Second survey highlights downturn in support for the Dutch king

DutchNews, April 27, 2022 

Photo: Robin Utrecht 

RVD A second survey has highlighted the downturn in support for king Willem-Alexander and the criticism of the way he acted during the coronavirus crisis. 

Last week, a poll involving 26,000 people for television show EenVandaag showed just 54% have faith in the monarch and now an Ipsos survey for news channel NOS paints a similar picture. 

Just 47% of those in the NOS survey have confidence in the way the king does his job and only similar percentage think he performed well during the past two years. Before coronavirus hit, 75% thought the king was performing well. 

The two years of coronavirus have been particularly damning for the royals, following a string of blunders over holidays, and culminating in a small party for oldest daughter Amalia when she turned 18 during the lockdown at the end of last year. 

The Ipsos survey gave the king a personal score of 6.7 out of 10, which is well down on the 7.7 he scored in 2020. Queen Máxima’s score of 7.6 is virtually unchanged on 2021 but down on her 2020 rating of 8. Seven in 10 of survey respondents said they thought she was doing a good job. 

Despite the criticism, 58% still support the monarchy as an institution, roughly in line with the EenVandaag figure.

Chinese citizen journalist jailed for Wuhan virus reporting

Yahoo – AFP, 28 December 2020 

Authoroties said former Chinese lawyer and citizen journalist
Zhang Zhan had spread "False remarks" online.

A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years Monday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak began, her lawyer said, almost a year after details of an "unknown viral pneumonia" surfaced in the central China city. 

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer who arrived at court in a wheelchair, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" during her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak. 

Her live reports and essays were shared on social media platforms in February, grabbing the attention of authorities, who have punished eight virus whistleblowers so far as they curb criticism of the government's response to the outbreak. 

Beijing has congratulated itself for "extraordinary" success in controlling the virus inside its borders, with an economy on the rebound while much of the rest of the world stutters through painful lockdowns and surging caseloads a year on from the start of the pandemic in Wuhan. 

Controlling the information flow during an unprecedented global health crisis has been pivotal in allowing China's communist authorities to reframe the narrative in their favour, with President Xi Jinping being garlanded for his leadership by the country's ruling party. 

But that has come at a serious cost to anyone who has picked holes in the official storyline. 

The court said Zhang Zhan had spread "false remarks" online, according to one of her lawyers Zhang Keke, but the prosecution did not fully divulge its evidence in court. 

"We had no way of understanding what exactly Zhang Zhan was accused of doing," he added, describing it as "a speedy, rushed hearing." 

In return the defendant "didn't respond [to questions]... She refused to answer when the judge asked her to confirm her identity." 

The defendant's mother sobbed loudly as the verdict was read out, Ren Quanniu, another member of Zhang's defence team, told reporters who were barred from entering the court. 

Concerns are mounting over the health of 37-year-old Zhang, who began a hunger strike in June and has been force-fed via a nasal tube. 

Her legal team said her health was in decline and she suffered from headaches, dizziness and stomach pain, and that she had appeared in court in a wheelchair. 

"She said when I visited her (last week): 'If they give me a heavy sentence then I will refuse food until the very end.'... She thinks she will die in prison," Ren said before the trial. 

"It's an extreme method of protesting against this society and this environment." 

China's communist authorities have a history of putting dissidents on trial in opaque courts between Christmas and New Year in an effort to minimise Western scrutiny. 

Example made

The sentencing comes just weeks before an international team of World Health Organization experts is expected to arrive in China to investigate the origins of Covid-19. 

Zhang was critical of the early response in Wuhan, writing in a February essay that the government "didn't give people enough information, then simply locked down the city". 

"This is a great violation of human rights," she wrote. 

Rights groups and embassies have also drawn attention to her case, although diplomats from several countries were denied requests to monitor the hearing. 

