News Round-Up: US Congress Report on Covid, Academics’ Self-Censorship and Paying A Billion To Wind Farms for Not Producing Energy
Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.
Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:
US Congressional Covid Committee: Covid-19 originated from Wuhan laboratory.
Academic freedom in decline: 77% of university staff says so.
Refusing the rainbow: Premier League players have had enough of ‘pride’ declarations.
UK: paying a billion to wind farms for not producing energy.
Canadian township fined for refusing to celebrate Pride month.
US Congressional Covid Committee: Covid-19 originated from Wuhan laboratory
After two years of investigation, the US Congressional Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic has concluded that dangerous virus research in Wuhan, China, is the most likely source of Covid-19.
According to a report published by the committee, Covid-19 has biological characteristics that are not found in nature, reports The Daily Mail. There is evidence to support a single introduction of the virus to humans, not multiple zoonotic spillover events; and Wuhan – where the virus was first detected – is home to China's largest SARS research lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The report also cited US intelligence reports that several researchers at the WIV were sick with a Covid-like virus in the fall of 2019 and noted a lack of direct evidence linking the virus to animals at the nearby Wuhan wet market or its supply chain. WIV has long been at the center of the contentious lab leak debate because researchers there routinely tinker with and genetically modify viruses to become more virulent or transmissible. This kind of gain-of-function (GOF) research often involves genetically modifying viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 to see how they could become more effective at infecting people and making them seriously ill.
In recent years, considerable efforts have been made in the virus research community to deny the laboratory origin of the virus. For example, in March 2020, The Lancet published an open letter from 27 renowned scientists in the field stating: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” As the signatories were indeed prominent figures in the scientific world, considered to be at the top of their field, this in itself began to work as an argument against anyone talking about the possibility of a laboratory origin, and each subsequent fact-check was able to turn the article into a club to hurl at sceptical voices. It also triggered censorship on social media, as for example, any suggestion that the virus may have come from the lab was banned on Facebook until May 2021, with such claims being removed from the platform. The fact that 26 of the 27 scientists who signed the letter had direct professional links with the same Wuhan research lab, i.e. a conflict of interest, only came to light later.
Other important Covid era health figures had their own reasons to try and divert attention from the Wuhan lab. For example, in a letter to a colleague, Anthony Fauci, the White House Covid policy coordinator who became the 'face' of the US Covid crisis, called talk of a lab origin ‘a shiny object that will go away in time’, but in fact also had a direct conflict of interest on the issue. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which he headed, had been funding coronavirus gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology since 2014, and it is possible that the Covid-19 virus was developed with the support of these grants. We have previously written extensively on the laboratory origin of the virus here.
However, the origin of the virus is only one aspect of the whole crisis that the report reflected, and we plan to address the other conclusions it reached in the near future.
Academic freedom in deep decline: 77% of university staff say so
77% of university staff believe academic freedom has become more restricted on campus over the past decade, according to a major new survey, GB News writes.
The global poll, conducted by Times Higher Education, revealed particularly strong concerns in the United States, where 83% of academics reported diminishing free speech.
British universities showed similar trends, with 80% of UK-based staff reporting increased limitations on academic freedom. Students are increasingly dictating lecture content, with academics reporting they must carefully manage what they say in classrooms. "Student consumers now increasingly dictate what they want to hear in lectures and seminars," reported one academic. A British legal academic admitted he now teaches "with as little personality as possible because significant numbers of students find offence in anything that they dislike." One UK psychology academic explained it was "increasingly difficult to argue with any position deemed contentious by activists", on topics including gender, colonialism, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Refusing the rainbow: Premier League players have had enough of ‘pride’ declarations
Manchester United planned to walk-out in rainbow jackets prior to their match against Everton last Sunday, to show their support to LGBTQ+ agenda, but it did not happen, The Daily Mail reports citing The Athletic. The reason was that their Moroccan star player Noussair Mazraoui refused to wear a rainbow jacket. Mazraoui, who is a devout Muslim, told his colleagues that he would not be wearing the jacket and cited his religious faith as his reasoning. United decided that no player would then wear the tracksuit, so that Mazraoui would not be singled out publicly – with the decision reportedly just taken hours before kick-off on Sunday.
His move comes after England and Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi defied a Football Association reprimand by writing a religious message on his rainbow-coloured captain's armband – and Ipswich Town skipper Sam Morsy has now twice refused to wear the rainbow armband.
UK: paying a billion to wind farms for not producing energy
British bill payers have spent £1 billion (€1.21 billion) to temporarily switch off wind turbines so far this year as the grid struggles to cope with their power when there is an abundance of wind, The Telegraph writes.
The amount of wind power “curtailed” in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at about 6.6 terawatt hours (TWh), according to official figures, up from 3.8 TWh in the whole of the last year. Curtailment is where wind turbines are paid to switch off at times of high winds to stop a surge in power overwhelming the grid. Households and businesses pay for the cost of this policy through their bills. The cost of switching off has reached about £1bn so far this year, according to an analysis of market data by Octopus Energy. This is more than the £779 million (€942,6 million) spent last year and £945 million (€1.14 billion) spent in 2022.
Canadian township fined for refusing to celebrate pride month
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in Canada decided in November that the township of Emo will have to pay damages after refusing to proclaim Pride Month back in 2020, CBC writes.
Borderland Pride, which is an activist 2SLGBTQIA+ organisation in Canada, requested Emo to declare June as Pride Month and display a rainbow flag for one week, but the township refused, resulting in a years-long process in which the tribunal ruled against the township.
The tribunal ruled Borderland Pride will be awarded $15,000 (€10,167), with $10,000 (€6778) coming from the township itself and the other $5,000 (€3389) coming from Emo mayor Harold McQuaker.
In addition to the compensation, the tribunal has also ordered McQuaker and Chief Administrative Officer of the municipality to complete a "Human Rights 101" training course offered by the Ontario Human Rights Commission within 30 days.
Luv your product and forum Hannes. Often inspires me to comment, or "compliment".
Re:
US Congressional Covid Committee: Covid-19 originated from Wuhan laboratory. - my compass suggests this is deep state psy-op theatre; a red herring. Why? 1. The "virus" (genetic sequence et al) has never been "issolated"; 2. all of the researched evidence reported Neil, Engler & Fenton, and Dr.s Samantha & Mark Bailey.. here on substack and elsewhere, and 3. all that has been entirely fabricated by "pharma" for generations, ,and 4. how deeply entrenched even the well-meaning are; going out on a bit of limb here, as in.. some Senators.
Academic freedom in decline: 77% of university staff says so. - plumented (perhaps more aptly)
Refusing the rainbow: Premier League players have had enough of ‘pride’ declarations. - not much of a crack in the prevailing orthodoxy, particularly where it came from, but given the result, we'll take it.
UK: paying a billion to wind farms for not producing energy. - one tiny piece of the cost of stifled (bludgeoned, actually) 'academic freedom'.
Canadian township fined for refusing to celebrate Pride month. - My kind of town; literally. Hope someone crowd-funds them. - Shared on X, as a separate calling, and all of the above, both with links to here.
God bless
Queers are a vocal minority & its hardly Democratic to expect normal people to pay them any attention at all. If they can't get by without interfering with the rights of the God-created majority, they should take up another pursuit.