Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

While patients have long known that antibiotics can disrupt gut health, researchers have now discovered that seemingly harmless medications—including common allergy pills, antidepressants, and hormone treatments—may also pose a threat to the protective bacteria that keep dangerous pathogens at bay.

“This can be dangerous to frail or elderly people,” senior study author Lisa Maier, said in a press statement.

Scale of Problem ‘Utterly Unexpected’

The study, recently published in Nature, found that 28 percent of 53 tested nonantibiotic medications promoted the growth of harmful pathogens like Salmonella in laboratory models, potentially leaving millions of patients vulnerable to serious intestinal infections.

“The scale of it was utterly unexpected,“ said Maier. ”Many of these non-antibiotics inhibit useful gut bacteria, while pathogenic microbes such as Salmonella Typhimurium are impervious,” she noted. “This gives rise to an imbalance in the microbiome, which gives an advantage to the pathogens.”

While researchers didn’t specify all medications tested, they highlighted concerning findings about widely prescribed drugs, including clomiphene (a fertility drug), simvastatin (a statin), floxuridine (a chemotherapy drug), and an allergy medicine—all increased infection risk. The antihistamine terfenadine was highlighted by researchers as one nonantibiotic found to weaken natural resistance to infection, leading to faster disease development and heightened inflammation from Salmonella in mice.

Very commonly prescribed antacids, such as Pepcid and Prilosec, are also prone to increase a person’s susceptibility to gut infections, noted Dr. David Purow, a gastroenterologist and the eastern regional director for gastrointestinal endoscopy at Northwell Health, who was not involved in the study. He said this is because reduced stomach acid can encourage an environment that allows harmful bacteria to survive and thrive.

Beneficial versus Harmful Bacteria

Researchers found that pathogenic bacteria like Shigella flexneri and Escherichia coli—which are responsible for illnesses such as typhoid fever, diarrhea, and urinary tract infections—were more resistant to some drugs than were the beneficial gut bacteria. The team theorized that these drugs may increase the growth of pathogens by inhibiting or disrupting the beneficial microbes.

For example, drugs including simvastatin, floxuridine, and the antipsychotic chlorpromazine increased the growth of Shigella flexneri and Escherichia coli at certain concentrations. Zafirlukast, an asthma drug, stood out from most of the drugs studied, as it inhibited the growth of Shigella flexneri but promoted the growth of Escherichia coli.

“While the necessity of drugs is unnegotiable, even drugs with supposedly few side-effects can, so to speak, cause the microbial firewall in the intestine to collapse,” Maier said.

This study adds to previous research, also published in Nature, that reported 24 percent of the nonantibiotic drugs, including antivirals, antipsychotics, acid-reducing medications, chemotherapy drugs, and blood-pressure medications, inhibited the growth of at least one strain of gut bacteria commonly found in healthy people.

Certain drugs may interfere with the normal interactions among bacteria, either by blocking nutrient access for harmful germs or by disrupting the beneficial bacteria’s ability to keep pathogens in check.

The findings indicate that some nonantibiotic medications may impair the gut’s defense mechanisms, making people more susceptible to intestinal infections—especially among certain patient groups.

“Older adults, individuals with chronic inflammatory conditions, immunocompromised patients, and those with a history of recurrent antibiotic use already have less microbial diversity, which makes them more susceptible to further disruption,” said Dr. Ruvini Wijetilaka, a board-certified internal medicine physician at Mecca Health, who was not involved in the study.

Probiotic Treatment May Help

Experts emphasize that patients should not stop taking necessary medications. There are “targeted therapies” that could help restore microbiome health, Purow noted.

“Whether you do prebiotics or probiotics, [they] have the potential to help,” he said, though he cautioned that optimal treatments may vary between people since healthy gut bacteria ratios differ from person to person.

Researchers pointed out that the study had several limitations. It was conducted using laboratory-based experiments outside of a living human body, which may not fully capture the complexity of the human gut environment. Additionally, the specific drugs tested and bacterial communities used in the study may not represent the full diversity found in real-world settings.

