All posts by nedhamson

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

Venezuela: Maduro’s days are numbered, says US Secretary Pompeo

Petro-Dictators want Venezuela’s oil and to re-enslave rural Venezuela!

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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has promised more sanctions against the embattled Venezuelan president’s rule. A meeting of the country’s neighbors is set to demand a firm response to Maduro’s aid blockade.

U.S. to announce ‘concrete steps’ for Venezuela crisis on Monday: official

Another created crisis so folks will not focus on dictator-wannabes in White House and presiding over Senate! U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is set to announce “concrete steps” and “clear actions” to address the Venezuela crisis when he meets on Monday with regional leaders in Bogota, Colombia, a senior U.S. administration official said.

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The Guardian view on Mrs May’s deal: delay Brexit, not just the MPs’ vote | Editorial

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The prime minister’s desperate attempts to build a coalition for her deal has failed. It’s time for her to admit that

Theresa May’s decision to delay the meaningful vote on the terms of her Brexit deal to at least 12 March is the reckless act of a leader running out of ideas. We only have Mrs May’s word that “progress” is being made on changes that might make her withdrawal agreement acceptable to a parliament which last month rejected it in the largest ever defeat for a ruling party. MPs will have to decide which way to vote on one of this country’s most consequential geopolitical acts – leaving the European Union – just 17 days before it is supposed to happen. In the meantime, the country is driven closer to the cliff edge, egged on by fanatics who think Britain ought to leave the EU with no deal at all, wreaking maximum damage on the economy.

But this is the point of Mrs May’s ploy: to rachet up the tension and raise the stakes. The prime minister aims to manoeuvre MPs to a point where a bad deal is better than no deal or no Brexit at all. Mrs May is hoping that her nerve will hold while that of her opponents fails. She is attempting to assemble a coalition to leave on the terms she has negotiated. It corresponds to what her chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins was heard boasting about in a Brussels bar earlier this month: that MPs would end up with a last-minute choice between her deal and a lengthy delay. She would then have the option to cast anyone who voted for a delay as an opponent of Brexit and anyone who voted for her deal as a committed leaver. It’s not a bad plan; it’s just bad for Britain and for this country’s politics.

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‘The Monsters Are the Men’: Inside a Thriving Sex Trafficking Trade in Florida – The New York Times

First, a health inspector spotted several suitcases. Then she noticed an unusual stash of clothing, food and bedding. A young woman who was supposed to be a massage therapist spoke little English and seemed unusually nervous. The inspector reported her findings to police. They would eventually learn that her suspicions were right: The women were not just employees: They were living in the day spa, sleeping on massage tables and cooking meals on hot plates in the back. Some of them had had their passports confiscated. The inspector’s suspicions prompted a sprawling investigation across four Florida counties and two states — Florida and New York — over nearly eight months, resulting in the disruption of what authorities say was a multimillion-dollar human-trafficking and prostitution operation.

Brazil says Maduro’s violence to block Venezuelan aid ‘criminal act’

And what will he say when people try to aid people in Brazilian Amazon when attacked by President of Brazil? Brazil on Sunday condemned violence used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government this weekend to block aid shipments from crossing the border, branding it a “criminal act” and calling on the international community to join efforts to “liberate” the South American nation.

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‘You’re fired!’ America has already terminated Trump | Robert Reich

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The Mueller report looms but the president is doomed anyway – no one who screws the people so blatantly can win re-election

Robert Mueller’s soon-to-be-delivered report will begin months of congressional investigations, subpoenas, court challenges, partisan slugfests, media revelations, and more desperate conspiracy claims by Donald Trump, all against the backdrop of the burning questions: Will he be impeached by the House? Will he be convicted by the Senate? Will he pull a Richard Nixon and resign?

Related: Trump faces a legal reckoning this week. But are his worst troubles yet to come?

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Put yourself in Shamima Begum’s shoes before you damn her out of hand | Sonia Sodha

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We can’t know the pressures she was under. Sajid Javid must allow her to tell her side of the story

Less than two weeks after Shamima Begum was discovered in a Syrian refugee camp, she’s public enemy number one. Eight in 10 people believe she should be stripped of her British citizenship; 65% say so, even if that leaves her stateless.

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, might regard this as vindication of his disgraceful decision to deprive Begum of her citizenship last week. But others have expressed dismay at the level of public vitriol.

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Inoreader – Dolly Parton on sexual politics: ‘I’ve probably hit on some people myself!’

this man thought I was a prostitute,” she recalls today, her signature blond bouffant bouncing with her giggles. But 19-year-old Parton, even when lost in the big city, was unflappable. When the man wouldn’t leave her alone she whipped out a little pistol her father had given her in case of emergencies: “If you touch me one more time, you’ve had it!” she shouted. The man disappeared into midtown Manhattan, but the encounter was later immortalised in Parton’s first, and probably most enduring movie, the 1980 feminist classic 9 to 5. It is used in the scene that establishes Parton’s character, when she takes a gun out of her purse, points it at her sexist boss, Mr Hart (Dabney Coleman), and tells him if he doesn’t stop harassing her she will turn him “from a rooster to a hen with one shot”.

