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COVID levels are up to 19 times higher than reported, WHO says as it warns of the potential dangers of repeat reinfection: ‘We don’t know everything about this virus’ | Fortune Well

World Health Organization’s technical lead on Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove speaks on during a press conference on the World Health Organization’s 75th anniversary in Geneva, on April 6, 2023. PHOTO BY FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Source: COVID levels are up to 19 times higher than reported, WHO says as it warns of the potential dangers of repeat reinfection: ‘We don’t know everything…

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Classic rock guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck dies at 78

Classic rock guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck dies at 78

Guitarist Jeff Beck was among a wave of influential English guitar players in love with American blues. He died on Tuesday, January 10 after contracting bacterial meningitis. (Image credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images) Source: Classic rock guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck dies at 78

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‘Rare, never-before-seen baby albino Galapagos giant tortoise debuts at Switzerland zoo’ - Camille Fine, USA Today

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George Soros: Villain or Hero?

George Soros is one of the most important and generous philanthropists on the planet, fighting for four decades—and counting—to advance global equality. He's also a villain working to undermine America from within by advancing his goal of a globalist, mythical utopia where people are dependent on government handouts and follow the rules handed down by their betters.

These opposing views are what make Soros such a fascinating character—at least that's what filmmakers on both sides are hoping. Thus, beginning on Thanksgiving, two documentaries about the billionaire benefactor of the left and bogeyman of the right will be available to audiences seeking to reinforce their views, to challenge them or to simply understand what the controversy is all about.

The sympathetic film, simply titled Soros, opened in 15 theaters across the nation on November 20, while the unsympathetic movie, Billionaire Radical: George Soros and the Scheme to Remake America, launches Thursday at SalemNow, the streaming service owned by conservative talk-radio firm, Salem Media Group.

While there's a bit of overlap—video of Fox News star Tucker Carlson, for example, appears in both movies, as does video of Black Lives Matter protests—the differences are so strikingly stark that one wonders if they're profiling the same person.

One glaring example is how they deal with his association with Nazis as a Jewish teenager, when his father disguised him as a Christian and arranged for him to live with an official with the minister of agriculture.

The Soros movie shows tweets from prominent people like conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza and actor James Woods accusing him of collaborating with Nazis. Roseanne Barr tweeted that he "turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps" while author Ann Coulter tweeted that he "identified Jews to the Nazis." But an expert in Soros calls such assertions "completely untrue and false and shameful."

Soros himself describes the Holocaust as visiting his country, Hungary, "in a particularly virulent way" with "400,000 people killed in a matter of a few weeks." And a journalist describes how, at age 13, Soros was taken by the Nazi official he lived with to "view estates that Jews left ... He spent several days there, hoping people wouldn't realize he's a Jew."

Ironically, there is much more about Nazis in Soros than there is in Billionaire Radical, though one thing missing from the former and played up large in the latter is a 60 Minutes interview where he is asked point blank if it was difficult for him to help "in the confiscation of property from the Jews."

"Not at all. Not at all," Soros responds. "Maybe as a child you don't see the connection. But it created no problem at all."

Hungarian-American U.S. investor and philanthropist George Soros delivers a speech on the sideline of the World Economic Forum annual meeting, on January 23, 2020 in Davos, Switzerland. FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images/Getty

Afterwards, David Horowitz, a former communist who is now a conservative author and activist, claims Soros "wants to destroy two of the freest societies on the face of the earth: one is the United States, the other is Israel," and a giant chart is rolled out naming all the left-wing organizations he finances, such as Freedom From Religion, Southern Poverty Law Center, Transgender Europe, Planned Parenthood, Muslim Advocates and even some left-wing evangelical groups.

Soros, directed by Jesse Dylan, also includes a list of organizations the subject of the film supports—a list about 30 feet long, rolled out by Glenn Beck on one of his TV shows.

"This is just half of them. But, other than that, there's nothing to see here!" Beck says.

In a statement at the film's website, Dylan said he has known Soros for eight years. While he doesn't divulge the source of funding for the film, the access he had to its subject is obvious throughout, including original interviews with Soros and his children and personal photos from as far back as World War II. Archival footage includes interviews of famed Nazis Joseph Goebbels and Albert Speer.