“Animal and in vitro studies are invaluable for identifying potential mechanisms, but the translation to humans is complex,” Wijetilaka said. “The human microbiome is far more diverse and variable than that of lab animals, and it’s influenced by numerous lifestyle and environmental factors.”

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

On Friday, the “Age Verification” clause of the UK’s Online Safety Act officially came into force. The result was a sudden surge in discussion, and a lot of people realising – finally – what the law really means.

People have been googling “VPN” a lot. That’s a good thing; we’ll get to why later.

Unfortunately, much of this is stable doors and bolted horses. We’ve been warning about the OSA since it was first mooted (by the Conservatives, just to remind you that “sides” are an illusion), and we’re rather past the point where awareness would have mattered.

The new law essentially forces companies to put any even potentially “adult content” behind an ID wall – meaning a user must prove their age before they access it. The ways of doing that vary; you can use a credit card or let an AI-powered system scan your face via webcam to guess your age.

Don’t worry, it won’t store the data, and it’s only guessing your age, not scanning your face and uploading it to some data storage centre. They promised they wouldn’t do that.

The really vital part here is what exactly “adult content” means. It evokes – and is indeed intended to evoke – pornography. The act was sold as a tool to prevent children from accessing the near-infinite amounts of porn scattered across the web, but pornography is the least of it.

“Adult content” can also mean violence, suicide, animal cruelty, war, drugs…or any news coverage and/or discussion of the same. It could also mean “conspiracy theories”, especially those which could “expose children to harm”, like anti-vaccine sentiment, or cause “radicalization”.

In fact, it can potentially mean anything it is required to mean, which is exactly the kind of thing they LOVE to put in new laws.

But I don’t want to rehash these points here. You can read our previous coverage of it HERE HERE HERE and HERE.

Today I want to talk about how the OSA is going to spread, and why it might not matter if it does.

Over the weekend, it was widely noted on Twitter/X that Elon Musk’s platform was putting EU-based users behind the age restriction, not just British ones. People made jokes that the US-based platform couldn’t differentiate between the UK and Europe.

Far more likely, they are preparing for when the EU launches its own age verification scheme in the near future.

Australia, as they so often do, started this totalitarian ball rolling back in the Spring (we covered that here). Ireland followed suit earlier this month. Canada and Mexico aren’t far behind. The US’s “Kids Online Safety Act” (KOSA) is moving forward more slowly, but only the most optimistic would bet against it passing eventually.

The trend is as predictable as it was inevitable.

We must ask, yet again, what is the functional difference between a one-world government and 197 near-identical national governments? The answer is as close to “nothing” as makes no difference.

That is the current model for global rule.

A hundred hydra heads pretending the body they’re all attached to doesn’t exist.

And this hydra really, REALLY wants to control the internet.

The good news, at least in my opinion, is that I don’t think they can. I don’t think it will work.

Well…in one way it will.

It will normalize people handing over IDs and asking permission. It will further accustom people to the idea that the government is looking over their shoulder, and further ingrain all the habits of self-moderation and internal censorship that dictates.

There’s nothing you can do about that, except to nudge people and remind them “this is not normal”. Whatever the counter of “normalization” is (Anti-normalization? Weirdening?)

But that’s only half of it, the psycho-social half. The other half – actually controlling the internet – I don’t think they’re capable of achieving it. I’m not even sure it’s possible.

I don’t believe the internet is capable of being controlled in the way they are seeking to control it, I don’t think the establishment knew, for one second, what they were unleashing when they made access to it so widely available, and I don’t think they would ever have birthed this monster if they had known.

And I think they have been playing catch-up ever since.

This lack of understanding of the internet is displayed in comical and trivial terms fairly routinely.

Consider the viral video of a CNN anchor asking “who is this 4chan?” or David Cameron’s solemn pledge to ban encryption (which is almost impossible).

They just don’t get it.

Let’s take these age verification measures as an example. We already mentioned that people are simply using VPNs to get around them. There’s talk of the government banning VPNs in response (unlikely) or making them “register” with the government (more likely), but that typifies the failings of imagination and approach that make it so unlikely they could ever fully succeed.

They are always reacting. Plugging leaks and whacking moles. They lag behind.

People still torrent. Piratebay was shut down fifty thousand times. It’s still there. If one day it isn’t, something else will be.

