more: Google’s Action Against Malicious Applications On Google Play Store

These are 9 Tips To Avoid Fake Applications - Malicious Codes On Google Play Store. I hope that this will help you to protect your device from malicious and imitated applications. Good luck!

See the prototype post at : %% postlink %%

See original post : https://skyplaystore.com/tips-avoid-malicious-codes/ See original article https://skyplaystore.blogspot.com/2018/11/9-tips-to-avoid-fake-applications.html See original post : https://skyplaystore1.blogspot.com/2018/11/9-tips-to-avoid-fake-applications.html

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lindamcsherry · 6 years ago

Text

Jurors Indicate $289M Roundup Cancer Verdict Should Be Respected By Court, Not Overturned

While a California judge is evaluating whether to reduce or overturn a $289 million dollar verdict awarded to a man dying from non-Hodgkins lymphoma following Roundup exposure, jurors say that the Court should respect their decision, indicating that they absolutely understood the evidence and testimony when determining that Monsanto should be harshly punished for failing to warn about the cancer risk associated with the weedkiller.

Following six weeks of testimony, a 12 person jury handed down the verdict in August, awarding former school groundskeeper DeWayne Johnson $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages.

The trial was the first of more than 8,000 Roundup lawsuits pending nationwide to go before a jury, and is being closely watched as a sign for how juries may respond in other cases that involve similar allegations that Monsanto failed to warn that glyphosate contained in Roundup may cause users to develop non-Hodgkins lymphoma or other forms of cancer.

Following post-trial motions, California Judge Suzanne Bolanos issued a tentative ruling last week, which suggests that the punitive damage award is likely to be reduced or overturned, after indicating that she believes the findings of the jury may not be supported by clear evidence of malice or oppression of information by Monanto. It is unclear from the tentative ruling whether a new trial would be limited to punitive damages, upholding the $39 million of compensatory damages in the Roundup case.

In response, at least two of the jurors have written letters asking Judge Bolanos to reconsider, saying that there was plenty of evidence to reach their punitive damages decision. Both letters were published in full on the website GMWatch.com.

In one of the letters, Gary Kitahata, told Judge Bolanos that the jury’s deliberations involved due diligence and rational discussion. He said the jury was convinced by the evidence that Monsanto acted with malice or oppression, and that the amount of damages was carefully considered and discussed.

“I thought that such an extraordinary exercise of judicial power to quash a jury verdict was appropriate only in the case of jury misconduct or malfeasance,” Kitahata wrote. “You may not have been convinced by the evidence, but we were.”

Another juror, Robert Howard, expressed similar views, indicating that the Judge’s tentative ruling to overturn the jury’s decision shakes his confidence in the judicial system. He said the instructions were crystal clear, and that the jury used the judge’s instructions precisely in reaching their decision, indicating that overturning that decision would be an offense to common sense. Howard also noted that during the trial, Monsanto’s witnesses came across as completely unconvincing.

“You instructed that we could assess the credibility of witnesses and discount their testimony in whole or in part. This is the unwritten and unseen part of this trial,” he wrote. “The court stenographer cannot transcribe the physical demeanor or tone of voice of witnesses, hence, your Honor, and we the jurors, are the eyes and ears of the court. To say that Monsanto employees, and at least one expert witness, were clearly uncomfortable would, in my opinion, be a vast understatement.”

Roundup Litigation

A series of additional Roundup trial dates are scheduled over the next year, including the first federal case set to begin in February 2019 and individual state court claims set for trial in Missouri in February, April, June and September 2019. In addition, a multi-plaintiff trial involving 15 different individuals diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma from Roundup is expected to go before a St. Louis jury in October 2019, and another expedited trial in California state court may be scheduled for early next year, involving a husband and wife both dying from cancer following exposure to the Monsanto weedkiller.

The litigation emerged after the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared that glyphosate contained in Roundup is a probably human carcinogen in mid-2015. Since that time, evidence has emerged that suggests that Monsanto has covered up the link between Roundup and non-Hodgkins lymphoma for years, providing false and misleading information to consumers and regulators.

