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eveningstandard--2019-04-03--Princess Anne celebrates 100 years of City Lit for adult education

eveningstandard

Princess Anne celebrates 100 years of City Lit for adult education

Princess Anne presented awards to hardworking teachers and students last night to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of a London-based adult education college. City Lit has supported more than a million Londoners learn a new skill since its foundation in 1919, and recently opened a new Digital and Design Lab. The digital facility is designed to prepare adults for work in the industry and update their skills for career progression. The Princess Royal said: “It is particularly encouraging to see how people of all ages and backgrounds come together at City Lit to challenge themselves and transform their lives. “If education can be defined as ‘training for life’, then lifelong learning and its ability to unlock potential throughout people’s lives should be accepted as part of life. I am honoured to receive the City Lit Centenary Fellowship.” The Digital and Design Lab includes web, editing, layout and 3D print studios to support courses in everything from web development to visual arts. City Lit’s executive director for external engagement, Phil Chamberlain, said: "Our overall purpose at City Lit is to ensure that learners come together, so that our classes are alive with different insights and experiences – led and nurtured by expert tutors. “This new development is part of our commitment to build high quality, well designed learning spaces that are attractive places for learners and businesses to utilise. We pride ourselves in our open campus and our welcoming community – a space for Londoners to meet, learn and share ideas.”

Sian Bayley

https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/skills/city-lit-princess-anne-digital-and-design-lab-print-web-editing-adult-education-a4108481.html

2019-04-03 13:28:00+00:00

education

parent organisation

freedombunker--2019-05-30--Todays Schools Are Yesterdays Streetcars How Technology Will Transform Education

freedombunker

Today’s Schools Are Yesterday’s Streetcars: How Technology Will Transform Education

We can predict the future of education by glimpsing the past of transportation. Fueled by technological innovation, namely electricity, streetcars gradually replaced the horse-and-buggy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, followed by mass-produced automobiles that ultimately toppled the streetcar. Throughout the 20th century, cars became safer, faster, cleaner, and cheaper and allowed individuals unprecedented mobility and autonomy. Then, in the 21st century, car-sharing applications showed how technology could once again disrupt the transportation industry, expanding rider options and challenging entrenched systems of control. Education transformation will take a similar path. Fueled by technological innovation, schools are now in the middle of their streetcar moment. Chalkboards are still ubiquitous, but computers are increasingly being used not only to supplement learning but also to administer it. Personalized learning, as this technology-enabled classroom education is called, is all the rage. In public schools like those using Summit Learning, a personalized, online learning approach developed by Facebook engineers and funded by Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, the computer becomes the teacher, executing a largely self-paced curriculum and offering more flexibility and autonomy for students.True education transformation will come when learners realize that they don’t need an intermediary at all. The platform has sparked controversy, as some parents and educators resist change. Like the streetcar and transportation, personalized learning in schools is altering and modernizing the educational landscape. But it is just a launchpad. True education transformation will come when learners realize that they don’t need an intermediary at all. Personalized learning in conventional schools will shift to self-directed education or unschooling, driven by the learner herself using the resource-rich networks of both real and digital communities. As Ivan Illich wrote in Deschooling Society: Illich wrote those words in 1970 before the technological webs now at our fingertips were ever imagined. The funnel model of education, even when augmented by technology, is simply passé. Conflating learning with schooling, mired in coercion and a controlled curriculum, is an outdated idea. Schooling is something that others do to you; learning is something you do for yourself. We already see how this works in our own adult lives. Just as the first automobiles began to disrupt old notions of transportation, recent technological innovations are recalibrating the way we learn. Whether it’s using YouTube to fix a toilet, Duolingo to learn a language, Audible to listen to books, or FaceTime to have lessons with your guitar instructor, technological platforms and applications are quickly helping us to shed our schooled vision of learning. Increasingly, we see that we can self-educate by following our own curiosities and pursuing our own personal and professional goals. We can choose our own teachers and select the learning tools that work best for us. In his book, Illich wrote, Technology frees us from this institutional paradigm of education and lets us teach ourselves. It can do the same for our children. As our own relationship to learning shifts in response to new technologies that make information and knowledge more accessible, we may begin to question the worn-out ways our children learn. As we realize the value and reward of self-education in our own lives, we’ll want to give this gift to our children. In his academic papers and award-winning 2013 TED Talk, Newcastle University professor Sugata Mitra explains how children teach themselves without institutional schooling. His “hole in the wall” studies have been widely cited, showing how children from the poorest slums of India to elsewhere around the world are able to learn to read, to teach themselves English, and to understand advanced scientific content (like DNA replication) simply by having access to an Internet-enabled public computer. Mitra calls this approach “minimally invasive education” and concludes in his talk: Thanks to technology, we adults now see this learning emerge all the time in our own lives. It can be the same for our children. We will realize that we can be educated without being schooled. In the 21st century, the transportation industry was jolted again by technological innovation. Uber, Lyft, and other car-sharing companies challenged longstanding local monopolies, granting riders more choice and flexibility with better service and lower costs. Next, autonomous vehicles may be the new wave of disruptive innovation in transportation. Meanwhile, in education, technology will continue to expand access to resources, information, knowledge, and skills that make self-education outside of schooling not only possible but preferable. Like the streetcar and horse-and-buggy, institutional schooling will become a cultural relic, a quaint reminder of yesteryear. We will realize that non-coercive, technology-enabled, self-directed education in collaboration with others results in better, more meaningful, more enduring learning than its institutional predecessors can offer. We will realize that we can be educated without being schooled. Indeed, the future is here.

Sean McBride

http://freedombunker.com/2019/05/30/todays-schools-are-yesterdays-streetcars-how-technology-will-transform-education/

2019-05-30 13:00:56+00:00

education

parent organisation

freedombunker--2019-12-04--Fraud in Higher Education

freedombunker

Fraud in Higher Education

This year’s education scandal saw parents shelling out megabucks to gain college admittance for their children. Federal prosecutors have charged more than 50 people with participating in a scheme to get their children into colleges by cheating on entrance exams or bribing athletic coaches. They paid William Singer, a college-prep professional, more than $25 million to bribe coaches and university administrators and to change test scores on college admittance exams such as the SAT and ACT. As disgusting as this grossly dishonest behavior is, it is only the tiny tip of fraud in higher education. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2016, only 37% of white high school graduates tested as college-ready, but colleges admitted 70% of them. Roughly 17% of black high school graduates tested as college-ready, but colleges admitted 58% of them. A 2018 Hechinger Report found, “More than four in 10 college students end up in developmental math and English classes at an annual cost of approximately $7 billion, and many of them have a worse chance of eventually graduating than if they went straight into college-level classes.” According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “when considering all first-time undergraduates, studies have found anywhere from 28 percent to 40 percent of students enroll in at least one remedial course. When looking at only community college students, several studies have found remediation rates surpassing 50 percent.” Only 25% of students who took the ACT in 2012 met the test’s readiness benchmarks in all four subjects (English, reading, math and science). It’s clear that high schools confer diplomas that attest that a student can read, write and do math at a 12th-grade level when, in fact, most cannot. That means most high diplomas represent fraudulent documents. But when high school graduates enter college, what happens? To get a hint, we can turn to an article by Craig E. Klafter, “Good Grieve! America’s Grade Inflation Culture,” published in the Fall 2019 edition of Academic Questions. In 1940, only 15% of all grades awarded were A’s. By 2018, the average grade point average at some of the nation’s leading colleges was A-minus. For example, the average GPA at Brown University (3.75), Stanford (3.68), Harvard College (3.63), Yale University (3.63), Columbia University (3.6), University of California, Berkeley (3.59). The falling standards witnessed at our primary and secondary levels are becoming increasingly the case at tertiary levels. “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” is a study conducted by Professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. They found that 45% of 2,300 students at 24 colleges showed no significant improvement in “critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.” An article in News Forum for Lawyers titled “Study Finds College Students Remarkably Incompetent” cites a study done by the American Institutes for Research that revealed that over 75% of two-year college students and 50% of four-year college students were incapable of completing everyday tasks. About 20% of four-year college students demonstrated only basic mathematical ability, while a steeper 30% of two-year college students could not progress past elementary arithmetic. NBC News reported that Fortune 500 companies spend about $3 billion annually to train employees in “basic English.” Here is a list of some other actual college courses that have been taught at U.S. colleges in recent years: “What If Harry Potter Is Real?” “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame,” “Philosophy and Star Trek,” “Learning from YouTube,” “How To Watch Television,” and “Oh, Look, a Chicken!” The questions that immediately come to mind are these: What kind of professor would teach such courses, and what kind of student would spend his time taking such courses? Most importantly, what kind of college president and board of trustees would permit classes in such nonsense? The fact that unscrupulous parents paid millions for special favors from college administrators to enroll their children pales in comparison to the poor educational outcomes, not to mention the gross indoctrination of young people by leftist professors. The post Fraud in Higher Education appeared first on LewRockwell.