Billionaire Radical, on the other hand, is a self-funded production from D. James Kennedy Ministries, and it focuses a lot on Soros allegedly striving to undermine the family structure in order to destroy wealth (except his own), and to promote atheism and large government programs. The groups he funds do not allow for dissent and mock old-fashioned values, such as the notion that men and women are different and determined by biology, according to the movie.

"Though making billions as a predatory capitalist, he has worked feverishly to bring socialism to the United States," the ministry's CEO Frank Wright says of Soros in Billionaire Radical. "As a professed atheist, George Soros has also been on the vanguard of undermining the moral foundations of America."

Well, that's one opinion, though Soros director Dylan has another: "George is one of the biggest actors for good the world has ever known," he says in his statement.

Neither Wright or Dylan were available for comment.

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Trump Sets Date To End WHO Membership Over Its Handling Of Virus

Trump Sets Date To End WHO Membership Over Its Handling Of Virus

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In a letter to the U.N., the president said the United States will terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization effective July 6, 2021. He was met with a barrage of criticism.

(Image credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

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Americans’ views on World Health Organization split along partisan lines as Trump calls for U.S. to withdraw

Americans’ views on World Health Organization split along partisan lines as Trump calls for U.S. to withdraw;

The World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

The World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, has historically served several public health functions, including fighting communicable and non-communicable diseases. It has played a high-profile role in addressing the global spread of the coronavirus, which it characterized as a pandemic in early March. But in mid-April, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered his administration to halt U.S. funding of the organization, accusing it of making a series of consequential mistakes in its handling of COVID-19. On May 29, Trump announced that he would seek to terminate the country’s relationship with the WHO completely and redirect funds toward other world public health needs.

Amid scrutiny of the WHO, here are key facts about the organization and how Americans see it.

Over the past few months, Pew Research Center has tracked attitudes about the coronavirus response. This analysis is based on data from multiple sources.

Data on the World Health Organization’s biennium budget is drawn from the agency’s biannual program budgets reports. Data on contributions to the WHO is drawn from the WHO’s contributions database. Contributions were calculated as a percentage of the total approved budget rather than as a percentage of total contributions.

Data on attitudes about the WHO is based on a survey of 10,957 U.S. adults from April 29 to May 5, 2020. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and the survey methodology.

1The WHO is funded by the UN, other intergovernmental organizations and a slew of nongovernmental organizations and private donors. Funding is made up of both required (or “assessed”) contributions from member states and voluntary contributions, which can also come from member states. In 2018, roughly half (51%) of the organization’s total funding came from its 194 member states’ assessed and voluntary contributions.

The total approved WHO budget for the 2020-2021 fiscal biennium is roughly $4.8 billion.

2The United States was the largest contributor to the WHO in the 2018-2019 biennium, giving just over $893 million, or about 20% of its approved budget that cycle. The second largest donor was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which contributed roughly 12%. Other top donors include Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA); Rotary International; the World Bank; the European Commission; and other WHO member states including the UK, Germany and Japan.

It is not clear whether Trump has unilateral authority to cut U.S. funding to the organization. Since 2010, at least 10 different federal agencies have sent money to the WHO. Prior to Trump’s decision, the U.S. was expected to make contributions equal to roughly 11% of the WHO’s 2020-2021 budget. (More information on U.S. funding of international organizations is available from the State Department.)

3Just 46% of Americans give the WHO positive marks on its coronavirus response, though views of how well the organization has dealt with the outbreak are sharply divided along partisan lines. Whereas 62% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the organization has done at least a good job in handling the pandemic, only 28% of Republicans and GOP leaners say the same.

The public rates the WHO’s pandemic response more negatively than that of national health authorities. When last polled in late April and early May, 72% of U.S. adults said public health officials such as those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were doing at least a good job, with a much smaller partisan gap in opinion (only 7 percentage points).

4Overall, 59% of Americans trust information from the WHO regarding the coronavirus outbreak. Trust is highest among younger adults and those with more education, though differences by education and age are relatively small compared with those by partisan identification and ideology. For example, 86% of liberal Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they trust information from the WHO at least a fair amount, compared with 27% of conservative Republicans and GOP leaners.

Partisans are somewhat less divided when it comes to trusting information about the coronavirus outbreak from the European Union, which is generally trusted, and the Chinese government, which is broadly distrusted.

In his criticisms of the WHO, Trump has argued that the organization has been too trusting of coronavirus-related information from the Chinese government.