While many of the plaintiffs involved in the litigation are sick and dying, cases are being aggressively pursued in courts nationwide in hopes that similar findings by other juries will lead Monsanto to begin discussing potential Roundup settlements that would avoid the need for thousands of claims to go before juries over the coming years.

The post Jurors Indicate $289M Roundup Cancer Verdict Should Be Respected By Court, Not Overturned appeared first on AboutLawsuits.com.

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battybat-boss · 6 years ago

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Leading Institution for Science-Based Health Advice Implodes After Industry Bias Is Revealed

By Dr. Mercola

I've written many articles highlighting the bias created by funding and the dangers of basing health decisions on industry-funded science. Independent, unbiased research is absolutely crucial for getting to the truth; without it science becomes little more than an extension of marketing, and hence useless.

So, what's happening at Cochrane right now is nothing short of tragic.1,2,3 Cochrane (an international network of scientists that promotes evidence-based medicine), formerly known as the Cochrane Collaboration, has been the gold standard for independent scientific meta-reviews, and the organization's reputation has managed to stay remarkably unblemished - until now.

Cochrane Implodes Amid Accusations of Bias

Cochrane publishes hundreds of scientific reviews each year, looking at what works and what doesn't. For example, Cochrane has repeatedly found that flu vaccinations are ineffective and have no appreciable effect on hospitalizations and mortality.4,5,6,7,8

Considering the flimsy evidence underpinning recommendations for the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, it was therefore surprising when Cochrane published such a strongly favorable review of the vaccine.

The review,9 published May 9, 2018, looked at 26 studies, concluding "There is high-certainty evidence that HPV vaccines protect against cervical precancer in adolescent girls and women who are vaccinated between 15 and 26 years of age," and that "The risk of serious adverse events is similar in HPV and control vaccines."

Two months later, Peter Gøtzsche along with Cochrane-affiliated researchers Lars Jørgensen and Tom Jefferson, published a scathing critique of the HPV review in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine,10 pointing out methodological flaws and conflicts of interest.

Gøtzsche, a Danish physician-researcher and outspoken critic of the drug industry (as his book, "Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare,"11 suggests) helped found the Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 and later launched the Nordic Cochrane Centre.

According to Gøtzsche and his coauthors, the HPV vaccine review "missed nearly half of the eligible trials," and "was influenced by reporting bias and biased trial designs." Overall, the review failed to meet Cochrane standards, Gøtzsche says.

Favorable Cochrane HPV Vaccine Review Is Riddled With Problems

Importantly, all 26 trials included in the HPV vaccine review used active comparators, meaning aluminum-containing vaccines, which can significantly skew results by hiding adverse effects. Making matters worse, the reviewers incorrectly described these active comparators as "placebos."

Results may also have been skewed by the exclusion of women who had a history of immunological or nervous system disorders. "These exclusion criteria lowered the external validity of the trials and suggest that the vaccine manufacturers were worried about harms caused by the adjuvants," Gøtzsche and his team writes.

According to Gøtzsche, the review also "incompletely assessed serious and systemic adverse events" and ignored "HPV vaccine-related safety signals." These are exactly the kinds of tactics I discussed in "Questionable Tactics Used in Vaccine 'Safety' Testing."

Gøtzsche also notes the HPV vaccine reviewers incorrectly concluded the impact of industry funding on the included studies was insignificant. In reality, all 26 studies were funded by industry, and therefore assessment of funding impact could not even be done in a meaningful way. What's more, the reviewers brought their own conflicts of interest to the table.

"The Cochrane Collaboration aims to be free from conflicts of interest related to the manufacturers of the reviewed products … The Cochrane review only has four authors; three of whom had such conflicts of interest a decade ago.

The review's first author currently leads EMA's 'post-marketing surveillance of HPV vaccination effects in non-Nordic member states of the European Union,' which is funded by Sanofi-Pasteur-MSD that was the co-manufacturer of Gardasil," Gøtzsche and his teammates state.