Source: Inoreader – Dolly Parton on sexual politics: ‘I’ve probably hit on some people myself!’

China MOA: ASF Reaches Hebei Province, Returns To Inner Mongolia

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For the better part of a week there have been reports in the dissident Chinese press of a large African Swine Fever outbreak in Hebei Province – the only region of Eastern China not to have reported ASF – and of a massive cover-up.

Today, China’s MOA has confirmed Hebei Province’s first outbreak, and has announced the return of ASF to Inner Mongolia for the first time in nearly 3 months.

It is worth noting that the Chinese media reports (based, in part, on social media posts) suggest a substantially higher number of pigs affected than does the official report below.

African swine fever epidemic in Xushui District, Baoding City, Hebei Province

Date: 2019-02-24 12:54 Author: Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Press Office


The Information Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs was released on February 24, and an African swine fever epidemic occurred in Xushui District, Baoding City, Hebei Province.

On February 24, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Areas received a report from the China Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center, which was diagnosed by the China Center for Animal Health and Epidemiology, and an African swine fever occurred in a farm in Xushui District, Baoding City. There are 5,600 live pigs in the farm, and there have been morbid deaths.

Immediately after the outbreak, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs sent a steering group to the local area. The local government has started the emergency response mechanism according to the requirements, and adopted measures such as blockade, culling, harmless treatment, disinfection, etc., to treat all the sick and culled pigs harmlessly. At the same time, all pigs and their products are prohibited from being transferred out of the blockade, and pigs are prohibited from being transported into the blockade. At present, the above measures have been implemented.


The African swine fever epidemic occurred in the Sandor Forest Farm of the State-owned Forest Management Bureau of Daxing’anling, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
 
Date: 2019-02-24 16:54 Author: Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Press Office 

The Information Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs was released on February 24, and the African swine fever epidemic occurred in the Sandor Forest Farm of the State-owned Forest Management Bureau of Daxing’anling, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

On February 24, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs received a report from the China Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center, which was diagnosed by the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center. A wild pig swine outbreak occurred in a wild boar farmer in the Sandor Forest Farm of the Daxinganling Key State-owned Forest Management Bureau.

There are 222 domestic wild boars in the farm, with 222 diseases and 210 deaths. The farm is located in the hinterland of Daxing’anling, and there is no pig breeding in the radius of 60 km.

After the outbreak, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Forest and Grass Bureau immediately dispatched a steering group to the local area. The local government has initiated an emergency response mechanism in accordance with the requirements, and adopted measures such as blockade, culling, harmless treatment, and disinfection to strengthen the inspection of surrounding wild boar activities. At present, the above measures have been implemented.

A Google search on the term `死猪” (`Dead Pigs’) returns dozens of results each day, with many describing the dumping of large numbers of pig carcasses into rivers and streams (see Taiwan BAPHIQ: ASF Positive Pig Carcass Found On Matsu Island Beach).

Given the politics involved, not all of these reports may be credible, and there are a number of other serious pig diseases – including FMD, PED & PRRS – that could produce significant pig mortality. 

But there are ample reasons to suspect the official reports we get from the MOA may not fully describe the ASF situation on the ground. 

  • Chinese farmers and local officials have a history of not reporting disease outbreaks to the central government – preferring instead to deal with problems internally – as not to invite unwanted attention from Beijing. 
  • It seems unlikely that Hebei Province – which has been surrounded by provinces reporting ASF outbreaks for months – only now detects ASF.
  • And perhaps most telling, Taiwan’s BAPHIQ (Bureau of Animal Plant Health Inspection & Quarantine) continues to intercept ASF contaminated food products, with the latest reports showing 10% of Chinese pork products collected at their airport tested positive for the virus.

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Obviously, significant quantities of ASF contaminated pork are making it into the food chain – and while that poses no health risk to humans – it does speak to the amount of undetected (or reported) infected livestock being processed.

Six months ago the FAO warned that AFrican swine fever (ASF) threatens to spread from China to other Asian countries, and over the past 7 weeks we’ve seen the virus attack farms in two of China’s neighbors; Mongolia and Vietnam.

While ASF does not pose a direct threat to human health, it can be devastating to pork producers, and its further spread in China and across Asia could compromise already fragile food security in many regions

According to the FAO‘s most recent report, food insecurity and world hunger continue to increase, making agricultural diseases such as ASF, avian flu, FMD, and others important detriments to human health as well.

The 2018 State Of Food Security And Nutrition In The World

RECENT TRENDS IN HUNGER AND FOOD INSECURITY

KEY MESSAGES 

  • New evidence continues to point to a rise in world hunger in recent years after a prolonged decline. An estimated 821 million people – approximately one out of every nine people in the world – are undernourished.
  • Undernourishment and severe food insecurity appear to be increasing in almost all regions of Africa, as well as in South America, whereas the undernourishment situation is stable in most regions of Asia.
  • The signs of increasing hunger and food insecurity are a warning that there is considerable work to be done to make sure we “leave no one behind” on the road towards a world with zero hunger.