Amnesty condemns police arrests of people who attended mass demonstrations against controversial bill.
Daily Archives: 8. Februar 2021
Biosafety Level – List of BSL-4 Facilities
According to the United State Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on October 4, 2007, a total of 1356 CDC/USDA registered BSL-3 facilities were identified throughout the United States (GAO-08-108T ). This represents a very conservative estimate of the number of facilities in the US in 2007. Approximately 36% of these laboratories are located in academia. Only 15 BSL-4 facilities were identified at the time, including 9 at federal la
Did the Covid-19 virus really escape from a Wuhan lab?
Chan and her colleague Dr Shing Hei Zhan scrutinised the evolutions of SARS-CoV-1 (the cause of the 2003 SARS epidemic) and SARS-CoV-2 (the cause of the current pandemic) in the early months of their respective outbreaks and found that while the former mutated rapidly in early human cases, as the virus adapted to its new host, the latter did not. This implies that the virus causing Covid-19 was already well adapted to infecting human beings, a point that was also suggested by the World Health Organization in its global study on the origins of Covid-19, published in November.
There are three possible explanations for this. The first is that the virus had circulated, undetected, in people for months. The second is that the virus was already highly adept at human-to-human transmission, even while it was still in bats or other animals. The third is that it had become adapted in human cells, or humanised animals, in a laboratory.
New COVID-19 variant defeats plasma treatment, may reduce vaccine efficacy
(20.01.2021)
“This lineage exhibits complete escape from three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies,” the team of scientists from three South African universities working with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) wrote in a paper in bioRxiv, a website that publishes scientific research prior to its being peer-reviewed and submitted to journals.
AstraZeneca is working on Covid vaccine booster ‚that will be ready by autumn‘ to beat South African strain after research showed its current version had ‚minimal‘ effect on stopping it
Professor Gilbert earlier told the BBC‘s Andrew Marr Show that her team currently has ‚a version with the South African spike sequence in the works‘ with hopes it will be ready to administer by the autumn.
‚It‘s not quite ready to vaccinate people with yet, but, as all of the developers are using platform technologies, these are ways of making a vaccine that are very quick to adapt,‘ she added.
Exclusive: Alarming new evidence on coronavirus mutation could bring tougher restrictions
(18.12.2020)
Government scientists at the Porton Down laboratory in Wiltshire have been conducting experiments on the new strain, and have confirmed ministers‘ fears about it being far more infectious than the original strain of the virus.
South Africa switches to J&J’s ‘silver bullet’ as AstraZeneca vaccine falters against local variant of coronavirus
“Unfortunately, viruses mutate. Sometimes this is by accident. But often the reason is that the virus wants to become more adept to infect the host.”
This, Madhi explained, was what had happened with the South African variant as well as another variant that was first identified in the United Kingdom.
The Coronavirus Is a Master of Mixing Its Genome, Worrying Scientists
(05.02.2021)
In recent weeks, scientists have sounded the alarm about new variants of the coronavirus that carry a handful of tiny mutations, some of which seem to make vaccines less effective.
But it is not just these small genetic changes that are raising concerns. The novel coronavirus has a propensity to mix large chunks of its genome when it makes copies of itself. Unlike small mutations, which are like typos in the sequence, a phenomenon called recombination resembles a major copy-and-paste error in which the second half of a sentence is completely overwritten with a slightly different version.
Corona-Verordnung: Nächtliche Ausgangbeschränkungen ab Donnerstag außer Vollzug; Erfolgreicher Eilantrag gegen Corona-Verordnung
Die Vorschrift in der Corona-Verordnung, die nächtliche Ausgangbeschränkungen von 20 Uhr bis 5 Uhr regelt (§ 1c Abs. 2 CoronaVO), ist mit Wirkung ab dem 11. Februar, 5 Uhr außer Vollzug gesetzt worden.
5 U.S. Billionaires Who Are Potential Witnesses at Netanyahu’s Corruption Trial
(04.12.2019)
Several prominent U.S. billionaires are on the list of over 300 people who could potentially be called as witnesses at Prime Minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s upcoming corruption trial.
Fall Amri: Verfassungsgericht unterwirft sich dem Verfassungsschutz
Tatsächlich spricht nach Auffassung des Autors mehr dagegen als dafür, dass Amri den LKW in den Weihnachtsmarkt gesteuert und den polnischen Fahrer Lukasz U. erschossen hat. In der Fahrerkabine der Zugmaschine wurden beispielsweise keine Fingerabdrücke und keine belastbaren DNA-Spuren von Amri gefunden, stattdessen aber mehrfach Genmaterial einer unbekannten bisher nicht identifizierten Person.
Dass ein Gericht, zumal das höchste der Republik, die Täterhypothese der Ermittler unbesehen übernimmt, ist problematisch
No indictment for Netanyahu
(20. April 1997)
Netanyahu told CNN‘s Walter Rodgers he was „glad that the truth came out,“ and said the entire incident was „blown out of proportion and twisted out of shape.“
„It‘s politics,“ he said in an interview shortly after the attorney general released his report. „Of course there were people out to get us. But this is going nowhere. It‘s done. It‘s finished.“
Mendelblit, Don’t Delay
(14.02.2018)
The police announcement Tuesday – that the investigations into two cases involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been completed – came 13 months after Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit decided that a “preliminary examination” of the allegations, which itself took six months, should become full-fledged criminal investigations.
HAPPENING NOW: Protesters rally outside the Jerusalem court where the corruption trial for Israel‘s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumes. The trial was postponed due to the #coronavirus lockdown.
Netanyahu Appears in Court, Denies Corruption Charges
As Netanyahu arrived at court, some 150 protesters carrying signs that read „the State of Israel vs. Benjamin Netanyahu“ and „May The Defendant Rise“ demonstrated across the street.
By decision of the judges, Netanyahu had to attend the hearing.
Netanjahu muss vor Gericht erscheinen
Es ist das erste Mal seit Prozessbeginn im Mai vergangenen Jahres, dass der 71-Jährige sowie weitere Angeklagte im Jerusalemer Bezirksgericht wieder bei einer Sitzung anwesend sein müssen.