By Extinction Rebellion - 07. February 2020
James ‘Iggy’ Fox died on 6 February. He was 25, had given up a career in science to join XR and fought hard for the cause, especially for Indigenous rights. Iggy was a burning bright soul and he will be deeply missed by us all. Here is the article he wrote for issue 3 of The Hourglass newspaper.
Science alone is silence. For people to act on science’s warnings and apply its solutions, its message needs shouting from the rooftops. Scientists are getting on the streets, refusing to be scribes of the apocalypse.
By GreatGameIndia - 06. | Last modified on March 16th, 2020
In a very strage turn of events, renowned scientist Frank Plummer who received Saudi SARS Coronavirus sample and was working on Coronavirus (HIV) vaccine in the Winnipeg based Canadian lab from where the virus was smuggled by Chinese Biowarfare agents and weaponized as revealed in GreatGameIndia investigation, has died in mysterious conditions. Frank Plummer was the key to the Chinese Biological Espionage case at Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory.
By VF/agencies - 06. February 2020
Botswana's former president Ian Khama, an avid environmentalist, had introduced a blanket ban on 'hunting' for sport or trophy in 2014 to reverse a decline in the population of wild animals. That included a ban to kill Elephants for money.
But President Mokgweetsi Masisi put Elephants at the centre of Botswana’s politics already when he campaigned for October elections that the now ruling party won.
By lifting the sport-hunting ban in May, incoming president Masisi broke ranks with his predecessor Ian Khama, who had garnered international praise for Botswana’s wildlife policies.
Botswana has around 130,000 Elephants nationwide.
We're in a climate emergency that fossil fuel companies helped create.
Right now BP is flooding the public with adverts about its clean energy. The truth is that more than 96% of BP's annual spend is still on oil and gas. We think these ads are greenwashing.
ClientEarth lawyers are taking action. We demand that all advertising by fossil fuel companies displays a warning about the impact burning fossil fuels has on people and the planet.
By DW - 06. February 2020
The Brazilian president described the act as a "dream" while indigenous leaders have labeled it a "genocide bill." A separate announcement naming the new government's head of indigenous affairs also led to outrage.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro introduced a bill on Wednesday to open up indigenous lands to mining, agricultural work and hydraulic energy production.
The measure would permit both indigenous and third-party developers to take part in the new development. [He thereby tries the same "divide-and-rule"-game as Justin Trudeau in Canada and other neo-colonialists elsewhere.]
The president described the act, which still needs parliamentary approval, as a "dream" while indigenous leaders have labeled it a "genocide bill."
Read more: Bolsonaro Stands for Genocide and Ecocide in Brazil
By AJ - 06. February 2020
Almost a decade has passed since Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) became illegal in Kenya, but young girls are still cut in the dead of night, far from the authorities’ control. However, when information about the harm from the practice reaches the most rural parts of the country, more and more women refuse, convinced that the next generation can be saved.
“My husband is rubbing and rubbing the area where my clitoris used to be. It hurts, but then at least I feel something,” says Purity Resiato Kayieni, 30.
The women around her start laughing, their faces flushing. Among the Maasai people, talking about sex is taboo.
The unusual meeting where Resiato talks about her experience of being cut as a young girl takes place in a village called Ngararambuni.
The village, surrounded by spiky acacia to keep wild animals away, is located in Olgulului, “Maasai land”, in southern Kenya. Here, more than one in three women is cut.
The administration's new managment plans "are the latest in a series of insults... that began when Trump illegally dismantled Bears Ears and Grand Staircase at the behest of corporate interests two years ago."
By Jessica Corbett - 06. February 2020
Indigenous and conservation groups on Thursday condemned the Trump administration's "unconscionable" final management plans for Utah lands previously protected as national monuments, which critics warn will open up the region to ranchers who want to graze livestock and companies looking to cash in on the area's oil, gas, and coal.