There will likely be a dozen ways to circumvent the age verification system within a few weeks of it being implemented. It will be only slightly slower than 17-year-olds realizing they can just click the “I’m over 18” button.

The internet evolves. It is dynamic and organic. When one route is blocked, informal armies of thousands of anonymous intelligences cloud-compute workarounds.

I’m not saying everything is fine. I’m not doing the negative panic meme…

…at least, I don’t think I am.

The OSA, and all the other acts like it, are terrible. They enable censorship and demand surveillance. They make the environment more hostile, but not unlivable. While they are clearly a threat…I just can’t see them as existential one.

I might be wrong. I might just be in a good mood and seeing ice cream castles in the air.

For now, I’d download Tor while you can. And then whatever replaces Tor should it get banned or bought or compromised. That’s just the way the internet works. And fortunately for us, this is something the powers that be have never really understood.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The US seeks influence over this region that supplies much of neighboring China’s rare earth industry…

Western media has published a spree of articles raising awareness of the important role that Myanmar’s Kachin State plays in the global rare earth minerals industry.

The latest phase of that country’s long-running civil war, which is more complex than most Western and non-Western accounts alike make it seem as explained here in February 2024, has seen regional separatists take control of sites that produce roughly half of the world’s heavy rare earths.

Here are five of those aforementioned reports about this:

* 28 March: “Insight: Myanmar rebels disrupt China rare earth trade, sparking regional scramble”

* 23 June: “How war-torn Myanmar plays a critical role in China’s rare earth dominance”

* 8 July: “Exclusive: Why China’s ultimatum to Myanmar rebels threatens global supply of heavy rare earths”

* 11 July: “What to Know About the Rush for Rare Earth Metals in War-Torn Myanmar”

* 18 July: “A Rebel Army Is Building a Rare-Earth Empire on China’s Border”

To summarize, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is trying to expand control over its eponymous state, which threatens the ruling military authorities with whom they’ve been at war for decades. China has reportedly demanded that they halt their offensive otherwise it’ll curtail imports of their rare earths. This could in turn destabilize global supply chains if the KIA doesn’t comply and China carries through on its ultimatum since China has a near-monopoly on processing these resources.

It’s within this context that the US just lifted sanctions on some of the ruling junta’s allies. By alleviating some of the pressure that it placed upon them since they reassumed power over the country in early 2021 following disputed parliamentary elections several months prior, which sparked the latest round of what’s by far the world’s longest-running civil war, the US seems to be signaling interest in a deal. All pressure could possibly be removed if Myanmar (con)federalizes and gives the US influence over Kachin.

Myanmar might be tempted to consider this seeing as how the armed forces have been on the backfoot for nearly the past two years. It’s also so concerned about becoming disproportionately dependent on China that it comprehensively expanded ties with Russia as a means of hedging against that scenario. An American-brokered political-resource deal might therefore keep the generals in power and lead to Myanmar diversifying its Chinese balancing act by having the US complement Russia’s role in this regard.

The Sino-US scramble for rare earths, which Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova assessed to be part of the AI-driven ‘tech race’, is a top US foreign policy priority. It’s accordingly more important for the US to obtain control over these resources or at least influence over China’s suppliers, such as what it’s seeking to do through the peace deal that it recently brokered between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda as explained here, than to “spread democracy” in Myanmar.

This grand strategic imperative accounts for the US’ unexpected lifting of sanctions on some of the ruling junta’s allies, which comes amidst Western media’s spree of articles raising wider awareness of the important role that Myanmar’s Kachin State plays in the global rare earth minerals industry. Those reports help precondition the Western public to understand why the US might soon sacrifice the prior administration’s “democracy” goals in Myanmar by cutting a political-resource deal with the generals.

A tsunami triggered by a massive underwater earthquake off the eastern coast of Russia, impacting Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. West Coast in the overnight hours, has now led to the eruption of Eurasia’s highest and most active volcano, located on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Russian media Tass News said the 8.7 magnitude earthquake that struck off Russia’s Kamchatka was the “largest earthquake since 1952.” It cited the Russian Academy of Sciences, which now says the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano has begun to erupt shortly after the quake. 