Ousted Board Member Warns Cochrane Has Strayed From Its Mission

To Gøtzsche's and many others' surprise, the Cochrane governing board decided to simply expel Gøtzsche from the board. Four other board members (Gerald Gartlehner, David Hammerstein Mintz, Joerg Meerpohl and Nancy Santesso) immediately resigned in protest,12 leaving just eight of the 13-member board. In a joint statement, Gartlehner, Hammerstein Mintz, Meerpohl and Santesso said:13

"We believe that the expulsion of inconvenient members from the Collaboration goes against Cochrane ethos and neither reflects its founding spirit nor promotes the Collaboration's best interests."

In a three-page letter14 to the Nordic Cochrane Centre - which is well worth reading in its entirety - Gøtzsche not only addresses his expulsion but also questions the path Cochrane's leadership has chosen in more recent years. Given its revelatory nature, I've included this longer-than-normal quote:

"No clear reasoned justification has been given for my expulsion aside from accusing me of causing 'disrepute' for the organization. This is the first time in 25 years that a member has been excluded from membership of Cochrane …

[T]he Cochrane Collaboration has entered an unchartered territory of crisis and lack of strategic direction … Recently the central executive team of Cochrane has failed to activate adequate safeguards … to assure sufficient policies in the fields of epistemology, ethics and morality.

Transparency, open debate, criticism and expanded participation are tools that guarantee the reduction of uncertainty of reviews and improve the public perception of the democratic scientific process.

These are conditions and tools that cannot be eliminated, as has happened recently, without placing into serious doubt the rigorous scientific undertaking of Cochrane and eroding public confidence in Cochrane's work. My expulsion should be seen in this context.

There has also been a serious democratic deficit. The role of the Governing Board has been radically diminished under the intense guidance of the current central executive team and the Board has increasingly become a testimonial body that rubber-stamps highly finalized proposals with practically no ongoing input and exchange of views to formulate new policies …

This growing top-down authoritarian culture and an increasingly commercial business model that have been manifested within the Cochrane leadership over the past few years threaten the scientific, moral and social objectives of the organization …

There has also been criticism in Cochrane concerning the overpromotion of favorable reviews and conflicts of interest and the biased nature of some scientific expert commentary … There is stronger and stronger resistance to say anything that could bother pharmaceutical industry interests. The excuse of lack of time and staff (around 50) is not credible.

There has also been great resistance and stalling on the part of the central executive team to improving Cochrane's conflict of interest policy. A year ago, I proposed that there should be no authors of Cochrane reviews to have financial conflicts of interests with companies related to the products considered in the reviews. This proposal was supported by other members of the Board, but the proposal has not progressed at all."

Clear Conflicts of Interest

Cochrane announced it was launching an investigation into the HPV vaccine review August 9.15 September 3, Cochrane's editor-in-chief issued a rebuttal16 to Gøtzsche's critique, saying the organization stands by the findings of the review. Considering the clear conflicts of interest, this seems rather ill advised.

One of the authors of the HPV vaccine review protocol17 - meaning the individuals who designed and determined the scope of the review - was Dr. Lauri Markowitz, who just so happens to be the HPV team lead for the division of viral diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).18,19

Markowitz was also part of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' (ACIP) HPV working group in 2006, and is the designated correspondent on ACIP's HPV vaccination recommendation issued in March 2007.20

This is about as clear a conflict of interest as you can get - especially when you consider the U.S. government has a financial interest in the sale of HPV vaccine.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) receives royalties from the sale of this vaccine. Remarkably, NIH royalties from vaccines are protected from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),21 so there's no telling just how much it stands to gain. The fact that these royalties are kept secret may be telling in and of itself, however. But there's more.