J.J. Moncus  is a research assistant focusing on global attitudes research at Pew Research Center.

Aidan Connaughton  is a research assistant focusing on global attitudes research at Pew Research Center.

; Blog (Fact Tank) – Pew Research Center; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/11/americans-views-on-world-health-organization-split-along-partisan-lines-as-trump-calls-for-u-s-to-withdraw/; https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FT_20.06.11_WHO_feature.jpg; June 11, 2020 at 02:11PM

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China Is No Longer Huawei’s Panacea Amid Coronavirus, U.S. Blacklist

A woman wearing a face mask walks past a Huawei shop on a street in Beijing on April 22, 2020.

NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images

Huawei’s smartphone sales in China had been a bulwark against the effects of its U.S. export blacklisting, but no longer. Even the company’s domestic phone business is running into increasing challenges due to the coronavirus outbreak, which has hit consumption hard.

The telecom equipment and smartphone giant said that it had largely resumed smartphone production by the end of March, after local infections of COVID-19 had reportedly slowed. The problem now is on the demand side. With the Chinese economy contracting sharply and consumers pulling back on purchases, selling more phones is shaping up to be a daunting task.

“Consumption is being continuously affected,” says CK Lu, a senior director analyst at research and advisory firm Gartner. “In this environment, it would be considered a really good result if they can maintain the same level of shipments as last year.”

Huawei had previously said it sells an average of 450,000 phones in China on a daily basis, while sales in international markets are declining, according to a transcript of billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei’s interview with the Wall Street Journal released on March 25.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei.

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

Analysts say the Shenzhen-based company is launching new devices more frequently and offering aggressive discounts on some entry-level models to fend off rising competition, as major brands from Xiaomi to Apple are all focusing more on China.

For example, Huawei introduced in April several new models to its Nova and Honor lines, which analysts say have both hit the market earlier than expected. It also launched via an online event in March the company’s flagship P40 series, which come with enhanced lenses and bigger camera sensors.

“Huawei has accelerated the new product launch cycle,” says Wu Yiwen, a senior analyst at research firm Strategy Analytics.

Jia Mo, an analyst at market research firm Canalys, says the company’s rich pipeline of phones could still help it grab local market share on top of the record 38.5% captured last year. But the China market itself could contract from 371 million devices shipped in 2019 to anywhere between 326 million and 284 million this year. Assuming that Huawei’s market share reaches a conservative 40%, the company could ship 113.6 million units in China by year end, a decrease from 2019’s 142 million, according to estimates based on Canalys data.

For the first quarter, the private firm didn’t announce detailed results for its three business units when publishing a selected set of financials last week. Its total revenues came in at 182.2 billion yuan (about $25 billion), with a growth rate of just 1.4%, compared with 39% for the same period the year before.

For its smartphone business, analysts say revenues from China won’t be enough to offset losses from overseas. Huawei’s devices have been deprived of crucial Google services, such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube, after the Trump administration placed the company on the so-called entity list, which curbs the export of American technology on the grounds of national security concerns.

The company has since launched its own software services, but they haven’t gained much traction abroad. The lack of Google products isn’t a problem in China, because Beijing has long blocked a slew of Western platforms and supported local alternatives.

“They aren’t giving up on overseas markets but the situation is really very difficult,” Gartner’s Lu says. “HMS (Huawei Mobile Services) is simply not very attractive.”

One bright spot for the company is 5G, a technology that holds the promise of much faster internet speed and supports the online connection of more devices. Huawei has been investing heavily in this area, and Ren said in the Journal interview that the company’s research and development expenses would be increased to more than $20 billion this year from $15 billion in 2019.

When more devices with 5G features are launched in the third and fourth quarter, analysts say smartphone sales could see a small bump, and Huawei is expected to be the main beneficiary due to its better technologies. “5G phones will be priced at the mid to high-end segments,” Canalys’ Jia says. “Thanks to its self-developed chips, Huawei has a good brand image in this area.”

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Tags: blacklist, China, china smartphone, coronavirus, Huawei, huawei phones, huawei smartphones, Huaweis, Longer, Panacea, ren zhengfei, smartphone business

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Iran official tweets flag photo after strike, days after Trump tweet

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Saeed Jalili gestures during a press conference closing nuclear talks on December 7, 2010 in Geneva. (Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI, AFP/Getty Images)

An Iranian official tweeted a picture of the Iran flag shortly after a missile attack damaged two Iraqi bases housing U.S. and coalition forces.