"Zhang Zhan's case raises serious concerns about media freedom in China," the British embassy in Beijing said, urging "China to release all those detained for their reporting." 

Authorities "want to use her case as an example to scare off other dissidents from raising questions about the pandemic situation in Wuhan earlier this year", added Leo Lan, research and advocacy consultant at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders NGO. 

A United Nations official following the trial also expressed "deep concern" about the verdict. 

"We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release," the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a tweet. 

Zhang is the first of a group of four citizen journalists detained by authorities after reporting from Wuhan to face trial. 

Previous attempts by AFP to contact the other three -- Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua -- were unsuccessful. 

Related Article:

"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - 

(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)

US sues Walmart over opioid crisis

France24 – AFP, 22 Decemberb 2020

The Justice Department sued Walmart, alleging it worsened the
opioid crisis Paul Ratje AFP/File 2 min New York (AFP)

The US Justice Department sued Walmart over its role in the opioid crisis on Tuesday, alleging the giant retailer wrongly filled prescriptions and worsened a public health disaster.

The suit accuses Walmart of irresponsible handling of orders, filling thousands of "invalid" prescriptions. 

 Authorities could seek up to billions of dollars in penalties, in the litigation that followed a multi-year investigation, the Justice Department said in a press release.

"As one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors in the country, Walmart had the responsibility and the means to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids," said Jeffrey Bossert Clark, acting head of DOJ's civil division. 

"Instead, for years, it did the opposite -- filling thousands of invalid prescriptions at its pharmacies and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids and other drugs placed by those pharmacies." 

Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company, the world's biggest retailer, filed its own lawsuit against the Justice Department in October that argued that the US crackdown put it in a no-win position. 

Pharmacists "must make a difficult decision" of either accepting a doctor's "medical judgment and fill the opioid prescription, or second-guess the doctor's judgment and refuse to fill it," Walmart said in its suit. 

"Either decision puts the pharmacist and pharmacy at great risk," the company argued. It said 

it faces potential federal action if prosecutors say an order was wrongly filled, or the chance of having a pharmacist license "stripped for the unauthorized practice of medicine, not to mention the potential harm to patients in need of their medicine."

Thousands of Israelis rally against Netanyahu

Yahoo – AFP, August 1, 2020

A bandana-clad protester blows a shofar, an ancient musical horn, as he
 walks alongside others during a demonstration against Israel's Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday (AFP Photo/MENAHEM KAHANA)

Jerusalem (AFP) - Thousands protested against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu across Israel on Saturday night, demanding he resign over alleged corruption and a resurgence of coronavirus cases.

The protests took place at scores of intersections and bridges, where people held banners accusing Netanyahu of "failure" and calling for his resignation, as well as outside his private residence in the northern town Caesarea.

The main event took place outside the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem, where organisers said thousands demanded Netanyahu step down.

In Tel Aviv, hundreds protested against rising unemployment and the government's alleged failure to support self-employed people who have lost their livelihoods due to the pandemic, media reports said.

Wearing face masks to forestall coronavirus transmission, protestors carried signs accusing Netanyahu, whose graft trial is ongoing at the Jerusalem district court, of corruption and failing to resolve the coronavirus crisis and the related economic malaise.

Israel won praise for its initial response to the COVID-19 outbreak, but the government has come under criticism amid a resurgence in cases after restrictions were lifted starting in late April. Netanyahu has himself acknowledged that the economy was re-opened too quickly.

The country of some nine million people has so far recorded over 72,000 confirmed cases, including 523 deaths.

The protests have been going on for weeks, with Netanyahu on Saturday night accusing private television channels 12 and 13 of "delivering propaganda for the anarchist Leftwing demonstrations" by providing extensive coverage of the rallies.

"They are desperately trying to brainwash the public, in order to bring down a strong prime minister from the Right," his Likud party wrote in a post re-tweeted by Netanyahu on Twitter.