Walter E. Williams

http://freedombunker.com/2019/12/03/fraud-in-higher-education/

Wed, 04 Dec 2019 04:01:00 +0000

education

parent organisation

msnbc--2019-12-24--Chris Matthews calls Rachel Maddow’s ‘Blowout’ a college education

msnbc

Chris Matthews calls Rachel Maddow’s ‘Blowout’ a college education

Trump: Dems treated me 'very unfairly' in House, now they want fairness in the Senate

http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/chris-matthews-calls-rachel-maddow-s-blowout-a-college-education-75669573734

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:14:00 -0500

education

parent organisation

nationalreview--2019-11-22--Every Pennsylvania Student Deserves a Shot at a Great Education

nationalreview

Every Pennsylvania Student Deserves a Shot at a Great Education

The state’s tax-credit-scholarship program has helped hundreds of thousands of students escape failing public schools. It should be protected and grown. ‘Every male in my entire extended family has been incarcerated.” That’s how Anthony Samuels of North Philadelphia describes his lineage: a cycle of crime and hopelessness. But thanks to his mother’s vision for his education, Anthony broke that cycle. Today he owns a day-care center and has begun a successful entertainment career, starring in commercials for Red Bull and Nike. Things easily could’ve been different for Anthony. He grew up in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood in Philly, doomed to attend the high school with the lowest test scores in Pennsylvania. The steady stream of assaults, shootings, and robberies that dogged the school became so severe that it was the subject of a Diane Sawyer exposé on ABC News. People started asking questions, and there was an outcry that led to the principal’s replacement. Soon, investors such as the rapper Drake started pouring money into recording studios and a new football team for the school, prompting media puff pieces and optimistic administrators to declare “problem solved.” But, of course, it hasn’t been. The school scored a seven out of 100 on the Philadelphia School District’s ratings scale last year. Thankfully, Anthony’s mother knew a bad school when she saw one. She and Anthony sought out one of Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit scholarships, which enabled him to transfer to a nearby private school, Abington Friends, and eventually graduate from Temple University. Tax-credit scholarships are funded by private donors who receive state tax credits for sending a child to a better school. In the 18 years since Pennsylvania inaugurated its tax-credit program, it has offered hundreds of thousands of students a real chance at success. But political schemes have endangered the program. Teachers’ unions, which would prefer that every student attend a public school, oppose tax-credit scholarships that help kids escape failing schools. That’s why roughly 50,000 scholarship applications are denied each year: The program’s opponents purposefully limit the caps on the program’s tax credits. Opposition to similar school-choice programs is even stronger on the federal level. Democratic presidential candidates seem to dismiss stories such as Anthony’s. For them, money and power are more important than good policy, and inflammatory rhetoric drowns out the chorus of families whose lives have been changed by school choice. Their attacks on school choice are transparently self-interested. Cory Booker, for example, has spent his entire career touring and debating on behalf of parental choice — even building a strong relationship with Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and backing voucher legislation as recently as February. But when he talks about education policy nowadays, his rhetoric sounds more like that of Bernie Sanders, who has called for a moratorium on new charter schools. Elizabeth Warren formerly supported vouchers but now decries them as a “diversion of public dollars from traditional public schools.” (She also sent her son to private school for a time, according to research by school-choice advocate Corey DeAngelis.) It’s the same story in Pennsylvania, where Democratic governor Tom Wolf has sought to distance himself from the tax-credit-scholarship program, despite the fact that his own company donated to the program in the past. Teachers’ unions, unsurprisingly, contributed $4 million to Wolf’s last campaign. Obviously, whether you’re a presidential candidate or a governor, it’s easy to let special interests dictate your policy proposals. But we can’t afford to let students’ dreams continue to be denied. Pennsylvanians should speak out in support of school-choice options that help students escape schools where they are trapped in a cycle of failure or violence. “My life would have been completely different if I didn’t go to Abington, and I wouldn’t have been able to continue on at Abington without the scholarship program,” says Anthony Samuels. “Public or private, what matters is that we focus on exposing kids to that hope, that chance, that opportunity — and giving them a choice. We need to focus on those stars that could be lighting up the sky, and guiding America to a better future.” Dave Hardy is the executive director of Excellent Schools PA and the founder of Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia Charter School. Charles Mitchell is the president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a free-market think tank based in Harrisburg, Pa.

Dave Hardy and Charles Mitchell

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/school-choice-pennsylvania-tax-credit-scholarship-program-should-be-protected-grown/

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 11:30:53 +0000

education

parent organisation

abcnews--2019-03-11--Trump administration proposes 71 billion funding decrease to Education Department

abcnews

Trump administration proposes $7.1 billion funding decrease to Education Department

The Trump administration is looking to decrease the Education Department’s funding by $7.1 billion compared to what it was given last year, as part of next year’s proposed budget. The budget proposal suggests eliminating 29 programs, including after-school and summer programs for students in high-poverty areas, among other things. The budget proposal is unlikely to pass through Congress – especially with Democrats in control of the House, however, it is a glimpse into the Trump administration’s priorities going into the next fiscal year. In a statement on Monday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the proposed cuts show “commitment to spending taxpayer dollars wisely and efficiently by consolidating or eliminating duplicative and ineffective federal programs.” She also said the “budget at its core is about education freedom,” an apparent nod to the issue of school choice – something DeVos has attempted to champion during her time as head of the department. The proposed budget includes DeVos’ school choice platform by asking for an increase in $60 million for the Charters Schools Program. The budget also requests $700 million for school safety measures from multiple agencies, including the Education Department, the Justice Department and Health and Human Services. “After the tragedy in Parkland, Florida, the President established the Federal Commission on School Safety to assess and develop Federal, State, and local policy recommendations to help prevent violence in schools,” the 2020 budget proposal reads. “The Budget provides approximately $700 million, an increase of $354 million compared to the 2019 Budget, in Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services grants to give States and school districts resources to implement the Commission’s recommendations, such as expanding access to mental healthcare, developing threat assessments, and improving school climate.” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued a statement responding to the proposed cuts, criticizing the DeVos’ leadership at the department. “Rather than increase funding for kids with special needs or for those who live below the poverty line in both rural and urban America, or addressing the issues raised in their own safety report, DeVos once again seeks to divert funding for private purposes in the name of ‘choice,’” Weingarten said. The statement continued: “However, if they listened to parents, they would hear that, overwhelmingly, parents want well-funded public schools as their choice.” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, also criticized the budget’s Education Department proposals, saying it showed “how wildly out of sync” DeVos is. “Secretary DeVos is proposing gutting investments in students, teachers, public schools, and even school safety—all to make ro for her extreme privatization proposal that no one asked for. This is not a serious budget proposal, and I am going to once again work with Republicans in Congress to ensure every student has access to a quality public education in their neighborhood,” Murray’s statement said.

Sophie Tatum

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-proposes-71-billion-funding-decrease-education/story?id=61609098

