What’s in Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines?

                    (Lauren Roberts’s article from the ABC NEWS AUS on March 3, 2021.) 

As Australians start to roll up their sleeves for their COVID-19 vaccine, many people have been wondering — what's actually in the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs? Both coronavirus jabs use new technologies to train the body's immune system, teaching it to recognise and fight the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) if the virus was to infect the body.

Pfizer uses messenger RNA (mRNA) encased in a lipid layer, which, until recently, had not been approved for use in a human vaccine. The AstraZeneca option is a viral vector vaccine, which uses a harmless chimpanzee adenovirus to deliver DNA into our cells. This technology is also new to the world of approved vaccines.

But it's important to note the rest of the ingredients in Australia's two approved coronavirus vaccines — both of which have undergone rigorous testing and clinical trials — are the same as those found in a typical vaccine, Monash University professor of pharmaceutical biology Colin Pouton said. "Apart from these main [newly developed] parts, everything else is fairly standard."

Smallpox and the History of Vaccine Campaigns

              (Kristin Brig’s article from the JOHNS HOPKINS on February 9,2021.) 

Distributing Vaccines: Smallpox and the History of Vaccine Campaigns: The COVID-19 vaccine rollout dominates today’s headlines. As a historian who has studied vaccination for almost six years, I continually find that the current vaccine campaign holds striking similarities to smallpox vaccine distribution.

From its inception in 1796, global smallpox vaccine distribution required three key elements: proper preservation, accurate administration and receptive bodies. Learning from the smallpox vaccine rollout can help us make sense of the problems we encounter daily in the COVID-19 vaccine operation and address them head-on.

(Figure on left is an illustration of arms with a vaccine pustule; the doctor opened the pustule and took the fluid from it, called “lymph” and inserted into another person’s arm to help that person increase their immunity.)

Proper preservation impaired smallpox vaccination from its beginning. Since the refrigerator was not formally invented until the late 19th century, vaccine lymph, or the fluid taken from a cowpox lesion or growth, required a preservation technique that could keep the vaccine active at a wide range of temperatures.

President Ghani: US$169,000,000 Coward of Afghanistan

            (Based on Staff articles from the BBC & NY POST in August, 2021.) 

He was the commander-in-Chief of US-trained 300,000+ strong Afghan National Army equipped with most advanced war weapons supplied free by the United States. But he is also a coward who abandoned his army, his people, and his nation and fled with US$ 169 million in cash from the Afghan Treasury.

Later in UAE he denied taking the money and blamed Taliban for threatening to hang him like they did to late President Najibullah in 1996 during the First Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan. Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan politician, academic, and economist who served as President of Afghanistan between September 2014 and August 2021.

Born in Logar Province, Ghani went to the United States in the 1960s to study and later completed a bachelor's at the American University in Beirut. He became a professor of anthropology at numerous institutions, mostly at Johns Hopkins University, before starting to work with the World Bank.

Battle for Mindat: People Vs Military (Part 3)

              (Based on the Burmese posts from the FACEBOOK in July-August, 2021.) 

Once UNHCR left the town the Army Troops were sent out wide to search and destroy CDF units in the villages. According to the local Chins there were six Myanmar Army battalions in the area but only twos were visibly operating in the town as the rest were engaging CDF in the surrounding areas.

On July-28 the Maqui-einnu forward-army-camp surrendered to the attacking CDF forces. Eight Myanmar Army soldiers and four Myanmar Policemen led by army captain Thein Htaik changed side to PDF. A graduate from DSA intake-55, Captain Thein Htaik was a company commander from Mindat-based LIB-274.

CDF had been raiding small police outposts all over the township and capturing the police guns and ammunitions and On July-30 early morning a battalion strength army reinforcement coming down from Matupi was ambushed by nearly a 1,000 strong heavily-armed CDF at the 73-Mile-Post on Mindat-Matupi Road.

