Coronavirus: Cases jump in Iran and Italy
Yesterday, Mustang Major observed, “BTW, on my two trips to Europe last year (southern Spain, Berlin, and Italy) the areas I traveled through were infested with Chinese tourists taking selfies. It was like a swarm of locust. No wonder Europe is in the jam they are in now.”
Today Italy and Iran are the hardest hit, besides China itself. While tourism can indeed be a vector for Italy, that model doesn’t work for Iran. However, there is commonality between the two disparate countries.
Poetrooper sends.
WHY ITALY AND IRAN?
By: John Hinderaker
Italy and Iran have been two of the countries hardest hit by the Wuhan coronavirus, outside of China. Why? Helen Raleigh explains at The Federalist:
The reason these two countries are suffering the most outside China is mainly due to their close ties with Beijing, primarily through the “One Belt and One Road” (OBOR) initiative.
OBOR is Beijing’s foreign policy play disguised as infrastructure investment. Here’s how it works: China and country X agree to do an infrastructure project in country X. Country X has to borrow from a Chinese bank to finance the project. A contract is always awarded to Chinese companies, which then bring supplies and Chinese employees to country X to build the project.
As a result of One Belt and One Road, there are more than 300,000 Chinese living in Italy.
Almost exactly a year ago in March 2019, against warnings from the EU and the United States, Italy became the first and only G7 country to sign onto OBOR. As part of the deal, Italy opened an array of sectors to Chinese investment, from infrastructure to transportation, including letting Chinese state-owned companies hold a stake in four major Italian ports. …
Lombardy and Tuscany are the two regions that saw the most Chinese investment. Nearly a year later, the first Wuhan coronavirus infection case in Italy was reported in the Lombardy region on Feb. 21. Today, Italy is experiencing the worst coronavirus outbreak outside China, and Lombardy is the hardest-hit region in the country.
The Iran case is interesting as well:
2019 was the year Iran officially signed up to OBOR. China sees Iran as a crucial player to this initiative because Iran is not only rich in oil but also lies in a direct path of an ambitious 2,000-mile railroad China wants to build, which will run from western China through Tehran and Turkey into Europe.
Today, Iranian health officials trace the country’s coronavirus outbreak to Qom, a city of a million people. According to the Wall Street Journal, “China Railway Engineering Corp. is building a $2.7 billion high-speed rail line through Qom. Chinese technicians have been helping refurbish a nuclear-power plant nearby.” Iranian medical professionals suspect either Chinese workers in Qom or an Iranian businessman who travelled to China from Qom caused the spread of the coronavirus in Qom.
News reports indicate that a number of high Iranian officials have contracted coronavirus, and I believe at least one or two have died. Raleigh explains:
Although on Feb. 1 the Iranian government banned its airlines from flying to China, it made an exception for Mahan Air, an unofficial airline for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Having China build infrastructure not only enriches China, it clearly endangers the host country. Read the rest of the article here: Powerline Blog
Thanks, Poe.
Category: China, Exploitation, Guest Link, Iran
PRC has its OBOR tentacles into numerous countries all over the world, especially in Central Asia, Africa, and South America. Absolutely no surprise that this whiplashed and bit the victim countries in the ass…
Just a few months ago, New Zealand also signed onto the PRC OBOR scheme, but fortunately for NZ the Chi-Coms had not yet flowed into the country before the Wuhan Corona hit. But the New Zealanders have gone full radical left, so they will probably not learn anything relevant from all this…
That tyrannical gun grabbing scrunt of a PM went on an apology tour after the shooting, swearing the government would do anything…
Liberty for safety, Hobbesian choice.
And the hits just keep a’coming. As I have stated since I FIRST commented on this site, China’s government is NOT our friend, never has been, never has. China’s ultimate goal is world domination and they will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. The short sighted profiteers of every country on Earth cannot see this and continue to enable them in their march to that goal. They have very long memories and look at things in the long term. Here is more evidence of how the pollution they spread is having a world wide effect.
I am sure that the poodle-di@ked seagull will be here shortly spewing his empirical data and his personal attacks proving us all wrong and screeching “Orange Man Bad”. The individual deaths from this virus is bad for the people involved. While we mourn those, maybe we should also mourn they other thousands that die everyday from other, preventable, causes. In the meantime we can celebrate the 10s of thousands that have recovered from this and the billions that are still alive.
KoB:
IMHO, I still think/believe that virus was created in a Lab. In China. Biological Warfare.
Yep! Me too, or just to make sure there is no one confused by the other me too, I’ll say I also believe this is biological warfare. I’ll go one step/conspiracy theory further and re raise the question of the Boston U/Harvard perfessers that were taking massive amounts of money from Wuhan based perfessers AND Wuhan based ChiCom Military members. Gotta dig deep for those stories, they keep going “poof.”
Follow the money!
How true about the toxic waste!
Former client of mine was in the metal hose clamp business. (The kind that is stainless steel and you tighten it up with a screw driver and a worm gear draws the clamp tighter.) His conex size order of clamps from China sets off the radiation detectors at the port in Long Beach. Turns out all the clamps are radioactive. China mixed in radioactive metal at the factory.