2019-03-11 22:25:45+00:00

education

social learning

activistpost--2019-01-29--Education And The Dismantling Of The Mind

activistpost

Education And The Dismantling Of The Mind

Are there any States in the Union that allow public schools to opt out of providing sex education to children? Of course, a counter-argument would be made that, although there was once a time when our country abounded in responsible two-parent families, that’s not the case anymore. Therefore, education about sex is lacking. Therefore, schools have to step into the breach and supply what is missing. Otherwise, children won’t know about STDs, pregnancy, contraception, etc. Over the last 40 years or so, school systems, under the aegis of government, have expanded their role. Using “duty” as the prow, these institutions have generated enormous programs to teach children what to think about everything from aluminum cans to bestiality. Because it’s “right” and “important” and there is a “duty.” Translation: outside groups with agendas worm their way into schools. If I were obsessed with four-legged critters on the moon, and I had enough money and political clout and media/think-tank/foundation support, I could introduce Lunar Critterology as a vital subject into every public school in America. If I were Bill Gates, I could push the need for computers in schools, despite the fact there is no credible evidence that computers improve literacy. I went to school in the 1940s and 50s. At that time, the focus was simple. You learned to read, to write, and to do math. The textbooks were often old and worn. There were no visual aids. The lesson plans in every class were step-by-step. Learn a new thing, drill it to death, take a little quiz, learn the next new item, drill it, take a quiz. It worked. It may have lacked glitz, but it worked because the vast majority of people can’t learn to read, write, or do math any other way. You can’t gloss over these subjects with a broad brush and a lot of personality or caring. It’s all about digging in the dirt, one scoop at a time. Some people would call it robotic education. I don’t think it is. It’s just doing what’s necessary—unless reading, writing, and math are deemed unimportant. In which case, you have a whole new idea about what education is. If you spend time in the classroom on enterprises that are supposed to save the world or revolutionize society or build tolerance or cater to kids who don’t want to learn, then you take away hours from the core idea and practice of what learning is. When I went to school, there could have been a better curriculum for history and science, but all in all, the teachers did a good job. Now, we’re in a different world. It’s assumed that most children are operating at a deficit, and they need to be brought up to speed on morals, on compassion, on sex, on greenness, on hope, on race and religion, on global concerns. At age five, eight, 12, 14. And a great deal of this “new education” is about cashing in, for book publishers, for educrats, for federal overseers, for busybodies of all stripes who belong to agenda-driven groups that want their say and their moment in the sun. I say this is all hogwash, and I believe anyone who consults national test scores and current levels of literacy would be compelled to agree. Education is on the way out. A few astute writers assert that, perhaps 80 years ago, the whole thrust of early education in America was altered intentionally, to produce worker-ants for a highly controlled society of the future. With all due respect, I think it’s worse than that. Because now we’re turning out kids who are essentially confused, badly schooled, drifting on the wind, lost in a mind-territory of fantasized entitlement. They aren’t androids ready to work on some non-existent assembly line. They’re just lost. They’re riddled with self-esteem that doesn’t work. They’re consumers looking for magic credit so they can buy their way into happiness. They’re loaded with sugar and other chemicals that scramble their synapses. They’re not only unsympathetic toward work, they have no passion of their own. Logic? Imagination? Never heard of it. When I went to school, there was virtually no classroom disruption of any kind. And my schools were attended by an economic, social, racial, and religious cross-section of students. We weren’t striving for diversity. We had it. The relatively few kids who were out of control and resisted any kind of discipline were herded into classes together, and teachers dealt with them. The public schools of today lack the courage to say, “Look, if you’re here to learn, we want you. Otherwise, you’re out. Goodbye.” If you need metal detectors at the school entrances, you went over the edge a long time ago. No one deserves to be subjected to that kind of environment. The bullying problem? It’s an industry now. People with degrees write papers and books about it, and task forces gear up to study it and make recommendations. It’s a structure of carbuncles on the body-politic of education. Once upon a time, no bully was allowed to attend school. If he pressed his attitude and his actions, he was expelled. Period. It wasn’t a question of why he bullied. He was gone. Learning couldn’t take place as long as he was on the scene. And “gangs in schools?” I’m sorry, but there are no gangs in schools. There are schools in gangs—that’s what you have when groups of kids with violent tendencies inhabit classrooms and corridors. If you can’t expel them en masse, give up. Shut down the place. If you want to make schools into six-hour-a-day baby-sitting machines, call it that. Try to obtain public funding for it. Hire guards and nurses and cops to staff it. Put it behind barbed-wire fences and install those metal detectors. Or if schools are really lunch cafeterias, run them that way. Free public lunches. Have kids show up at noon, eat, and leave. If you think kids of various religions should be allowed to commandeer a room to hold prayer groups, call it Government-Funded God. Rent a hall somewhere and schedule everybody from Christians and Jews to Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Zoroastrians. “Well, we have these kids who are great football players, and they score very badly on all the tests, but we need them on the team.” No you don’t. Start your own community team. Make up a name. Raise money for uniforms and coaches. Form a league. If these kids want to stay in school—which is a completely different matter—they’ll have to learn how to attain grades for real. And this long-standing rule about passing kids on to the next grade, no matter how poorly they perform? Graduating them from high school even if they can’t read at fourth-grade level? Because they need to feel good about themselves? Because that’ll somehow help them wend their way through life later on? Invent a new type of school for them and put it somewhere else. Bring in tutors. If that fails after an honest attempt, teach trades. Some of these kids will end up making more money in a trade than Harvard business-school grads. All of the above, by the way, makes a good case for home schooling. Unless the parents themselves were shot out the top end of their schools, long ago, ill-prepared to handle reading, writing, and arithmetic. No, the problem isn’t cookie-cutter education. It’s no education. Now, of course, hovering over this revolution in education is the wider government becoming mommy and daddy to everyone. “Because they care.” Because they need to do this “caring” in order to obtain budget money for their departments. Because otherwise they would be useless. And hovering over THAT is the program to convert everyone on the planet to a status much like an eternal patient with an eternal doctor. This program is advancing based on the notion that “patient status” equals “more controllable.” “Yes, we have to control you for your own good, because we care.” No, they want control because they want control. In my day, the subject that was conspicuously missing from the classroom was Logic. Once upon a time, it had been taught to children when their reading skills had progressed far enough. It was usually presented as a series of fallacies that infected the process of reasoning. A few years ago, I decided to write a logic course to fill this gap. My strategy was to provide basic background lessons and then launch into a series of text passages seeded with fallacies and flaws. Students with the help of their teachers would find them and understand how they operated to derail lucid thinking. I offered this 18-lesson course to home schoolers, and adults who wanted to use it for self-study. Now it’s part of my new collection, The Matrix Revealed. Twenty-four hundred years ago, in Athens, logic was, for the first time, explained in detail by Aristotle. It marked the beginning of a new era for humankind. Logic allowed a person to peruse a formal argument, differentiate between premises and deductions, and judge the validity of the reasoning process. When students are taught this subject well, they turn into detectives. They realize that articles and books are more than mere lakes of information. They can trace the progress of a line of thought, and see that authors are offering evidence that leads to a conclusion. It’s an awakening. I’ve seen it resolve what was foolishly diagnosed as ADHD. The student becomes grounded. He accrues real confidence. He can decide whether an argument is valid or invalid. He can spot flaws and describe them. Armed with the tool of logic, he becomes independent. This may explain why logic was dropped out of the secondary school curriculum. God forbid the educational system should be turning out thousands of students who can really think for themselves, and think powerfully and consistently. Note: I’m not covering the subject of college education in this piece, but I have an interesting anecdote for you. William E. Kennick taught philosophy at Amherst from 1956 to 1993. Amherst has consistently been rated as one of the top colleges in America. During his tenure, Kennick grew disturbed by the quality of papers his students were turning in. So he wrote and distributed a four-and-a-half page, single-spaced document titled, Some Rules for Writing Presentable English. The cream of the cream of American college students needed that on-the-fly tutorial to come up to basic speed. What other students at other colleges were/are producing in the way of written English is too horrible to contemplate. So now we come to the central thesis. The modern vision of education, aside from the hard sciences, is all about unhinging or un-gluing the mind from its moorings, from its focus, from its ability to track complex thought. Instead, we have education as: socialization; community; relativity. This last factor is key. No particular piece of information is any more “valid” than any other piece, no more important, no more deserving of respect. Information is a soup into which one dips a spoon—coming up with whatever is there. Over the range of society, you get young people wandering around with barely a clue. They’re dissatisfied, they’re upset, they’re resentful, they’re mystified, they’re rebellious. To a degree, that describes every generation. But when the legs are missing, when the ability to concentrate and focus is absent, when the reasoning capacity is vastly underdeveloped, you get a stupendous crash. It’s worse than cookie-cutter graduates heading for an assembly line. It’s the kind of trouble that spreads out in ripples, requiring assistance from the State. And that is the revelation. For the elites who want to run things, globally, it’s not enough to gather up the most dependent people in a net and bring them over to the collectivist side with promises. No, what’s needed is a machine that PRODUCES huge numbers of newly minted dependents all the time. Welcome to the educational wing of globalism. Scour every textbook you can find at any level in the school system of your country. See if you can find the conjunction of the word “powerful” with the word “individual” where the implication isn’t pejorative. Where the thrust is positive. I know where my money is in that bet. When political and economic collectivism is the goal of a society, certain things have to be done with the school system. Individualism has to be discouraged and sidelined. Status based on pure merit, achievement, and performance has to be minimized. And the core courses must lose their discipline. Instead, group socialization, random expression of students’ opinions (based on nothing in particular), and bogus self-esteem must take center stage. As a former teacher, I can tell you it’s rather easy to make this momentous shift. The starting point, from which the whole campaign unfolds, involves grouping together students in classes who are operating at significantly different levels of skill and ability. For example, try teaching geometry to 20 kids who scored across a wide spectrum in their previous final exams in elementary algebra. Just try. Follow your day-to-day lesson plans and see what happens. It’s like crossing a bridge with drivers who never learned the difference between the brake and gas pedal. Chaos. Jammed up in that baffling disorder, teachers will tend to gravitate to social concerns. They’ll encourage, wheedle, praise, empathize. They’ll try to draw out “the feelings” of students. What was once a very straightforward proposition will vaporize. The pernicious effects of elementary-school teachers having failed to impart the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic will explode in a tsunami by the first year of high school. And what happened in the first place, in grades 1-5? The model of repetition, in which each new concept in a subject is drilled over and over, and tested, before moving on to the next concept, was abandoned. When I was a child, in the 1940s, the model of repetition was intact. It was brick and mortar. But somewhere along the line, the “person-centered psychology” of education was invented. Every child automatically became “special.” On the surface, this sounded good. It sounded like enlightenment. But it was really a piece of psy-war. It glossed over the fact that, if each child is innately special, he/she doesn’t have to be informed of it over and over. He only has to be taught well and learn well. More than enough encouragement begins to confuse a child and make him impatient. He wants to get on with things. He wants to prove he can excel. He wants new knowledge. The history of mainstream psychology can be boiled down to two movements. First, there were the experiments of Pavlov. Conditioned reflex. The human as machine. Then there was the therapeutic age. Endless muddled rumination on problems and difficulties, and the need for “re-enforcement.” Everyone is special. The child as beloved pet. The arc went from robot to dependent. They were both gross failures. When pet/dependent became the order of the day, psychiatrists proliferated their invention of mental disorders. ADD. ADHD. Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Clinical depression. Bipolar. And powerful toxic drugs came down the line, to scramble brains. This is the real war on drugs, except the war is being fought against children by “mental-health professionals.” Suddenly, childhood diseases which had been accepted for generations, which came and went and gave children stronger immune systems in the process, were claimed to be a horrific threat, and 20 or 30 vaccines had to be taken to prevent these illnesses. Thus the shaping of a new and false and debilitating image of the child torpedoed children and their education. Creating The Disabled is the cornerstone of Collectivism. I need you. You need me. Everybody needs everybody. Whatever germs of truth lie in this ideal are crushed, because the “need” formula is artificially built. It’s a piece of debased architecture, whose real purpose is the inculcation of a reason to abandon self and individual power. Once, the Carnegie and Rockefeller line of force viewed education as the assembly line for turning out objects that would produce other objects in mindless fashion. But that has changed. Now schools are built to become need-factories, breeding surreal socialized graduates who contemplate how political power has wronged them. The new sign of intelligence is this: how many ways can you imagine you’ve been cheated? And here is the kicker. Surprisingly little of this contemplation reveals the actual methods of manipulation. But then, why would it? If children are engineered long enough, they’ll look everywhere for answers except at their hidden masters, the ones whose objective was to make them into children forever. The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/01/education-and-the-dismantling-of-the-mind.html