Scott Morrison: We Must Live With COVID

                       (Staff article from the ABC NEWS on August 22, 2021.) 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has conceded it's "highly unlikely" that Australia will be able to return to COVID zero, as he pushes the states to start relaxing restrictions once 70 per cent of adults have been vaccinated.

Under National Cabinet's four-phase pathway out of the pandemic, the states and territories will open their borders and use lockdowns more sparingly once 70 to 80 per cent of Australians over 16 are inoculated.

But a split has emerged with some premiers arguing the modelling underpinning that plan assumes case numbers would be much lower than they are at the moment. Mr Morrison has played down those concerns, adding the Doherty Institute would be providing updated advice to National Cabinet this week.

Trump on Bidden: Incompetent, Stupid, Whatever!

                   (Staff article from the REUTERS on August 21,2021.) 

WASHINGTON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Former President Donald Trump launched on Saturday a sustained attack on President Joe Biden's handling of the retreat of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, which he called "the greatest foreign policy humiliation" in U.S. history.

Trump, a Republican who has dangled the possibility of running again for president in 2024, has repeatedly blamed Biden, a Democrat, for Afghanistan's fall to the Islamist militant Taliban, even though the U.S. withdrawal that triggered the collapse was negotiated by his own administration.

"Biden’s botched exit from Afghanistan is the most astonishing display of gross incompetence by a nation’s leader, perhaps at any time," Trump said at a boisterous rally packed with his supporters near Cullman, Alabama.

Sydney Protest Leader Got Lost & Got Jailed

       (Based on articles from the GUARDIAN and ABC NEWS on August 21, 2021.) 

Sydney protest leader Anthony Khallouf jailed: An alleged organiser of a proposed anti-lockdown protest in central Sydney this weekend has been sentenced to at least three months' jail for failing to comply with NSW public health orders.

Queensland-based Victorian Anthony Khallouf, 29, pleaded guilty on Friday to breaching public health orders by driving to Sydney last weekend. NSW Police Force says Khallouf was staying at a North Sydney hotel but was located on Thursday afternoon at Hornsby train station after he took a wrong train instead of a city train.

Khallouf, an online anti-lockdown activist, told officers he was lost and couldn't give a reasonable excuse for travelling to Hornsby. He was arrested and charged with failing to comply with public health orders, encouraging the commission of crimes and making false representations prompting police involvement.

Khallouf appeared at Hornsby Local Court on Friday and pleaded guilty to all offences. He was sentenced by magistrate Robyn Denes to a non-parole period of three months' imprisonment, with an aggregate term of eight months.

Battle for Mindat: People Vs Military (Part 2)

                 (Based on the Burmese posts from the FACEBOOK in June-July, 2021.) 

On May-16 the military declares Martial-Law on the Mindat Twonship. Now the troops could do whatever they wanted to the restless people of Mindat. Two UAV (drones) were hovering the town and the army even sent a low-flying fighter jet just to frighten the town folks.

LIB-274 sent many patrols into the town and arrested any men they found on the streets. The soldiers also raided houses abandoned by people fearful of the troops and stole cash and other valuables. But they didn’t dare to wander outside the town as they knew the CDF was waiting for them. They were expecting army reinforcements coming from Matupi.

But on May-17 the nine-truck army convoy from Matupi was stopped by CDF at about sixteen miles from Mindat. Army camps from Kyauk-Htu then started shelling Maindat with their 105-mm howitzers.

Myanmar Army Lost Arakan To Arakan Army (AA)

                 (Staff article from the MYANMAR NOW on August 13, 2021.) 

A ceasefire in the Arakan State and chaos in the rest of the country have given the Arakan Army an opportunity to assert authority: On August 1, the United League of Arakan (ULA)—the political wing of the Arakan Army (AA)—announced that it would be establishing its own judiciary in areas under its control.

The move, which comes just months after the Myanmar junta removed the group from its list of terrorist organizations, and less than a year into a ceasefire with the military that ended two years of fierce fighting, is just the latest evidence of its rapidly growing influence over life in northern Rakhine State.

