John Oliver covers the World Health Organization.
He goes over COVID-19, the current funding situation (guess what, it was Reagan's fault), Taiwan, the W.H.O.'s rules, China, America and more.

Verno wrote on Apr 16, 2020, 11:59:

Orogogus wrote on Apr 15, 2020, 20:03:
If Section III doesn't strike you as excessive cheerleading, I don't know what to say. Noticeably missing is any mention of the government reprimand of Dr. Wenliang Li, or the silencing of reports out of Wuhan.

What's interesting is the contrast between its behavior now vs the SARS pandemic. Even though the WHO has no real power to censure member nations, it has lambasted them publicly before when appropriate to help compel action. China for example was heavily criticized for its early response to SARS and for withholding information by the previous director-general and it quickly changed its behavior. Unfortunately since then it appears the opposite is happening and with much worse results. Some people say that Tedros is just trying to keep China at the table by being diplomatic but it seems to have done more harm than good at the critical outset period.

Diplomacy apparently also requires him to accuse the Taiwanese government of condoning racist abuse, while he has the support of China's state-sponsored propaganda machine. I can't wait for the next time they're asked about Taiwan and they resort to covering their ears and shouting "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" on camera, or blowing into the phone and claiming the signal's breaking up. From Taiwan's perspective, the WHO's admonition to not make the virus political is a joke, because since when is marginalizing and excluding Taiwan not a political move?

As far as I can see, the FactCheck article's rebuttal of Trump's claim that the WHO is being too soft on China is that Trump was doing it too a few weeks ago. Totally true. But that just means they were both wrong then, and now only one of them is. There are plenty of articles about how the WHO should get funding but reforms are needed, or how the problem is with China and not the WHO. Simply going all-in on "Trump is wrong" sends a message that it's okay to throw Taiwan under the bus as long as you're scoring those points.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/podcasts/the-daily/china-coronavirus.html

Turns out to be a month old news. I blame my girlfriend, on the couch working next to me, for saying it. I guess this article ended up being a notification for her, but this is diving into the impact of something from early March.

Beamer wrote on Apr 16, 2020, 12:49:
China just kicked the NYT and WSJ journalists out. Had to check and see when we last heard from Wolfen.

No BREAKING NEW BANNERS on foxnews.com wallstreetjournal, nytimes, cnn, WaPo. Source?
And if they did it’s probably a tit for tat against something the dotard did.
Wolfen was just here the other day.

edit
nvrmnd I found it

China just kicked the NYT and WSJ journalists out. Had to check and see when we last heard from Wolfen.

Orogogus wrote on Apr 15, 2020, 20:03:
If Section III doesn't strike you as excessive cheerleading, I don't know what to say. Noticeably missing is any mention of the government reprimand of Dr. Wenliang Li, or the silencing of reports out of Wuhan.

What's interesting is the contrast between its behavior now vs the SARS pandemic. Even though the WHO has no real power to censure member nations, it has lambasted them publicly before when appropriate to help compel action. China for example was heavily criticized for its early response to SARS and for withholding information by the previous director-general and it quickly changed its behavior. Unfortunately since then it appears the opposite is happening and with much worse results. Some people say that Tedros is just trying to keep China at the table by being diplomatic but it seems to have done more harm than good at the critical outset period.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/factchecking-trumps-attack-on-the-who/
In announcing that his administration would halt funding for the World Health Organization, President Donald Trump made a series of false, misleading and unsubstantiated claims about the WHO:

Trump inaccurately said the WHO stated that the novel coronavirus “was not communicable.” The agency never went that far. In mid-January, the WHO shared “preliminary” information from China that “found no clear evidence” of human-to-human transfer, but it continued to consider such transmission possible.
The president also claimed there was “credible information” to suspect human-to-human transmission in December 2019. The WHO wasn’t notified of an outbreak in Wuhan until Dec. 31.
The president said the WHO “took China’s assurances” about the coronavirus “at face value … even praising China for its so-called transparency.” But early on Trump also thanked China for “their efforts and transparency,” and said he trusted that China would provide the U.S. with all of the necessary information.
Trump exaggerated when he said the WHO “actually fought” the U.S. over his decision to impose travel restrictions on China. WHO leaders have not publicly criticized the U.S. for that decision, although they did, and continue to, advise countries not to enact travel restrictions in reaction to the spread of the coronavirus.
Research has shown travel restrictions can delay the exportation of viruses, but they can’t contain the spread. But Trump repeated his claim, without evidence, that if he hadn’t put restrictions on travel from China, “probably hundreds of thousands more” would have died.

