All posts by nedhamson

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

APO Group – Africa Newsroom / Press release | Uganda Confirms Polio Outbreak

the Ministry will conduct a nationwide Polio immunization campaign in October and December 2021 during which health-workers will visit house-to­ house and vaccinate all children aged 5 years or below against Polio. All health workers participating in the campaign will wear masks and strictly observe the COVID-19 SOPs to ensure children are safely vaccinated.

In the meantime, parents and guardians are encouraged to ensure that all children under the age of five years are fully immunized as per the country’s routine immunization schedule.

The Ministry of Health will announce the specific dates for the vaccination campaign through the national media, announcements, posters, and banners, to inform parents of the campaign and ensure that their children are vaccinated and protected from Polio.

Source: APO Group – Africa Newsroom / Press release | Uganda Confirms Polio Outbreak

The incel movement is a form of extremism and it cannot be ignored any longer | Laura Bates | The Guardian

Today’s incels are not a clearly defined, organised group, but rather a sprawling, disparate community of men across a network of blogs, forums, websites, private members groups, chatrooms and social media channels. Several of the forums have memberships in the tens of thousands, with around a 25% increase in membership in the two years I have been researching them. And these figures don’t take into account the number of people visiting and being influenced by these sites without necessarily signing up.

Incels subscribe to a transnational ideology characterised by white male supremacy, oppression of women and the glorification and encouragement of male violence. Seeing themselves as perpetual victims oppressed by a “feminist gynocracy”, they believe that sex is their inherent birthright as men, and that rape and murder are appropriate punishments for a society they perceive as withholding sex from them.

The transformation of Alana’s benign self-help community to today’s extremist ideology is in part a result of the environment in which those forums were created. The early Usenet forums were dominated by white men, who grew uncomfortable with the third wave feminist movement. More recently, social media algorithms have led young men to encounter increasingly extreme content. Concepts such as evil women controlling men’s lives or rape being the natural end product of “depriving” men of sex are filtered through viral YouTube videos and memes, appearing across the sites that wallpaper young people’s online environments.

Tributes to the victims of the attack in the Keyham area of Plymouth on Saturday.
Plymouth gunman ranted online that ‘women are arrogant’ days before rampage

The more frequently they see misogynistic content, the less shocking it seems. After viewing one video, or liking one post, social media platforms feed more content, often more extreme in nature, to users with the aim of maintaining and monetising their attention spans.

Today’s incels are also experts at finding and recruiting young men online. They do not depend on boys coming to them: indeed, many young men I meet whose ideas reflect this ideology have never actually heard of the term “incels”. They are groomed over computer headsets, in gaming strategy chatrooms, via viral videos and funny memes. They are targeted on bodybuilding forums, where extremists know they will find a self-selecting group of boys already anxious about societal notions of tough, traditional masculinity. They find boys where they are most ripe for exploitation, and unless we recognise this for the radicalisation it is, we will not be able to tackle it effectively.

Source: The incel movement is a form of extremism and it cannot be ignored any longer | Laura Bates | The Guardian

Avian Flu Diary: Science Perspective: The Animal Origin of SARS-CoV-2

Humans are now the dominant SARS-CoV-2 host species. The danger is that SARS-CoV-2 could spread from humans to other animal species, termed reverse zoonosis, as is suspected for white-tailed deer in the United States. The promiscuous infection of various host species by the sarbecoviruses means that future spillovers of SARSr-CoVs from wildlife are very likely, and current vaccines may not be protective against novel variants. The sampling intensity of sarbecoviruses needs to be urgently increased to gain a better understanding of this spillover risk.
The recent finding of sarbecoviruses, not dissimilar to SARS-CoV-2, dispersed in Southeast Asia emphasizes the urgency of monitoring coronavirus diversity. Humanity must work together beyond country borders to amplify surveillance for coronaviruses at the human–animal interface to minimize the threat of both established and evolving variants evading vaccines and to stop future spillover events.
         (Continue . . . )
While I don’t completely discount the possibility of a lab-leak origin for SARS-CoV-2, we’ve been expecting another `SARS-like‘ spillover from bats – likely via an intermediary host – since the mid-2000s.
It was the scenario behind 2019’s The JHCHS #Event201 (Fictional) CAPS Table Top Exercise, and throughout the last decade we looked at numerous `bat-borne’ zoonotic threats, including:

Emerg. Microbes & Infect.: Novel Coronaviruses In Least Horseshoe Bats In Southwestern China 

PNAS: SARS-like WIV1-CoV Poised For Human Emergence

Sci Rpts: Avian & Human Influenza Compatible Receptor Cells In Little Brown Bats

Study: Hotspots For Bat To Human Disease Transmission

Six weeks before the Wuhan outbreak, in African Swine Fever’s (ASF) Other Impacts; Pharmaceuticals, Bushmeat, and Food Insecurity, I even speculated that China’s ASF outbreak could  lead to increased `bushmeat’ consumption, which in turn might spark another SARS-like outbreak (one of the possible scenarios discussed in today’s article).

