All posts by nedhamson

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

Coronavirus: Paris to shut bars and raise alert to maximum

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Paris becomes the second French city to order bars to close again as infections continue to rise.

India’s new paper Covid-19 test could be a ‘game changer’ – BBC News

They found that the new test had 96% sensitivity and 98% specificity. The accuracy of a test is based on these two proportions. A test that’s highly sensitive will detect almost everyone who has the disease; and a test that’s has high-specificity will correctly rule out almost everyone who doesn’t have the disease.

The first ensures not too many false negative results; and the second not too many false positives. India’s drug regulator has cleared the test for commercial use.

“India has the opportunity to show the value of this test, because it has such a big population and it’s coming right at the time when it is needed,” Dr Kissler said. “If their efficacy is demonstrated, it can have benefits that ripple around the world.”

A vaccine will be vital for fully recovering from the pandemic, but according to Dr Kissler, reliable, accessible testing is also key to achieve “a sense of normalcy”.

“In the ideal world I envision, taking a test will be as easy as brushing your teeth or making toast,” he said.

Source: India’s new paper Covid-19 test could be a ‘game changer’ – BBC News

Water protector slain in Baja California – CounterVortex

Oscar Eyraud Adams, a community activist in the Mexican border town of Tecate, Baja California, was assassinated in an attack on his home by what local accounts described as an “armed commando” Sept. 24. The following day, his brother-in-law, Óscar Sotelo, was gunned down in a convenience store along the Tecate-Ensenada highway. Adams had been a prominent advocate for the Kumiai (also rendered Kumeyaay) indigenous people in their struggle for irrigation concessions for their remote communities in outlying rural areas of Tecate and Ensenada municipalities, which have been denied by the National Water Commission (ConAgua). Friends and supporters of Adams are blaming the assassinations on the “narco-state” and demanding that authorities investigate them as political crimes.

Source: Water protector slain in Baja California – CounterVortex

Looking Back #suffering #hope – penned in moon dust

Behind me

shadows of frozen pain

I choose to forget

 

It was many winters ago now. Life was empty and what little I had was slipping through my fingers. “You have cancer” were words I could not bear to add to my void.

The scepter of fear wanted to rob days and precious memories that might be the last with young children.

Hope comes in strange forms as does healing.

The hospital I was admitted to was an Oasis for those with little to cling to.

Source: Looking Back #suffering #hope – penned in moon dust

Government Accountability Office to Investigate Claims of Systemic Racism in Veteran Affairs

The revelation that nearly 80 percent of workers surveyed at Veterans Affairs believe there is widespread racism throughout the federal agency has prompted an investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office into the reports of discrimination. sxblno35aggu7nly9hz8.jpg

The revelation that nearly 80 percent of workers surveyed at Veterans Affairs believe there is widespread racism throughout the federal agency has prompted an investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office into the reports of discrimination. The GAO is a non-partisan congressional watchdog body charged…

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Jerusalem Post took government money to publish anti-BDS special

In exchange for government money, the Jerusalem Post published a special supplement in June 2019 titled “Unmasking BDS,” as part of the ministry’s attempts to delegitimize the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Within the supplement’s pages, top journalists at the paper interviewed officials from the ministry as well as members of organizations abroad that work in concert with it. Other interviewees included Republican Senator and former U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who was described as a “brave warrior” for Israel.

The deal between the Jerusalem Post and the Strategic Affairs Ministry, which was mediated by Israel’s Government Advertising Agency, was revealed for the first time last month, following a freedom of information request filed by the Seventh Eye.

On its face, the supplement appears to be a combination of a Jerusalem Post project and an advertising pamphlet, although nowhere does it directly declare that the ministry paid for its content. In contrast, the articles and columns from the supplement that were published on the Jerusalem Post’s website do not inform readers in any way that they are, in fact, reading government propaganda.

Source: Jerusalem Post took government money to publish anti-BDS special

The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years

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Every year, sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean shrinks to a low point in mid-September. This year it measures just 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers) – the second-lowest value in the 42 years since satellites began taking measurements. The ice today covers only 50% of the area it covered 40 years ago in late summer. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history. The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached today’s level – about 412 parts per million –…

This story continues at The Next Web

Rebels within: the Facebook staff openly challenging Zuckerberg

“Facebook is choosing to be on the wrong side of history,” warned Chandwaney in the letter, which was posted on the company’s internal message board. “I can no longer stomach contributing to an organisation that is profiting off hate in the US and globally.”

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A developer’s powerful resignation letter is the latest condemnation of the social network’s attitude to hate speech

At the beginning of last month, a Facebook software engineer, Ashok Chandwaney, resigned and published a blistering public letter, excoriating the company for its failure to tackle hate.

“Facebook is choosing to be on the wrong side of history,” warned Chandwaney in the letter, which was posted on the company’s internal message board. “I can no longer stomach contributing to an organisation that is profiting off hate in the US and globally.”

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