Merck, which manufactures and distributes the HPV vaccine Gardasil, has worked with a global health group called PATH22 to get the vaccine approved for use across the world. PATH, in turn, has received tens of millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - $84.3 million in 2005 alone, for the expansion of low-cost tools that promote newborn health,23 and $10 million in 2013 to reduce cervical cancer deaths caused by HPV.24

Aside from that, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been an ardent supporter and promoter of HPV vaccination25 - and donated $1.15 million to Cochrane in September 2016.26,27

In a June 5, 2018, article,28 the World Mercury Project, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., analyzed the financial ties between Cochrane, Gates and other vested players, noting that with Cochrane's HPV review, it appears several of them are "getting plenty of bang for their charitable buck."

It's worth noting that while Markowitz is not listed as an author of the final report,29 she is still listed in the acknowledgements section as having provided "invaluable advice and contributions by reviewing the results and discussion sections."

Ghosts in the Machine

The failure to disclose conflicts of interest has become so incredibly widespread, it seems more the norm than the exception these days. As just one among countless examples, last year I wrote about how STAT News, an otherwise reputable science and health news source, published an op-ed piece praising the benefits of pharma sales reps.

The article, "How Pharma Sales Reps Help Me Be a More Up-to-Date Doctor," was written by Dr. Robert Yapundich, an experienced neurologist. The problem? Yapundich has received more than $300,000 from drug companies in recent years, and this fact was not disclosed anywhere, either by Yapundich himself or the editor.

Astute sleuths then pointed out other discrepancies, such as the fact that while Yapundich claimed he'd not heard of the drug Nuplazid until he had lunch with a drug rep, he'd actually been a paid consultant for that very drug. STAT News eventually retracted the article after multiple complaints.

The problem goes deeper than medical professionals and academics repaying the hand that feeds them with positive press, however. Sometimes, op-ed pieces such as these are actually written by the drug company itself, while it's being passed off as expert opinion. This practice is known as ghostwriting, and is one of the most insidious and deceptive tactics around.

The Industry's War on Science

While the drug industry is quick to claim that anyone questioning its integrity is part of a "war against science," the evidence of malfeasance is simply too great and too disturbing to ignore. From my perspective, the industry itself is to blame for the public's dwindling confidence in scientific findings.

Loss of confidence is a natural result when lie after lie is unearthed, and there's been no shortage of scientific scandals to shake public confidence in recent years.

Still, the industry just keeps plugging away using the same propaganda tactics perfected by the tobacco industry, a key strategy of which is simply to keep uncertainty alive. Sometimes this may require the manufacture of biased research, but oftentimes it's as easy as repeating a lie enough times that it starts to sound like an established fact.

In a recent New York Times op-ed,32 health and science journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer33 blames those who question vaccine safety for stifling vaccine research.

Whether intentional or not, she follows a well-worn industry talking point groove, dishing out such classic statements as: "The goal is to protect the public - to ensure that more people embrace vaccines …" "The internet has made it easy for anti-vaccine activists to mislead," and "[C]oncerns over what these groups might do are starting to take precedence over scientific progress." What she - like everyone else before her - fails to address is the motive.

The vaccine industry has a significant vested interest in producing favorable results in their research. Ditto for the drug industry and chemical industry and most other industries that fund, conduct and publish their own research. When they publish flawed studies, they have a strong motive for doing so, which is why the public needs to be aware that the bias is real.

However, when independent researchers, journalists or indeed regular laypeople point out those flaws and refuse to buy the industry's nonsensical conclusions, what is the motive behind the rejection? According to industry, the motive is a "war on science." Basically, we all hate science, we cannot tolerate progress and want to go back to the Dark Ages of bloodletting and humours.

A more pathetic and unconvincing motive simply cannot be manufactured. It's so illogical it can be ignored without comment or defense. If there's a war on science, it's fought by industry, because they're the ones benefiting.

In closing, I would direct you to read through Dr. Marcia Angell's article "Transparency Hasn't Stopped Drug Companies From Corrupting Medical Research."34 A former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine for over 20 years, she has profound insight into these issues and has written extensively about how industry funding affects and distorts scientific research.