Netanyahu further accused the media of "ignoring the violent nature of the protests and the calls in them to murder the prime minister and his family".

“Manipulating Fear” – (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

Kryon.com, April 4, 2020

This live channelling was streamed live for Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Lee Carroll

To help the reader, this channelling has been revisited [by Lee and Kryon] to provide even clearer understanding. Sometime information is even added or condensed. Often what happens live has implied energy within it, which carries a kind of communication that the printed page does not. So enjoy this enhanced message which was streamed live for Toronto.

Greetings Dear Ones, I am Kryon of Magnetic Service.

We are not oblivious to the elephant under the table. This channel is being given in an auspicious time. It’s a time where many are in fear and others are struggling to stay out of it. Before we go into something that I want you to hear, let’s just take a moment…

There are those right now who are saying goodbye to their elders. That’s difficult. They never thought it would be this way, and it’s difficult. You can be told some of the principles and the esoteric attributes and reasoning of it all, but it doesn’t help when you’ve lost someone. Let’s take a moment of compassionate action to be the Lightworkers of the age, and share the peace and compassion that you have - Light of the world that you are, for those who need it, just for a moment.

Pause

There are those who will say, “How long is this going to last?”  The answer is: Long enough; long enough.

I want to tell you things, given in metaphors. Some of you will understand and some of you will not. Let’s talk about children for a moment.

When children are growing up and they reach a certain age, every balanced benevolent parent knows how to work this puzzle. Let’s say the child becomes afraid. They are afraid of just about everything because they haven’t seen everything yet, or perhaps certain unknown things frighten them, or they just need help. Sometimes the biggest fear is of the dark, and they’ll say, “Dad, Mom, I’m afraid of the dark; I don’t know what’s there. Help me because there could be monsters lurking there.”

Every good parent knows how to handle this. They will tell a child: “Listen dear little one, I’m going to turn on the light here for a moment. When I do, I want you to see there’s nothing there. When I turn the light off again, I want you to understand there’s still nothing there. But if you’re still afraid, even for a moment, I’m still here. I’m holding your hand; just hug me; just hug me.

“Don’t be afraid of what’s not there,” they will say to the child and eventually, through time, the child evolves and grows up. The child balances itself and It knows what the parent knows. Then it’s able to help the children that arrive in the future. It’s classic, absolutely classic: Children go through times of fear when they don’t understand things, but that is so easily correctible with compassion and love, and a nurturing explanation. Every good parent listening or reading here has gone through this and perhaps they even experienced it with their parents as well.

I’m going to give you two scenarios that totally go against this commonsense maturing, but which happen every day. Perhaps it’s inappropriate, but they happen.

SET UP: I want you to imagine that child for a moment - in that state of fear - trying to make sense of things in the dark. They always imagine things perhaps, which might attack them.

Scenario One: What if, instead of a hug, the child saw that the parent was afraid too? When that happens, it’s over for the child and they often check out [no hope]. They check out because it’s just too much to process. They’re afraid of the dark and so are their parents. It scars a child for life. They won’t forget this moment because there’s no hug. There’s no explanation; there’s no light; there’s only fear. Their parents are shaking in fear, as well. It happens. It has happened. It happens during war times when the parent can’t do anything about it.

Scenario Two: This one is even worse, and it represents inappropriate parental control. This is when the child is afraid of the dark and the parent says, Well, you should be! There’s are evil things there! So, you must do this and that. The child grows up with rules about evil, or invisible dark things, and understands that there is no hug for the dark at all. There’s only fear and rules to let you escape the worst.

Everything I’m telling you is a metaphor. Some of you are understanding this already, and some of you are not. Every Human Being listening here, every one of you, has an inner child. Some of those inner children right now are scared to death, and some are not. I know who is listening to this later, dear ones. I know who is listening to this and watching it now. Many very mature old souls, who know exactly where this is going, will say, Well, this message is not for me, I’ve gone beyond it.