2019-01-29 23:31:00+00:00

education

social learning

activistpost--2019-03-09--37 Million Credit Card Accounts In The US Are Seriously Delinquent Right Now

activistpost

37 Million Credit Card Accounts In The U.S. Are “Seriously Delinquent” Right Now

Is the consumer debt bubble finally starting to burst?  If the latest numbers on delinquent credit card accounts are any indication, that appears to be precisely what is happening.  As I noted the other day, Americans currently have 480 million credit cards, and they are carrying 870 billion dollars worth of balances on those cards.  That is one giant pile of debt, but there won’t be a problem as long as the vast majority of Americans regularly make their credit card payments.  Unfortunately, the number of credit card accounts that are delinquent has been steadily rising, and now we are being told that the number of “seriously delinquent” accounts has shot up to 37 million… At the end of 2018, Americans struggled to make payments on the country’s $870 billion worth of credit card debt. About 37 million credit card accounts were marked as seriously delinquent in the fourth quarter, meaning they were 90 or more days past due, an increase of two million from the same period a year earlier. Remember, those accounts are not just behind.  We are talking about accounts that are at least 90 days past due. It appears that the credit card industry has a burgeoning crisis on their hands. Meanwhile, the number of Americans that are behind on their auto loan payments has reached an unprecedented level as well. At this moment, more than 7 million Americans are delinquent on their auto loan payments.  That is a brand new all-time record, and it smashes the highest level that we witnessed during the last recession by about a million. If things are this bad already, how high will these numbers go once we get really deep into the next recession? The student loan debt bubble is starting to burst as well.  According to the most recent numbers, over 166 billion dollars in student loan debt is considered to be “seriously delinquent”.  That number has never been higher in all of U.S. history. Right now, millions of Americans are deeply struggling with student loan debt, and an increasing number of them have decided to give up on making payments completely. In an effort to combat this, the industry is encouraging a massive crackdown, and what we are currently witnessing in Florida may soon be coming to the rest of the nation.  The following comes from Zero Hedge… Some 1,000 healthcare workers have lost their licenses to practice in Florida due to their inability to pay off their student debt, a new report claims. The “crackdown”, as described, could potentially put hundreds of people out of work, and comes as a result of student loan companies lobbying states to enact laws that punish those who default on their loans by taking away their professional licenses. However, so far Florida is the only state actually enforcing the law. Adam Walser, an investigative reporter for ABC, found that the state Board of Health had suspended more than 900 healthcare licenses, including those belonging to registered nurses, nurses assistants and pharmacists, over the last two years. There are additionally 12 other states that still have the power to take away healthcare licenses for unpaid student loans. However, officials in those states said that they haven’t suspended any licenses over the last two years. In the middle part of the country, farm debt is a major story right now. Farm debt delinquencies have hit the highest level that we have seen in 9 years, and the global trade war has pushed many family farms to the brink of bankruptcy. Unfortunately, I don’t think that things are going to get any better for them any time soon. But I bet that you aren’t hearing much about any of this on the news, are you? Instead, we are being inundated by mindless stories that really don’t matter.  For example, there is supposedly a huge “controversy” about whether Kylie Jenner is really a “self-made” billionaire or not. Our country is literally coming apart all around us, and we are supposed to obsess about Kylie Jenner? On Wednesday, we learned that Dollar Tree Inc. will be closing up to 390 Family Dollar stores in 2019.  When you add that to the other store closings that have already been announced this year, it brings the grand total to nearly 5,000. Can the mainstream media please talk about our ongoing “retail apocalypse” a little bit more?  That is far more important to the daily lives of most Americans than Kylie Jenner.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/03/37-million-credit-card-accounts-in-the-u-s-are-seriously-delinquent-right-now.html

2019-03-09 17:02:35+00:00

education

social learning

activistpost--2019-08-10--Dad Sued for Slander Because He Criticized The Education System And Other Absurd Weekly News

activistpost

Dad Sued for Slander Because He Criticized The Education System — And Other Absurd Weekly News

Welcome to our Friday roll up, where we highlight the most absurd and concerning stories we are following this week. Careful what you say about your kid’s public school curriculum. The company behind a controversial common core math program in North Carolina is suing a dad for libel and slander. The parent of a high school student has been on a “crusade,” the lawsuit claims, against the math program. Instead of teacher-led instruction, students are taught through self-discovery. He and many others see strong evidence that the old methods are better. That’s why he created a Facebook group and website where he lays out his criticism of the program. We checked out the guy’s website, and it is full of well thought out rational criticism. Whether he is correct or not is irrelevant. He is just expressing an opinion on the type of education his child will receive in public school. We’ve moved beyond gender-neutral pronouns and triggering micro-aggressions. Now just expressing any old opinion offends people. Apparently, you can’t do that in the USA, anymore. If you offend someone with constructive criticism, they turn around and sue you. Click here for the full story. The Pentagon is currently testing high-altitude surveillance balloons in several Midwestern states. Flying at about 65,000 feet, the balloons are able to track multiple vehicles at once, in any type of weather, using radar. The Pentagon says the purpose of the solar powered unmanned balloons is to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats.” The data gathered over broad swaths of the country will be saved so it can be rewound and reviewed after the fact. Click here for the full story. In this week’s edition of no good deed goes unpunished… An Illinois family let a 19 year old friend of their son stay with them when he became homeless. They kicked him out after he stole from them, and burglarized a nearby restaurant. And then the family got an eviction notice. But it didn’t come from the landlord, it came from the local cops. They were enforcing an ordinance which requires private landlords to evict all the occupants of a home when any inhabitant commits a crime. Even though this young man was a house guest who victimized them as well, the family will be punished for his crimes. The family’s landlord says they are model tenants, and he does not want to evict them. So he joined their lawsuit against the city. With the help of the Institute for Justice, the family is suing to protect their due process rights, so that they won’t be punished for someone else’s crime. Click here for the full story. But the solution is all too simple for Bernie Sanders. He tweeted in response, “We should cancel it.” That’s the solution, just cancel $1.65 trillion dollars of debt. What could go wrong? The idea that you can just solve this problem by canceling the debt shows how clueless these people really are. Student debt is the number one financial asset of the federal government. There is no bigger money maker in the asset column or the government’s balance sheet. And in case you missed it, the government isn’t in great financial shape. At $22 trillion dollars, the national debt is larger than the entire US economy. Cancel the student debt, and you’re wiping away a trillion dollars that the taxpayers will have to pay for. That’s bigger than the direct costs of the Iraq war. It’s bigger than the 2008 TARP bailout.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/08/dad-sued-for-slander-because-he-criticized-the-education-system-and-other-absurd-weekly-news.html

