Source: As TV doctor, Mehmet Oz provided platform for questionable products and views – The Washington Post

Since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, Russia has illegally taken at least seven thousand children from their native Ukraine, with the real figure likely to be much higher.  This is in flagrant violation of international law and, in many cases, the latest trauma for children who have already seen parents or other close relatives killed by the Russian invaders.

In the majority of cases, Russia has claimed that it is ‘evacuating’ or even ‘saving’ children whose lives it first shattered.  There are numerous propaganda videos aimed at, for example, presenting the same Russian state that relentlessly bombed Mariupol and killed civilians as concerned about the welfare and happiness of its youngest victims.

On some occasions, parents allowed their children to be taken to Russia, supposedly for a summer camp, to get them away from the war.  It is looking, however, as though those parents were brutally deceived.  Tetiana Kozak from Graty has spoken with parents from parts of the Kharkiv oblast which were liberated last month after six months of Russian occupation.  Their children were taken to Russia in August, supposedly just to a summer camp in Krasnodar Krai.  The Russian invaders were, however, driven out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in early September, and children, like 9-year-old Polina Hlahola from Kozacha Lopan, have not been returned to their parents.

Source: Russia refuses to return Ukrainian children taken from Kharkiv oblast

wallpaper et fond écran golden gate bridge francisco. à voir : TOURISME

Golden Gate Bridge | San Francisco — VOYAGE ONIRIQUE

Source: Vaccines.gov – Find COVID‑19 vaccine locations near you

• A report by the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) claims that 26% of Amazon forests have transformed irreversibly and show high levels of degradation.
• The savannization of the Amazon is already visible in Brazil and Bolivia, while Ecuador, Colombia and Peru seem to be heading in the same direction.
• The report also seeks to make visible the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting the Amazon, and to ensure that Indigenous people are at the center of the fight against climate change. 

Source: The Amazon will reach tipping point if current trend of deforestation continues

Source: COVID-19 boosters key to maintaining seniors’ immunity, study confirms – UPI.com

It can come from anywhere’

Gusts of wind carrying the feathers of infected birds, mice who touched bird droppings – It is small things like these that can bring the virus into the barns of poultry farmers. Although the countries have introduced tight hygiene measures, outbreaks have not stopped.

Between October and July, no chickens were allowed to go outside in the whole of the Netherlands, a quarantine that is still in place in huge parts of the country.

A positive test at one farm leads to the installation of a 3-kilometer-wide-protection zone in which all farms have to prove they have no bird flu – and at affected farms all birds are culled as the virus is highly infectious. It kills fast, as Visscher had to find out. On the first day, he found 10 dead chickens, but the next day there were already hundreds of them.

“We have done everything we could so that the virus stays outside our farms,” said Bart Jan Oplaat, chairman of the Dutch Union of poultry farmers. The rules in France, the second largest poultry producer in the EU, are very similar.

The outbreaks are also devastating among wild birds, explains Ruud van Beusekom, spokesperson of Vogelbescherming Nederland, an organization of Dutch bird conservationists.

He is especially worried about the population of sandwich terns, a species has been on the red list of endangered species in the Netherlands even before the bird flu outbreaks. As the population was beginning to recover, 25,000 sandwich terns died this year because of the flu.

Quarantine measures also for farmer families

But a solution is not in sight. Measures like quarantines and early cullings of animals on the farms can lower the threat of a spread – but they cannot contain it completely. The Visschers have also had to keep all their animals inside, after a duck farm nearby caught the virus.

The ducks themselves were inside before the outbreak. Some poultry farmers are even reducing their own activities outside of their farms to make sure they don’t bring the virus to their animals, according to Oplaat of the Union of Poultry Farmers. Children playing at different houses or farms have to shower right away, when they get home, for example.

Another idea among Dutch farmers: Nets that collect feathers and other particles that could contain the virus from the air. Oplaat reported that two farms with these nets still had an outbreak of bird flu. And it will take some years until a proper vaccine is available. EFSA will soon start to collect data to assess vaccination strategies at least until July 2023 and trials to test bird flu vaccines have already started in France and the Netherlands.

Even if this vaccine is available, bird flu will not vanish. Wild birds cannot be vaccinated and the virus is likely to mutate further. This is also the reason why it stayed this year. In rare cases, mammals also caught the bird flu, but the risk for humans is very low, according to the EFSA. The only hope among bird conservationists and farmers is now: A vast spread of the virus leading to a high immunity among the local birds.

Source: European farmers struggle to contain deadly bird flu | Science | In-depth reporting on science and technology | DW | 03.10.2022