Nearly Half of Japanese Surveyed Said They Won’t Get Vaccinated in a Future Pandemic

Among those who said they wouldn’t get vaccinated in a future pandemic, a third said they did get a COVID-19 vaccine. The study by eight University of Tokyo researchers was published last week on the medRxiv preprint server. The researchers said they wanted to shed light on the factors contributing to “vaccine hesitancy.”    

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

January 30, 2026

Nearly half of the people who responded to a nationwide Japanese survey said they would not get vaccinated in a future pandemic, even if faced with a fatality rate similar to that of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among those who said they wouldn’t get vaccinated in a future pandemic, a third said they did get a COVID-19 vaccine.

The study by eight University of Tokyo researchers was published last week on the medRxiv preprint server. A total of 28,000 participants ages 15-84 took part in the survey, conducted between December 2024 and January 2025.

The researchers said they wanted to shed light on the factors contributing to “vaccine hesitancy.”

“Vaccine hesitancy emerged as a major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic and has persisted beyond it, raising concerns about public readiness for vaccination in future pandemics,” the researchers wrote.

The survey’s results showed that 53.1% of respondents said they would be willing to get vaccinated in a future pandemic with a similar case fatality rate to that of COVID-19. Only 14.9% of those who said they did not receive a COVID-19 vaccine said they would be willing to get vaccinated in the next pandemic.

The survey identified eight subgroups with distinct attitudes toward vaccination. It found that the groups least willing to get vaccinated were females and younger adults (aged 20-40), people with “lower income or education” and “those endorsing misinformation or conspiracy beliefs.”

Respondents from higher-income brackets who engaged in “active information seeking” behavior, or who exhibited “greater fear of COVID-19” and infectious diseases, were more willing to get vaccinated.

Growing distrust in vaccines ‘began decades before the COVID pandemic’

The high rate of respondents who said they wouldn’t get vaccinated in a future pandemic represents “a marked decline from observed COVID-19 vaccination coverage,” the researchers wrote.

Nearly 77.5% of the Japanese population got the initial two-dose COVID-19 vaccine series as of Feb. 27, 2023, according to Statista.

In the U.S., 69.4% of the population had received the two-dose series as of 2023, according to Statista. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the global COVID-19 vaccination rate as of Dec. 31, 2023, was 67%.

The researchers said their findings highlight populations that public health officials could target during a future pandemic and underscore “the need to develop effective risk communication strategies tailored to target populations.”

But according to TrialSite News, the study’s findings “highlight a significant preparedness gap and suggest that vaccine acceptance is now more conditional, fragmented, and sensitive to trust, risk perception, and vaccine characteristics.”

Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, said the growing distrust in what public health officials have been saying about vaccine safety and effectiveness “began decades before the COVID pandemic, and that is especially true for educated populations in developed countries like Japan and the U.S.”

Raw data suggest ‘vaccine hesitancy’ is higher than researchers stated

According to Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense, the raw data from the Japanese survey indicate that the rate of “vaccine hesitancy” was even higher than what the authors stated.

Jablonowski said the researchers suggested that vaccine injuries didn’t significantly affect people’s willingness to get vaccinated during a future pandemic. However, the raw data showed a high level of vaccine-related adverse reactions. He said:

“Of the 19,027 vaccinated individuals, 11,308 responded to the adverse reaction question. Merely 7.5% of respondents recorded no adverse reaction, with 69.3% having a mild reaction and 23.2% having a strong reaction. This is an astounding level of self-reported adverse reactions.

“Even if all of those who did not respond to the specific question were negative for an adverse reaction, the adverse reaction rate for the COVID-19 vaccine is 55.0%, with 13.8% recorded as ‘strong reaction.’”

According to the study’s supplementary text, respondents who said they believed vaccine safety data are “often fabricated,” that Big Pharma hides the dangers of vaccines or that the public is being deceived about vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, were classified as believers of “vaccine-related misinformation.”

Jablonowski said the survey data, which indicate a high degree of vaccine-related adverse events, “stands as a testament” to this set of beliefs.

Higher exposure to mainstream fear narratives increased vaccine acceptance

The survey results also indicated that increased exposure to government and mainstream media messaging helped increase respondents’ willingness to get vaccinated during a future pandemic.

