CULTURE & HISTORY

Scientists around the world have been racing to develop a vaccine and the first clinical trials could be held in China and the US within a month. But a number of cases, where people who had tested negative for the disease and were discharged from hospital only to give a positive result a few days later, have cast doubt on the process.
If it turns out that these patients had been reinfected by the same virus, then vaccines will not prove effective.
But the monkey experiment carried out by a team from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences may help dispel that fear.

DAVID WALSH-In his own speech to the court, Weinstein explained that he thought the relationships with the various women were consensual and suggested, in the words of the New York Times, that “he was the victim of a rush to judgment.” He argued, according to the Times, “that the #MeToo campaign was similar to the Red Scare of the 1950s and compared himself to the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was jailed and blacklisted after joining the Communist Party. ‘I think that is what is happening now all over this country,’ Mr. Weinstein said.”

This an English language version of a Soviet documentary about the defeat of the Nazis near Moscow. Warning – graphic images. Edward G. Robinson narrates. It won the 1943 Academy Award for Best Documentary (along with the films The Battle of Midway, The Kokoda Line!, and Prelude to War (Why We Fight Film 1).

RAMIN MAZAHERI—French unions have done a woeful job leading the strike despite having everything going for them at the beginning. The alleged superiority of the so-called “independent” union model – favored by the West but opposed by any country with a revolution after 1917 – is once again failing the nation, if maybe not their dues-paying members.  The general strike is wobbling, and by January 24th the pension bill will be formally presented to the government. It is amazing rapacity, because presenting a bill amid such strikes is obviously rushing it into the safe arms of a system dominated by President Emmanuel Macron.

ANDRE VLTCHEK—What is exported are primitive beats and computer-generated images, falsely described as films. It is that toxic food, sold in chain eateries. It is the plastic cartoon production of soulless movies for children, as well as theme parks which are destroying the imagination and ability to dream.