2019-08-10 15:58:41+00:00

education

social learning

activistpost--2019-11-22--The Artists Who Are Challenging The Education Status Quo

activistpost

The Artists Who Are Challenging The Education Status Quo

On a recent weekday morning, the first floor of Tiffany Pierce’s home in Queens, New York, was abuzz with activity. Six children, ranging in age from five to 12, were making art, learning about mathematical asymmetry and digging deep into topics ranging from geography to science. Pierce runs an art-inspired, micro-learning homeschool co-op, bringing together local families who want a more personalized approach to education for their children. Together, the families hired a teacher four days a week to craft an inviting and intellectually-engaging learning environment, while Pierce volunteers her space and support. An artist with a master’s degree in teaching and prior classroom experience, Pierce was thoughtful about her son, Liam’s, education. He went to a small, private preschool nearby, but when Pierce sent Liam to a public school for kindergarten, she realized it wasn’t a good fit for him. “It was a high-performing school,” Pierce recalls, “but when I visited I saw his back turned and him just looking out the window. His affect was so low, his confidence was shot, he didn’t want to play. I knew it wasn’t just kindergarten blues. This wasn’t his fit. Then he said: ‘Mommy, will you teach me at home?’” The timing was right, as Pierce happened to be between jobs and she and Liam’s dad thought they would give homeschooling a try. “We like the freedom of choices and options,” says Pierce. “We like to have a say in how our child operates. This person is so precious to us.” In the beginning, says Pierce, she simply replicated school at home and it became a power struggle between getting her son to do things and him resisting. She was also busy running art classes and doing graphic design work for various clients. Pierce knew she needed a different model and began posting to neighborhood Facebook groups about launching a co-op out of her home. The response was positive, with many parents expressing interest in alternative learning options for their children. Today, eight-year-old Liam learns with other children in the co-op, along with his mother and their teacher, Mary-Lynn Galindo, who provide structure while emphasizing self-directed learning and ample outside time. According to Pierce: Pierce sees hybrid homeschooling models and the larger micro-school movement as a harbinger of education innovation: “I see us moving towards education that is self-directed,” she says. “Education does not have to be seen as coming from four walls in a conventional, traditional way.” To that end, she launched a mobile arts studio and is working on purchasing an art bus, to help others to view art and education differently. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, and in particular the Harlem Community Arts Center that sprouted from it and nurtured African American artistic talent during the late-1930s and early 1940s, Pierce envisions her mobile studio as a modern off-shoot of the center. “It is my mission for the mobile arts studio to serve as a 21st century version of a neighborhood-based arts studio where art is mobile and meets children and adults where they are to create, express and connect,” she says. In art, education and the intersection of the two, Pierce is looking to challenge longstanding conventional settings and practices and design something new. Designing something new is also what drives Gabriel Valles, a professional artist and entrepreneur in Austin, Texas who runs an art apprenticeship studio. Like Pierce, Valles homeschools his children and works closely with other local homeschoolers, while building an innovative art education model. He also began his homeschooling journey by trying to replicate school-at-home and witnessing how coercion had a detrimental effect on his children’s learning and their family relationships. By granting his children more autonomy and opportunity for self-direction, their learning flourished. His older son, now 15, has a passion for stop motion animation and has a successful YouTube channel with over 50,000 subscribers and almost 32 million views. As Valles observed how his children’s creativity and competence grew when they were allowed to drive their own learning while being supported by adults, he decided to launch an art studio, MentorWings, that would run on a self-directed apprenticeship model for aspiring young artists. “Our program is principle-based and self-directed,” says Valles. Valles sees how young people quickly build their skills, and become highly competent, doing college or professional-level work as teenagers. “We need to give kids more credit than we’re giving them and acknowledge that they can be doing real-world work before or instead of college,” says Valles. He says that art school is too expensive and often doesn’t lead to the kind of career in-roads that can result in fulfilling work. This work is increasingly in-demand, says Valles, as digital content development and marketing become ubiquitous and new mediums emerge. “I am trying to make it less expensive to attain professional-level competence and also build bridges into the industry,” says Valles. He has established an endorsement system for young artists based on their portfolios that can provide an alternative signaling mechanism for employers. “That endorsement versus a general degree really means a lot. It doesn’t guarantee a job, but it shows confidence in a particular student and becomes a much more powerful signal to the people who are hiring,” he says. Artists have historically played a crucial role in challenging dominant systems and inspiring change. It’s not surprising that today some of them are building unconventional education models and imagining new possibilities for learning. As Valles says: This article is republished with permission from Forbes. Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019). She is also an adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute and a regular Forbes contributor. Kerry has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter on parenting and education here. This article was sourced from FEE.org Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month at Patreon. Follow us on SoMee, Flote, Minds, Twitter, and Steemit. Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/11/the-artists-who-are-challenging-the-education-status-quo.html

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 19:11:33 +0000

education

social learning

ageofautism--2019-01-21--Special Education is the Wall We Should Worry About In USA and Abroad

ageofautism

Special Education is the Wall We Should Worry About In USA and Abroad

Note: Harsh words in that headline? Maybe. The wall is divisive enough. It's tangible and easy to make a fast mental picture. Special Education is not as easy to imagine.  Special Education will pit parent against parent. From our Anne Dachel, a story that ran yesterday from Minnesota. Years ago, we began reporting on the catastrophic birth of autism within the Somali immigrant population.  Dec 17, 2013, MinnPost.com: Autism highest among Minneapolis' Somali and white children, U study finds Take note of the beautiful child in the photo. Somali. "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control." Pink Floyd ### By Anne Dachel Saturday, Jan 19, the Minneapolis Star Tribune posted a very concerning piece online entitled, Minnesota schools facing 'crisis level' in special education funding. It was featured on the front page of the Sunday Star Tribune. The COST of special education is increasingly a financial calamity for schools in the state with no signs of leveling off. The response to this headline from any thinking person would be, why? Why is the cost of SPED now a crisis? Of course school districts have no choice but to address this because the federal government mandates that they provide a free and appropriate education for every student, even the most disabled children. School administrators say the mandate's growing financial burden is threatening their ability to provide the same for all students. Soaring special education costs are squeezing the budgets of Minnesota schools — and quickly becoming school districts’ top priority for the new legislative session. School administrators are quick to note that they cannot — and would not — deny special education students their right to an education that meets their needs, no matter the cost. But they say the mandate’s growing financial burden is threatening their ability to provide the same for all students. So what happens when the cost of SPED students sucks dry the funds for regular ed kids?