Regardless of how anyone feels about Donald Trump, the Chinese government attempted to suppress news of the outbreak at its onset, concealed the severity of it in a critical period and has been lying about much of its data for the duration. It has also engaged in propaganda campaigns alongside Russia using bot farms to displace blame and I've seen that personally in moderation duty on other forums, we've banned several bot farms from both countries.

Blame is perhaps not the most useful tool at the moment and lord knows the US response has been lackluster but people upset at Trump for politicizing this ignore the fact that China has been doing that all along. And it's important to recognize the origin event and how we can avoid it in the future, something that they are actively interfering in.

Tedros's assistant director-general lamely pretended not to hear a journalist who mentioned Taiwan and hung up on them

That was one of the most cringe inducing things I've seen in recent memory.

RedEye9 wrote on Apr 15, 2020, 19:54:
'We Alerted The World' To Coronavirus On Jan. 5, WHO Says In Response To U.S. NPR
"We alerted the world on January the 5th," Ryan said. "Systems around the world, including the U.S., began to activate their incident management systems on January the 6th. And through the next number of weeks, we've produced multiple updates to countries, including briefing multiple governments, multiple scientists around the world, on the developing situation — and that is what it was, a developing situation."

tRump said the WHO had "deprived the scientific community of essential data," accusing it of failing to obtain virus samples.
To that charge, Ryan replied, "The virus was identified on January the 7th. The [genetic] sequence was shared on the 12th with the world."

And yet Taiwan started screening travelers from China on Dec. 31, the same day it issued its warning to the WHO.


EDIT:

PDF warning
The WHO sent 25 international experts to China and here are their main findings after 9 days

If Section III doesn't strike you as excessive cheerleading, I don't know what to say. Noticeably missing is any mention of the government reprimand of Dr. Wenliang Li, or the silencing of reports out of Wuhan.

This comment was edited on Apr 15, 2020, 20:23.

'We Alerted The World' To Coronavirus On Jan. 5, WHO Says In Response To U.S. NPR
"We alerted the world on January the 5th," Ryan said. "Systems around the world, including the U.S., began to activate their incident management systems on January the 6th. And through the next number of weeks, we've produced multiple updates to countries, including briefing multiple governments, multiple scientists around the world, on the developing situation — and that is what it was, a developing situation."

tRump said the WHO had "deprived the scientific community of essential data," accusing it of failing to obtain virus samples.
To that charge, Ryan replied, "The virus was identified on January the 7th. The [genetic] sequence was shared on the 12th with the world."

PDF warning
The WHO sent 25 international experts to China and here are their main findings after 9 days

RedEye9 wrote on Apr 15, 2020, 09:24:
Bill Gates, in rebuke of the dOtard, calls WHO funding cut during pandemic ‘as dangerous as it sounds’
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates criticized “president” tRump’s decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization as “dangerous,” saying the payments should continue particularly during the global coronavirus pandemic.

“Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Gates tweeted early Wednesday. “Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.”
The United States, the organization’s largest donor, has committed to provide the WHO with $893 million during its current two-year funding period, a State Department spokesperson told The Washington Post.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the family’s giant philanthropy, is the next biggest donor to WHO after the U.S., accounting for close to 10 percent of the United Nations agency’s funding.

“There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel coronavirus. But the window for making important decisions hasn’t closed,” Gates wrote. “The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact on how soon case numbers start to go down, how long the economy remains shut down and how many Americans will have to bury a loved one because of covid-19.”

My family is from Taiwan, and I don't think anyone with ties there will take the WHO's side. Their head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was China's pick, and he's the same kind of garbage as Trump. When Taiwanese doctors raised the alarm in December, the WHO ignored them and regurgitated the Chinese government's lies. Tedros's assistant director-general lamely pretended not to hear a journalist who mentioned Taiwan and hung up on them. While telling Trump not to politicize the WHO, Tedros was also calling the Taiwanese government racist because randos on the Internet were being mean to him. He's still praising China while blithely ignoring the heavy-handed government censorship at the beginning of the crisis and still ongoing now. He's said nothing that China didn't let him say. It's this kind of thing that led Japan's deputy health minister to suggest the WHO should be called the China Health Organization.

The WHO does good work, but not when it requires going against the Chinese government. If people believe pandemics from China might be a problem again, then the current WHO isn't the tool for the job.