“Right now, Klyuchevskaya Sopka is erupting,” the Russian federal agency wrote in the post with an accompanying photograph of the volcano’s eruption. 

Key facts about Klyuchevskaya Sopka:

• Height: 4,750 meters (15,580 feet)

• Type: Stratovolcano (steep-sided and symmetrical)

• Location: Eastern Kamchatka, part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”

• Volcanic activity: One of the most active volcanoes in the world, with frequent eruptions recorded since the 17th century

• Last eruption: Ongoing activity is common, with the most recent eruptions typically occurring every few years

• Formation: Estimated to have formed about 7,000 years ago

More footage of the eruption:

🚨🇷🇺 🌋 VOLCANO ERUPTS IN RUSSIA’S KAMCHATKA AFTER STRONGEST EARTHQUAKE

The eruption of Klyuchevskaya Sopka began shortly after a powerful earthquake hit Kamchatka, with aftershocks still shaking the region. pic.twitter.com/JsSmE4Sa0B

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) July 30, 2025

Following an earthquake in Kamchatka, the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano began erupting

Klyuchevskaya Sopka is the tallest and one of the most active volcanoes in Eurasia (4,750 m), located in Kamchatka. pic.twitter.com/hwGSwrdPpD

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 30, 2025

Both the tsunami-triggering quake and the volcanic eruption stem from tectonic movements along the Pacific Ring of Fire, particularly the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Okhotsk Plate. This suggests a major stress release event in the Earth’s crust. 

This kind of event cluster in rapid succession could indicate a larger regional stress redistribution, raising the risk of additional quakes or eruptions in adjacent fault lines or volcanoes (e.g., in the Aleutians, Kuril Islands, or even Japan).

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Cadence Design Systems, a leading developer of electronic design automation (EDA) software and hardware, has agreed to pay a $140 million fine to settle claims that it illegally sold semiconductor design technology to a Chinese military university on the U.S. government’s export blacklist.

The San Jose-based technology company admitted wrongdoing as part of a plea agreement announced on July 28 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.

In the agreement, Cadence admitted to selling $45.3 million worth of export-controlled products and services to China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) without a license to do so. The university, established and supervised by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, was added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List in 2015 for using American-origin components to build supercomputers to simulate nuclear blasts and other military activities.

According to prosecutors, from February 2015 to April 2021, employees of Cadence’s China-based subsidiary sold and installed EDA hardware to NUDT’s campus. University personnel were also able to download EAD software and intellectual property from Cadence’s portals, even though Cadence employees knew NUDT was a blacklisted entity.

Internal company communications revealed that Cadence employees were informed by their export control officer on the day NUDT was added to the Entity List, prosecutors said. Nevertheless, they continued working with a front company known as CSCC, an alias for NUDT.

In one instance, Cadence’s then-head of sales in China instructed colleagues to refer to their customer as CSCC in English and NUDT only in Chinese characters to obscure the nature of the transactions, writing that “the subject [was] too sensitive,” according to prosecutors.

Cadence has agreed to pay nearly $118 million in criminal penalties. In parallel, the Commerce Department resolved a civil enforcement action with Cadence, resulting in an additional $95 million in civil fines.

As part of a coordinated settlement, the Departments of Justice and Commerce agreed to credit a portion of Cadence’s payments toward the other agency’s fines. After accounting for cross-crediting, Cadence will pay more than $140 million in combined criminal and civil penalties and asset forfeitures.

In addition, the company has agreed to a three-year probationary period, during which it must enhance export compliance protocols, cooperate with any ongoing investigations, and submit to government audits every year.

U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian of the Northern District of California called the settlement a “positive step” toward demonstrating “corporate responsibility.”

“Export controls safeguard America’s advanced technological know-how from falling into the wrong hands, which is particularly important in the Silicon Valley as the epicenter of groundbreaking innovation,” Missakian said in a statement.

In a notice filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cadence said it is “pleased to have reached these settlements” and “believes they are in the best interests of Cadence, its customers and its stockholders.”

The plea agreement still needs a federal judge’s approval.

