All posts by nedhamson

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

U.S. government won’t say why it allows Canadians to fly to U.S. despite border closure

Virus Outbreak Illinois Air Travel

Despite the Canada-U.S. border closure to non-essential traffic, Canadians can still fly to the United States for leisure travel. The U.S. government declined to tell CBC News why.

Why the hidden world of fungi is essential to life on Earth | Merlin Sheldrake

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Fungi have long supported and enriched life on our planet. They must be protected as fiercely as animals and plants

As you read these words, fungi are changing the way that life happens, as they have done for more than a billion years. They are eating rock, making soil, digesting pollutants, nourishing and killing plants, surviving in space, inducing visions, producing food, making medicines, manipulating animal behaviour, and influencing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Fungi make up one of life’s kingdoms – as broad and busy a category as “animals” or “plants” – and provide a key to understanding our planet. Yet fungi have received only a small fraction of the attention they deserve. The best estimate suggests that there are between 2.2m and 3.8m species of fungi on the Earth – as many as 10 times the estimated number of plant species – meaning that, at most, a mere 8% of all fungal species have been described. Of these, only 358 have had their conservation priority assessed on the IUCN red list of threatened species, compared with 76,000 species of animal and 44,000 species of plant. Fungi, in other words, represent a meagre 0.2% of our global conservation priorities.

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This newspaper has never forgotten the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — and its fight continues — Just Sayin’ — ShiraDest: The 4 Freedoms for ALL via Language & Adult Education, Writing, and PublicDomainInfrastructure

Jim Goodwin ran his thumb over the screen of his iPhone, reading a rough draft of a newspaper editorial. In 300 words, the author recounted one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history and offered a stark suggestion to Tulsa officials as the 100th anniversary of the massacre approaches: Don’t get so […] […]

This newspaper has never forgotten the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — and its fight continues — Just Sayin’ — ShiraDest: The 4 Freedoms for ALL via Language & Adult Education, Writing, and PublicDomainInfrastructure

How British-made sniper rifles ended up in Yemen, Syria, and Ukraine — bellingcat

A note about the UK Arms project: This article forms part of a series of investigations that will look at UK arms exports. It has been produced by Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports and their media partners, Sky News and The Guardian. Investigators involved were Leone Hadavi, Benjamin Strick, Annique Mossou, Pieter van Huis, Eric Woods, Ross…

How British-made sniper rifles ended up in Yemen, Syria, and Ukraine — bellingcat

European Commission authorises GMO soybeans for food and feed in huge new Biodiversity attack. — The Free (monocultures risk regional food crop failures)

Taking advantage of the continuing Pandemia the European Commission has authorized more GMO soybeans, also for food products. This is another huge blow to world biodiversity, already in an ecocidal spiral, Genetically modified Soya beans only work if they are soaked in Monsanto’s herbicides and pesticides. Today, the Commission authorised a Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) […]

European Commission authorises GMO soybeans for food and feed in huge new Biodiversity attack. — The Free

Ti stai decorando con l’oro?

Are you decorating yourself with gold? Those who buy gold and diamond jewelry, watches and accessories from Cartier and others in the luxury sector are complicit in destroying tropical forests and degrading the lives of indigenous peoples.

Barbara Crane Navarro

Foto: distruzione delle miniere d’oro nella foresta pluviale amazzonica
“I minatori d’oro distruggono la foresta” – disegno su carta – Yahimi Yanomami

Coloro che acquistano gioielli, orologi e accessori in oro e diamanti da Cartier e altri operatori del settore del lusso sono complici nel distruggere le foreste tropicali e nel degradare la vita delle popolazioni indigene.

NO all’oro nel sangue! – Un messaggio per Davi Kopenawa, Claudia Andujar e Survival con un avvertimento del cacique Raoni Metuktire:

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Covid-19 in the UK: why cases are surging right now – Vox

A sandwich board outside a restaurant where there are outdoor tables and diners, reads, “10 pounds from Boris.”

For the plan, dubbed “Eat Out to Help Out,” the government paid half of everyone’s restaurant bills up to 10 pounds per meal every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in August — for all diners, in groups of any size, as often as people wanted, indoors or out. At the time, face masks were not required in most eating establishments. According to Boris Johnson and finance minister Rishi Sunak, the point of the plan was to help save jobs in the restaurant industry.

The public was more than happy to eat on the government’s dime and did so 100 million times between August 3 and 31, at a cost of £522 million (about $694 million), per Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the IRS of the UK.

The public health community reacted to the plan with horror. “In a word, it’s nuts,” says Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Center on National and Global Health Law, professor of global health law at Georgetown University, and a research fellow at Oxford University. “In the midst of a pandemic, it’s actually directly opposite to what the public health evidence suggests.”

The move was made despite evidence available since early in the pandemic that eating indoors, close to others, is a high-risk activity for spreading the virus.

Source: Covid-19 in the UK: why cases are surging right now – Vox

India-Israel ‘30-second coronavirus test’ should be ‘ready in days’ – The Jerusalem Post

The operation had been dubbed “Open Skies,” and Malka said he believes the testing kit will enable the world to begin opening the skies, since the technology simply requires a person to blow into a tube and the results become available in less than a minute. It is also very cheap to carry out, as the results are delivered locally without the logistics and cost of sending the sample to a lab.

Source: India-Israel ‘30-second coronavirus test’ should be ‘ready in days’ – The Jerusalem Post