“Respondents who reported actively seeking COVID-19-related information generally showed higher vaccination intention,” the researchers wrote. “Among the information sources, the government, healthcare professionals, medical experts, television, and newspapers were particularly effective in promoting vaccine acceptance.”

The researchers highlighted the role of fear in shaping attitudes toward vaccination.

“Analysis of psychological factors showed that individuals who reported lower levels of general anxiety tended to exhibit stronger vaccine hesitancy. A similar pattern was observed for fear of COVID-19: those who experienced little fear were more likely to be hesitant,” the researchers stated.

Jablonowski suggested that such findings may lead authorities to focus on more fear-based messaging during a future public health emergency.

“This paper may lead some to an obvious course of action when tailoring strategies and risk communication,” Jablonowski said. He noted that, in the study, the “easiest modifiable factor with the largest difference in the willingness to be vaccinated is the psychological variable ‘fear of COVID-19 very low.’”

Jablonowski and Fisher suggested those strategies may be ineffective on people who are already skeptical of vaccine safety.

“For many vaccine refusers, it’s with certainty and conviction that the risks outweigh the benefits, and not an unsure stuttering of a perceived ‘right-action.’ Vaccine ‘hesitancy’ is often better characterized as ‘vaccine risk-aware,’” Jablonowski said.

“Until the pharmaceutical industry and governments do the scientifically sound studies to prove that the many vaccines people are being told to use are protecting health rather than harming health, ‘vaccine hesitancy’ will only continue to grow in every country,” Fisher said.

Source: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nearly-half-of-japanese-surveyed-said-wont-get-vaccinated-future-pandemic/

Venezuela Approves Pro-Business Oil Reform as Trump Issues New Sanctions Waiver

Under the new law, the Venezuelan government can discretionally reduce taxes and royalties to ensure that projects are “internationally competitive.”  

Ricardo Vaz January 30, 2026 

Caracas, January 30, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan National Assembly has approved a sweeping reform of the country’s 2001 Hydrocarbon Law that rolls back the state’s role in the energy sector in favor of private capital.

Legislators unanimously endorsed the bill at its second discussion on Thursday, with only opposition deputy Henrique Capriles abstaining. The legislative overhaul follows years of US sanctions against the Venezuelan oil industry and a naval blockade imposed in December.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez hailed the vote a “historic day” and claimed the new bill will lead oil production to “skyrocket.” 

“The reform will make the oil sector much more competitive for national and foreign corporations to extract crude,” he told reporters. “We are implementing mechanisms that have proven very successful.”

Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed and enacted the law after the parliamentary session, claiming that the industry will be guided by “the best international practices” and undertake a “historic leap forward.”

Former President Hugo Chávez revamped the country’s oil legislation in 2001 and introduced further reforms in 2006 and 2007 to assert the Venezuelan state’s primacy over the industry. Policies included a mandatory stakeholding majority for state oil company PDVSA in joint ventures, PDVSA control over operations and sales, and increased royalties and income tax to 30 and 50 percent, respectively. Increased oil revenues bankrolled the Venezuelan government’s expanded social programs in the 2000s.

The text approved during Thursday’s legislative session, following meetings between Venezuelan authorities and oil executives, went further than the draft preliminarily endorsed one week earlier.

The final version of the legislation establishes 30 percent as an upper bound for royalties, with the Venezuelan government given the discretionary power to determine the rate for each project. A 33 percent extraction tax in the present law was scrapped in favor of an “integrated hydrocarbon tax” to be set by the executive with a 15 percent limit.

Similarly, the Venezuelan government can reduce income taxes for companies involved in oil activities while also granting several other fiscal exemptions. The bill cites the “need to ensure international competitiveness” as a factor to be considered when decreasing royalty and tax demands for private corporations.

The reform additionally grants operational and sales control to minority partners and private contractors. PDVSA can furthermore lease out oilfields and projects in exchange for a fixed portion of extracted crude. The new legislation likewise allows disputes to be settled by outside arbitration instances.

Thursday’s legislative reform was immediately followed by a US Treasury general license allowing US corporations to re-engage with the Venezuelan oil sector.

General License 46 (GL46) authorizes US firms to purchase and market Venezuelan crude while demanding that contracts be subjected to US jurisdiction so potential disputes are referred to US courts. The license bars transactions with companies from Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba. Concerning China, it only blocks dealings with Venezuelan joint ventures with Chinese involvement.