China remains the world’s largest market for semiconductors and related technologies, but rising national security concerns have led to increased scrutiny and restrictions on American firms doing business there.

Some of those restrictions have been relaxed recently. Earlier this month, the Commerce Department told Cadence, Synopsys, and Germany’s Siemens that it was lifting the requirement to obtain a license before exporting EDA tools to China.

The policy change comes as part of the agreement reached during trade talks in London and Geneva, aimed at easing trade tensions and rolling back escalating tariffs. In return, China agreed to resume exports of rare earth elements and the magnets made from them, which are critical to both defense and high-tech manufacturing industries.

In a huge move which the Brazilian government has blasted as rank political interference in its internal affairs, the Trump administration on Wednesday pulled the trigger on previously threatened sweeping tariffs on Brazil, and in addition sanctioned the judge overseeing the trial of Jair Bolsonaro, who has been accused of plotting a coup –  and remains currently on trial – after rejecting the election results which brought President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to power.

“Today, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Alexandre de Moraes (de Moraes), who has used his position to authorize arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppress freedom of expression,” the US Treasury statement reads.

“Alexandre de Moraes has taken it upon himself to be judge and jury in an unlawful witch hunt against US and Brazilian citizens and companies,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. 

“De Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions—including against former President Jair Bolsonaro. Today’s action makes clear that Treasury will continue to hold accountable those who threaten U.S. interests and the freedoms of our citizens.”

It is quite significant that the Treasury statement openly names Bolsonaro as essentially subject of a political witch hunt. Trump himself has previously emphasized these precise words in several statements.

The outspoken former president, who has long been dubbed by some regional media as ‘the Brazilian Donald Trump’ – has even lately been ordered by the court to wear an ankle monitor after declaring him a flight risk. Bolsonaro recently returned from what was essentially political exile in Florida, only to be detained and stand trial once to his home country.

This action is very unique, given that compared to other tariffs recently introduced by Trump, these measures against Brazil are explicitly political, which puts the two countries’ long positive trade relations in jeopardy.

But Moraes is now in the spotlight, and pressure could build for Lula to made a political sacrifice and simply dismiss and make this all go away, to preserve economic status quo with the United States.

The US has sought to present this as more than just political and in protection of Trump-ally Bolsonaro, however, as the Treasury also cited Brazil’s “unusual and extraordinary” actions as harmful to American businesses, free speech, and economic interests.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president, has defended Trump’s actions, saying it’s not about revenge, but justice.

But certainly revenge and punishment is seems a big motivating factor given the recent history involving MAGA and Moraes, and recent very public clashes…

🚨NEW: Infamous Brazilian “Judge Voldemort” Alexandre de Moraes, who gained notoriety after deliberately targeting Elon Musk and X in Brazil has officially been sanctioned by the US and has had all his assets frozen and barred from doing business. FAFO. pic.twitter.com/u1j2X3C2cJ

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) July 30, 2025

“The time has come for Congress to act. Broad, general, and unrestricted amnesty is urgently needed to restore peace, restore freedom to those persecuted, and show the world that Brazil still believes in democracy,” he said in reaction on X.

Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Chikungunya fever has spread rapidly in many places in Guangdong Province and spilled over to other parts of China. Local residents told The Epoch Times that the Chinese communist regime is forcing residents into quarantine and asking them to pay for it, which many people cannot afford.

As of July 24, the total number of officially confirmed cases of Chikungunya fever reported in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, and elsewhere in China reached more than 4,014, according to Chinese state media. The first case was reported on July 8.

In the city, 53 hospitals have been designated to treat the disease, with more than 3,600 isolation beds set up and preparations made for expansion to a quarantine facility, according to state media.

Because of the Chinese communist regime’s record of censoring data it considers politically sensitive, as was seen with its underreporting of COVID-19 infections and related deaths in late 2019, the true number of known Chikungunya fever infections could be higher.

Chikungunya fever is a viral disease mainly transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. Its symptoms are similar to dengue fever. Patients usually experience fever, severe joint pain, muscle pain, headache, fatigue, and rash. It has the potential to be fatal.

There is no specific antiviral treatment for Chikungunya. Deaths from the disease are rare but do occur, especially among vulnerable populations such as infants and the elderly.