In a joint statement Thursday, critics charged that the U.S. Interior Department should not have finalized the plans while President Donald Trump's December 2017 decision to severely shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments is still being challenged in federal court.
By Sara Chessa - 0
The attitude of European institutions is changing after years of silence. In this case, it was Andrej Hunko and Gianni Marilotti that convinced the European Assembly to speak up.
The moment that press freedom advocates have been waiting for so long has finally arrived. The European institutions are starting to officially state that they don’t want Julian Assange to be extradited to the U.S.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has become the first one to step in and call for Assange’s immediate release, joining the call of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, who some months ago clearly stated that Assange should walk free.
By Kay-Alexander Scholz, Mark Hallam - 05. February 2020
The US decision to allow its military to deploy landmines again seemed to come out of the blue. What might be the reasoning? And are the new generation landmines really safer for civilians as the Pentagon claims?
Officially, the White House justifies allowing its military to use landmines again as a move "to give our military the flexibility and capability it needs to win." Even Barack Obama's 2014 moratorium on placing landmines made one exception, the Korean Peninsula. But who might the US want to deter with mines elsewhere?
Rebecca Heinrichs from the conservative Hudson Institute think tank in Washington believes that the Pentagon is not focusing on anti-insurgent campaigns in the Middle East but rather on its future defense strategy.
UPDATE 07. February 2020: So far 638 deaths - except 2 all in China - are caused by 2019-nCoV, with 31,535 confirmed cases, of which 31,210 are in China and 325 in 27 other countries - reportedly with declining daily growth factor of 0.85. Allegedly East-Asians are more susceptible to this coronavirus than Caucasians or Africans. From the analysis of the death cases it emerges that they are mainly male, accounting for 2/3, while females are accounting for 1/3. Most of these virus-related deaths, more than 80%, are elderly, i.e. over 60 years old, and more than 75% had underlying diseases present such as cardiovascular and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and, in some cases, tumors. It appears that the outbreak is at the beginning of a phase that is levelling out, while the brutal Orwellian games continue in China and more sophisticated in Western nations. Africa, especially Eastern and Southern Africa had a massive flu wave already in December 2019, but though many elderly died, nobody paid attention.
UPDATE 05. February 2020: While worldwide the Orwellian people-control exercises around the Wuhan-flu reach grotesque levels and first pockets of resistance emerged, on Tuesday alone nearly 4,000 new cases were reportedly confirmed in China, raising the total to 24,580 in the country. 18 Million people are now under communist government lock-down. The death toll stands at 493 in mainland China and the increase of 65 deaths in just one day raises questions. All the new fatalities were in Hubei province, the centre of the outbreak. About 80% of those who died were over the age of 60, and 75% of them had pre-existing health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, according to China's National Health Commission (NHC). The Chinese doctor, Dr. Li, who was the first to report and warn of the virus unfortunately died. The death of Dr Li, the Chinese doctor who warned others to protect themselves, before being summoned and investigated by Chinese authorities for "making false comments" and "spreading rumors" denying the official story that only those who came into contact with infected animals could catch the virus, needs to be fully investigated. Internationally there is a much smaller number of cases reported. Two people have died of the disease outside of mainland China - one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines. The novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV causes severe acute respiratory infection and the symptoms usually start with a fever, followed by a dry cough. Most people infected are likely to fully recover - just as they would from the other flu outbreaks observed around the globe over the last two months - some of them with much higher fatality rate. Especially in Africa and South-America influenza cases of "the common flu" are mostly not investigated in detail and the fatal cases listed as 'pneumonia'. Only now the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) appealed on Wednesday for $675 million additional funding. The UN agency wants that massive amount of money to "prepare" the developing nations for the coronavirus. Is someone working on 2020-nCoV type 2.0 to infect Africa and South-America?
By Navin Singh Khadka (edited) - 04. February 2020
Campaigners have urged China to apply a permanent ban on the wildlife trade following the coronavirus outbreak.