Age of Autism

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ageofautism/~3/B8po2HcqaBQ/special-education-is-the-wall-we-should-worry-about-in-usa-and-abroad.html

2019-01-21 11:00:00+00:00

education

social learning

ageofautism--2019-03-18--Special Education Taking Over in England

ageofautism

Special Education Taking Over in England

Someone who's informed about education in the UK needs to explain how the latest government move to provide 39 MORE SPED SCHOOLS (3,500 more places) relates to a announcement back in 2015, also providing more schools. How is it possible that without question, the British (England only here) willingly provide MORE AND MORE SPECIAL NEEDS PLACES while expecting things to be even worse in coming years??? I found one story on March 17 th  that could be titled, Britain acquiesces to the decline of childhood. Four years ago, the talk was about 27 new schools (22 were specifically FOR AUTISTIC STUDENTS). So are we talking about 66 new schools all together? (It's impossible to miss the fact that MORE AUTISM is the reason behind all of this. Stories all say so.) Is this the future for Britain, just keep on building? And what about the counties that weren’t picked to receive a new school? Will they just go deeper and deeper in debt paying for disabled children to be outsourced for school? Grim years ahead for those not chosen The majority of local authorities that have been refused new specialist schools will run out of places three years from now, Schools Week analysis shows. The Department for Education announced on Monday that 39 local authorities had been successful in their bids for new special needs or alternative provision schools, out of 65 to apply. But our analysis shows that 54 per cent of the local authorities that were not successful are facing shortfalls in secondary pupil places by 2021. That compares to just 39 per cent of those given the go-ahead. Furthermore, the two councils facing the biggest shortfall in secondary places were among those refused. One of those, Manchester City Council, had two bids for specialist schools rejected – despite needing more than 8,500 school places in three years from now. … Mar 27, 2015, UK, New Schools Network: 22 new free schools create 2,000 new autism school places During Autism Awareness Week, analysis by education charity New Schools Network shows that the free school programme has created 2,000 new places open to young people with autism. There are now over 400 free schools open or approved to open, of these 27 are special schools. Once full, these schools will create more than 2,200 new places, representing an increase of more than two per cent (2.2%) in SEN places available nationally. Together they cater for a wide range of special educational needs, including autism, and will offer a high quality education to thousands of young people. Of the 27 open or approved to open special schools, 22 will cater for pupils with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), when full, they will be providing over 2,000 new places special school places. Natalie Evans, Director of the New Schools Network, said: “Free schools are offering a new choice to parents of children with autism.  When you consider that there are just over 1,000 special schools in England at the moment, these 22 new schools are providing a significant addition to provision in England. “According to the National Autistic Society, more than half of children with autism are not in the kind of school their parents believe would best support them, which is why charities such as NAS and Ambitious about Autism, existing schools and groups of parents have all embraced the opportunity to set up new schools. “As Autism Awareness Week puts these issues in the spotlight, the positive contribution that free schools have made to increasing the choice of children with autism and other special educational needs across the country should be recognised.”... Special free schools are catering for a wide range of needs from social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) and Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD). Autism now affects about one in 100 children and there are around 100,000 children with autism in the UK (ONS). 71% of children with autism are educated in mainstream schools and the remainder in specialist provision (Department for Education (2012) Special Educational Needs in England). Over 63% of children with autism are not in the kind of school their parents believe would best support them (NAS). It’s clear that these schools are for children who cannot be educated in traditional school settings. Multiple stories describe these as places for students with autism, social emotional behavior issues and mental health problems. Britain continues to struggle to provide services for the new type of special needs child. *It should be noted that in 2014 the UK government extended special education services to age 25, instead of stopping at age 19.   While this lessens the burden on adult services, it’s more pressure on schools. Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Age of Autism

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ageofautism/~3/DkZ95bPmdgM/special-education-taking-over-in-england.html

2019-03-18 09:58:00+00:00

education

social learning

ageofautism--2019-05-03--Special Education Needs Soaring from Syracuse to Scotland

ageofautism

Special Education Needs "Soaring" from Syracuse to Scotland

By Anne Dachel Two stories out on April 22, 2019 make it clear that we are expected to accept ANY INCREASE, ANY RATE in childhood illness or disabilities, especially when it comes to the “A” WORD—AUTISM. By an odd coincidence a piece from Scotland and one from Syracuse, NY both use the word “soaring” to describe increases in autism/special needs. Herald: Number of pupils with special needs 'soaring' The number of pupils requiring support for mental health problems has more than tripled between 2012 and 2018, up 252 per cent. Those with communication support needs have increased by 293% in the same period, while pupils identified as having autism spectrum disorder have more than doubled, rising by 101%. Students needing help at school for physical health problems have risen by 98% in the six-year period, while those with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties have increased by 86%. Then we are told that all these disabled children are merely due “to increased recognition and diagnosis of conditions, as well as improvements in recording.”

Age of Autism

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ageofautism/~3/-Fl0WzTNtFo/special-education-needs-soaring-from-syracuse-to-scotland.html

2019-05-03 10:05:00+00:00

education

social learning

aljazeera--2019-01-14--Indonesia Calls to include disaster education at schools

aljazeera

Indonesia: Calls to include disaster education at schools

Children's organisations in Indonesia are urging the government to include disaster education in the school curriculum. Many children died during an earthquake last year because they didn't know how to protect themselves.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/indonesia-calls-include-disaster-education-schools-190114050115146.html

2019-01-14 05:01:15+00:00

education

social learning

aljazeera--2019-05-30--Brazil education budget cuts Tens of thousands protest reforms

aljazeera

Brazil education budget cuts: Tens of thousands protest reforms

Activists in Brazil are vowing to continue their fight against cuts to the education budget that prompted mass protests earlier this month. They are part of a raft of measures the government says are necessary to get the country out of its financial crisis. But opponents have called it an attack on critical thinking.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/brazil-education-budget-cuts-tens-thousands-protest-reforms-190530104748129.html

2019-05-30 10:47:48+00:00

education

social learning

abcnews--2019-03-11--Trump administration proposes 71 billion funding decrease to Education Department

abcnews

Trump administration proposes $7.1 billion funding decrease to Education Department

The Trump administration is looking to decrease the Education Department’s funding by $7.1 billion compared to what it was given last year, as part of next year’s proposed budget. The budget proposal suggests eliminating 29 programs, including after-school and summer programs for students in high-poverty areas, among other things. The budget proposal is unlikely to pass through Congress – especially with Democrats in control of the House, however, it is a glimpse into the Trump administration’s priorities going into the next fiscal year. In a statement on Monday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the proposed cuts show “commitment to spending taxpayer dollars wisely and efficiently by consolidating or eliminating duplicative and ineffective federal programs.” She also said the “budget at its core is about education freedom,” an apparent nod to the issue of school choice – something DeVos has attempted to champion during her time as head of the department. The proposed budget includes DeVos’ school choice platform by asking for an increase in $60 million for the Charters Schools Program. The budget also requests $700 million for school safety measures from multiple agencies, including the Education Department, the Justice Department and Health and Human Services. “After the tragedy in Parkland, Florida, the President established the Federal Commission on School Safety to assess and develop Federal, State, and local policy recommendations to help prevent violence in schools,” the 2020 budget proposal reads. “The Budget provides approximately $700 million, an increase of $354 million compared to the 2019 Budget, in Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services grants to give States and school districts resources to implement the Commission’s recommendations, such as expanding access to mental healthcare, developing threat assessments, and improving school climate.” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued a statement responding to the proposed cuts, criticizing the DeVos’ leadership at the department. “Rather than increase funding for kids with special needs or for those who live below the poverty line in both rural and urban America, or addressing the issues raised in their own safety report, DeVos once again seeks to divert funding for private purposes in the name of ‘choice,’” Weingarten said. The statement continued: “However, if they listened to parents, they would hear that, overwhelmingly, parents want well-funded public schools as their choice.” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, also criticized the budget’s Education Department proposals, saying it showed “how wildly out of sync” DeVos is. “Secretary DeVos is proposing gutting investments in students, teachers, public schools, and even school safety—all to make ro for her extreme privatization proposal that no one asked for. This is not a serious budget proposal, and I am going to once again work with Republicans in Congress to ensure every student has access to a quality public education in their neighborhood,” Murray’s statement said.

Sophie Tatum

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-proposes-71-billion-funding-decrease-education/story?id=61609098

2019-03-11 22:25:45+00:00

education

vocational education

dcgazette--2019-09-26--The Country That Has Oversold Higher Education Even More Than the US

dcgazette

The Country That Has Oversold Higher Education Even More Than the U.S.

There is a college mania in South Korea.

505335761211

https://dcgazette.com/2019/the-country-that-has-oversold-higher-education-even-more-than-the-u-s/

2019-09-26 05:03:23+00:00

education

vocational education

delawareliberal--2019-01-09--BREAKING Laura Sturgeon To Chair Senate Education Committee

delawareliberal

BREAKING: Laura Sturgeon To Chair Senate Education Committee

Of course, Exceptional Delaware had it first: Sokola Out As Chair Of Senate Education Committee, Sturgeon Will Be Chair Dave will still be on the committee, but, as chair, Sturgeon will have a lot of influence on the state’s education agenda.  Tizzy Lockman is also on the committee, which includes Sokola, DelCollo and Lopez. Checking now to see if the rest of the committees have been posted.

El Somnambulo

http://www.delawareliberal.net/2019/01/08/breaking-laura-sturgeon-to-chair-senate-education-committee/

2019-01-09 00:43:30+00:00

education

vocational education

democracynow--2019-12-05--Sweden Provides Free Higher Education, Universal Healthcare, Free Daycare — Why Can’t the U.S.?

democracynow

Sweden Provides Free Higher Education, Universal Healthcare, Free Daycare — Why Can’t the U.S.?