Have you? Have you really? How far does it have to go before that maturity breaks down and you start to fear?

I’ll tell you right now, Lightworker, old soul: All of you have nurturing, compassionate tools inside you to soothe that savage beast called Fear. It’s what Adironnda [Marilyn Harper channel] said also; it’s what were all saying also.

If you didn’t hear it already from me, I’m giving you a prediction: One of the things that’s going to radically change when this event (virus) is all over, is the accountability from those who inform you in media. When the dust clears, you’re going to look at this closely and say, All the media made it worse, made it worse!

Dear one, in your life there’s never really been anything like this. Your media information sources are marketing-based media. They are not information-based. Dear ones, you know this. They all compete for your viewership and the more dramatic things they can show, the more humans are attracted. This goes for most of you, the world, and perhaps even Lightworkers. Many of you have to consciously remember to turn off the media, since it is carefully designed to “pull you in.”

The world is attracted to drama, so after the media gives you information that may be totally correct and accurate, they then “spin” the fearful side of it without you even being aware that they are doing in. Not only that, they depend on repetition to make certain you hear it many times. Did you know it’s possible for you to turn on the media when you wake up, then turn it off when you go to bed, and hear the same thing over and over 30-40 times? How does it make you feel? How does your inner child feel when all you’re seeing is that the adults are afraid too?

The media is not yet aware of something else they are doing automatically within their programming: In-between the designed drama they are giving you, they then are playing advertisements which create even more inappropriate ideas. The advertisements are often about medicine and drugs you need because you’re old, or medicine you need because you’re young and have pimples, or medicine you need because right now you are in anxiety (which they created), or medication you need just because you stand there as a Human Being, aging every hour. In other words, you’re never normal! You always need something to medicate you. Or perhaps you need an attorney to help you after the medication went wrong?

I don’t think that those media outlets are really putting together what they are doing: They are responsible for scaring the planet to death. That will change. Watch for it. The demand for Accountability for this scenario will eventually create “hope channels” of media. There will finally be room for the good news channels.

Lets call them TFH channels: (My partner’s term for TRUTH-FACTS-HOPE). They will present facts that are confirmed, then go to show things which are balanced and uplifting around those facts. Then you can see that which is, and is not, happening. There is so much good news that none of you know about, dear ones! None of you see it because that is not in the scope of what they do. Your media is currently in the drama business, and not the truth business.

The planet is going to demand this: You’re going to look at those in charge of your media and say, “Bad job! You didn’t do it well. You didn’t do it right. You gave us entertainment and drama. You didn’t give us anything that helped our hearts. You didn’t hold our hands when you could have, and you didn’t hug us enough. You didn’t do any of that.”

The media will defend itself and say, “It’s not our job to hold your hand. It’s our job to inform you.” Dear ones, welcome to the New Normal. Your media indeed should invest itself in giving you hope, as well as truth. There are two sides to the news, not just the drama. This is what will change, and what is next.

That’s one thing that you’re going to see change, Dear Ones. That’s a reboot. The earth will probably take a while for all of this, but you’re going to start seeing things differently and more truthfully. The main thing is that this will represent a paradigm change. Many will start getting their broadcast news from those who also tell “the rest of the story.” That will be the new, attractive thing that you will not expect. Humanity will start to become more wise about the manipulation that takes place “on the air.”

The Experiment

I want to tell you something else: I want to tell you something about an experiment done with children many years ago. It’s an experiment that probably would not be allowed in today’s rules, but it was a classic: Some psychologists know of this, and some nutritionists have studied it. It’s an experiment done with children and food.

The experiment: The children are given a buffet three times a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner, where they can select anything on the buffet, as much as they want of it, without anyone saying anything. No parents allowed.

