Germany’s foreign intelligence service believed there was a 80-90% chance that coronavirus accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab, German media say. Two German newspapers say they have uncovered details of an assessment carried out by spy agency BND in 2020 but never published.
The intelligence service had indications that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been carrying out experiments where viruses are modified to become more transmissible to humans for research, they say.
China repeated its denial saying the cause “should be determined by scientists” - and pointed to a World Health Organization investigation which found the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely”.
The lab leak hypothesis has been hotly contested by scientists, including many who say there is no definitive evidence to back it up. But the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies - and the BND is the latest to entertain the theory. In January, the US CIA said the coronavirus was “more likely” to have leaked from a lab than to have come from animals.
Does it really matter? Many laboratories around the world experiment with highly dangerous viruses and that one leaked. Not that I like it but it’s still a fact.
God I hate propaganda.
Are we seriously back on this again?
We’re supposed to trust spies working for nation-states that support Israel?
Although I think the support to Israel (which I am against too) does not play a role in the sake of this argument, I agree with you: it independent scientists couldn’t find scientific evidences to support that, spies are for sure not reliable.
Okay, thank you for getting that. In retrospect, I can see how my comment might be perceived as potentially antisemitic but, I’m coming from an anti-imperialist perspective. And, the West is going to keep flooding us with anti-East and anti-Middle East propaganda.
So, to me, Germany’s support of Israel and their demonization of China is one and the same.
Not every news article and decision on the world revolves around Israel and/or Gaza.
My point is we shouldn’t be trusting spy agencies working on behalf of nation states at all, which includes pushing geopolitical narratives with the aim of Western supremacy.
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” -1984
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But the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies
ie someone at the CIA who wont put their name to it, and a couple of corporate owned German newspapers who they fed it to
Only because the propaganda arms got defunded, but the CIA, the biggest one, didn’t.
Oh look, fake news to make China look bad!
It doesn’t matter where it came from! It doesn’t change the fact that the government and corporations left us die, then they picked over our carcasses.
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The communist party however has already covered up, so actual evidence is hard to get.
Yet somehow you know about it?
And Wuhan actually has a lab that was studying the COVID virus.
Ya got a source for that one?
The communist party however has already covered up
The conspiracy theory here is this.
Who needs peer-reviewed science when you can just listen to western spy agencies?
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And you came into possession of this suppressed information how exactly?
Cool campfire story
They keep “believing” that’s what happened because they have not presented any concrete evidence that can be used to get rid of that qualifier.
The context for the DEFUSE program is that SARS-cov-1 was of pretty significant concern that it could mutate into a global pandemic similar to the Cov-2 pandemic that actually happened. The program was funded to investigate, learn and prepare for what were predicted to be some of the more dangerous possible mutations.
The “smoking gun” here is all correlation. Saying “they predicted correctly what was dangerous and were proactively studying it” is not a good argument for causation.
However, the theory that I haven’t seen well debunked/studied is that improper handling/disposal of dead viruses/plasmids/etc. increased the risk of/allowed for recombinants with the endemic Cov strain resulting in those mutations of greatest concern… Have you come across anything on that?
Remember when hinting at this would get you banned from Youtube? Good times
You can’t even say dead or killed or rape on youtube.
Yeah makes me not want to watch anything on there. Wife was watching some true crime and I was so confused on why they kept saying essay (SA) and grape.
Can you please censor ess*y in the future so that it’ll be more difficult for me to filter automatically and actually make me way more likely to get triggered? Thanks.
“Germany’s foreign intelligence” LOL
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BBC
Go back to sleep, this is just repeat cope for failing to handle a pandemic and shifting the blame to another country.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: misinformationWhat, we’re supposed to remove UK state-affiliated media articles about German state intelligence assessments?
They are so well trained that even when their own governments retroactively admit they lied, they will not believe it and still say lab leak is a conspiracy theory.
The SARS-CoV-2 gain of function research was going on under Fauci’s watch.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022: A call for an independent inquiry into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus
- New Yorker, 2023: Mad Scientists - Nowhere is the lab-leak debate more personal than among the experts investigating the origins of COVID
- Consortium News, 2024: What the US Might Owe the World for Covid-19 - A U.S.-funded laboratory origin of Covid-19 would certainly constitute the most significant case of governmental gross negligence in history
Two German newspapers say they have uncovered details of an assessment carried out by spy agency BND in 2020 but never published.
But the once controversial theory has been gaining ground among some intelligence agencies - and the BND is the latest to entertain the theory.