The outbreak has also spread from the hardest-hit Shunde District of Foshan City to the provincial capital of Guangzhou City, as well as Yangjiang City in western Guangdong Province, more than 124 miles away. A case of Chikungunya fever occurred in Yuexiu District of Guangzhou, according to Chinese media reports. The Yangjiang City Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported on July 25 that three cases of Chikungunya fever have been diagnosed in the area.

The Macau Health Bureau, which is independent from the Chinese communist regime’s health authorities, also reported a case of Chikungunya fever on July 18. The patient is a Macau resident who visited relatives in Shunde District of Foshan City from July 8 to July 17.

The Chikungunya virus has also spread to northern China. The Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued a prevention reminder on July 22, warning of occasional cases allegedly imported to Beijing from abroad. However, Beijing officials have not released any data.

The Chikungunya virus is mainly spread by the white mosquito (Aedes albopictus), also known as the Asian tiger mosquito, Sean Lin, assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Feitian College and former U.S. army microbiologist, told NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times.

“This type of mosquito is currently more common in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in China and Southeast Asia,” he said, noting that in the past few years, “this type of mosquito has moved northward in China, so other provinces should also be careful.”

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has raised concerns of another Chikungunya virus epidemic. The WHO said it was noticing the exact same early warning signs as were seen with a major outbreak two decades ago and wanted to prevent it from happening again.

“We are calling for urgent action to prevent history from repeating itself. There is no particular treatment for chikungunya, so people need to avoid mosquito bites,” Dr. Diana Rojas Alvarez, a medical officer at the WHO, told reporters on July 22.

“WHO is currently supporting member states by deploying and strengthening laboratory diagnosis, risk communication and community engagement, training clinical workers, and strengthening surveillance and mosquito control.”

To prevent the spread and infection of Chikungunya virus, according to the WHO, local mosquito control is the key, along with emptying and cleaning containers that contain water on a weekly basis and disposing of waste.

Mandatory Paid Quarantine

Similar to how the Chinese regime handled the COVID-19 pandemic, Chikungunya patients in China are being placed in forced quarantine, which they are being asked to pay for out of their own pocket, according to Chinese residents and doctors.

The Chinese regime’s health authorities are currently saying that home quarantine is not “recommended” and instead, “quarantine at hospital is recommended” for Chikungunya patients.

A doctor at Beijiao Hospital, also known as Shunde District Third People’s Hospital, said that “home isolation is not allowed at the moment,” and it depends on testing results. “Only those with negative testing results can be discharged from the hospital. Currently, no one can conduct the test themselves, and everyone has to go to the hospital for testing.”

The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that the quarantine hospital uses screen doors, windows, and mosquito nets and that patients are treated with traditional Chinese medicine.

A laboratory employee who does virus testing in mainland China told The Epoch Times that Chikungunya fever is not included in the Class A testing category. According to mainland China’s infectious disease regulations, only Class A infectious diseases require mandatory quarantine. However, the Chinese regime is now using Class A disease standards to handle Chikungunya, and accordingly now require isolation.

A local villager in Foshan, who didn’t give his name because of safety concerns, told The Epoch Times on July 24 that his movements were controlled as soon as he entered the hospital for testing for Chikungunya.

Describing what happened when he was under observation at the hospital and wanted to leave the observation room temporarily, he said: “I was stopped when I got close to the door of the observation room. Later, my blood test result came out negative. Then, I was allowed to leave. Those who tested positive were taken to register for hospitalization by staff.”

Local residents said in social media posts that the mandatory hospital quarantine for Chikungunya is aimed at making money off the people. One patient in Guangdong showed his hospital bill for quarantine in a video posted on social media, while saying: “It costs nearly 500 yuan [about $70] a day to be quarantined at the hospital. I can’t afford it.”

Luo Ya and Ning Haizhong contributed to this report.

Recent reports in Mideast regional media say that Iran is actively exploring abandoning GPS technology and instead adopting China’s main navigation satellite system, BeiDou. Such a drastic change can’t be accomplished overnight, however, as the world’s dominant system (GPS) has long been embedded in Iranian industries and technology. 