The buffet is beautiful and nutritionally complete. It starts with vegetables and goes to the rice, the carbs, the fruit; and so on. All the food groups are represented, and it’s the standard wonderful healthy buffet for the culture of the children. And, of course, at the end of the buffet there are the desserts. Except these deserts are are more for kids. There’s the candy, the cookies, the cake, and the pie. It’s all there. It’s all there.

So, the children are turned loose at breakfast. What are they going to have? What do you think? The children all run to the end and stuff themselves with the cookies and cake!

Surprised?

Lunch time: They did the same thing. I mean, really! How how could a turnip compare with a candy bar?

Dinner? They did the same.

The next day, they were all sick. Surprise, surprise!

So, over a period of meals, what happened in this experiment is that the children started eating the vegetables, the rice, the fruit, and all the things they passed over before (even the turnip). The desserts were eaten in moderation (but they still loved them).

The innate part of the Human Being demanded the balance; not the junk, but the balance. It was interesting because the experiment showed that even children who desire sweets and don’t know any better, have an innate which starts to balance itself when given the right choices.

I want you to analyze what’s going on right now on this planet. I’m going to make a statement: You are not being given the right buffet. Dear Ones, right now on this planet, there are no vegetables and there is no fruit. I think you understand what I’m saying. That is going to change.

I think the wild card in all of this will be those who are going to step up and change it, and say, Look we’ve got some good news here. There’s hope. That’s the balance you have been craving. No wonder all of you are sick!

The Incredible Bias of Virus Reporting

I want to show you the bias. I want to show you the bias of your media that is hidden. If you look at the virus information channels, they’ll give you all the charts of the infected and the deaths. Over and over - the infected and the deaths. For every state or country, the infected and the deaths. I want to ask you, Where is the RECOVERED column? It’s not there, is it? That’s a bias. That is a drama bias. Did they tell you that over 99 percent of those who catch the virus recover completely? Where is that number? Do you also know that those who recover have natural immunity for a few years? Where is that information? These are the heros of your time! Did they tell you that? Where are the parties for the recovered?

THEN: There is all the economical doom and gloom that they’re telling you: Not since the depression, they say, have we seen this kind of economy. They are comparing your virus situation to the horrors of 1929 – yet nowhere are they saying: “Wait a minute – wait a minute... this was created! You told us to stop working and stay home! This is not an economic depression like 1929. It’s a temporary situation. The factories and markets didn’t collapse. We are just not allowed to go out and work!

Dear ones, the world economy will slowly return, and the stock market will also. It’s poised and ready. This is not the end of the the automobile industry or the manufacturing industry. It’s not. This is a bump. Are they saying that to you? Or are they comparing it to the worst of the worst, and you tune in and hear: “There’s no vegetables, no fruit. There’s just junk. Prepare to be sick for a long time.”

Historians, generations from now, will look at some numbers which are very telling. Humanity in general has increased its life span attributes. There was a time, even in this country, when you would live to 45 or 50 years old, and that was your life expectancy. You weren’t really expected to live that long. There was too much disease and bad nutrition. All of things have evolved so now you’re seeing a slow increase of life span because of nutrition and especially knowledge. This allows you to live well into the late 80s and even approaching the 90s. (First world nations)

But historians in the future will see something odd: Generations from now, they’re going to look at the life charts and say, “What is this dip here? How is it that for a little while, Humans didn’t live as long?”

They’re going to name it The Corona Dip.

The dip they may see is for an entire generation of humans, and it had nothing to do with being infected by the virus. They will determine that by the millions, fear shortened their lives. Fear shortened their lives! That’s how profound this media bias is.

Historians may eventually report that when they do all the accounting for what really happened, that fear killed more people than the virus.

Dear ones, are you going to be one of them? Or are you going to stand tall and say, “This is a hump, and we’ll get over it? It’s temporary. We’ll mourn when we have to mourn, but we’re coming back because it’s temporary.”

That’s what I wanted to tell you. The truth is not really being shown. As bad as you might say this is, the real truth is not being shown. The up-side is not even on the radar of the media. Not yet. There’s going to be a reckoning for that. You’ll see.