Indeed, some observers say that much of the state is now under de facto ULA/AA rule, or something approaching it. “As I said in another interview, the AA can now be assumed to have control over three-quarters of the entire state,” said Dr. Aye Maung, the chairperson of the Arakan Front Party (AFP), a Rakhine nationalist party that ran in last year’s election.

Arming Army-wives: Myanmar Army is Over-Stretched

                  (Base on Burmese posts from the FACEBOOK in July-August 2021.) 

Myanmar Army's generals claim to have at least 300,000 fighting men in their force, but in reality at least a quarter of them at any given time are so-called ghost soldiers drawing out salaries and food rations but they only exist in the books not as physical beings.

On organizational charts Myanmar Army has fourteen Regional Military Commands (RMCs) with 400+ Infantry battalions, twenty-one Military Operations Commands (MOCs) with 200+ Light Infantry Battalions, seven Regional Operations Commands (ROCs) with 30+ Light Infantry Battalions, and ten Light Infantry Divisions (LIDs) with 100+ Infantry Battalions.

Altogether there are nearly 750 infantry battalions with a total manpower of more than 200,000+ fighting men, but in reality Myanmar Army could barely muster just over half of that manpower on the frontlines if the needs arise. Maximum possible at about 150,000, I believe.

Scott Morrison Says NO to Zero-COVID Strategy

                  (Sarah Martin’s article from the GUARDIAN UK on August 16, 2021.) 

The Christian PM and the Socialist Premier.

Australian Prime minister Scott Morrison (left) has lashed out at the plan by the Western Australia's (Socialist) premier, Mark McGowan, to continue to pursue zero Covid even once vaccination rates reached as high as 80%.

Scott Morrison says the Western Australian government’s plan to continue a Covid-zero strategy even when most people are vaccinated is at odds with the national plan, labelling the suggested approach “absurd”.

In a morning media blitz on Monday to promote the government’s deal to secure 1m extra Pfizer doses from Poland, Morrison said the national plan was “very clear” that a zero Covid strategy would be abandoned once adult vaccination rates reached between 70% and 80%.

69-Year-Old Freedom Fighter from Police-State Sydney

                  (Based on a staff article from the NEWS.COM.AU on August 10, 2021.) 

69-yr-old received 6 months jail and a hefty fine.

A$3,000 fine for not wearing a facemask, A$5,000 for venturing out of your home beyond 5 km, and jail sentences for violating draconian stay-at-home public health orders! Our Sydney is rapidly becoming a China-like Police State just because the stupid government does not really know what to do with rising COVID cases and associated deaths.

Borrowing from Chinese Communist Party's Playbook they just blindly forcing lockdowns after lockdowns on us and some brave sydneysiders are fighting back. Sydney Freedom-fighter Ronald McLean the 69-year-old anti-lockdown pensioner was lashed by a magistrate after claiming he was just riding past a freedom rally before assaulting a police officer.

“This courtroom has had Covid in it,” Magistrate Jennifer Giles announced as she sat down in the Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday morning. “I’m told it’s been cleaned, but please, let’s spend as little time in it as possible.”

Cops Killed on Rangoon City-Circle Train

              (Staff article from the KHIT THIT MEDIA Facebook on August 14, 2021.) 

On August-14 at about 5-pm, the Security Police Squad riding the Rangoon Citycircle Train was ambushed by a group of unknown PDF assassins. Four out of six-men squad were killed and the two were severely wounded. The ambush was on the Rangoon-Insein train between Panhlaing and Ahlonelan stations.

Later the Myanmar Army released the information that Police-lance-corporal Win Zaw Latt, and Police-privates Ye Min Htun, Phyo Maung Maung, and Htein Lin Aung were killed, and Police-corporals Myint Htay and Kyaw Zin wer wounded and now receiving treatments at 500-beds Military Hospital in Mingaladon. Four assault rifles were declared lost in the ambush.

