Good Monday Morning Everyone,
France Opens And Delta Variant
France relaxed all many of its restrictions on travellers overnight, including UK, Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea to enable a summer of tourism and business to resume. Is it too early too fast? Essentially Government officials are easing travel because of improving health conditions in those countries, but of course the Delta variant is spreading rapidly as they open borders.
As an example of how quickly Delta/India variant spreads, In Australia thousands of shoppers are being isolated and tests from a mall, after one man spread the virus simply by being close to other people for seconds at a time or in “fleeting contact” as an official described it.
The variant is the most dominant in Moscow, and is spreading in U.S. States with the lowest vaccination rates. The W.H.O. says the Delta is becoming the dominant variant worldwide.
The symptoms of this virus are not typical, but mimics a bad cold including runny nose and no loss of smell as the other variants.
An alarmingly in the UK where cases are jumping, the variant is more severe, more contagious and has lower vaccine efficacy. 32 per cent of hospitalizations are one dose vaccinated, and 29 per cent of deaths had both vaccine doses. In England cases of the new variant rose by 72% in one week! And by Sunday there were 9,2438 new cases.
Russia And Putin
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. President Biden last week in their well covered Summit, Russia has softened its tone and even complimented the American leader.
"Mr. Biden is a professional, and you need to be very careful when working with him so as not to miss something," Putin said during a meeting with graduates from Russia's Graduate School of Public Administration. "He himself does not miss a thing, I assure you, and this was absolutely clear to me."
But if Putin’s strategy is disarm the new President with his remarks, it’s about to fail as the U.S. is now preparing a new round of sanctions against Russia because of the use of Novichok nerve agent in the attempting poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny last August.
“We are preparing another package of sanctions to apply in this case,” Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” referring to Mr. Navalny’s treatment.
He dodged questions about the extent of sanctions, but made clear they would target those responsible for using Chemical weapons that are banned under international agreements.
The Russian Ambassador has now returned to the U.S. and the American Ambassador is expected to soon return to Russia as diplomatic ties are restored as part of the Summit agreement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/us/politics/russia-sanctions.html
Afghanistan
U.S. President Biden is set to meet Afghan leader Ashraf Ghani in the midst of the final U.S. troop withdrawal and a spike in attacks by the Taliban.
The Taliban has seized 30 districts since the U.S. announcement of withdrawal by Sept 11 of this year.
Iran President
In what opposition groups have described as an election shambles with a vote largely boycotted by Iranians, a new hardline President Ebrahim Raisi has been elected.
Raisi has been called “the butcher of 1988” when he presided over courts ordering the deaths of thousands of up to 30 thousand Iranians, who were massacred in prisons, where they have been jailed for political opposition.
On Back Story with Dana Lewis podcast we discuss Raisi and the Iranian nuclear program. Subscribe to the podcast.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/8685139
An Israeli pilot who flew the mission to destroy Iraq’s nuclear site 40 years ago, says an attack on Iran’s program would be much more difficult and require weeks of bombing by the U.S. (Jerusalem Post article attached below)
UFO’s
And this week the long await publication of the Pentagons report on UFO’s and investigations by the military is due, and a huge community of people who follow this stuff are on the edge of their seats in anticipation.
The report won’t say there is alien life, but will disclose some unexplained encounters.
Fade in the theme from Close Encounters. And have a nice week!
Dana
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https://www.cnet.com/news/pentagon-ufo-report-arrives-this-week-what-you-need-to-know/
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20210312-france-relaxes-covid-travel-restrictions-for-uk-and-six-other-countries-variants
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/21/uk-reports-9284-covid-cases-on-day-before-lockdown-was-due-to-end
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/20/russian-ambassador-returns-optimistic-to-washington-a74270
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/us/politics/russia-sanctions.html
https://www.dw.com/en/biden-set-to-meet-afghanistan-president-ghani-amid-troop-pullout/a-57976085
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/40-years-since-operation-opera-attack-against-iran-would-be-different-671543