Wuhan Institute of Virology

This afternoon.

About a month before COVID-19 was first reported in Wuhan, China, foreign government contacts told US State Department officials that several workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in mid-November 2019.

The US State Department acknowledged in January 2021 that the…

“…United States government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019.”

It found that they’d experienced symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 “and common seasonal illness.”

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal, went further said these workers required hospital care  lending further weight to the theory that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory.

FIGHT!

China denies WSJ story on three researchers falling sick at Wuhan lab before confirmed Covid-19 outbreak (India Today)

Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin (Wall Street Journal)

Meanwhile..

Orange Man Bad told you so.

Would you listen?

Getty

1988.

Tara Street, Dublin 1.

Meanwhile…

Via Dave Jazay

Thius morning.

Taoiseach Michael Martin on RTÉ Radio One’s Claire Byrne Live.

Meanwhile…

Um.

Saturday’s Irish Independent.

Pillow-lipped progressive turned despotic doorman.

KN writes:

What the hell happened Julian Mercille?

Anyone?

Indian variant a game changer and must not be made welcome (Julian Mercille, Independent.ie)

A short by by Ilya Landshut for Hamburg-based Human Art Studio in which an extraterrestrial attempts to bring the sweet, sweet ‘source of life’ back to its home planet in the hope of saving a beloved partner.

awesomer

Saturday.

O’Connell Street, Dublin 1.

A protest in solidarity with the Palestinian people, part of a global day of action called in response to the recent escalation of violence that has left more than 250 dead.

RollingNews

Meanwhile…

Oh.

Then Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny prepares to make a statement on the Brexit result on June 24, 2016

Kevin writes:

My poem in response to yesterday evening’s episode of Reeling In The Years deals with the Brexit referendum. I wrote this poem a couple of weeks before the vote. It is dedicated to my friend Darrell who lives in Portsmouth and was a big fan of the cheap French wine EU membership facilitated.

Exit
(for Darrell Kavanagh in his hour of need)

There will be no more thunderstorms
sent across the Channel by the French,
no acid rain floating in from Belgium.
Pizza Hut will offer a choice of
Yorkshire Pudding or Yorkshire Pudding.

You’ll spend the next twenty seven bank holidays
dismantling everything you ever bought from IKEA.
The electric shower your plumber,
Pavel, put in last week will be taken out
and you’ll be given the number of a bloke
who’s pure Billericay. Those used to caviar
will have jellied eels forced
down their magnificent throats.
Every fish and chip shop
on the Costa del Sol will in time
be relocated to Ramsgate or Carlisle.

All paving stones laid by the Irish
will be torn up to make work
for blokes who’ve been on the sick
since nineteen seventy six.
Those alleged to be involved in secretly
making spaghetti bolognaise
will be arrested and held
in a detention centre near Dover. Sausage dogs
will be put in rubber dinghies
and pointed in the general direction
of the Fatherland. Neatly sliced
French sticks topped with Pâté
will make way for fried bread
lathered with Marmite.

There’ll be no more of those new
names for coffee your gran
can’t pronounce. The entire royal family
will be shipped back to Bavaria, with the exception
of the Duke of Edinburgh who’ll be given
a one way ticket to Athens. Curry
will no longer by compulsory
after every twelfth pint of Stella,
which itself will only be available
by special permission of the Foreign Office.

We’ll give India back its tea, sit around increasingly
bellicose campfires in our rusting iron helmets,
our tankards overflowing with traditional Norse mead.

Kevin Higgins

RollingNews

Roman Protasevich was detained in the Belarusian capital yesterday after Ryanair flight FR4978 was diverted to Minsk shortly before it was due to leave Belarusian airspace

Last night/this morning.

Roman Protasevich was a co-founder of the Nexta TV channel which was declared extremist by Belarus authorities last year after helping to organise mass demonstrations against President Alexander Lukashenko,.

He subsequently fled to Poland and currently faces charges which could carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

Minsk’s airport had released a statement saying the aircraft had to make an emergency landing there at 12.15pm GMT following a bomb scare.

the government’s press service said on its own Telegram channel that the president had given the order to divert the flight and had ordered a Mig-29 fighter jet to accompany the plane.

Meanwhile…

This morning.

Forced Ryanair landing state-sponsored ‘aviation piracy’ – Coveney (RTE)

Getty/AP

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