Economist Francisco Rodríguez pointed out that the sanctions waiver does not explicitly allow for production or investment and that companies would require an additional license before signing contracts with Venezuelan authorities.

GL46 also mandates that payments to blocked agents, including PDVSA, be made to the US Foreign Government Deposit Funds or another account defined by the US Treasury Department.

Following the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has vowed to take control of the Venezuelan oil industry by administering crude transactions. Proceeds from initial sales have been deposited in US-run bank accounts in Qatar, with a portion rerouted to Caracas for forex injections run by private banks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed that the resources will begin to be channeled to US Treasury accounts in the near future.

In a press conference on Friday, Trump said his administration is “very happy” with the actions of Venezuelan authorities and would soon invite other countries to get involved in the Caribbean nation’s oil industry. Rubio had previously argued that Caracas “deserved credit” for the oil reform that “eradicates Chávez-era restrictions on private investments.”

Despite the White House’s calls for substantial investment, Western oil corporations have expressed reservations over major projects in the Venezuelan energy sector. Chevron, the largest US company operating in the country, stated that it is looking to fund increased production with revenues from oil sales as opposed to new capital commitments.

Since 2017, Venezuela’s oil industry has been under wide-reaching US unilateral coercive measures, including financial sanctions and an export embargo, in an effort to strangle the country’s most important revenue source. The US Treasury Department has also levied and threatened secondary sanctions against third-country companies to deter involvement in the Venezuelan petroleum sector.

Source:  https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuela-approves-pro-business-oil-reform-as-trump-issues-new-sanctions-waiver/

From Herzl to Trump: Gaza, the “Peace Council” and the new administration of chaos

Laala Bechetoula
31 January 2026 

The first projectile was a word

Wars don't begin with tanks, drones, or sirens. They begin with language. Long before the first missile, words had already done their work. They had prepared the moral ground, categorized human beings, redefined categories, and shifted entire peoples from the realm of humanity to that of a problem to be managed. At that precise moment, killing ceased to appear as a transgression. It became a rational necessity.

Gaza is not the product of a sudden lapse or an accidental escalation. It is the culmination of a long process during which the Palestinian was progressively stripped of his status as a political actor, then as a moral subject, before being reduced to a security variable, a burden, a civilizational obstacle. From the colonial formulations of the late 19th century to the most blatant Trumpism, the grammar has remained the same: deny existence, dehumanize presence, sacralize force, and then solicit Western approval in the name of civilization, security, or peace. What has changed is not the logic, but its degree of exposure. 

The Colonial Grammar of Erasure

Early Zionist political discourse did not simply describe Palestine. It reinvented it through language. The land was presented as empty or under-exploited, while its indigenous population was relegated to the status of a marginal, backward, or invisible element. This operation was not accidental, because every colonial project requires a foundational linguistic gesture, one that transforms a living society into a technical problem.

Once this threshold is crossed, expulsion becomes administration, domination becomes development, and violence is morphed into planning. Violence never initially appears as cruelty. It presents itself as a program.

This is where the first phase of erasure takes place: not physical elimination, but conceptual degradation. When a people is deprived of the right to be perceived as a historical subject, it becomes available to be treated as mere matter.

1948: When Violence Becomes Procedure

The Nakba of 1948 is often recounted as the tragic consequence of war. Yet, placed within the continuum of the discourses that preceded it, it appears differently. The expulsion had already been conceived, discussed, and justified. The war did not create the outcome; it facilitated its execution.

The issue is not so much one of intentions as it is one of the enduring nature of the political imagination. A people long designated as a “demographic problem” was suddenly treated as a logistical matter. It is here that violence becomes procedure.

One of the major lessons of this trajectory is that modern atrocities do not require hatred. They require preparation. When an outcome has been sufficiently rehearsed and normalized by language, its implementation appears administrative, cold, almost banal.

Occupation as Destiny

After 1967, the occupation ceased to be presented as temporary. It crystallized into destiny. Palestinians are no longer seen as parties to a conflict open to negotiation, but as a permanent security condition requiring indefinite management. The permanent threat justifies permanent measures.

