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In this mailing:
* Giulio Meotti: Coronavirus: China's Great Cover-up
* Jacobus E. Lato: Coronavirus: God's Army and Pork Consumption in Indonesia
* Amir Taheri: Who Eats the Cake in Tehran?


** Coronavirus: China's Great Cover-up ([link removed])
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by Giulio Meotti • April 5, 2020 at 5:30 am
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* Bats were not, it seems, sold at Wuhan's seafood market. The Lancet noted in a January study that the first Covid-19 case in Wuhan had no connection to the market.
* One more person has just disappeared. Ai Fen, a Chinese physician, who... claimed her bosses silenced her early warnings about coronavirus, appears to have vanished.... The journalists who saw what happened inside Wuhan have also disappeared.
* "No one has been able to study it. How can you say it's not a release from a lab if you can't go to the lab? Indeed, we have seen Beijing do its best to prevent virologists and epidemiologists from actually going to Wuhan." — Gordon Chang, in Die Weltwoche, March 31, 2020.
* That is another major problem. The potential major investigator on Wuhan's origin, the World Health Organization, is now accused of being "China's coronavirus' accomplice".
* Why is China trafficking in dangerous viruses in the first place?
* "Debate may rage over which center it is, but at this point it seems undeniable that a center has been directly involved with research on viruses, although not necessarily on the creation of a virus." — Father Renzo Milanese, AsiaNews.it, March 13, 2020.

On January 11, China's government announced that Wuhan's wet market was the origin of the coronavirus epidemic. The same Chinese regime later claimed that the virus "may not have originated in China", and later still, Chinese officials began claiming that US soldiers brought the virus to Wuhan. What respected scientist or institution can now trust anything that comes out of China? (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

We have been paying dearly for China's lies.

"This is one of the worst cover-ups in human history, and now the world is facing a global pandemic," said Rep. Michael T. McCaul, the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, before the US intelligence community concluded, in a classified report to the White House, that China has concealed the origin and extent of the catastrophic global coronavirus outbreak.

The Chinese Communist Party's "failure has unleashed a global contagion killing thousands", wrote Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, on April 1. "As we survey the damage done to lives around the world, we must ask who is responsible?"

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** Coronavirus: God's Army and Pork Consumption in Indonesia ([link removed])
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by Jacobus E. Lato • April 5, 2020 at 4:30 am
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* Instead of advising congregations in general, and Indonesians in particular, about the pandemic nature of coronavirus, many religious leaders were linking the virus to something supernatural that could be fought with prayers.
* Somad was quoted as saying that as the Muslims observe a lifestyle that is in harmony with religious teachings and is different from the majority of the population, they have protection from the deadly virus.
* These various claims no longer stand. Soon, sadly, the coronavirus swiftly moved beyond the prayer of millions of devout believers. On March 3, the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, officially announced the first two cases of coronavirus infection.... The government, the president mentioned, should be making all efforts to manage the crisis. What will Indonesian Islamist clerics, such as Somad and his supporters at MUI do: pray or find ways to take the president down?

The Indonesian government, according to President Joko Widodo (pictured), should be making all efforts to manage the coronavirus crisis. What will Indonesian Islamist clerics do, pray or find ways to take the president down? (Photo by Tracey Nearmy - Pool/Getty Images)

Coronavirus, now a global pandemic, received a different response in Indonesia than in most of the world. In February, when China was quarantining Hubei province, prominent Indonesian clerics were reducing the disease to a religious matter. As usual, the assertion was marked by religious claim of superiority and that God could easily be involved in daily life.

Instead of advising congregations in particular and Indonesians in general about the pandemic nature of coronavirus, many religious leaders were linking the virus to something supernatural that could be fought with prayers.

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** Who Eats the Cake in Tehran? ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • April 5, 2020 at 4:00 am
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* The new message from Tehran is that Iran is in need of humanitarian aid to curb the coronavirus and prevent the death of large numbers of Iranians... The first sign that the message may be working came last Monday when Germany announced that it has arranged a $5 million cash line through the European Union for Iran to secure medical supplies needed to fight the pandemic. The German initiative, through a mechanism called Instex and designed to by-pass sanctions, is clearly meant to test the waters.
* Nevertheless, the acceptance of the first Instex operation and the renewal of waivers might have two outcomes that may not please Washington.... The result could be a sham show of unity by the regime with a new message to Iranians, as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas believes that change within the regime may be better than regime change.
* The trouble with all this is that we have already been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. Europe and the United States have repeatedly tried to bring the Islamic Republic in from the cold by playing the accommodation, not to say appeasement, card, each time ending up as the cuckold in the story.
* The tidbits offer an insight into the mindset of the weird clique dominating Iran since 1979 and why those who believe they are dealing with a normal government would need to have their heads examined. The Reagan administration, helped by Israel, smuggled over 1,000 anti-tanks missiles to Iran to help it stop the advance of the Iraqi invasion in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The mullahs paid half the cost of the missiles as down payment but refused to pay the second half after they had received all consignments. There was no need to pay "The Crusaders" the price.
* On a smaller scale, Kangarloo relates the fate of a huge "key-shaped" cake bought in Tel Aviv as a Ramadan present from Reagan to Khomeini, regime godfather at the time. By the time Kangarloo arrived at the airport, the Revolutionary Guards had eaten the cake for Ramadan breakfast... Even in those early days it was clear who eats the cake in the Islamic Republic.

Will coronavirus help the Islamic Republic's chief Ali Khamenei alleviate his ramshackle regime's cash flow problem? Pictured: A ballistic missile is paraded past a stand bearing the photo of Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on April 18, 2018, in Tehran. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

Will coronavirus help the Islamic Republic's chief Ali Khamenei alleviate his ramshackle regime's cash flow problem? This is certainly what the so-called "moderate" faction in Tehran hopes would happen to enable it to maintain some relevance in an emerging power struggle that favors the more hardline Khomeinists.

According to President Hassan Rouhani's team, the Islamic Republic needs a minimum of $60 billion a year to cover "basic expenses". This is made up of cash needed to pay the salaries of key military, security and civil services, pension payments to an estimated 1.2 million veterans, stipends for families of martyrs and semi-martyrs, money needed to keep the Assad regime in Damascus afloat, and cash to keep client groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and the Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza going.

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