US-based and Western technology firms dominate such telecoms and mapping tech infrastructure, and the June 12-day conflict saw Iranian vessels in the Persian Gulf experience repeated disruptions of GPS signal – and it’s believed the system was utilized by Israel and the US to track and target Iranian officials.

Iranian officials were already worried about reliance on GPS even before the war, but the conflict has only heightened existing concerns – enough to race for alternatives. After all, the Global Positioning System (GPS) was literally an invention of the US Department of Defense in the 1970s and is currently run under the Space Force.

“At times, disruptions are created on this [GPS] system by internal systems, and this very issue has pushed us toward alternative options like BeiDou,” Ehsan Chitsaz, deputy communications minister, told state media earlier this month.

He confirmed that the government is working on a plan switch transportation, agriculture and the internet from GPS to China’s BeiDou, according to Al Jazeera.

The same report emphasizes that “Since 2013, whistleblowers and media investigations have revealed how various Western technologies and schemes have enabled illicit surveillance and data gathering on a global scale – something that has worried governments around the world.”

It’s also only a natural trajectory that Iran would become increasingly more trusting of tech based out of China, India, or Russia – as opposed to that of the United States and Israel’s close Western allies.

Russia, for its part, hopes its national or regional satellite navigation system GLONASS can spread, especially among allied populations.

As for BeiDou, it’s seen as going hand and hand as a major tech tool with President Xi’s ambitious Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) which has been making inroads across Asia and Africa.

Al Jazeera aptly concludes in its report that “Iran’s possible shift to BeiDou sends a clear message to other nations grappling with the delicate balance between technological convenience and strategic self-defence: The era of blind, naive dependence on US-controlled infrastructure is rapidly coming to an end.”

“Nations can no longer afford to have their military capabilities and vital digital sovereignty tied to the satellite grid of a superpower they cannot trust,” the report adds.

Indeed the Edward Snowden NSA leaks of many years ago also confirmed that this trend has been a problem for decades, and more recently Israeli companies have also made huge leaps in developing hidden spyware embedded in what’s presented as civilian products and software.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo on July 28 aimed at protecting religious expression among federal workers, allowing them to display religious items and discuss religion in the workplace.

OPM Director Scott Kupor said in the memo that federal agencies must ensure that employees have the right to express their religious beliefs “to the greatest extent possible,” in accordance with the Constitution, unless such expression would cause “an undue hardship on business operations.”

“Federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career,” Kupor said in a statement announcing the latest guidance for federal agencies.

The memo outlines forms of permissible religious expression by federal workers in the workplace, such as displaying Bibles, crosses, crucifixes, and mezuzahs on desks and within designated workspaces.

Federal agencies must also allow their workers to engage in “individual or communal religious expressions,” provided that such conduct does not take place during on-duty time, according to the memo.

It states that federal employees should be able to engage in conversations about religious topics, including encouraging co-workers to participate in religious expression of faith, such as prayer, and “attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views,” so long as such efforts are not harassing in nature.

According to the memo, federal workers may engage co-workers in polite discussion, while not on duty, about why they believe their faith is correct and why a “non-adherent should re-think” their religious beliefs.

However, it stated that if the nonadherent requests that such attempts stop, the employee is expected to honor that request.

Federal workers are permitted to invite co-workers to church services, even if they belong to “a different faith.” Supervisors may also post on bulletin boards invitations to Easter service at their church.

The memo also states that park rangers leading tours in national parks may join their tour groups in prayer and that Veterans Affairs doctors may pray over their patients for recovery. Security guards stationed at the front desks of federal office buildings may also display religious items on their desks.

Kupor said the guidance is intended to ensure that the federal workplace is compliant with the law while also fostering an environment that is “welcoming to Americans of all faiths.”

“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined,” Kupor said.

In February, Trump signed an executive order to establish a task force within the Department of Justice that is aimed at “eradicating anti-Christian bias” in the federal government.

Trump accused the Biden administration of engaging in “an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” citing the prosecution of “nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians” who received prison sentences under the former administration for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities.

“My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians,” Trump said in his order. “The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my Administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms.”