The image was shared on Tuesday afternoon by Saeed Jalili, a senior official and former secretary of Iran’s national security council. It has since received 10,000 retweets and nearly 40,000 likes on the social media platform.

It is likely a reaction to the American flag President Donald Trump tweeted last week, shortly after the deadly drone strike that killed of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

The missiles targeted al Assad air base in Iraq’s western Anbar province and another base in Erbil in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region. No death or injuries were reported, though the extent of damage to the bases remains unclear.

pic.twitter.com/Nske7KLJVy

— Saeed Jalili (@DrSaeedJalili) January 7, 2020

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told USA TODAY that U.S. officials and on-site troops had early warning of the strike, allowing them to scramble for cover.

Iran missile strike: US knew Iranian missiles were coming ahead of strike on Iraq bases housing American troops

“These bases have been on high alert due to indications that the Iranian regime planned to attack our forces and interests in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said.

Nearly seven hours after Jalili’s initial tweet, he made his condemnation of Trump explicit. “Trump, who had described America as crippled, must be aware that he can do nothing to Iran with a crippled body,” he wrote early Wednesday on Twitter. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the strike “proportional.” Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated that the U.S. must exit Iraq – and the Middle East.

“They were slapped last night, but such military actions are not enough,” he said.

Trump, meanwhile, is expected to address the nation Wednesday morning.

The extent of the damage to the bases was not immediately clear, but no deaths or injuries were reported. 

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook, John Bacon, USA TODAY; Associated Press. Follow Joshua Bote on Twitter: @joshua_bote

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Pele congratulates Ronaldo on reaching 'new heights' - Click on link to subscribe my channel https://ift.tt/34vXvMA Facebook - https://ift.tt/2Vjiyz6 Twitter - https://twitter.com/HsrSports Pinterest - https://ift.tt/2ywdZIH Tumblr - https://ift.tt/2z5qwmL Blog - https://ift.tt/2VlBDRu #Sports #Sports_News #Tournament File image of Cristiano Ronaldo and Pele (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images) NEW DELHI: Football legend Pele on Wednesday congratulated Cristiano Ronaldo after the star striker became only the second men's player to score 100 international goals. The 35-year-old had 99 goals under his belt when he took the field during Portugal's Nations League clash against Sweden and netted a brilliant goal to complete the century. He then scored again to dominate Portugal's 2-0 win. Pele took to Twitter to write: "I thought we were going to celebrate 100 goals today. But it was actually 101! Congratulations @Cristiano, as you reach new heights in your journey." Ronaldo is only the second men's player to reach 100 goals for his country after Ali Daei, who scored 109 goals for Iran, Goal.com had reported. The wait to achieve the milestone was long for Ronaldo as he had completed 99 international strikes back in November 2019. Ronaldo had to miss the team's previous match against Croatia due to a toe infection. Despite Ronaldo's absence, Portugal had registered a 4-1 win in that game. Credit : Times of India Source: https://ift.tt/3m1KB1n

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UEFA postpones Euros, but Champions League and Europa League rescheduling could prove impossible

Postponing Euro 2020 for 12 months and rescheduling the tournament for June and July next year was the easy part for UEFA. Finding a way to complete this season’s Champions League and Europa League amid the coronavirus crisis will be a far greater challenge, and supporters should brace themselves for the prospect of the pandemic forcing both competitions to be abandoned without completion.

It is a grim possibility, but sources have told ESPN that so many obstacles stand in the way of games being played in the Champions League and Europa League that it will require a Herculean effort by all parties — clubs, broadcasters, associations and governments — to navigate a route through the chaos and uncertainty that has affected all levels of society.

– Euro 2020 postponed until 2021 – Copa America 2020 also rescheduled due to coronavirus – Coronavirus cancellations and reactions in sports – Karlsen: How coronavirus could impact transfer market

A video conference on Tuesday involving all 55 of UEFA’s national associations swiftly resolved the issue of postponing Euro 2020. That decision has enabled UEFA to clear space in the calendar for domestic leagues and European club competitions to resume and be played out to a conclusion during June and July, but solving the crisis in football is not as simple as creating dates in the fixture calendar. Therefore, UEFA have set up a working group, which includes the leagues and European Club Association (ECA), to “examine calendar solutions that would allow for the completion of the current season and any other consequence of the decisions made today.”