Markets selling live animals are considered a potential source of diseases that are new to humans.
There has an investigation in such a market in Wuhan that could have been the starting point for the outbreak.
China put a temporary ban on the trade in wildlife as one measure to control the spread of coronavirus, but conservationists say it's not enough.
They argue that, in addition to protecting human health, a permanent ban would be a vital step in the effort to end the illegal trading of wildlife.
By EDITH M. LEDERER - 04. February 2020
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that "a wind of madness is sweeping the globe," pointing to escalating conflicts from Libya and Yemen to Syria and beyond.
At a wide-ranging news conference, he said, "All situations are different but there is a feeling of growing instability and hair-trigger tensions, which makes everything far more unpredictable and uncontrollable, with a heightened risk of miscalculation."
The U.N. chief also expressed great frustration that legally binding U.N. Security Council resolutions "are being disrespected before the ink is even dry."
Guterres singled out Libya where he called the current offensives by the warring parties "a scandal" — coming soon after world powers and other key countries adopted a road map to peace in Berlin on Jan. 19 that called for respect for a U.N. arms embargo, an end to foreign interference in the fighting by rival governments and steps toward a cease-fire.
RCMP Raid Expected Tomorrow (Wednesday)
Statement from the Unist'ot'en Camp - 04. January 2020:
"BREAKING - We expect RCMP to begin enforcing the injunction on unceded Wetsu'wet'en territory tomorrow."
A statement from the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs says "Coastal Gaslink declined to see this discussion resulting in progress. Therefore, the enforcement of the injunction zone is imminent."
We are peaceful people and we have every right to protect the land that defines and sustains us. We continue to honour our ancient laws, shaped over millennia to ensure a sustainable relationship with the land; while BC and Canada fail to honour their recent commitments to reconciliation and to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
Read more: Crown and Canada Declare War on Indigenous People
Kenyans are mourning the loss of two icons on the very same day - one from the human and one from the animal kingdom
By VF/jb/agencies - 04. February 2020
Kenya is mourning the passing of former president Daniel Torotich arap Moi. Moi, who came from simple pastoral roots and ruled for decades, died on Tuesday at the age of 95. He ruled the country from 1978 to 2002.
By GreatGameIndia - 03./4.
In an explosive interview Dr. Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Act has given a detailed statement admitting that the 2019 Wuhan Coronavirus is an offensive Biological Warfare Weapon and that the World Health Organization (WHO) already knows about it.
Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
By Randy Lewis - 03. February 2020
Beach Boys founding members Brian Wilson and Al Jardine alerted fans Monday that they have no part in an appearance later this week (on 5th) by a version of the group fronted by cofounder Mike Love at a trophy-hunting convention where Donald Trump Jr. will be the keynote speaker.
Love’s touring edition of the Beach Boys, for which he holds the legal rights to the name, also includes longtime band member Bruce Johnston.
They are slated to play Wednesday, Feb. 5, at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, where hunting enthusiasts can arrange trips to hunt exotic animals. Trump Jr. and his brother, Eric, are longtime trophy-hunting supporters.
“This organization supports trophy hunting, which both Al and I are emphatically opposed to,” Wilson tweeted on Monday. “There’s nothing we can do personally to stop the show, so please join us in signing the petition” protesting the private event at Change.org. - [PLEASE ALL SIGN ON !!!]
By David Nield - 03. February 2020
You would think that ensuring the survival of the human race is something you can't put a price on, but one of the reasons that governments aren't always keen to take action on climate change is the economic costs of doing so.
But new research investigating the future costs of dealing with a warming planet shows just how counterintuitive that way of thinking actually is, because the longer we wait to take action, the more we're going to have to pay in the long run.
According to the study's calculations, the cheapest option at this point is to pay what it takes to limit the global temperature rise over the next century to 2 degrees Celsius – the same number that governments committed to with the Paris Agreement.
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