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jakehglover · 6 years ago

Text

Leading Institution for Science-Based Health Advice Implodes After Industry Bias Is Revealed

By Dr. Mercola

Cochrane Implodes Amid Accusations of Bias

Favorable Cochrane HPV Vaccine Review Is Riddled With Problems

Ousted Board Member Warns Cochrane Has Strayed From Its Mission

"We believe that the expulsion of inconvenient members from the Collaboration goes against Cochrane ethos and neither reflects its founding spirit nor promotes the Collaboration's best interests."

In a three-page letter14 to the Nordic Cochrane Centre — which is well worth reading in its entirety — Gøtzsche not only addresses his expulsion but also questions the path Cochrane's leadership has chosen in more recent years. Given its revelatory nature, I've included this longer-than-normal quote:

Clear Conflicts of Interest

One of the authors of the HPV vaccine review protocol17 — meaning the individuals who designed and determined the scope of the review — was Dr. Lauri Markowitz, who just so happens to be the HPV team lead for the division of viral diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).18,19

This is about as clear a conflict of interest as you can get — especially when you consider the U.S. government has a financial interest in the sale of HPV vaccine.

Merck, which manufactures and distributes the HPV vaccine Gardasil, has worked with a global health group called PATH22 to get the vaccine approved for use across the world. PATH, in turn, has received tens of millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — $84.3 million in 2005 alone, for the expansion of low-cost tools that promote newborn health,23 and $10 million in 2013 to reduce cervical cancer deaths caused by HPV.24

Aside from that, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been an ardent supporter and promoter of HPV vaccination25 — and donated $1.15 million to Cochrane in September 2016.26,27

Ghosts in the Machine

Nutrition Research Scandal Triggers Series of Retractions

Speaking of retractions, in related news, Cornell nutrition researcher Brian Wansink recently resigned after an internal investigation revealed "academic misconduct in his research and scholarship, including misreporting of research data, problematic statistical techniques, failure to properly document and preserve research results, and inappropriate authorship."30

Researchers who have pored over Wansink's studies have identified more than 40 that are problematic, and, according to ARS Technica,31 "Those studies had collectively been cited by other researchers 3,700 times [and] been published in over 25 journals and eight books." So far, 13 of Wansink's popular studies have now been retracted, and another 15 have been formally corrected. ARS Technica writes:

"The retractions, corrections and [September 20] resignation all stem from Wansink's own admission of statistical scavenging to find meaningful conclusions in otherwise messy dieting data. The result is that many common dieting tips — such as using smaller plates to trick yourself into shoveling in less food and stashing unhealthy snacks in hard-to-reach places — are now on the cutting board and possibly destined for the garbage bin.

Prior to the scandal, Wansink made a name for himself publishing studies indicating, generally, that such subtle environmental changes could lead to distinct eating and health benefits. He helped cook up the idea for the now ubiquitous 100-calorie snack packs, for instance. And he served up the suggestion to have fruit bowls placed prominently on our kitchen counters."

The Industry's War on Science

Loss of confidence is a natural result when lie after lie is unearthed, and there's been no shortage of scientific scandals to shake public confidence in recent years.

In a recent New York Times op-ed,32 health and science journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer33 blames those who question vaccine safety for stifling vaccine research.

Whether intentional or not, she follows a well-worn industry talking point groove, dishing out such classic statements as: "The goal is to protect the public — to ensure that more people embrace vaccines …" "The internet has made it easy for anti-vaccine activists to mislead," and "[C]oncerns over what these groups might do are starting to take precedence over scientific progress." What she — like everyone else before her — fails to address is the motive.

from HealthyLife via Jake Glover on Inoreader http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/10/03/cochrane-implodes-amid-accusations-of-bias.aspx

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latestnews2018-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Here’s Twitter’s position on Alex Jones (and hate-peddling anti-truthers) — hint: It’s a fudge

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/heres-twitters-position-on-alex-jones-and-hate-peddling-anti-truthers-hint-its-a-fudge/

Here’s Twitter’s position on Alex Jones (and hate-peddling anti-truthers) — hint: It’s a fudge

The number of tech platforms taking action against Alex Jones, the far right InfoWars conspiracy theorist and hate speech preacher, has been rising in recent weeks — with bans or partial bans including from Google, Apple and Facebook.

