France: President Emmanuel Macron, who has faced recent scrutiny over a third wave of coronavirus infections in France, said, “There won’t be a mea culpa from me.” He said he does not have remorse and “won’t acknowledge failure” based on what officials knew at the time.
The New York Times noted that Olivier Véran, the country’s health minister, announced that three more regions would be forced to employ “braking measures” over the next four weeks, which will require individuals to stay within six miles of their homes.
According to the NYT, rather than labeling the restrictions for what they are, Véran referred to the spicy movie “Fifty Shades of Grey” when he called them “50 shades of measures that take into account the epidemic situation.”
The Associated Press reported that France has endorsed a so-called “third way” to try and return to somewhat normal life while enforcing strict guidelines, but the country has seen a surge in cases and ICUs are operating “at or beyond capacity” in Paris, the report said.
TRENDPOST: While President Macron states that he is opposed to again locking down the nation, in effect, it had been mostly locked down already, with curfews and restrictions he supported.
Again, absent in the media coverage is the fact that Sweden, which has stayed open, has a COVID death rate of 130.14 people per 100,000 who died from the virus over the past year, compared to a 137.74 per 100,000 person rate in locked-down, curfewed, socially-distanced, sheltered-in-place France.
Germany: Unlike her counterpart in France, who said he will never say sorry, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced last week that she made a “mistake” when she announced a five-day shutdown over Easter.
In our article last week, “MERKEL’S PARTY HIT BY DIRTY MASK DEALS,” we reported on three German MPs from Merkel’s party who were forced to resign for making hundreds of thousands of euros for allegedly doing dirty government deals with mask manufacturers.
Merkel, the head of the Christian Democrats, was praised early on for her handling of the virus, but the public has become more critical of its protracted lockdown. The New York Times reported that Merkel has faced criticism from within her party and others for a full year of on-again, off-again lockdowns.
“Since yesterday we have furious farmers, merchants and butchers on the line,” Jana Schimke, a member of Merkel’s party, wrote online. Siegfried Russwurm, the president of the Federation of German Industries, told The Times there is concern the lockdowns in the country are causing “long-lasting, irreparable damage.”
The paper reported some Germans have expressed frustration with Merkel’s inconsistencies and her decision to halt the AstraZeneca vaccine but then giving it her blessing is a sign of being erratic.
The Times’ report pointed out there are also websites fueling skepticism and “conspiracy theories” about lockdown efforts in the country with little to show for it in terms of infection rates.
TREND FORECAST: As with all of the mainstream media, The New York Times, the self-anointed “Paper of Record” that declares they are the only ones which publish “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” disparages those who don’t swallow their propaganda, calling it “conspiracy theories.”
We note this language to continue to illustrate how censorship will increase, and only the message from the establishment-in-charge will be fed to the Peasants of Slavelandia.
Thus, we bring to your attention the importance of supporting independent news sources such as the Trends Journal, which publishes the Truth in Trends… and not lies and deceit from the Presstitute media who get paid to put out by their corporate pimps and government whoremasters.
Indeed, we have detailed how The New York Times and other mainstream news outlets have sold – and keep selling, as with the COVID War – U.S. invasions and destruction of foreign nations based on lies. (See the 2007 FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING article here.)
U.K.: England announced last week its plans to lift COVID-19 restrictions that have been in place to dissuade citizens from attending protests, but the new guidelines will still come with various restrictions ranging from who can organize these rallies to demanding that social distancing is enforced.
The new crime bill working its way through Parliament would give the police sweeping powers to stop nonviolent demonstrations and crack down on street protests.
The Guardian reported last week that from 29 March, the rules opposed to mass gatherings due to COVID will be eased so long as the organizer of the protest is a political body, business, or charity.
No Protests Permitted
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was critical of protests that broke out in Bristol on Saturday resulting in ten arrests. Johnson tweeted:
“Last night saw disgraceful attacks against police officers in Bristol. Our officers should not have to face having bricks, bottles, and fireworks being thrown at them by a mob intent on violence and causing damage to property. The police have my full support.”
Reuters reported that protesters in Manchester blocked tram tracks to lash out at the policing bill. The protest on Saturday was described by police as “largely peaceful,” but some protesters were blamed for causing “significant disruption to transport networks and members of the public,” according to Euronews.com.