I am Kyron, in love with humanity. Two steps forward, one step back. You’re in the step back at the moment. Old souls, you were built for this. This is where you shine. You have the Akashic experience and the compassion factor that others don’t. That’s why you can show it to others, and let them find the innate balance that will keep fear in its place. This saves lives.

The time is now, to go to work.

And so it is.

KRYON

Reebok slams CrossFit in outrage over CEO's tweet

Yahoo – AFP, June 8, 2020

Reebok said it would end its partnership with CrossFit Inc. once it fulfils its current
contract obligation as the title sponsor for the 2020 CrossFit Games (AFP Photo/
TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

Los Angeles (AFP) - Sports footwear giant Reebok has decided to end its partnership with CrossFit Inc. later this year following an insensitive comment by the fitness organization's chief executive concerning protests against racial injustice roiling the US.

Reebok said Sunday it would make the move once it fulfils its current contract obligation as the title sponsor for the 2020 CrossFit Games.

"Recently, we have been in discussions regarding a new agreement, however, in light of recent events, we have made the decision to end our partnership with CrossFit HQ," Reebok said in a statement Sunday.

CrossFit chief executive Greg Glassman tweeted, "It's FLOYD-19" on Saturday after the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation classified racism and discrimination as a public health issue.

Human rights groups expressed outrage at the tweet, calling it insensitive to the current events and the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Floyd was killed when officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, while three other officers have been charged with abetting murder and manslaughter.

Reebok and CrossFit previously signed a deal that named the athletic footwear company as the title sponsor for the CrossFit Games.

Other affiliates like CrossFit Magnus also decided to cut ties with the Washington, DC-based global fitness organization.

"After eight years as a CrossFit affiliate we are ending our affiliation," CrossFit Magnus spokesman Nick Hurndon wrote in a social media post.

"We will no longer continue to 'carry your water,' as it is antithetical to anything we stand for and only serves the continuation of systemic racism."

CrossFit has over 13,000 gyms in more than 120 countries and generates some US$4 billion in annual revenues.

Defiant Australians protest racial injustice despite warnings

Yahoo – AFP, Andrew LEESON, June 6, 2020

Marchers defied government warnings about coronavirus to rally in Sydney
(AFP Photo/SAEED KHAN)

Tens of thousands of Australians defied government calls to stay at home Saturday by spilling onto the streets for Black Lives Matter protests in major towns and cities across the country.

Marchers in Sydney, Melbourne and elsewhere rejected arguments from law enforcement and conservative leaders that mass protests could fuel the spread of coronavirus.

A court on Friday declared the Sydney protest illegal on health grounds, although the ruling was overturned by an appeals court minutes before the march was due to start.

"The fact that they have tried to push us all back and stop the protest, it makes people want to do it even more," said Jumikah Donovan, one of thousands who turned up thinking the ban was still in place.

The Sydney march of at least 20,000 was largely peaceful but as night fell a smaller group of a few hundred protesters faced-off with police over two hours.

Protesters were also out in force in Brisbane (AFP Photo/Patrick HAMILTON)

A large number of police eventually forced them into a nearby railway station where a tense stand-off ended with police using pepper spray on the crowd.

Police confirmed only three arrests during the rally.

Demonstrators brandished signs that read "I can't breathe", a nod to the last words of African-American man George Floyd, whose death while being arrested has sparked civil rights protests around the world.

Another read: "Same story, different soil."

The movement has resonated strongly with many in Australia -- a country also wrestling with the legacy of a racist past.

Organisers said they hoped to draw attention to high imprisonment rates among Aboriginal Australians and the large number of deaths in custody of indigenous people -- more than 400 in the last three decades.

Many protesters wore face masks, brought hand sanitiser and tried to social 

distance (AFP Photo/Patrick HAMILTON)

No prosecutions have been brought despite dozens of investigations, inquests and in some cases video evidence of abuse.