The eyewitness from the train told the Khit Thit Media that the dead and wounded policemen were taken away by the Myanmar Army soldiers at the Kyi-myin-daing Station. The train driver and conductor were overpowered by the youthful-looking gunmen and forced to stop the train but they didn’t hurt them.

The assassins’ target purely was the hated member of Myanmar Poice Battalions and so they executed almost all 6 policemen and took away four of their rifles. The truly urban war has started in Burma’s largest city and it is spreading all over the country like a wild fire. It will only end when Myanmar Army and Myanmar Police are totally destroyed.

UK Is Now Living With COVID & Australia Must Too

  (Matthew Lesh’s article from the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD on August 2, 2021.) 

Freedom Day in London. A crowded room. Music pulsing through my veins. Sweaty bodies conspicuously not distanced. HEAVEN nightclub in London, like hundreds of others in the UK, reopened in recent weeks after 16 months. Life for expat Aussies in Britain – like myself – is getting back to normal. In recent weeks, I have ventured to Barcelona and my diary is filling up with social events.

For the last year, Australians back home looked at the UK like a post-apocalyptic COVID wasteland. By contrast, Australia was bliss. Early border closures, harsh lockdowns and meticulous contact tracing pushed cases to zero. But the tables have turned. The UK is moving on while Australia seems to be suddenly trapped in a COVID nightmare.

The zero COVID strategy is no longer achievable. NSW’s world-leading contact tracers have met their match with the fast-spreading Delta variant. Cases continue to increase even within a lockdown. This wave may never disappear.

Bodies Burning in Garbage Incinerators

                (Based on Burmese posts from the FACEBOOK in July 2021.) 

Yesterday WHO declares that Burma (Myanmar) will have at least 20 million cases of Delta Variant COVID infection by end of this year. Deaths from COVID are piling up all over Burma and the ruling military government’s inept handling has been making the public health crisis worse.

The photos of long lines of corpses waiting to be cremated are all over the Burmese Facebook pages as the multitude of deaths are overwhelming the government-controlled crematoriums in Rangoon. 

And the disgusting pictures of military government’s secret burning of unclaimed COVID corpses inside the garbage incinerators operated by RCDC (Rangoon City Development Committee- the city’s municipal authority) are now leaking daily to the depressed and disturbed public.

The actual daily COVID deaths recently is more than ten times worse than the figures of 350 average-daily-deaths officially released by the military government. Rangoon alone is now recorded at least 3,500 daily deaths as per the crematorium sources.

Lockdowns Do Not Work!

                     (Gideon Rozner’s article from the IPA 0n June 30, 2021.) 

With over 12 million Australians now living under lockdown, IPA Director of Policy Gideon Rozner implored all politicians in Australia to abandon lockdown policies and commit to alternative ways of handling Covid 19.

“Lockdowns do not work. They are illiberal and economically destructive, and the best available international evidence finds no link between lockdowns and stopping excess Covid deaths. Australia must find another way.”

“Lockdowns were initially brought in under the idea of ‘two weeks to flatten the curve.’ We are now 15 months into this pandemic and we are still treating Covid 19 as if it were March 2020.”

“It is especially disappointing to see the Berejiklian government choose to lock down Sydney. This was the one government that seemed committed to learning to live with Covid. Their capitulation to pro-lockdown hysteria tells Australians that there is nowhere they can hide from the threat of lockdowns.”

Rangoon Youths’ Group Suicide During Army Raid

                  (Staff articles from the Khit Thit Media on August 11, 2021.) 

Six dead youths in the alleyway.

Five young people had jumped from the rooftop of a 5-storied building and killed themselves in a group suicide during the violent Burmese Army’s raid on their hideout in the Bo-ta-htaung Township in Rangoon City today.

Apparently the group including one young girl decided to kill themselves than getting captured and facing torture and horrible rapes and certain death in the hands of notoriously violent soldiers of brutal Burmese Army.

The army’ raid was on the apartment block at N0-38 of lower 44^th street in the crowded Botahtaung Township in Rangoon City. Altogether eight youths were inside the apartment unit targeted by the armed soldiers.