RedEye9 wrote on Apr 15, 2020, 09:24:
Bill Gates, in rebuke of the dOtard, calls WHO funding cut during pandemic ‘as dangerous as it sounds’
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates criticized “president” tRump’s decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization as “dangerous,” saying the payments should continue particularly during the global coronavirus pandemic.

“Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Gates tweeted early Wednesday. “Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.”
The United States, the organization’s largest donor, has committed to provide the WHO with $893 million during its current two-year funding period, a State Department spokesperson told The Washington Post.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the family’s giant philanthropy, is the next biggest donor to WHO after the U.S., accounting for close to 10 percent of the United Nations agency’s funding.

“There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel coronavirus. But the window for making important decisions hasn’t closed,” Gates wrote. “The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact on how soon case numbers start to go down, how long the economy remains shut down and how many Americans will have to bury a loved one because of covid-19.”

But I saw a YouTube video by an MIT PhD that swore the coronavirus is just made up by Bill Gates so he can implant microchips in all of our brains!!!!!!1!!~!

Bill Gates, in rebuke of the dOtard, calls WHO funding cut during pandemic ‘as dangerous as it sounds’
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates criticized “president” tRump’s decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization as “dangerous,” saying the payments should continue particularly during the global coronavirus pandemic.

“Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Gates tweeted early Wednesday. “Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.”
The United States, the organization’s largest donor, has committed to provide the WHO with $893 million during its current two-year funding period, a State Department spokesperson told The Washington Post.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the family’s giant philanthropy, is the next biggest donor to WHO after the U.S., accounting for close to 10 percent of the United Nations agency’s funding.

“There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel coronavirus. But the window for making important decisions hasn’t closed,” Gates wrote. “The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact on how soon case numbers start to go down, how long the economy remains shut down and how many Americans will have to bury a loved one because of covid-19.”

Thanks a lot jdreyer, you´re a life-saver, didn´t occur to me to do that.

I truly want for Creston to be ignoring us loftily all this time, and laugh at us !

WannaLogAlready wrote on Apr 11, 2020, 23:13:
Haha, agree with your character analysis, Beamer, besides RedEye9´s, I also like jdreyer´s posts very much.

And talking of nice people, I´m sad and worried that Creston didn´t came back since the end of December.

I´m afraid something happened to him, no way he wouldn´t post with all the things happening

Hey Blue, something you could look into? Send him a PM or something? Maybe you already have.

Haha, agree with your character analysis, Beamer, besides RedEye9´s, I also like jdreyer´s posts very much.

And talking of nice people, I´m sad and worried that Creston didn´t come back since the end of December.

I´m afraid something happened to him, no way he wouldn´t post with all the things going on now

WannaLogAlready wrote on Apr 11, 2020, 16:33:
Hey, I, for one, find RedEye9 a consistent and fairly moderate voice of reason.

Punch away y´all !

You mean jdreyer, haha. He's very center, at least globally, and very reasonable. There are numerous posters you could point out, but I think he at least wins on being reasonable.

Red Eye will admit to being more radical and less reasonable, I think.

Hey, I, for one, find RedEye9 a consistent and fairly moderate voice of reason.

Punch away y´all !

RedEye9 wrote on Apr 10, 2020, 20:57:

jdreyer wrote on Apr 10, 2020, 20:34:

Beamer wrote on Apr 10, 2020, 18:58:
It's so weird that, like climate change, believing that Coronavirus kills people is no longer a scientific opinion but a political one.

Do you get your news from far right sources? Then you're incapable of believing actual scientists and weirdly blame "the media" for misinformation while getting your beliefs solely from opinion media instead of the damn scientists standing in front of us daily at the White House.

Frustrating and mind-boggling that not believing scientists is a thing.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” isaac asimov circa 1980

Ahh, but Dr. RedEye9 is our savior and ray of hope. Please save us!

jdreyer wrote on Apr 10, 2020, 20:34:

Beamer wrote on Apr 10, 2020, 18:58:
It's so weird that, like climate change, believing that Coronavirus kills people is no longer a scientific opinion but a political one.

Do you get your news from far right sources? Then you're incapable of believing actual scientists and weirdly blame "the media" for misinformation while getting your beliefs solely from opinion media instead of the damn scientists standing in front of us daily at the White House.

Frustrating and mind-boggling that not believing scientists is a thing.

In the words of Homer Simpson: "Batman is a scientist." Let's trust in science.