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: That’s Norwegian songwriter, vocalist, guitarist Ane Brun performing “One” at the Right Livelihood Award ceremony Wednesday night here in Stockholm. To see all the performances and all the speeches of the Right Livelihood laureates, go to Democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We are broadcasting from Stockholm, Sweden, from the Open Channel. As Democratic presidential candidates debate Medicare for All and making public higher education free, we turn now to look at how Sweden has built one of the world’s most extensive social welfare systems. Here in Sweden, healthcare costs are largely subsidized by the state. Daycare and preschool programs are mostly free. Higher education is free. Public transportation is subsidized for many users. To look at how Sweden does it, we are joined by Mikael Törnwall. He’s a Swedish author and journalist focusing on economic issues at Svenska Dagbladet, a Stockholm daily. His most recent book is titled Who Should Pay for Welfare?. Mikael, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. So we just have a few minutes here to explain a lot of issues that I think are very misunderstood in the United States. You have lived in the U.S. You live here in Sweden. Talk about Medicare for All. Talk about your healthcare system. How is it paid for? MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: It’s almost entirely paid for by taxes. And I know that scares a lot of you guys, but the things we pay, for me at least, I pay almost equivalent in healthcare taxes than you would pay via your employer for health insurance. But what I also get by that is that I don’t have any copayments to talk about. The maximum copayment for healthcare in Sweden is a few hundred dollars a year. AMY GOODMAN: Explain your own personal situation. What happened with your daughter? MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah, that happened a few years ago before we moved to the U.S. She got ill and she had a brain tumor, fortunately not a deadly one. She got operated on by one of the best surgeons in Europe. AMY GOODMAN: How old was she? MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: She was 12. She got excellent care afterwards. We stayed as a family with her at the hospital for a week. And she then had follow-up care for several years. She had to go to a doctor every few months. And we paid nothing for that. MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Because she’s a child until 18. You don’t pay anything for healthcare. AMY GOODMAN: So then you come to the United States and you’re shocked. MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah. And what happened there was for some reason she needed to go to the hospital in an ambulance, and they asked, “What healthcare company do you have?” And since we are from Sweden, we had a very small one that wasn’t covered, and I had to pay with a credit card to get her to the hospital. AMY GOODMAN: So you’re watching the presidential debates. Every corporate network journalist who hosts one of these debates, they usually ask a question about healthcare and they say, “Are you going to raise taxes?” Talk about how the Swedish people feel about this. Because you’re talking about an issue that unites people across the political spectrum in Sweden. MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah. Nobody, not even the most conservative parties, would like to get rid of this system. And I think there are two reasons for that. One is that—or two misconceptions, also, in the U.S. One is that it costs us a lot of money in terms of taxes. Yes, it does. We pay way higher taxes in Sweden than in the U.S. But we are way lower expenses for copayments for healthcare, health insurance, daycare, saving for children’s college and so on. We don’t need to bother about that. So the higher taxes for most people is more than offset by lower costs for other stuff. AMY GOODMAN: So you say this makes Sweden far more competitive while the U.S. says, “No, this is much too expensive.” You say, “It’s too expensive not to do this.” MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: I would say at least it would make a country more competitive to make sure that everybody who is smart enough has access to the best education and everybody who needs healthcare gets that because then they will be able to be part of the workforce instead of worrying about health. And you, as everybody else in the West, need to compete with better and better companies in China, in India, and the best way to do that is not with an unhealthy, undereducated population. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about school. You have Bernie Sanders and some others talking about free college. MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Yeah, we have free college. We don’t pay any tuition for any university in Sweden. Even the best ones that could compete on a global level, you can’t have any tuition. Which means that everybody who has the grades to join these universities can do it. And they obviously then take jobs in our global companies and helps them compete on a global scale. AMY GOODMAN: And talk about overall welfare, the issue, and what you think are the greatest misconceptions about Sweden. MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: Well, sometimes they describe Sweden as a paradise, that everything works perfectly in Sweden. It doesn’t. You need to understand that everything doesn’t work perfectly. But there is a difference. You don’t need to worry too much about money. Everybody can send their kids to daycare because it is affordable. Nobody needs to worry, “Will I go bankrupt if I get sick?” Because healthcare is almost free. And if you are smart enough and study hard enough in high school, you will be able to go to university. AMY GOODMAN: And how do you answer questions here like, “Why should rich kids go to school for free?” MIKAEL TÖRNWALL: That is a debate that is not easy. Some people would say that why should they. But we decided, I guess, basically, it’s the only way to make it simple. Everybody has access to the basic part of welfare, as we see it, rather than checking your income, because that opens up all kinds of cheating. AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for joining us, Mikael Törnwall, Swedish author and journalist focusing on economic issues at Svenska Dagbladet, a Stockholm daily. And that does it for our show. If you want to see our three days of coverage from here in Stockholm, Sweden, go to Democracynow.org. Special thanks to Stockholm’s Open Channel, Stockholm’s only independent, grassroots, non-commercial TV station committed to free speech. The Öppna Kanalen carries Democracy Now! four times per day. And we want to thank our crew here, Lars Erik Nyman, who is the chair of the Open Channel, Larry Berger, Peter Carlsson, Mia Högfeldt, Kent Wirstam and Jacob Bjelfvenstam. Special thanks to our Democracy Now! team here in Stockholm, John Hamilton, Denis Moynihan, Charina Nadura, Libby Rainey, Nermeen Shaikh, and back in New York, the whole team including Robby Karan and Hany Massoud. Tune in Friday as we begin our live coverage from Madrid, Spain, for the U.N. Climate Summit. We’ll be there for the next week. Tune in to Democracynow.org. Democracynow.org is here because of all of you. We thank you so much. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us, from Stockholm, Sweden.

mail@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!)

http://www.democracynow.org/2019/12/5/sweden_vs_united_states_social_welfare

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 08:52:21 -0500

education

vocational education

fortruss--2019-07-28--RUSSIA HAS A BRIGHT FUTURE High-Tech Education Center Hosts Huge Science Festival VIDEO

fortruss

RUSSIA HAS A BRIGHT FUTURE: High-Tech Education Center Hosts Huge Science Festival (VIDEO)

Sochi, Russian Federation – Russia is well-known for its high-tech military equipment, including 5th-generation fighter jets, next-generation drones, ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), space technology, including deep space exploration, etc. But there’s much more to it – the often overlooked Russia’s focus on developing the civilian high-tech sector. Yesterday, on July 27, a technology of the future festival was held in Sochi’s Sirius educational center. The Big Challenges science projects festival is underway there. Over 400 young inventors present their prototypes from all over Russia. The creators of these prototypes can apply for presidential grants in the future.

Drago Bosnic

https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/07/russia-has-a-bright-future-high-tech-education-center-hosts-huge-science-festival-video/