However, as we noted earlier, Twitter is not among them. Although it has banned known hate peddlers before.

Jones continues to be allowed a presence on Twitter’s platform — and is using his verified Twitter account to scream about being censored all over the mainstream place, hyperventilating at one point in the past 16 hours that ‘censoring Alex Jones is censoring everyone’ — because, and I quote, “we’re all Alex Jones now”.

(Fact check: No, we’re not… And, Alex, if you’re reading this, we suggest you take heart from the ideas in this Onion article and find a spot in your local park.)

We asked Twitter why it has not banned Jones outright, given that its own rules service proscribe hate speech and hateful conduct…

Abuse: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.

Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. Read more about our hateful conduct policy.

Add to that, CEO Jack Dorsey has made it his high profile mission of late to (try to) improve conversational health on the platform. So it seems fair to wonder how Twitter continuing to enable a peddler of toxic lies and hate is going to achieve that?

While Twitter would not provide a statement about Jones’ continued presence on its platform, a spokesman told us that InfoWars and Jones’ personal account are not in violation of Twitter (or Periscope’s) ToS. At least not yet. Though he pointed out it could of course take action in the future — i.e. if it’s made aware of particular tweets that violate its rules.

Twitter’s position therefore appears to be that the content posted by InfoWars to other social media platforms is different to the content Jones posts to Twitter itself — ergo, its (hedgy & fudgy) argument essentially boils down to saying Jones is walking a fine enough line on Twitter itself to avoid a ban, because he hasn’t literally tweeted content that violates the letter of Twitter’s ToS.

(Though he has tweeted stuff like “the censorship of Infowars just vindicates everything we’ve been saying” — and given the hate-filled, violently untruthful things he has been saying all over the Internet, he’s essentially re-packaged all those lies into that single tweet, so… )

To spell out Twitter’s fudge: The fact of Jones being a known conspiracy theorist and widely visible hate preacher is not being factored into its ToS enforcement decisions. (Which does appear to contradict one of Twitter’s own policy shifts, announced last year, to take into account off-platform behavior, as others have pointed out.)

The company says it’s judging the man by his output on Twitter — which means it’s failing to take into account the wider context around Jones’ tweets, i.e. all the lies and hate he peddles elsewhere (and indeed all the insinuating nods and dog whistles he makes to his followers on Twitter) — and by doing so it is in fact enabling the continued spread of hate via the wink-wink-nod-nod back door.

Twitter’s spokesman did not want to engage in a lengthy back and forth conversation, healthy or otherwise, about Jones/InfoWars so it was not possible to get a response from the company on that point.

However it does argue, i.e. in defense of its fudged position, that keeping purveyors of false news on its platform allows for an open, real-time debate which in turn allows for their lies to be challenged and debunked by people who are in their right minds — so, basically, this is the ‘fight bad speech with more speech argument’ that’s so beloved of people already enjoying powerful privilege.

The problem with that argument (actually, there are many) is it does not factor in the human cost; the people suffering directly because toxic lies impact their lives. Nor the cost to truth itself; To belief in the veracity and authenticity of credible sources of information which are under sustained and vicious attack by anti-truthers like Jones; The corrosive impact on professional journalism from lies being packaged and peddled under the lying banner of self-styled ‘truth journalism’ that Jones misappropriates. Nor the cost to society from hate speech whose very purpose is to rip up the social fabric and take down civic values — and, in the case of Jones’ particular bilious flavor, to further bang the drum of abuse via the medium of toxic disinformation — to further amplify and spread his pollution, via the power of untruth — to whip up masses of non-critically thinking conspiracy-prone followers. I could go on. (I have here.)