There are many issues to be overcome here, and they are all complex. The primary obstacle is, of course, the coronavirus. All of UEFA’s discussions in the coming days and weeks will be hostage to the spread and effects of the pandemic. If it continues to force countries into lockdown, there will be absolutely no prospect of football being played.

Read all the latest news and reaction from ESPN FC Senior Writer, Mark Ogden.

It’s mid-March and Italy, France, Norway and Spain are in lockdown. The United Kingdom has also told its citizens to stay at home, with those over 70 and other groups regarded as vulnerable urged to self-isolate for a period of 12 weeks from this weekend. If that advice holds and people are forced to stay home for 12 weeks, it will be mid-June before it is deemed safe to return to something approaching normality. The issues facing UEFA are clear. UEFA may simply run out of time to get their club competitions up-and-running again, never mind find a way for them to reach a conclusion. But even if the crisis begins to ease, there are numerous other problems that must be resolved for the Champions League and Europa League to resume.

A UEFA source told ESPN that an obvious issue will be travel between countries, if or when football resumes, as every country in Europe is at a different stage of its own coronavirus crisis. Will one emerge before the other, and if so, will its citizens be able to travel to a nation that is still wrestling with the pandemic?

If, for instance, Atletico Madrid are drawn to play against RB Leipzig, will their players be allowed into Germany without entering a period of self-isolation, and will they be able to return to Spain without once again entering quarantine?

UEFA have, for now, addressed the issue with this summer’s continental tournament, but finding a resolution for the Champions League and Europa League seems almost impossible. FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

Most countries have now imposed travel bans on their citizens and flights have been grounded. Sources at UEFA have told ESPN this is a major issue that may make it impossible to stage fixtures, because there are no guarantees that restrictions will be lifted quickly when, or if, the pandemic subsides. This is also a factor in why staging knockout ties at neutral venues may prove impractical. One country, hosting teams from two different countries, would appear to be an impossibility for months, at this stage.

But let us be optimistic for a moment and suggest that, within a month, the pandemic will have eased enough for football to resume, even if only behind closed doors. This is clearly a hopeful scenario considering the situation, but if football restarts in late-April or early-May, there are still many sporting considerations that must be addressed.

Due to the lack of time to get the competitions played — UEFA have said they’d like both the Champions League and Europa League to be completed by June 30 — sources have told ESPN that one-legged ties are the most likely solution, but we are still at the round of 16 in both competitions, so that means UEFA must resolve four rounds, including the finals. If the quarterfinals and semifinals are to be played over 90 minutes, the clubs and broadcasters must accept the loss of revenue from the reduction in the fixture list. Participating clubs must also accept the jeopardy of being drawn to play away from home — which places them at a significant disadvantage — unless a neutral venue can be found for each tie. (It’s also worth noting that the 2020-21 Champions League was due to begin on June 23 with the first leg of the preliminary qualifying round.)

The possibility of playing the semifinals and final over two weekends as a mini-tournament has, as reported by ESPN, been floated as a solution, with the Champions League last four being played in Istanbul and Europa League in Gdansk, the two original host cities for the finals of both competitions this season. (It’s worth noting that the Turkish Super Lig is still taking place.) But would the Turkish and Polish governments be prepared to welcome the supporters of four teams, potentially from four different European countries, just weeks after those countries had been placed in lockdown?

Quite simply, UEFA faces a logistical nightmare in terms of getting both competitions to the finish line, and the biggest problems have nothing to do with football. The intention is there to find a way, but some of the challenges may prove insurmountable.

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Impeachment-In-Motion: Watch The Live Stream Of 53% Of White Women’s President Donald J. Trump’s Senate Trial [Video]

Impeachment-In-Motion: Watch The Live Stream Of 53% Of White Women’s President Donald J. Trump’s Senate Trial [Video]

Source: FABRICE COFFRINI / Getty

Donald Trump’s Senate Impeachment Trial Live Stream

Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing officially starts today in the Senate.

Today will be spent hearing arguments on both sides about everything from trial rules, to when and if witnesses will be called and if new evidence will be introduced.

It won’t be very dramatic or exciting but it will be history. Trump…