Back Story Newsletter
Good day!
BREAKING - Pittsburg
Remarkable pictures of a bridge collapse in Pittsburg, shows a bus stranded in the collapsed concrete, and more cars littered near the entrance to the bridge.
So far reports of injuries but no deaths.
Coincidentally President Biden was due in Pittsburg today, to discuss ailing and aging U.S. infrastructure and the need to spend on repairing America.
Russia
Why don’t we believe Russia when it says it has no intention to attack Ukraine? For one they are moving large numbers of troops all around Ukraine and posturing as if they are poised for attack.
And Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, denying it was doing so. Russian troops rolled into the Crimea without flags and uniform patches, and only later admitted they were taking over and annexing the territory.
And since then they have denied they are funding and arming and even commanding so called rebels in Eastern Ukraine, but European observers see their trucks moving ammunition and arms across the Russia border to Donetsk and Luhansk.
Today you can’t help but roll your eyes when Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov accused Western governments of “hysterically advancing” the threat of Russia invading Ukraine. But then he said “If it depends on Russia, there will be no war. We don’t want a war,” and threatened “But we won’t allow [the West] to rudely ignore and trample on our interests,” Lavrov said in a videoconference with Russian radio broadcasters.
Later in the videoconference, Lavrov suggested that outside forces he did not identify seek to “provoke” Ukraine to go to war, but reiterated that Russia “doesn't want it.”
So here we are, still having to contemplate war in Europe and NATO allies struggling to understand how to get Russia to de-escalate. But that doesn’t include removing NATO memberships from countries which fear Russia, or closing the door to other nations from ever joining like Ukraine and Georgia, because they live in the shadow of Russian Putin’s dream of dominating a sphere of influence instead of embracing sovereignty and freedom.
The threats of invasion are meantime boosting Russias income through high oil and gas prices. But Germany seems clearer on the Nord Stream pipeline saga, by declaring if Russia invades Ukraine, the Nord Stream pipeline will not open.
On this Back Story host Dana Lewis who spent 12 years in Russia as a Western TV Correspondent speaks to Ambassador John Bolton, who served as the National Security Advisor to the Trump Admin. and was the U.S. Ambassador to the UN.
And former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who worked for President Putin and who thinks Putin is bluffing on Ukraine, and needs to be confronted.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/9962109
Party Gate
Britain’s party gate scandal drags on, which essentially is a series of parties thrown at Number 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s residence.
No one cares he had some cheese and wine, but the public is outraged he did it with groups of people when the rest of the country was in lockdown, and even on the eve of the funeral for Prince Phillip, when the Queen could not hold a larger funeral because of social distancing rules.
The Prime Minister called for a civil service investigation to clear his name. Then the police announced they were investigating the parties. Now the police are asking the civil service not to fully release their report.
The Met police said it had asked for "minimal reference" in the report to events they are investigating to avoid prejudicing its inquiries. It’s never ending and, the police were present when the parties occurred because they guard the residence. Can police now deliver an impartial investigation?
Canadian Truckers
A convoy of Canadian truckers, is rolling into the nations Capital Ottawa this weekend. What they want exactly is a little less unclear than the demand for freedom.
The movement began with a demand to eliminate cross border truck driver vaccination mandates, and then expanded to dissolve all Covid mandates.
“No more lockdowns. No forced vaccination,” reads a summary posted to the convoy’s official Facebook page on Monday.
No one is forced to get a vaccine, so let’s be clear. But you can lose your job or not be allowed to travel freely if you don’t have the Covid vaccines. In fact in Quebec the Provincial Govt has received huge support for a tax on those who won’t get vaccines.
One of the groups main organizers has called for the overthrow of the Federal Government even though many of the vaccine rules are mandated not by Ottawa, but by Provincial Governments.
The Canadian National Post has a great editorial on what this is really all about including of where the donations came from for the convoy, raising questions about who is really behind it.
The convoy claims to be a freedom movement, but most Canadians actually support vaccine mandates.
In November, an Angus Reid poll found that 70 per cent of respondents favoured seeing unvaccinated people lose their jobs. An Ipsos poll found that at least 52 per cent of respondents didn’t think unemployment was punishment enough; they also wanted the government to impose a mandatory tax on the unvaccinated.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/what-the-truckers-want-and-why-ottawa-cant-give-it-to-them
I love big trucks. And a convoy conjures up memories of the 70’s movie White Line Fever when a trucker organized fellow drivers into a convoy to cross state lines and fight corruption. But sorry, this Canadian convoy is about fighting vaccines, not standing for freedom, because my freedom includes the right to protect my health, and vaccines are doing just that.
New Virus?
A new lethal virus called NeoCoV was discovered in South Africa and may be one mutation away from infecting humans. According to the researchers, the NeoCoV variant is linked to the MERS-CoV virus, also known as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which had outbreaks in the Middle East before.
NeoCoV may be more transmissible and more deadly say initial research that the World health Org. warns is only in initial stages and more needs to be known.
But again, it has not yet jumped to humans. All the more reason to talk about early detection of emerging virus’ and track and trace.
Have a good weekend everyone and please sign up to get this letter sent to your email.
Dana
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/article-694885
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60166997
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/01/28/russia-not-to-blame-if-war-breaks-out-lavrov-says-a76183