The amplification effect of social media platforms — combined with cynical tricks used by hate peddlers to game algorithms, such as bots retweeting and liking content to make it seem more popular than it is — makes this stuff a major, major problem.

‘Bad speech’ on such powerful platforms can become not just something to roll your eyes at and laughingly dismiss, but a toxic force that bullies, beats down and drowns out other types of speech — perhaps most especially truthful speech, because falsehood flies (and online it’s got rocket fuel) — and so can have a very deleterious impact on conversational health.

Really, it needs to be handled in a very different way. Which means Twitter’s position on Jones, and hateful anti-truthers in general, looks both flawed and weak.

It’s also now looking increasingly isolated, as other tech platforms are taking action.

Twitter’s spokesman also implied the company is working on tuning its systems to actively surface high quality counter-narratives and rebuttals to toxic BS — such as in replies to known purveyors of fake news like InfoWars.

But while such work is to be applauded, working on a fix also means you don’t actually have a fix yet. Meanwhile the lies you’re not stopping are spreading on your platform — at horrible and high cost to people and society.

It’s hard to see this as a defensible position.

And while Twitter keeps sitting on its fence, Jones’ hate speech and toxic lies, broadcast to millions as a weapon of violent disinformation, have got his video show booted from YouTube (which, after first issuing a strike yesterday then terminated his page for “violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines”).

The platform had removed ads from his channel back in March — but had not then (as Jones falsely claimed at the time) banned it. That decision took another almost half year for YouTube to arrive at.

Also yesterday, almost all of Jones’ podcasts were pulled by Apple, with the company saying it does not tolerate hate speech. “We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions,” it added.

Earlier this month, music streaming service Spotify also removed some of Jones’ podcasts for violating its hate-speech policy.

Even Facebook removed a bunch of Jones’ videos late last month, for violating its community standards — albeit after some dithering, and what looked like a lot of internal confusion.

The social media behemoth also imposed a 30-day ban on Jones’ personal account for posting the videos, and served him a warning notice for the InfoWars Facebook Page he controls.

Facebook later clarified it had banned Jones’ personal profile because he had previously received a warning — whereas the InfoWars Page had not, hence the latter only getting a strike.

There have even been bans from some unlikely quarters: YouPorn just announced action against Jones for a ToS violation — nixing his ability to try to pass off anti-truth hate preaching as a porn alternative on its platform.

Pinterest, too, removed Jones’ ‘hate, lies & supplements’ page after Mashable made enquiries.

So, uh, other responses than Twitter’s (of doing nothing) are widely possible.

On Twitter, Jones also benefits from being able to distinguish his account from any would-be imitators or satirists, because he has a verified account — denoted on the platform by a blue check mark badge.

We asked Twitter why it hasn’t removed Jones’ blue badge — given that the company has, until relatively recently, been rethinking its verification program. And last year it actively removed blue badges from a number of white supremacists because it was worried it looked like it had been endorsing them. Yet Jones — who spins the gigantic lie of ‘white genocide’ — continues to keep his.

Twitter’s spokesman pointed us to this tweet last month from product lead, Kayvon Beykpour, who wrote that updating the program “isn’t a top priority for us right now”.

We’ve heard some questions recently about the status of Verification on Twitter, so wanted to address directly. Updating our verification program isn’t a top priority for us right now (election integrity is). Here’s some history & context, and how we plan to put it on our roadmap

— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) July 17, 2018

Beykpour went on to explain that while Twitter had “paused” public verification last November (because “we wanted to address the issue that verifying the authenticity of an account was being conflated with endorsement”), it subsequently paused its own ‘pause for thought’ on having verified some very toxic individuals, with Beykpour writing in an email to staff in July:

Though the current state of Verification is definitely not ideal (opaque criteria and process, inconsistency in our procedures, external frustration from customers), I don’t believe we have the bandwidth to address this holistically (policy, process, product, and a plan around how & when these fit together) without coming at the cost of our other priorities and distracting the team.

