It is no joke when people start talking like this. We are not “giving her what she wants” when we make manifest our disgust. It is not a free speech issue. I’m not saying gag her: I’m saying fight her. Articulate the fellowship, the human empathy, that makes these deaths important. Stop talking about how many children were among the dead, as though only children matter. Start talking about everybody’s life as cherishable, irrespective of anything they might produce.
Category Archives: Profiteering
Gunfights in Reynosa Mexico border town after drug gang leader ′El Gafe′ arrested | News | DW.DE | 18.04.2015
Reynosa has been the site of turf wars between two rival drug gangs – the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas – over the last year. They have been fighting for control of the border smuggling routes into the United States, and crime rackets.
The Gulf Cartel had been dominant in Reynosa, a city of 610,000 people, just across the border from the US town of McAllen, Texas. But the arrest of several leaders in 2013 had weakened its control in the city, and in the state of Tamaulipas. It also led to infighting within and between cartels.
The US consulate in the city of Matamoros issued a message saying it “has learned of several firefights and roadblocks throughout the city” of Reynosa. It urged Americans to “use extreme caution and to remain in-doors.”
Karma and fear – not a good mix – Chinese-owned businesses in South Africa close amid xenophobic violence: Shanghaiist
President Zuma condemned the violence, in which six people have already died, calling it “shocking and unacceptable,” however he also recognized that South Africans had concerns over illegal and undocumented immigrants in the country.
While the violence has mainly targeted Africans from neighboring countries, the Chinese Embassy and Consulates in South Africa are calling for immediate and effective measures to protect the personal safety and property of Chinese nationals.
The timing could not be worse from a diplomatic standpoint, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visiting the country as the violence flared up.
South Africa has a large Chinese immigrant population, with estimates ranging from 200,000 to over 300,000.
via Chinese-owned businesses in South Africa close amid xenophobic violence: Shanghaiist.
Study of isolated Amazonian tribe shows how modern life is changing human bodily bacteria – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
A microbiota diversity decline may be linked to the increase in the past several decades of immunological and metabolic diseases such as asthma, allergies, diabetes and obesity, said Maria Dominguez-Bello, a professor of medicine at New York University’s Langone Medical Centre.
The researchers analysed microbial samples from 34 of the 54 Yanomami villagers.
They were compared to a United States group, another Venezuelan Amazonian indigenous people, the Guahibo, and residents of rural Malawi in southern Africa.
Yanomami were found to have twice the number of microbe varieties of the US subjects and 30 to 40 per cent more diversity than the Malawians and Guahibo.
Some of the bacteria found in the Yanomami, but not in the others, offer beneficial effects like protecting against kidney stones.
The Yanomami are semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in their remote mountainous region.
“It really is a unique opportunity to contact communities with this ancient lifestyle,” said Oscar Noya, a researcher with the Amazonic Centre for Research and Control of Tropical Diseases in Venezuela who visited the villagers.
World Health Organisation ‘intentionally delayed declaring Ebola emergency’ | World news | The Guardian
{Even newspapers have short memories. The governments of the impacted countries pushed back hard internally within the UN and in the press to not declare an emergency for fear of losing trade and tourist business. WHO gave in to the pressure and that’s their bad but governments who think of money before people in situations like this one and this one, share much of the blame.}
Dr Sylvie Briand, head of the pandemic and epidemic diseases department at WHO, acknowledged that her agency made wrong decisions, but said postponing the alert made sense at the time because it could have had catastrophic economic consequences. “What I’ve seen in general is that for developing countries, it’s sort of a death warrant you’re signing,” she told AP.
On 10 June, Briand, her boss, Dr Keiji Fukuda, and others sent a memo to WHO chief Dr Margaret Chan, noting that cases might soon pop up in Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau. But the memo went on to say that declaring an international emergency or even convening an emergency committee to discuss the issue “could be seen as a hostile act”.
But others argue that although declaring an international emergency is no guarantee of ending an outbreak, it functions as a kind of a global distress call.
“It’s important because it gives a clear signal that nobody can ignore the epidemic any more,” said Dr Joanne Liu, MSF’s international president.
In a meeting at WHO headquarters on 30 July, Liu said she told Chan: “You have the legitimacy and the authority to label it an emergency … You need to step up to the plate.”
After WHO declared an international emergency on 8 August, Barack Obama sent 3,000 troops to west Africa and promised to build more than a dozen 100-bed field hospitals. Britain and France also pledged to build Ebola clinics, China sent a 59-person lab team, and Cuba sent more than 400 health workers.