From this point on, moral time is suspended. For one people, history continues—elections, diplomacy, development. For the other, time is frozen in an endless emergency, where the law becomes flexible, rights conditional, and survival negotiable. Injustice no longer needs justification. It becomes routine. 

Dehumanizing to Govern

Over the years, the discourse crosses a further threshold. Animal, parasitic, or pathological metaphors cease to be marginal. They permeate institutional language. Their importance lies not in the insult, but in their effectiveness.

Dehumanization reduces the cost of violence, transforms the deaths of civilians into background noise, renders hospitals suspect, and makes children statistically negligible. When a system succeeds in converting victims into categories, suffering no longer disrupts the established order; it reinforces it.
Gaza, a contemporary laboratory of force

Since the early 2000s, Gaza has functioned as a laboratory. Sieges, collective punishment, and disproportionate deterrence are being experimented with there. The lexicon of the “war on terror” provides the ideal camouflage: preemption, disproportion, deterrence. 

In the years between 2023 and 2025, the process reaches its full maturity. Innocence is openly denied, famine is reclassified as pressure, displacement becomes a humanitarian necessity, and mass destruction is narrated as legitimate self-defense. Gaza ceases to be a space governed by law; it becomes a space of exception. It is not chaos, but a methodically organized disorder.

Trump: Violence Without Euphemisms

Donald Trump did not create this architecture. He simply stripped it of its euphemisms. When he speaks of taking control or possessing Gaza, he makes explicit what has long been implicit. Gaza is no longer treated as a society under occupation, but as an asset to be redistributed.

The break is qualitative. Violence is no longer justified solely by security. It is reformulated in the language of property and redevelopment. War gives way to real estate. Palestinians are no longer enemies to be defeated, but populations to be displaced, absorbed, or eliminated—variables in a transactional equation.

The “Peace Council”: Administering Without Judging

The “Peace Council” project fits perfectly into this logic. Presented as a stabilization mechanism, it nevertheless detaches itself from international law, universal responsibility, and the consent of those most directly affected.

Its logic is selective: legitimacy through invitation, authority through proximity to power, peace defined as conformity. This is not a peace founded on justice, but on the management of outcomes. When power abandons the language of law, it adopts that of administration—and calls it order. The Council does not seek to address the crime. It administers its consequences.

Identity, Immunity, and the End of Accountability

When Trump agrees to be publicly designated as “the first Jewish president,” the gesture transcends mere symbolism. It signals a cultural shift: politics is no longer defended by legality or ethics, but by identity alignment.

In this climate, criticism becomes treason, and accountability becomes hostility. The destruction of Gaza is no longer debated as a crime, but absorbed into a ritual of belonging. Thus, extremist policies acquire not legal, but emotional, immunity.

Gaza and the World to Come

What Gaza reveals is not merely the collapse of safeguards, but the emergence of a new governing imagination: a violence that no longer needs to be denied, a suffering that no longer demands resolution, a peace divorced from justice.

The old international order, despite its many hypocrisies, still claimed universality. The new one is openly conditional: rights are earned, protection is selective, law becomes optional. This is not a return to barbarism, but something more disturbing: a civilized administration of cruelty.

Fall

The trajectory is now clear. First words. Then policies. Then weapons. Today, structures. Gaza is not merely destroyed; it is replaced by plans, councils, frameworks, and deals designed to stabilize the outcome rather than confront the crime. The first projectile was a word. The second, a policy. The third is an administration. If this model prevails, Gaza will not remain an exception: it will become a precedent. 

 

Source: https://reseauinternational.net/de-herzl-a-trump-gaza-le-conseil-de-la-paix-et-la-nouvelle-administration-du-chaos/ 

The United Arab Emirates denies authorisation for US to attack Iran from its territory.

mpr21
January 28, 2026    

Trump's recent announcement regarding the deployment of a US naval fleet to the Middle East has captured the attention of countries in the region. The threat, which involves deploying military forces to pressure Iran, has provoked strong reactions from neighboring countries, including the United Arab Emirates, which has decided to protect its territory, airspace, maritime areas, and land from any hostile military action.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement warning that the country will not authorize any attack against Iran from its territory (*). The announcement comes as the US fleet, which includes warships and an aircraft carrier, heads to the region, reinforcing the US military presence in the Middle East.