At the same time Beykpour admits in the thread that Twitter has been ‘unpausing’ its pause on verification in some circumstances (“we still verify accounts ad hoc when we think it serves the public conversation & is in line with our policy”); but not, evidently, going so far as to unpause its pause on removing badges from hateful people who gain unjustified authenticity and authority from the perceived endorsement of Twitter verification — such as in ‘ad hoc’ situations where doing so might be terribly, terribly appropriate. Like, uh, this one.

Beykpour wrote that verification would be addressed by Twitter post-election. So it’s presumably sticking to its lack of having a policy at all right now, for now. (“I know this isn’t the most satisfying news, but I wanted to be transparent about our priorities,” he concluded.)

Twitter’s spokesman told us it doesn’t have anything further to share on verification at this point.

Jones’ toxic activity on social media has included spreading the horrendous lie that children who died in the Sandy Hook U.S. school shooting were ‘crisis actors’.

So, for now, a man who lies about the violent death of little children continues to be privileged with a badge on his not-at-all-banned Twitter account.

Two of the parents of a child who died at the school wrote an open letter to Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, last month, describing how toxic lies about the school shooting spread via social media had metastasized into violent hate and threats directed at them.

“Our families are in danger as a direct result of the hundreds of thousands of people who see and believe the lies and hate speech, which you have decided should be protected,” wrote Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, the parents of Noah, who died on 14 December, 2012, at the age of six.

“What makes the entire situation all the more horrific is that we have had to wage an almost inconceivable battle with Facebook to provide us with the most basic of protections to remove the most offensive and incendiary content.”

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

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technicalsolutions88 · 7 years ago

Link

However, as we noted earlier, Twitter is not among them. Although it has banned known hate peddlers before.

(Fact check: No, we’re not… And, Alex, if you’re reading this, we suggest you take heart from the ideas in this Onion article and find a spot in your local park.)

We asked Twitter why it has not banned Jones outright, given that its own rules service proscribe hate speech and hateful conduct…

Abuse: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.

To spell out Twitter’s fudge: The fact of Jones being a known conspiracy theorist and widely visible hate preacher is not being factored into its ToS enforcement decisions.

Really, it needs to be handled in a very different way. Which means Twitter’s position on Jones, and hateful anti-truthers in general, looks both flawed and weak.

It’s also now looking increasingly isolated, as other tech platforms are taking action.

It’s hard to see this as a defensible position.

Earlier this month, music streaming service Spotify also removed some of Jones’ podcasts for violating its hate-speech policy.

Even Facebook removed a bunch of Jones’ videos late last month, for violating its community standards — albeit after some dithering, and what looked like a lot of internal confusion.

The social media behemoth also imposed a 30-day ban on Jones’ personal account for posting the videos, and served him a warning notice for the InfoWars Facebook Page he controls.

Facebook later clarified it had banned Jones’ personal profile because he had previously received a warning — whereas the InfoWars Page had not, hence the latter only getting a strike.

Pinterest, too, removed Jones’ ‘hate, lies & supplements’ page after Mashable made enquiries.

So, uh, other responses than Twitter’s (of doing nothing) are widely possible.

Twitter’s spokesman pointed us to this tweet last month from product lead, Kayvon Beykpour, who wrote that updating the program “isn’t a top priority for us right now”.

We've heard some questions recently about the status of Verification on Twitter, so wanted to address directly. Updating our verification program isn’t a top priority for us right now (election integrity is). Here’s some history & context, and how we plan to put it on our roadmap

— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) July 17, 2018

Twitter’s spokesman told us it doesn’t have anything further to share on verification at this point.

Jones’ toxic activity on social media has included spreading the horrendous lie that children who died in the Sandy Hook U.S. school shooting were ‘crisis actors’.

So, for now, a man who lies about the violent death of little children continues to be privileged with a badge on his not-at-all-banned Twitter account.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2KyjDut Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com

#Technical Solutions #SEO #Online Earning #Youtube Marketing #Android Developer

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