'Voice for change'

Many of the protesters wore face masks, brought hand sanitiser and tried to social distance as best they could.

"There are things in the world that need to be addressed," said Fay Goli. "If a majority can stand together there will be a stronger voice for change."

Australia has seen a sustained drop in the number of COVID-19 cases, but social distancing rules remain in force and mass gatherings are not permitted.

"Police are prepared for anybody that wants to just flout the law," New South Wales Police Minister David Elliott told media before the rallies.

(AFP Photo/Andrew LEESON)

Protesters in Melbourne were warned they could face fines for attending a rally if social distancing was not observed, although police appeared not to be enforcing those rules.

The day before the protests Prime Minister Scott Morrison had urged people to stay home.

"Let's find a better way and another way to express these sentiments rather than putting your own health at risk," Morrison said.

He admitted there was more to be done to address indigenous inequality, but rejected parallels with the United States.

"Let's deal with this as Australians and not appropriate what's happening in other countries to our country at this time," he said.

UK PM Johnson faces growing rebellion over aide's lockdown trip

Yahoo – AFP, David HARDING, Joe JACKSON, May 26, 2020

Dominic Cummings defended his travel during lockdown despite mounting
calls for his resignation (AFP Photo/Jonathan Brady)

London (AFP) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday faced a mounting internal rebellion, including a ministerial resignation, over a scandal around his top aide Dominic Cummings taking a cross-country trip during the coronavirus lockdown.

Dozens of Conservative lawmakers have now demanded the controversial adviser quit or be sacked while Douglas Ross, a minister for Scotland, resigned in protest, as a political crisis that has dominated the headlines for days continued unabated.

"I have constituents who didn't get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn't visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government," Ross said in a statement.

"I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior advisor to the government was right."

The government said it regretted his decision, but the resignation piled more pressure on it and Cummings.

He held a press conference Monday to justify driving his wife and young son on a 264-mile (425-kilometre) trip from London to Durham in northeast England in late March during the height of the coronavirus crisis.

Earlier that week Johnson had introduced a stringent lockdown requiring people to stay at home -- barring exceptional circumstances -- or face fines.

Cummings, who had virus symptoms around the time of the trip while his wife was also suffering from COVID-19, has claimed he complied with the guidance because childcare needs were one such exception.

There has been widespread outrage at Cummings' alleged lockdown breach, 

such as the graffiti in north London (AFP Photo/DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS)

The Brexit campaign mastermind, a divisive figure within British politics, said he wanted to leave his four-year-old son at his parents' house in case both he and his wife became incapacitated.

'Furore'

Health Secretary Matt Hancock was the latest minister to defend Cummings at the daily Downing Street briefing, saying "what he did was within the guidelines".

But following a question from a priest during the briefing -- members of the public are allowed to ask a question each day -- over whether anybody fined for being outside their homes due to childcare issues would now be reimbursed, he pledged the government would review the matter.

"Especially coming from a man of the cloth, I think that is a perfectly reasonable to take away that question," Hancock said.

The priest, Martin Poole, later told Sky News he would like to see those in government "treated in the same way as everybody else".

The prime minister has called Cummings' actions "plausible".

But Jackson Carlaw, the leader of the Conservatives in Scotland, said his most trusted adviser should consider quitting.

"Given the furore, given the distraction this is... if I were Mr Cummings I would be considering my position," he told STV News.

Carlaw's comments followed a rising tide of calls from fellow Tories for the adviser to go, with MP Mark Pawsey saying he had acted "against the spirit of the lockdown".

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's top aide Dominic Cummings defies calls 

to resign (AFP Photo)

Meanwhile, a host of smaller opposition parties wrote to Johnson to call for Cummings' ousting.

"There cannot be one rule for those involved in formulating public health advice and another for the rest of us," the Scottish National Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and others said in the letter.