The official statement underscores the importance the UAE attaches to the security of its territory. Any use of its airspace for attacks against Iran would be unacceptable and contrary to its policy. This stance seeks to prevent any incident involving its territory in military operations that do not directly concern it.

The UAE's refusal to allow the use of its airspace for attacks against Iran directly limits some of the US military's logistical and strategic options. Trump's naval deployment, while powerful, will have to focus on areas where it can operate without territorial restrictions. This could influence the choice of positions and supply points for potential military operations.

The decision also underscores the vigilance of the Gulf states in managing their regional diplomacy. The UAE refuses to be used as a springboard for offensive operations against another sovereign state. This reinforces the need for the United States to consider local political constraints when planning its military actions.

The official statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirms that the defense of Emirati territory and the security of its airspace and maritime borders remain absolute priorities and sends a strong signal to the region, illustrating the determination to remain neutral in the face of the anticipated US aggression against Iran.

Saudi Arabia has adopted the same stance as the United Arab Emirates and will not facilitate a US attack against Iran, Mohammed bin Salman said yesterday in a telephone conversation with Iranian Prime Minister Masoud Pezeshkian.

 

(*) https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/les-emirats-arabes-unis-n-autoriseront-pas-d-attaques-contre-l-iran-depuis-leur-sol-20260126 

Source:  https://mpr21.info/emiratos-arabes-unidos-no-autoriza-a-trump-a-atacar-iran-desde-su-territorio/

Catherine Austin Fitts: “Trump Was Put Into the White House to Persuade Conservatives to Go Along With a Control Grid… There Is Nobody on Our Side.”

 

The former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development argues that U.S. politics is no longer divided by party, but unified around the expansion of technological and financial control.   

Lioness of Judah Ministry 

Jan 31, 2026

In this clip, Catherine Austin Fitts, former HUD Assistant Secretary, investment banker, and founder of the Solari Report, offers a stark assessment of modern American power.

She argues that Donald Trump’s role was not to oppose centralized control, but to make it acceptable to conservatives, and that no major political faction is resisting the buildout of what she describes as a nationwide “control grid.”

Speaking in a January 26, 2026 discussion with Miles Franklin, Fitts connects massive investments in AI, data centers, surveillance systems, and programmable infrastructure to what she sees as a single underlying goal: enforcing financial and spatial control at scale.

According to Fitts, the real conflict in Washington is not left versus right, but over who manages and profits from the system itself.

 

Catherine Austin Fitts: "Trump was put into the White House to persuade conservatives to go along with a control grid... there is nobody on our side. They are all trying to implement the control grid... So is Trump our friend? Absolutely not."

This clip of Fitts, a former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, investment banker, and founder of the Solari Report, is taken from a discussion with Miles Franklin posted to YouTube on January 26, 2026.

Partial transcription of clip

"In my opinion, Trump was put into the White House to persuade conservatives to go along with a control grid. And what you need to understand is, if you look at all the factions operating in Washington, there is nobody on our side. They are all trying to implement the control grid.

"And the question is, who's going to control it and who's going to make money on it? So is Trump our friend? Absolutely not.

"And if you look at the extraordinary effort that the administration has made to build the control grid, the local hardware and software infrastructure, billions of dollars. So let me step and talk about the local infrastructure, please, and then come back to this side. Andy, let me explain what AI is really good at—

"There's a lot of crazy, magical, stupid thinking on AI, but one of the things I will say about AI, it's absolutely superb at implementing or tracking things that can be expressed mathematically. Its ability to collect and process huge amounts of data, like surveillance data, where you're trying to implement, spatial control or financial control. It's absolutely fantastic at. Okay. And if you look at all the data centers we're building all over the country, they are there for control. That's what they do. They're not there to make businesses—

"I always laugh when the guys say, oh, we poured all this money into AI and it's not making companies more productive. Well, of course it's not meant to make companies more productive. It's meant to make sure that the leadership has complete control, spatial control and financial control.

“I just noted Congressman Massie is now fighting to kill, the switch in your car. Kill the car switch. So they’ve got new items in the car that can— Your car can be turned off remotely. And so he’s trying to kill the kill switch, but that gets back to spatial control. And if everybody’s in an electric car, and you could kill the switch, there you go. You’ve got total control of movements and money.”

Full Video:

Source: https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/catherine-austin-fitts-trump-was