The protests have been referred to as “Kill the Bill” rallies. The Good Law Project, a British governance watchdog, said the bill “represents a serious threat to the right to protest,” and called for the portions of the legislation that deal with protests to be dropped.
Britain experienced a so-called “Happy Monday” after some restrictions were lifted on indoor gatherings and the expiration of the “stay at home” rule. CNBC reported that traveling abroad is still prohibited, unless for essential reasons.
More Protests
An anti-lockdown protest broke out in Bradford on Sunday that resulted in 13 arrests and over a dozen fines, the BBC reported.
“There was a small group of protesters who tried to break away from the protest and make their way to a vaccination clinic,” Oz Khan, the temporary chief constable of West Yorkshire Police, told the BBC. “Officers intervened to stop this from happening.”
He said the protest was mainly peaceful and reported “no significant disorder.”
TRENDPOST: While the Prime Minister shot his mouth off that there were “disgraceful attacks against police officers” in the Bristol protests, he had lockjaw two weeks ago when the police, who “have my full support,” beat up men and women protesting the murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer charged with her kidnapping and killing.
Indeed, Johnson’s only comment from the police beatings, brutality, and arrests of the peaceful protesters was that he was “deeply concerned.”
Again, as the late, great comedian George Carlin had said, “It’s one big club, and you ain’t in it.” With few exceptions, the police protect the leaders of governments, and when protests break out, they are no longer protectors of the people.
Denmark: Hundreds of protesters gathered in Copenhagen on Saturday to voice their criticism of the country’s new penal code that calls for twice the sentence for any crime connected to the COVID outbreak, thelocal.dk reported.
These protesters also lashed out against the government’s plan to create “corona passports,” the report said.
The report said the protests consisted of mainly young people who walked through the streets. The website estimated about 600 took part in the rally, which resulted in one arrest when a protester allegedly tossed a firecracker at police.
The report said the main focus of the protest was the criminal penalty increase for any COVID-19 infraction. It pointed to a 30-year-old woman who was convicted of “gross disturbance of public order as well as the use of violence against police,” and given a two-year prison sentence instead of one. The report said some of the protesters shouted, “Free Nanna!”
The country of 5.8 million has had a total of 228,000 cases and 2,414 deaths since the start of the outbreak. Thelocal.dk report said the country has been under partial lockdown since December, which includes the closures of bars and restaurants.
Canada: A Jewish group in Calgary, Alberta, criticized a 20 March protest in the city because some of the participants used Holocaust imagery to express their anger over mask-wearing and lockdown orders.
Newsweek reported that B’nai Brith Canada lashed out at protesters photographed with a yellow Star of David that was marked with “Mask Exempt.”
Michael Mostyn, the CEO of the activist group, said in a statement,
“[The] abuse of the memory of the Holocaust to serve a toxic and conspiratorial agenda must stop. There is room for a healthy debate in Canadian society on how to tackle COVID-19, but cheap use of Holocaust imagery is horrifying and beyond the pale.”
The report said Mostyn’s group was critical of a woman in Vancouver who sold T-shirts with the Star of David with the word “Covidcaust.” She reportedly stopped selling the shirts.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer who has recommended that when people have sex they should be masked up, said the circulation of the virus within the younger population “presents an ongoing risk for spread into high-risk populations and settings, and continuing transmission in the community.”
Dr. Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa, told CTV News that variants have almost created “a brand new pandemic.”
“This is not the same disease we’ve been dealing with for the past year. The new variants are a dire threat, they’re… more transmissible and lethal so our old mitigation strategies might not be sufficient,” Deonandan told the news channel.
TRENDPOST: Completely ignored by the media, the politicians, and the so-called “health experts” are the facts of who is dying of the virus in Canada and why.
As we reported in the 16 March Trends Journal, “CANADA LOCKDOWN: NURSING HOMES’ VICTIMS OF COVID,” The Lancet reported that 80 percent of the deaths in Canada tied to the virus occurred in nursing homes. Yet, rather than take measures to protect those most vulnerable, mandates and statements are issued that ignore the facts and blame the spreading of the virus and the deaths on those who are not responsible for them. Thus, they lock down businesses and enforce rules that are unrelated to who is being killed by the virus and why.