The main opposition Labour party has stopped short of backing that call but demanded an internal government inquiry.

'Reasonably and legally'

Britain has been one of the worst-hit countries by the pandemic, with more than 46,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 by mid-May, according to official statistics released Tuesday.

Johnson's government, whose less comprehensive tally updated daily has counted 37,048 fatalities, has been heavily criticised for its response.

The Cummings controversy appears to have further damaged its reputation, with the latest YouGov poll showing 59 percent of respondents thought he should resign, up from 52 percent.

Much of the fury in Britain has focused on Cummings' decision not to apologise for his actions, and claims he was being misunderstood because elements of the media reports about his travels were false.

Cummings has also resisted calls to resign, telling reporters on Monday that he acted "reasonably and legally".

"I don't regret what I did," he added.

Wuhan lab had three live bat coronaviruses: Chinese state media

Yahoo – AFP, May 24, 2020

The director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology told a Chinese state broadcaster
that the lab has three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site, but that claims the
coronavirus could have leaked from the facility were 'pure fabrication' (AFP Photo/
Hector RETAMAL)

The Chinese virology institute at the centre of US allegations it may have been the source of the COVID-19 pandemic has three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site, but none match the new global contagion, its director has said.

Scientists think COVID-19 -- which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and has killed more than 340,000 people worldwide -- originated in bats and could have been transmitted to people via another mammal.

But the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology told state broadcaster CGTN that claims made by US President Donald Trump and others the virus could have leaked from the facility were "pure fabrication".

In the interview filmed on May 13 but broadcast Saturday night, Wang Yanyi said the centre has "isolated and obtained some coronaviruses from bats".

"Now we have three strains of live viruses... But their highest similarity to SARS-CoV-2 only reaches 79.8 percent," she said, referring to the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19.

One of their research teams, led by Professor Shi Zhengli, has been researching bat coronaviruses since 2004 and focused on the "source tracing of SARS", the strain behind another virus outbreak nearly two decades ago.

"We know that the whole genome of SARS-CoV-2 is only 80 percent similar to that of SARS. It's an obvious difference," she said.

"So, in Professor Shi's past research, they didn't pay attention to such viruses which are less similar to the SARS virus."

Plans for more labs

Conspiracy rumours that the biosafety lab was involved in the outbreak swirled online for months before Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the theory into the mainstream by claiming that there is evidence the pathogen came from the institute.

The United States and Australia have called in recent weeks for an investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

Chinese scientists have said that the virus first emerged at a market selling live animals in Wuhan, though officials in Beijing more recently cast doubt about its origins.

Chinese Foreign minister Wang Yi on Sunday blasted what he called efforts by US politicians to "fabricate rumours" about the pathogen's origins and "stigmatise China".

He said China would be "open" to international cooperation to identify the source of the novel coronavirus, as long as any investigation is "free of political interference".

The World Health Organization has said Washington offered no evidence to support the "speculative" claims about the Wuhan lab.

The Wuhan lab has said it received samples of the then-unknown virus on December 30, determined the viral genome sequence on January 2 and submitted information on the pathogen to the WHO on January 11.

Wang Yanyi said in the interview that before it received samples in December, their team had never "encountered, researched or kept the virus".

"In fact, like everyone else, we didn't even know the virus existed," she said. "How could it have leaked from our lab when we never had it?"

At a press conference Sunday, Zhao Chenxin, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, said every Chinese prefecture must have its own P3 laboratory to ramp up preparations against infectious diseases.

Apart from the P3 lab plans -- the second-highest biosafety classification for labs handling pathogens -- Zhao said each city should also have a lower-level P2 laboratory so they could "quickly respond in a major epidemic".

The Wuhan institute has both P3 and P4 labs.

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Theory that Coronavirus Escaped from a Lab Lacks Evidence

"Kryon on Corona", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar 13, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis and the Wuhan lab)