He tried to ship them back, and the government wouldn’t let the container leave the port. The client was a former US ambassador, and couldn’t get any help from the state department or the US government in general. He ended up having to pay for the disposal of the clamps in a regulated nuclear waste sight.
Chinese officials denied everything. Our government said that they would “bring it up” with China.
I also think my beloved boxer died of cancer from eating treats sold in the commissary that were made in China. The label gave the name of a US company, but I found that the country of origin was China. My fault for not catching that one sooner.
I don’t entirely rule it out, but it seems very unlikely this was an engineered virus. There are already a wide number of sequenced genomes from COVID-19 now, and by tracing mutations, bindings and other key features, the virus can be traced backwards into plausible reservoirs and transmission points:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm
LC:
Thank You for the information and the link.
Also, thank you for being open minded that you do not entirely rule out my perspective.
We learn from one another!
My guess is that’s why the ChiComs have accused us of bio warfare LC, because they know that at some point it’ll be traced as an engineered virus. And if 5th/77 is right, and it comes back to those professors, there’s their plausible deniability…
You are not alone…What better way to gauge transmission vectors, spread rates, and reactions / mitigation efforts of target countries?
Any doubt I had on the subject was removed when they accused us of bio warfare…
I have been saying for years that China gets rid
of toxic waste by putting a little bit of it in
everything they export.
That is why the paint on their products turns to
powder in the sun. That is why their plastic stuff
turns to powder in the sun. That is why their
so called stainless steel isn’t.
Everything they export is loaded with waste.
Oh shit, now LC is gonna want published data.
Having worked around Chinese folks for over a quarter century, I would say you are talking straight out yer fourth point of contact. Chinese factories typically build TO SPECS, and if the American outsourcers fail to identify critical specs, shame on them. We even had specs on how far plated metal could rust at the shear edges years after leaving the factory. Too, we didn’t accept work from the “just give us the cheapest” American vendors… but they certainly are around.
Actually, based on this: https://theweek.com/articles/498611/made-china-seven-toxic-imports
and other similar reports, I’d say you’re the one that’s a bit off base on this topic David. When it’s that prevalent, it can’t be accidental.
I worked for very high-end companies… no doubt almost all here own and use their products. Like I said, we didn’t deal with the low-end folks. But given the incredibly high numbers of Asian products imported, and the relatively low number of contaminated products reported, it seems a concentrated intentional campaign is unlikely. Greed and stupidity are far more likeley suspects than tin-foil-chapeau conspiracies.
While I have seen manufacturing shortcuts, even severely hazardous ones, none were ‘let’s screw the sharpnoses’.. all of them were endangerments or shortchanging their own workers. Automatic cut-offs disabled, non-existent emissions controls and the like.
Fair points. Thanks for the perspective.
Did you hear about the contaminated pet foods a few years back, some dosed with a toxic chemical to boost the protein count in tests?
That wasn’t a case of a poorly written spec.
And Mustang Major refers to his client receiving hose clamps made with radioactive steel, hot enough to require hazmat disposal.
Again, not a poorly written spec case.
I’ve lived in China and seen the ‘quality’ of their stuff up close. We’re in agreement on this one.
And you can probably agree – what is sent to the US is generally far higher-end than what is produced for domestic Chinese use. Many Chinese tools, for instance, are almost single-use.
My comment for this post was placed in the above post by mistake. Need to get my eyeballs recalibrated.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”
~ REM
“…be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” James 1:22
Worlds coming to an end an I don’t even care
As long as I can have a Limo and my orange hair
It doesn’t bother me if people think I’m funny
Because I’m a big rock star and I make a lotta money
Ear Ache my eye
Cheech and Chong
We’re getting safer cars and rocket ships to Mars,
by men who would sell us out to get a piece of power.
Harry Truman
Chicago 8
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Italy have a very concentrated population which can accelerate an infection rate? As to Iran, didn’t they have muzzie Clergy encouraging people to hug and kiss each other ad well as their holy sites?
I’m leaning on the bioterror weapon status myself. Witnessing the panic that has developed along with the breathless reporting of reporters I’m smelling a huge rat here…..
I’m going to leave it at that with the exception of DON”T SNEEZE OR COUGH INTO YOUR ELBOW !!!!!
You don’t wash your elbow unless you’re going into perform surgery.
Sneeze into your shirt, it’s contained completely there and unless you’re a stripper it stays there until you get out of those clothes so it’s a lot safer.
And wash your damn hands !!!!
*Tongue In Cheek*
Well, I’m sold.
The Chinese were right.
They did not create the Coronavirus.
Hollywood did.
2:28 Minute Video for the 2011 Movie “Contagion” Trailer.
Very eerie and worth watching.
You Be The Judge.
“Contagion” follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. At the same time, ordinary people struggle to survive in a society coming apart.”
“Doctors at the United States Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization rush to contain the outbreak of a new, deadly virus. As they search for a cure, they track the virus’ source to Hong Kong. Unfortunately, as they try to keep the death count from climbing, it’s not just the disease they have to worry about: False rumors and civil unrest travel the globe faster than the killer bug.”