Admittedly, more of a lucky guess than prescience, since we’ve been expecting a SARS redux – or the emergence of Virus X – for years.

Regardless of how SARS-CoV-2 emerged, today’s perspective is a reminder that nature’s laboratory is open 24/7 – and future spillovers are all but guaranteed.  We either prepare as if it will happen, or we will be caught flat footed and unprepared again.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: Science Perspective: The Animal Origin of SARS-CoV-2

Bursa de valori

Vivaldi translation:
Stock exchange
Paris, 2021

I knew from Punta in Dogana that Tadao Ando was acting by elimination. Now, in Paris, the concrete cylinder he introduced into the heritage building of the former Commodity Exchange absorbed me like a fountain or a cent and reduced my perceptions only to the essential.

ore de drum

Paris, 2021

Știam, încă de la Punta de la Dogana, că Tadao Ando procedează prin eliminare. Acum, la Paris, cilindrul de beton pe care l-a introdus în clădirea de patrimoniu a fostei Burse de mărfuri m-a absorbit ca o fântână sau un cenote și mi-a redus percepțiile doar la esențial.

De îndată ce îl văd, intuiesc ca actul arhitectural e mai puternic decât colecția care i-a prilejuit existența. Cred că marele industriaș François Pinault a avut dreptate să aștepte timp îndelungat oportunitatea de a-și instala o mică parte a colecției într-un astfel de spațiu unde, ca și la Venezia, Tadao Ando a plăsmuit magia receptării.

Clădirea Bursei se află pe locul unde, în 1574, a fost ridicată reședința personală a Caterinei de Medicis din care se mai pastrează o singură coloană. Mai târziu, în secolul 18, aici a funcționat o hală de grâne, amenajată circular.

În secolul 19, a fost…

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The sleeping giant that can define the future of the planet – Darwinian

The temperature of permafrost has increased in the last half century, in some regions registering an increase of 3 ° C in less than a decade, while in others the temperature remains stable. The process is fast and irreversible due to the feedback of its carbon cycle, and can have consequences not only in ecosystems, but in the emergence of new epidemics. In view of this, coordinated global actions are needed, mainly by industrial nations, to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, in order to avoid an environmental collapse even in that century.

Source: The sleeping giant that can define the future of the planet – Darwinian

Biden Administration Recommends Booster Shots For Covid-19

Most Americans will be advised to get a booster shot to protect themselves against the evolving COVID-19 virus, and those shots could be available as early as mid-September.

The Biden administration is expected to announce this week that Americans who got the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines will need the third shot to protect themselves against the Delta variant that is spreading across the country, according to the New York Times. The booster shot should come eight months after the second shot; officials also said that people who got the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine will also need a booster shot.

The New York Times reports that, like the first rollout of the vaccine, the first booster shots will go to frontline workers and the most vulnerable, including nursing home residents, healthcare workers and emergency workers. After those people will come older folks and then the general public. People will likely get the same vaccine they received before.

Source: Biden Administration Recommends Booster Shots For Covid-19

No era así

Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

SANTIAGO GALICIA ROJON SERRALLONGA

Derechos reservados conforme a la ley/ Copyright

No era así. Estamos desarmados. Hay piezas faltantes, voces que callaron de improviso, espacios ausentes, listas de epitafios. Estamos incompletos. Venimos de una historia distante, oculta no sé dónde -en los recuerdos que se debilitan, en los sentimientos que se extinguen, en todo lo que fuimos y vivimos-, al grado de hundirse en los esteros de la desmemoria. Algo extraño e inexplicable aconteció en el camino, en alguna estación de descanso o de la jornada, cuando vivíamos y, por lo mismo, suponíamos que éramos intensamente dichosos. Estamos rotos. Algo cambió. Hoy, cualquiera muere, y no importa si los instantes de su existencia se contabilizan en horas y en días o en años y en décadas, o si es en el cunero, en los jardines del mundo o en el lecho postrero. No era así. Antes -hace tan poco tiempo…

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