Category Archives: Fail!

IRIN Asia | Concern over Bangladesh move to repatriate Rohingyas to Myanmar | Bangladesh | Myanmar | Conflict | Governance | Human Rights

How would you feel if no state wanted you to live there in peace and would rather you just disappear? This is between Burma and Bangladesh but could just as easily be Serbia, USA, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, Lebanon…

However, the 30-year-old said, choking back tears: “Our biggest concern is if we will be safe back in Burma? We don’t have any rights in Burma. We don’t have any dignity as human beings there. We are not entitled to our identity. Our properties and religious institutions are damaged. How we can be assured that we would be safe out there?”

via IRIN Asia | Concern over Bangladesh move to repatriate Rohingyas to Myanmar | Bangladesh | Myanmar | Conflict | Governance | Human Rights.

Stock price promo – Johnson & Johnson to Quicken Development of Ebola Virus Vaccine – WSJ

Will do nothing for this outbreak but they are hoping it will up their stock prices – profiting from a virus that most in advanced economies had ignored since 1970’s with first outbreak.

“Johnson & Johnson said the vaccine program is being accelerated to allow for clinical trials in humans in early 2015, after promising results in preclinical studies. The company previously had planned to conduct human trials nearly a year later in 2016. The company said the collaboration between Crucell and Bavarian Nordic would enable faster production of the doses necessary to start larger clinical trials.”

via Johnson & Johnson to Quicken Development of Ebola Virus Vaccine – WSJ.

IRIN Global | Concern over World Bank proposals to roll back safeguards for indigenous people | Indonesia | Laos | Sri Lanka | Nigeria | Thailand | Vietnam | Aid Policy | Economy | Human Rights

Activists warn of a harmful regression in the World Bank’s safeguard policies, claiming that proposed changes being considered this autumn could weaken the rights of indigenous people, and others in danger of displacement and abuse as a result of Bank-funded development projects.

“This [version of the safeguards] will be dangerous backsliding into their bad legacy of treatment against indigenous people if it is approved,” said Joan Carling, secretary-general of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP), a network that operates in 14 Asian countries.

via IRIN Global | Concern over World Bank proposals to roll back safeguards for indigenous people | Indonesia | Laos | Sri Lanka | Nigeria | Thailand | Vietnam | Aid Policy | Economy | Human Rights.

Fracking MFers in Congress pimping for Oil! POPVOX – Issue Spotlight: Greater Sage Grouse – POPVOX.com

Last week, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it is initiating its formal status review of the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates that only a few hundred thousand birds survive, compared with its peak population of 16 million. The grouse depends on sagebrush to survive, which grows in areas that are perfect for oil and natural gas drilling, across 165 million acres across 11 states in the West. Energy companies are concerned that listing the grouse as “endangered” would hurt drilling opportunities and cost jobs.

via POPVOX – Issue Spotlight: Greater Sage Grouse – POPVOX.com.

Israeli settlers continue their raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque

The chairman of the Higher Islamic Authority and preacher for Jerusalem, Ekrema Sabri, told PNN that Israeli settlers and Rabbis, accompanied by the Israeli police, continue raiding Al-Aqsa mosque under the pretext of celebrating the Jewish holidays for three days.

He mentioned that the settlers raid that mosque in groups headed by Rabbis or Israeli political leaders. The Israeli police has been preventing Palestinian women from entering the mosque for three days. He confirmed that he will not give up and rejected the entire Israeli plan of temporarily dividing Al-Aqsa mosque.

Mahmoud abu al-Atta, a media official at  Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage,  said that some of the settlers tried to reach the dome of the rock, a sacred place for Muslims, but Palestinian worshippers confronted them and forced them to leave the mosque.

via Israeli settlers continue their raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

{China sized oops!} 90 million pill capsules laced with toxic metal are sold in China; 11 arrested | South China Morning Post

Police in China are trying to trace 90 million drug capsules laced with the toxic metal chromium that have been sold on the open market, in the latest product safety scandal to hit the country.

Eleven people in Zhejiang province were arrested following the discovery that the capsules – which pharmaceutical companies use for their drugs – were tainted with the poison.

Police, along with food and drug authorities in Ninghai county, seized more than 440,000 chromium-laced capsules from an illegal workshop on July 22.

They also confiscated more than 100kg of semi-finished capsules and more than 700kg of capsule material made from industrial gelatin containing the toxin, according to a Zhejiang newspaper hosted by official news agency Xinhua.

An investigation by police found that from February to July the workshop produced about 90 million capsules which contained chromium far exceeding safety levels for edible gelatin.

The entire stock was sold.

via 90 million pill capsules laced with toxic metal are sold in China; 11 arrested | South China Morning Post.

IRIN Africa | Mistrust of government spurs Ebola spread | DRC | Liberia | Nigeria | Sierra Leone | Senegal | Aid Policy | Conflict | Governance | Health & Nutrition | Human Rights

(Government needs to connect with the informal communications network rather than go over it or around it)

Susan Shepler, an associate professor at American University and a specialist on education and conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia, said it is easy to understand why many Liberians tend to doubt government information.

“People are not acting out of ignorance, they’re acting out of experience,” she told IRIN. “In Liberia people have historically used community information and rumours as a way of getting information at times when they weren’t sure whether to trust the government,” she said.

“Information was vital during Liberia’s conflict but official sources were often so unreliable that people relied on informal networks instead,” Shepler added. “At times the media and authorities reported one thing and the rumour network said something else, and it turned out that the rumours were right.”

As the Ebola crisis escalates throughout West Africa, the Sirleaf administration is now faced with plugging an information gap that grew from such a legacy.

Establishing stronger channels of communication is vital, say observers. But Russell Geekie, chief of public information for the UN Mission to Liberia (UNMIL), said the nature of Ebola has made many communication methods difficult.

via IRIN Africa | Mistrust of government spurs Ebola spread | DRC | Liberia | Nigeria | Sierra Leone | Senegal | Aid Policy | Conflict | Governance | Health & Nutrition | Human Rights.

The Problem with Systemic Racism…

The problem with systemic racism is that it is like a heat source that keeps a pot of water simmering at a constant 211 degrees. Extremely hot, but not quite boiling. Every once in a while the heat gets turned up just a tad. Like when a frightened white police officer in Ferguson MO shoots a young unarmed black man while his hands are in the air. Or a group of ignorant, overzealous college students from Oklahoma State University create a banner for a football game that makes light of an act of genocide committed against Native Americans by the United States government.

And then water starts to boil.

Protests are organized. Twitter goes ablaze. Op-Eds are written. And civil rights leaders are given the microphone.

And the temperature is brought back down to 211 degrees.

Even the dominant culture gets caught up in the frenzy. However, their fight is vastly different from the fight of the Native American, African American, Latino or other minority cultures.

For while the minority culture is angry because of the entire system of racism they are surrounded by, the dominant culture is protesting because a single individual committed one offensive act that caused the equilibrium to be thrown off.

via The Problem with Systemic Racism….

MSF: World is ′losing the battle′ to contain Ebola | News | DW.DE | 02.09.2014

Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it. Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat,” said Joanne Liu, MSF’s international president.

“Ebola treatment centers are reduced to places where people go to die alone, where little more than palliative care is offered,” she said, calling on international community to fund more beds for a regional network of field hospitals. She also urged countries with biological disaster response capacity to dispatch trained medical personnel to the hardest-hit areas.

via MSF: World is ′losing the battle′ to contain Ebola | News | DW.DE | 02.09.2014.