News Round-Up

• “Europe’s dark cloud of Covid finally starts to lift as Omicron fades” – Europe is slowly emerging from the other side of a brutal winter of draconian Covid restrictions as hospital pressure on the continent eases despite record infection numbers from Omicron, reports the Mail.
• “Switzerland to scrap Covid certificate and most mask rules” – The Local reports that Switzerland wound back most Covid restrictions including the Covid certificate and rules for masks and entry from February 17th.
• “Canada’s truckers won’t truck it anymore” – Dissent is a defining attribute of democracy, not a threat to it, writes Ramesh Thakur in Spectator Australia.
• “Trudeau’s trucker crackdown begins: Hundreds of cops backed by armored vehicles and horses arrest at least 100 Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa and tow 21 big rigs using Emergencies Act powers” – Ottawa Interim Police Chief Steve Bell has vowed that the protests over vaccine mandates, now in their third week, will end this weekend, warning demonstrators: “It’s time to go,” reports the Mail – and it seems that many of the protestors are starting to agree.
• “‘Liberals’ are conspicuously silent on Canada’s descent into tyranny” – The actions of the Canadian PM and his cheerleaders towards the truckers’ convoy constitute a threat to democracy, writes Ella Whelan in the Telegraph.
• “How the Charter of Rights let Canada down” – The Emergencies Act pays lip service to the Charter of Rights, but by any definition, freezing someone’s assets without due process, depriving people of their livelihoods and taking away their right to refuse to perform work for the Government is a violation of civil liberties, writes Yuan Yi Zhu in UnHerd.
• “The truckers have changed Canada forever” – What the protests have made clear is that Trudeau and the power elite surrounding him have totally misjudged what can only be described as a grassroots awakening among those Canadians who do not share the presumed progressive consensus on big government and rule by mandate, says Rupa Subramanya in Spiked.
• “Covid has made politicians like Justin Trudeau power crazy” – Canada’s Prime Minister must remember that you can’t grow an economy by telling people how to behave, writes Kate Andrews in the Telegraph.
• “The hollowness of ‘our’ democracy” – Running on the fumes of former glory, the nations of the West can continue with a fragment of plausibility to be free liberal democracies, writes Frederick Edward in Bournbrook.
• “Canada’s Emergencies Act underscores the dangers of a cashless society” – What we are witnessing is the next move in a worldwide battle over the future of money and who gets to control it, writes David James in LifeSite News.
• “Why world leaders don’t trust Vladimir Putin with their DNA” – From ancestry checks to futuristic bioweapons, the Western leader aren’t taking any risks when it comes to the Russian president, reports the Telegraph. Our own governments are entirely trustworthy, of course.
• “Children’s Covid vaccine debate with Dr Tony Hinton” – Watch the discussion on GB News.
• “300 medics demand halt to child vaccination as ‘all risk and no benefit’” – Following the decision to roll-out Covid vaccines to healthy children aged five to 11 from April, the Children’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Group (CCVAG), comprising a wide range of senior health professionals, has issued a statement urging an immediate halt to the policy, reports TCW Defending Freedom.  Also watch the Pandemic Podcast on this.
• “Time to move on from Covid for good” – It is becoming harder and harder to justify the huge sums of public money spent on mass testing, says the Telegraph in its leading article.
• “Fauci says time to start ‘inching’ back toward normality” – Top U.S. infectious disease adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that it is time for the United States to start inching back towards normality, Reuters reports.
• “Oscars to require COVID tests for all, vaccines for most” – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will require attendees of the 94th Oscars ceremony in March to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and at least two negative results from PCR tests, according to Reuters.
• “Hong Kong ‘risks losing’ its status as leading Asian hub, Winters says” – Hong Kong risks falling behind other Asian cities as the region’s main financial hub if tough coronavirus restrictions are left in place for too long, the boss of Standard Chartered Bill Winters has said, according to the Times.