Dr Bruce Aylward, WHO’s top Ebola official, maintains however that labelling the Ebola outbreak a global emergency would have been no magic bullet. “What you would expect is the whole world wakes up and goes: ‘Oh my gosh, this is a terrible problem, we have to deploy additional people and send money,’” he said. “Instead what happened is people thought: ‘Oh my goodness, there’s something really dangerous happening there and we need to restrict travel and the movement of people.’”
Shell’s Battle for Seattle | Earthjustice
The Port’s entry into the lease with Foss Maritime to open Terminal 5 to Shell’s Arctic drilling convoy was made in February without public proceedings or an environmental review. Not only did the rental agreement violate the Port of Seattle’s long-range plans and its shoreline permit, which designate Terminal 5 as a cargo terminal, but it broke state law and the port’s own rules.
That’s where Earthjustice comes in.
Earthjustice is representing Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, the Sierra Club, Washington Environmental Council and Seattle Audubon Society in a legal fight to vacate the lease. The groups and local residents have pressed the port to rescind the lease and to invest in sustainable jobs that reflect the community’s values and air prospective terminal lessees in public.
The biggest privatisation in NHS history: why we had to blow the whistle | Kate Godfrey | Comment is free | The Guardian
Not only was there no formal consultation, but local patients were meant to get no say on this contract at all. The original plan was to sign the deal in March – before people could have their say at the polls. Labour has said it will not let the project go ahead.
The campaign group I work with – Cancer Not For Profit – fought for more time. When the awarding of the contract was put back until June, we thought that we had won a small victory.
Our source heard differently. The project wasn’t delayed, they were told, but simply hushed up. The political implications of pushing through the biggest privatisation in NHS history two months before a general election were too serious. It had to move forward with speed, and if the contract lacked benchmarks or risk management, forget it. It could all be resolved later. (It is the essence of contract law that weaknesses are generally not resolved later.) The only thing being delayed until after May was the announcement, which would now be made in June. And then a gamble that a new government couldn’t go back on a contract already awarded.
“I’m going to publish,” I told the source. “Tell me if you don’t want me to publish.” I never heard from them again.
Gourmet Kitchen Inc. Recalls Various Beef and Chicken Products Due to Misbranding and an Undeclared Allergen
Cook your food yourself! Peanuts end up in too many things for those that are allergic!
The ready-to-cook beef and chicken appetizer items were produced on various dates between October 15, 2014 and March 2, 2015. The following products are subject to recall:
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code B2018.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Satay.” The boxes will bear the case code B2028.
Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Large Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code B2032.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Wellington Puff with Bleu Cheese.” The boxes will bear the case code B2078.
Bulk packages of 0.4 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Petite Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code B2148.
Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Macadamia Chicken Skewer.” The boxes will bear the case code C2036.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Chicken Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code C2050.
Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Pistachio Chicken Pinwheel.” The boxes will bear the case code C2054.
Bulk packages of 0.6 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Oahu Chicken Pinwheel.” The boxes will bear the case code C2084.
Bulk packages of 0.4 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Petite Chicken Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code C2290.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Foods of Arizona Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code GFB2018.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Foods of Arizona Beef Wellington with Bleu Cheese and Duxelle.” The boxes will bear the case code GFB2078.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Impromptu Petite Beef Wellington.” The boxes will bear the case code IM70021.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Kabob.” The boxes will bear the case code K1002.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “Gourmet Kitchen Beef Wellington Puff.” The boxes will bear the case code MSB2018.
Bulk packages of 0.75 oz. “MacKenzie Limited Beef Wellington.”
Avian Flu Diary: APHIS: H5N2 Detected In Backyard Flock In Kansas
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza (HPAI) in a backyard chicken and duck flock in Leavenworth County, Kansas. This is the first finding of HPAI in the Central flyway. CDC considers the risk to people from these HPAI H5 infections in wild birds, backyard flocks and commercial poultry, to be low. No human infections with the virus have been detected at this time.
via Avian Flu Diary: APHIS: H5N2 Detected In Backyard Flock In Kansas.
Bird flu mutating in southern China, pandemic threatens: Shanghaiist
The deadly strain of the bird flu virus H7N9, which first infected humans in Shanghai during 2013, is entrenched in flocks of chickens and ducks in the south of China and mutating, posing an even greater threat to humanity, according to the largest-ever genomic survey of the virus.
In an article for Nature, author Guan Yi and colleagues at the University of Hong Kong warn that unless drastic measures are taken to eradicate the virus, it will continue to mutate. “H7N9 viruses have spread from eastern to southern China and become persistent in chickens,” they wrote. Given that the virus can infect humans, it “should be considered as a major candidate to emerge as a pandemic strain.”
via Bird flu mutating in southern China, pandemic threatens: Shanghaiist.


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