All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Two Foreign Nationals Sentenced to Prison for Trafficking Ivory and Rhinoceros Horn from the Democratic Republic of the Congo | OPA | Department of Justice

The court determined that Lokua was the organizer of a trafficking operation involving more than five other co-conspirators whose goal was to ship a cargo container full of elephant ivory, white rhinoceros horn, and pangolin scales to Seattle. Mujangi helped package the wildlife products and handled the financial details to process the payment through a Chinese bank and then back to DRC.

“Today’s sentence demonstrates that wildlife trafficking leads to prison, and that we are committed to prosecuting this crime,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “I commend our Homeland Security Investigations and DRC partners in stopping this trafficking ring before tons of protected wildlife products entered the illegal market.”

“Wildlife trafficking is decimating many species worldwide and has broader impacts to a country’s economic development and security,” said Special Agent in Charge Robert Hammer, who oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations in the Pacific Northwest.  “HSI is proud of our international public and private sector partnerships who enabled the success of this investigation and will continue to leverage those partnerships to target and dismantle future trafficking organizations who seek profit over the risk of extinction.”

Source: Two Foreign Nationals Sentenced to Prison for Trafficking Ivory and Rhinoceros Horn from the Democratic Republic of the Congo | OPA | Department of Justice

Strong RSV vaccine data lifts hopes after years of futility – Los Angeles Times

The vaccine quest isn’t just to protect infants. RSV is dangerous for older adults too, and both Pfizer and rival GSK recently announced that their competing shots also proved protective for seniors.

None of the findings will help this year when an early RSV surge already is crowding children’s hospitals. But they raise the prospect that one or more vaccines might become available before next fall’s RSV season.

“My fingers are crossed,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. “We’re making inroads.”

Source: Strong RSV vaccine data lifts hopes after years of futility – Los Angeles Times

Malaria: Antibody drug 88% effective in preventing infection – Outbreak News Today

One dose of an antibody drug safely protected healthy, non-pregnant adults from malaria infection during an intense six-month malaria season in Mali, Africa, a National Institutes of Health clinical trial has found. The antibody was up to 88.2% effective at preventing infection over a 24-week period, demonstrating for the first time that a monoclonal antibody can prevent malaria infection in an endemic region. These findings were published today in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene 2022 Annual Meeting in Seattle. Source: Malaria: Antibody drug 88% effective in preventing infection – Outbreak News Today

Suella Braverman is far from the only senior Tory to echo the far-Right | openDemocracy

Hope Not Hate said the attack was “the result of repeated demonisation and scapegoating of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees by the government and by the media”. The anti-facist charity said it had recorded 165 incidents of far-right and anti-refugee activity at immigration facilities so far this year.

Braverman’s department is also under pressure to explain an overcrowding crisis at a migrant centre in Kent that has led to outbreaks of diphtheria and scabies. The crisis was reportedly caused by her refusal to allow asylum seekers to be relocated to hotels.

But Braverman’s comments are far from the only instance of the government amplifying the far-Right’s agenda. Here are four other examples:

Cultural Marxism

The phrase ‘Cultural Marxism’ centres on a conspiracy theory that Christian and Conservative values within Western society have been undermined by the theories of a niche group of Marxist, and largely Jewish, inter-war German scholars. The phrase has been circulated among far-Right groups in the US since the 1990s and was later cited in the manifesto of far-Right terrorist and mass murder Anders Behring Breivik.

Yet it has been used by more than two dozen Tory MPs and peers, despite warnings by Jewish groups of its antisemitic origins.

In November 2020, 26 Tory MPs accused the National Trust of being “coloured by Cultural Marxism dogma” in a letter to The Telegraph after the trust produced a report that examined its properties’ relationship to the slave trade and colonialism.

Source: Suella Braverman is far from the only senior Tory to echo the far-Right | openDemocracy