• “Panic merchants, be gone… Covid is just another virus” – Deliver vaccines every year or two based on best-guess estimates of dominant variants, target the elderly and vulnerable populations for free recommended vaccination, make it available at cost to anyone wanting it, and learn to live with Covid as we’ve learnt to live with flu, writes Ramesh Thakur in the Australian.
• “Greenland’s Melting Ice Is No Cause for Climate-Change Panic” – The annual loss has been decreasing in the past decade even as the globe continues to warm, writes Steven E. Koonin in the Wall Street Journal.
• “The climate scaremongers: Blackouts looming” – The real problem is that gas power stations will be banned eventually, and then there will be a catastrophic shortage of reliable power, writes Paul Homewood in TCW Defending Freedom.
• “Freedom of thought and speech – the lost curriculum” – In TCW Defending Freedom, a teacher describes the howlers and travesties being foisted on the teaching profession by the wokesters, and through it onto schoolchildren.
• “U.K. conservatives have surrendered to the woke Left” – Americans fight over every piece of ideological ground while Brits content themselves with minor changes to schools guidance, writes Douglas Murray in the Telegraph.
• “Nadhim Zahawi’s clampdown on political activism in schools comes not a moment too soon, but doesn’t go far enough” –Toby in Mail+ writes: “I suspect the biggest reason for political bias in schools is that many teachers don’t care that indoctrinating children is against the law. They are passionately committed to the cause of ‘social justice’ and will do what they can to enlist children in this ideological crusade, regardless of their legal duties. And these teachers invariably get away with it because there is no clear complaints procedure that concerned parents can follow.”
• “Rules for politics in the classroom don’t go far enough” – Nadhim Zahawi’s attempt to reduce partisan teaching is full of holes, argues Eric Kaufmann in UnHerd.
• “The diversity and inclusion industry has gone too far. Why can’t we just treat everyone as human?” – Why don’t we close down the diversity industry for good and treat everyone as human, rather than as a member of some ethnic group, asks Ross Clark in Mail+.
• “Politicians Angry With Social Media Risk Fundamentally Undermining Free Speech” – Politicians generally are so fed up with the abuse they get on social media they are angry enough to overturn the widely accepted free speech norms of the free world for a more authoritarian approach, under which social media companies will be required to censor “legal but harmful” content, warns Guido Fawkes.
• “Boris is about to give Silicon Valley censors more power than ever” – MPs should step back from requiring social media companies to censor “legal but harmful” material, because the censorship is bad enough as it is, writes Fraser Nelson in the Spectator.
• “The CapX Podcast: John McWhorter on ‘Woke Racism’” – The guest this week, John McWhorter is a Columbia University professor, prolific author, music historian, New York Times columnist, one of America’s leading authorities on linguistics – and a leading black critic of Critical Race Theory and wokery.
• “The problem with anti-woke liberals” – They are foot soldiers for the status quo, refusing to “recognise the religious character of their own beliefs”, writes Sohrab Ahmari in UnHerd.
• “Ex-Facebook staffer says company misled investors about misinformation” – Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen filed two new SEC complaints this month alleging the company misled investors about the company’s efforts to quell Covid and climate misinformation, reports the Mail. That’s right, she is actually arguing the company is not doing enough censorship.
• “When will the woke crowd address the history of slavery in Africa?” – In its rush to appease cancel culture, St Paul’s Cathedral is turning a blind eye to one of history’s most infamous slave states, writes Michael Mosbacher in the Telegraph.
• “Work is no place for your ‘whole self’” – How about if you have a fondness for any particular sexual or racial politics, leave that at the door and bring only the bit that’s really good at your job, proposes Douglas Murray in the Spectator.
• “NYT under fire for ‘chilling’ advert inviting readers to imagine Harry Potter ‘without creator’” – The bizarre woke campaign posters – stating “Lianna is imagining Harry Potter without its creator” – were spotted in a Washington subway station, reports the Telegraph.

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