Category Archives: Viva!

Climate crisis and antibiotic use could ‘sink’ fish farming industry – report

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Investors’ network warns of serious risk to aquaculture from global heating as well as over-reliance on medicines

The climate crisis, drug use and feeding farmed fish with wild stocks risks “sinking” the $230bn (£180bn) aquaculture industry, according to an ethical investment network.

Fish farms now surpass wild fisheries as the main provider of seafood on our plates, but combined risks from global heating, excessive use of antibiotics, a dependence on wild stocks for feed, and poor governance threatens the lucrative and fast-growing sector, warned Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (Fairr), a $12trn-backed network.

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Alabama Woman Impregnated While in County Jail Awaiting Death-Penalty Trial

An Alabama woman who may have been raped by guards has given birth after being impregnated in the Coosa County jail is awaiting trial on capital murder charges. LaToni Daniel (pictured), an honorably discharged Army National Guard veteran who has been in pretrial custody without bail for more than seventeen months, had been prescribed sedatives in the prison for a supposed seizure disorder, and the medication prolonged her sleep. She first learned she was pregnant in December 2018 after having been transferred to a new jail, and she gave birth to a baby boy in late May. Daniel’s lawyers said she had no memory of having sex while in jail.

Daniel was prescribed sedatives for the first time after she was arrested. However, according to Daniel’s brother, Terrell Ransaw, she “never had any seizures before she went to jail.” Mickey McDermott, a lawyer who is representing Daniel in a potential civil suit, said Daniel says “she has no memory of having sex at all, so what we’re assuming based on the information we have is that with some of the medication, she was knocked out and someone raped her. … She’s reported she’s a rape victim and no one is investigating.” Under Alabama law, it is illegal for jail employees to have sex with prisoners, even if it is consensual. The father of the child is unknown.

Daniel was transferred from Coosa County jail to Talladega County jail in December and Coosa County Sheriff Terry Wilson told Talladega officials to give Daniel a pregnancy test. Talladega County Chief Deputy Joshua Tubbs told The Appeal that Daniel had been moved as a result of “an ongoing investigation.” In March, Daniel requested bail so she could give birth and recover outside of the jail while awaiting trial, but a bail determination was not made before she gave birth. Daniel had been indicted on capital murder charges in April 2018, and Alabama law requires judges to presume capital defendants guilty for the purposes of setting bail. In capital cases, the minimum bail is $50,000. She says she was in a car when her boyfriend and co-defendant, Ladaniel Tuck, robbed and shot an elderly white man, 87-year-old Thomas Virgil Chandler. It is undisputed that Daniel – who court records describe as an alleged getaway driver – did not kill anyone, and she maintains that she did not know Tuck intended to kill Chandler. Alabama allows death sentences for accomplices in murder cases that also involve robbery, kidnapping, rape, or burglary. Jon Taylor, Daniel’s defense lawyer in the criminal case, told The Appeal he found it “somewhat surprising that it came out of the grand jury as capital murder and even more surprising they’re going after the death penalty. There’s nothing in my mind that [says] she should qualify for the death penalty. … I believe it was unknowing conduct and I believe she was acting under duress.”

The charges against Daniel are even more out of the ordinary because of the declining use of the death penalty in Alabama. Alabama imposed three death sentences in 2018, down from a peak of 25 in 1998. Coosa County prosecutors have sought only one death sentence in the last five years, and the defendant in that case was not sentenced to death. Alabama has executed 18 African-American prisoners for killing white victims and only one white prisoner for killing an African-American victim. Both Daniel and Tuck are African American.

(Lauren Gill, AN ALABAMA WOMAN GOT PREGNANT WHILE IN JAIL. SHE HAS NO MEMORY OF HAVING SEX., The Appeal, May 31, 2019; Alabama Media Group, Family of Army vet wants to know how she got pregnant in jail for murder, PopularMilitary.com, May 16, 2019; Michael Harriot, Alabama Woman Incarcerated for 17 Months Doesn’t Know How She Ended Up Pregnant, The Root, May 14, 2019; Ashley Remkus, Family of pregnant Alabama jail inmate: ‘We just want a fair investigation’, Birmingham News/al.com, May 14, 2019.) See Women.

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Deforestation of Brazilian Amazon surges to record high

Earth will rebalance itself and there’s no guarantee humans are in the surviving mix!!!

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Environmentalists fear 2019 will be one of worst years for deforestation in recent memory

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon surged last month to the highest May level since the current monitoring method began, prompting concerns that president Jair Bolsonaro is giving a free pass to illegal logging, farming and mining.

The world’s greatest rainforest – which is a vital provider of oxygen and carbon sequestration – lost 739sq km during the 31 days, equivalent to two football pitches every minute, according to data from the government’s satellite monitoring agency.

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EU gives Nigel Farage 24 hours to explain Arron Banks funds

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European parliament summons Brexit party leader over failure to declare expenses

Nigel Farage has been given 24 hours by the European parliament to explain in person his failure to declare lavish expenses funded by Arron Banks, an insurance tycoon under investigation by the UK’s National Crime Agency.

The summons came just two hours before the Brexit party leader was spotted arriving at the US ambassador’s residence in London for a meeting with Donald Trump during the US president’s state visit to the UK.

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The climate crisis is our third world war. It needs a bold response | Joseph Stiglitz

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Critics of the Green New Deal ask if we can afford it. But we can’t afford not to: our civilisation is at stake

Advocates of the Green New Deal say there is great urgency in dealing with the climate crisis and highlight the scale and scope of what is required to combat it. They are right. They use the term “New Deal” to evoke the massive response by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the United States government to the Great Depression. An even better analogy would be the country’s mobilization to fight World War II.

Critics ask, “Can we afford it?” and complain that Green New Deal proponents confound the fight to preserve the planet, to which all right-minded individuals should agree, with a more controversial agenda for societal transformation. On both accounts the critics are wrong.

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Latest data shows steep rises in CO2 for seventh year

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Readings from Hawaii observatory bring threshold of 450ppm closer sooner than had been anticipated

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by the second highest annual rise in the past six decades, according to new data.

Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas were 414.8 parts per million in May, which was 3.5ppm higher than the same time last year, according to readings from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, where carbon dioxide has been monitored continuously since 1958.

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