Joseph Belbruno Blog

  The Undermining of the C.D.C. The Department of Health and Human Services maintains that it is hewing to “gold standard, evidence-based science”—doublespeak that might unsettle Orwell. November 30, 2025 Two weeks ago, by inserting what must be the most notorious asterisk in modern public health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caveated its long-standing position that vaccines do not cause autism. Under the direction of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a C.D.C. web page now contends that this is “not an evidence-based claim” and that research linking vaccines to autism has been “ignored by health authorities.” The fact that the original statement remains at all is due to an agreement with Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician and the chair of the Senate health committee, who disregarded decades of Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism to advance his confirmation after extracting a set of flimsy commitments that Kennedy is now betraying. The Aut...

  Mourners flock to site of deadly Hong Kong blaze as Beijing warns against protests November 30, 2025 8:58 PM GMT+11 Updated 12 mins ago Item 1 of 5 People pray as they come to lay flowers at the makeshift memorial to the victims of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex's deadly fire, in Tai Po, Hong Kong, China, November 30, 2025. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov [1/5] People pray as they come to lay flowers at the makeshift memorial to the victims of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex's deadly fire, in Tai Po, Hong Kong, China, November 30, 2025. REUTERS/Maxim...  Purchase Licensing  Rights Read more HONG KONG, Nov 30 (Reuters) - More than a thousand people turned out on Sunday to pay tribute to the victims of Hong Kong's deadliest fire in more than 75 years, as Beijing warned it would use a national security law to crack down on any "anti-China" protest in the wake of the fire. The cause of the blaze, which killed 128 people and left 150 still missing at a  high-rise apart...

  We may have lost faith in politicians but don’t lose faith in Britain itself If we quit these shores rather than fight for a better future, we will be playing into our enemies’ hands Matthew Syed It’s the only conversation in town — at least if you are upwardly mobile, well-to-do, with the potential to go to Dubai or a tax haven or wherever else. When are you getting out? Have you made provision? What does your accountant think? Well, my accountant got in touch last week explaining how much cash I could save in the Middle East, not to mention all those sunny beaches and cheap migrant labour. Could a journalist WFH over there? It’s a conversation that has dominated the upper middle-class conversations at my son’s private school, my daughter’s private school, at a dinner last week for high-flying people in professional services, even at a tech conference in Europe in the aftermath of the budget. I have seen memes on the internet telling people to get out while there’s still time an...

  Sushi spells solidarity in the face of China’s outrage Christopher Harding Beijing reacted sharply to Sanae Takaichi’s Taiwan comments A man posting a picture of his lunch on social media would not normally make international headlines, but this was no ordinary snapshot. Last week Lai Ching-te, the president of Taiwan, was pictured holding a plate of yellowtail sushi and scallops. The caption was innocent enough — “Now is perhaps a good time to eat Japanese food” — but the message was clear. China is becoming the playground bully of east Asia; Japan and Taiwan must stick together. Lai’s lunch was an important moment in an escalating row between China and Japan over remarks made this month by Sanae Takaichi, the new Japanese prime minister. She was asked what would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan when it comes to the tensions over China’s desire to take Taiwan — or, as the Chinese government sees it, bring a renegade province to heel. The rule in these situ...

  Confident Putin keeps US dangling while making mischief in Europe Mark Galeotti President Putin with the US negotiator Steve Witkoff in August. Talks resume in Moscow this week When President Trump’s representative Steve Witkoff arrives for talks in Moscow this week, he is likely to receive a warm welcome but precious little willingness to make concessions. President Putin has said that he expects the version of the peace plan that emerged from US-Ukraine talks in Geneva to be the basis for “serious discussion”. At the same time, he said on Thursday that every one of the original plan’s 28 points was important to Moscow, even though it has been reported that the Americans have agreed to remove several and rewrite others. The implication is that he is still clinging to a take-it-or-leave-it approach. If so, this would be quite a humiliation for Trump, who has continued to talk up the prospects of a deal. It also reflects how confident the Kremlin is feeling. It has some battlefiel...

  Britain can offer boots on the ground — but not for ever Grant Shapps A Russian missile and drone strike on Kyiv yesterday killed at least two people, damaged buildings and left more than half a million people without power It takes a special kind of creativity to look at Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and conclude the real problem is that Kyiv hasn’t surrendered enough of its own country. Yet that is where the White House seems determined to drag us — towards a “peace plan” in which the victim is told to gift-wrap the spoils of war for the aggressor. My own reaction to the 28-point plan was blunt: “sickening”. Sickening that, once again, the loudest voices pushing Ukraine to capitulate come from Donald Trump’s orbit. This is not deal-making; it is capitulation masquerading as diplomacy — the sort of swaggering short-termism that hands an invading dictator exactly what he couldn’t win by force. The leaked 28-point US draft genuinely shocked the civilised world. This...