Caretaker Government by War-dogs in Burma

                  (Based on Burmese posts from the FACEBOOK in July 2021.) 

Newest Burmese dictator General Min Aung Hlaing (MAH) has formed a so-called Caretaker Government after removing third highest ranking general and other seemingly disloyal army generals from their army posts.

On August-1 MAH shamelessly declared himself as the Prime Minister of newly-formed Caretaker Government of Burma. As the six month anniversary of his February-1 coup he delivered a state speech to the country. In his speech he declared to hold the power two more years till August-1 2023.

Even though he promised to hold a general election soon he said he still needs two years to stabilize the country which he himself has destabilized by his coup. He as the military chief was to retire in last July at the age of sixty-five years, but he refused to retire and stage a coup and then killed thousands of anti-coup protesters and imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands of politicians and activists opposing his dictatorship.

What Is mRNA (Messenger RNA)?

          (Professor Penny Riggs’s article from the CONVERSATION on April 9, 2021.) 

What is mRNA? The messenger molecule that’s been in every living cell for billions of years is the key ingredient in some COVID-19 vaccines:

One surprising star of the coronavirus pandemic response has been the molecule called mRNA. It’s the key ingredient in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. But mRNA itself is not a new invention from the lab.

It evolved billions of years ago and is naturally found in every cell in your body. Scientists think RNA originated in the earliest life forms, even before DNA existed. Here’s a crash course in just what mRNA is and the important job it does.

Meet the genetic middleman

You probably know about DNA. It’s the molecule that contains all of your genes spelled out in a four-letter code – A, C, G and T. Messenger RNA carries genetic information from DNA in the highly protected nucleus out to the rest of the cell, where structures called ribosomes can build proteins according to the DNA blueprint.

Meth-King Tse Chi Lop: Chinese El Chapo (Part-5)

                 (Tom Allard’s article from the REUTERS on October-14, 2019.) 

MONEY, MONEY: The analysis of Cai’s phones was continuing to provide leads. On them, police say they found the GPS coordinates of the pick-up point in the Andaman Sea where fishing boats laden with Myanmar meth were meeting drug motherships capable of being at sea for weeks. One of the motherships was a Taiwanese trawler called the Shun de Man 66, according to the Taiwanese law enforcement document reviewed by Reuters.

The vessel was already at sea when, in early July 2017, Joshua Joseph Smith walked into a marine broker in the Western Australian capital of Perth and paid $A350,000 (about $265,000 at the time) for the MV Valkoista, a fishing charter boat. Smith, who was in his mid-40s and hailed from the east coast of Australia, inquired about sea sickness tablets. According to local media, he didn’t have a fishing license at the time.

After buying the boat on July 7, Smith set the Valkoista on a course straight from the marina to meet the Shun De Man 66 in the Indian Ocean, an AFP police commander said. After the rendezvous, the Valkoista then sailed to the remote Western Australian port city of Geraldton on July 11, where its crew was seen “unloading a lot of packages” into a van, the commander said.

Battles for Mindat: People Vs Military (Part 1)

            (Based on the Burmese posts from the FACEBOOK in June-July, 2021.) 

Mindat is a scenic hill town in southern Chin state of Myanmar formerly known as Burma. It is near the border between Chin State and Magwe Division and now a battle has been raging there for more than three months since April-24.

That day was the last of the peaceful protest by the local Chin ethnic-Christian people against the dictatorial army of mainly the dominant Buddhist-Burmese. On that day the weeks-long anti-coup protest were quelled by the Burmese soldiers and police shooting at the protesting Chin people indiscriminately.

Initial shootings were done by the town garrison LIB-274 a Light Infantry Battalion of Burmese Army. But the natives from the town and neighboring villages armed themselves with home-made hunting rifles (Tumee-muskets) and double-barrel shot guns and fought back the soldiers armed with automatic assault rifles and machine guns.