2019-07-28 12:15:10+00:00

education

vocational education

foxnews--2019-02-21--Why civics education matters

foxnews

Why civics education matters

**Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.** On the roster: Why civics education matters - House readies resolution to end national emergency - Harris calls for new election in NC House race - Biden considers his family ahead of 2020 decision - Girl scout of the year WHY CIVICS EDUCATION MATTERS You no doubt heard the news. Americans don’t know bupkis about our history and system of government. The survey from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found appallingly low percentages of Americans were conversant even in the basic facts of our system and past. In order to pass a U.S. citizenship test, an applicant must get at least 60 percent of the questions on a civics and history test correct. You can take a sample test here but knowing you, dear readers, 60 percent will seem like a rock-bottom grade. If you have been reading us for any length of time you will also know that civics and history education is something of a hobbyhorse for us, so we were certainly happy to see attention brought to the subject. What concerns us, however, is that very few people seem to be discussing why this is a problem. Knowing civics and history isn’t something that is an abstract good like knowing how to play the clarinet, hit a one-handed backhand or tell the difference between Monet and Manet. It is a practical, vital knowledge the lack of which is creating a crisis for our country. Civics education, where it still exists, is treated often as something obligatory. You make your bed, you shine your shoes for church, you say “please” and you know how many justices are on the Supreme Court. If we expect students to care and schools to emphasize the subject, we had better make sure that everyone understands what’s at stake. Without a working knowledge of what this country is and how our system works, each generation becomes less able to operate this miracle that has proven to be a light into the world. The most significant problems facing our government today aren’t really ideological, they’re systemic. For example, there are good debates to be had about how the federal government should allocate the nearly $3.5 trillion in tax revue it collects each year. Where should it be spent and in what increments? How much more money should the government borrow? But politicians have essentially destroyed the system that allowed those questions to be addressed for the previous two centuries. Most of the money that’s being spent is doled out on schedules and rates set decades ago.  Less than a third of federal spending is actually appropriated by the current Congress. The other 70 percent goes to entitlement programs, pensions, pre-programed welfare systems and interest on the $22 trillion national debt. It’s that way because previous generations of lawmakers determined they and their successors were too irresponsible to allocate money anymore.   While most federal outlays cruise on like a deep space probe zooming out past Pluto, what obviously will happen to the discussion over the ever-shrinking slice that Congress really does control? When there was plenty of money, the appropriations system allowed for an orderly, if greasy, means for allocating the money. Now, every time the bills come due at the end of the federal fiscal year, we start jumping off of fiscal cliffs. We recently endured what was called the “Seinfeld shutdown,” the shutdown about nothing. Lawmakers and the president were at odds over a little flyspeck of spending – four hundredths of a percent of the deficit alone – and closed a substantial part of the government for more than a month only to come to what was an obvious compromise from the start. However you feel about border barriers and “delayed action for childhood arrivals” and anything else about immigration, that’s not a sensible way to have discussions about spending priorities. That’s not liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic but rather systemic. The way the U.S. government handles its money is a rotten, chaotic mess. But there’s little political advantage to be had in addressing that. In fact, there’s substantial political disadvantage.  Listen to the president and his potential general election opponents as they talk about money. They sound like 1970s pornographic actress and disco star Andrea True. “How do you like it? More, more, more.” More tax cuts, more infrastructure spending, more entitlements, more welfare programs. More, more, more. Spending is just one example. We could say the same of our legal, educational, medical and national security apparatuses. Deep problems continue to churn, but politicians across the spectrum tend to offer painless pabulum.       Now, we should rightly blame the politicians who pander and deceive. But as the scorpion told the frog, we know it is their nature. As comedian Chris Rock once joked about sexual fidelity, “Men are only as faithful as their options.” A dim, if not entirely undeserved view. For politicians, the maxim would hold that they are only about as honest as they have to be. And voters are letting them get away with murder. We will not reinvent human nature in such a way that a new generation of selfless politicians rises up to save us from ourselves. But that is what Americans look for each successive election. What do we want each cycle? Change. And each cycle they deliver the kind of surficial change that temporarily gratifies the bloody-minded partisanship of one side but leaves most people with a deeper-still feeling of unease. Something is wrong, but we just can’t say what.  So what will we choose next time? Why change, of course. The purpose of an educated electorate – the crucial aim of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others – was as the ultimate guarantor of good government. If the people do not know what they have, they won’t know how to use it. They won’t know which demands are sensible to make. They will become easy prey for demagogues. Welp. The urgent work of educating the next generation in American history and civics isn’t just something that would be nice or to avoid national embarrassment. It is actually about rebuilding a bulwark against tyranny. As our government slips deeper and deeper into dysfunction and people come to have less and less faith in the American system, we become sitting ducks for the kind of authoritarianism that has ruled most of our species for most of our history.  Civic classes are about nothing less than guaranteeing “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”        THE RULEBOOK: HOLD YOUR GROUND   “Whatever efficacy the union may have had in ordinary cases, it appears that the moment a cause of difference sprang up, capable of trying its strength, it failed.” – Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Federalist No. 19 TIME OUT: THE PRICE OF COLLEGE SPORTS Sports Illustrated: “UNC-Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium is typically a showcase for everything that's great about sports… But the story was [Zion Williamson’s injury]. He's the presumptive No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, and one of the biggest names in sports at the moment. … What happens when the biggest game in America becomes dominated by the player who left after 30 seconds? For one, after 48 hours of news stories about Duke-UNC ticket prices, there were natural conclusions drawn about the injustice of Zion performing as an unpaid amateur and suffering an injury while almost everyone else in the college sports ecosystem was able to get rich off the game. That argument makes some sense. … And why does Zion Williamson have to be in college at all? … If players are talented enough to be drafted into the NBA after high school, many around the sport think they should be able to make that transition as soon as they graduate.” Flag on the play? - Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM with your tips, comments or questions. SCOREBOARD Trump job performance  Average approval: 41.8 percent Average disapproval: 54.4 percent Net Score: -12.6 points Change from one week ago: no change   [Average includes: Fox News: 46% approve - 52% disapprove; Gallup: 44% approve - 52% unapproved; CNN: 42% approve - 54% disapproval; IBD: 39% approve - 57% disapprove; Quinnipiac University: 38% approve - 57% disapprove.] HOUSE READIES RESOLUTION TO END NATIONAL EMERGENCY WaPo: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday night that the House will vote in the coming days on a resolution rejecting President Trump’s national emergency declaration, encouraging fellow Democrats to support the effort as they try to stop Trump’s push to expand efforts to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. In a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, the California Democrat said Trump’s declaration ‘undermines the separation of powers and Congress’s power of the purse, a power exclusively reserved by the text of the Constitution to the first branch of government, the Legislative branch, a branch co-equal to the Executive.’ By invoking a national emergency, Trump is claiming authority to shift federal funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes to be spent instead on his border wall. Pelosi announced that the House would move ‘swiftly’ to pass a disapproval resolution authored by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), although she did not specify an exact date and indicated it would move through a House committee before coming to the floor.” Sen. Collins backs lawsuit against national emergency - Portland Press Herald: “Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday that she supports the lawsuit filed by 16 states – including Maine – challenging President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a southern border wall. But Collins also signaled support for a straightforward congressional disapproval of an emergency declaration that she views as having ‘dubious constitutionality’ and setting a dangerous precedent. ‘It may be that the courts will stop what I believe to be a very unwise action, or it may come about through Congress,’ Collins said Wednesday. ‘If the House passes a resolution of disapproval and it is a clean resolution, I will support that.’ … The three other members of Maine’s congressional delegation – independent Sen. Angus King and Democratic Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden – also have strongly criticized the president’s emergency declaration.” The Judge’s Ruling: Trump's brazen overreach - This week Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano explains how the president’s national emergency is unconstitutional: “When the president acts pursuant to authority granted to him by the Congress in an area of government delegated to him by the Constitution, his authority is at its peak, and he is free to exercise it as he sees fit. When he acts in an area as to which the Congress has been silent, he acts in a twilight zone and can succeed only if the area of his behavior is delegated to him under the Constitution and if he enjoys broad public support. But when the president acts in an area that the Constitution gives exclusively to Congress -- such as spending money -- and when he acts in defiance of Congress, his acts are unconstitutional and are to be enjoined.” More here. HARRIS CALLS FOR NEW ELECTION IN NC HOUSE RACE Raleigh News & Observer: “In a startling statement, Republican candidate Mark Harris Thursday called for a new election in the 9th Congressional District ‘to restore the confidence of voters.’ Harris’ statement came after a break in a hearing after he had testified about his dealings with Bladen County operative McCrae Dowless. On the stand, Harris said he suffered two strokes in January while hospitalized for a severe infection and was ‘struggling’ to get through the hearing. After hearing the evidence of absentee ballot fraud, Harris said, ‘I believe a new election should be called.’ A member of North Carolina’s State Board of Elections had pressed Harris on why he didn’t heed warnings from his son about hiring Dowless to run an absentee ballot operation in his 2018 campaign for Congress. … ‘He raised concerns (about Dowless). I did not consider John’s (emails) to be a warning. I thought he was overreacting,’ [Harris said].” BIDEN CONSIDERS HIS FAMILY AHEAD OF 2020 DECISION  NBC News: “Joe Biden wants to be president. And each day, he’s closer to being ready to run for the office. But even as he weighs a campaign to unseat President Donald Trump, Biden is carefully considering a key question — what happens when the president or his top allies try to make his family an issue? Conversations with aides to the former vice president and others who’ve spoken with him in recent weeks present the idea of a Biden candidacy as not if but when. … But Biden knows and expects the president to fight as hard to stay in the White House as he did to win it in the first place — and he’s already shown nothing is off limits. … No line of attack would be more reprehensible to the former vice president than one directed at his family, and he and his team have been forced to consider that even as they also weigh the political dynamics.” Harris swipes at far-left Dems over open borders - Fox News: “Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said ‘We can't have open borders’ as she continues to disassociate from her party’s calls for unrestricted immigration and tearing down existing barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. senator from California, a leading 2020 hopeful for the White House on the Democratic side, has recently been overshadowed by the entry of Senate colleague Bernie Sanders -- the progressives’ likely first choice -- into the race, and the potential candidacy of Beto O’Rourke the former congressman from Texas who’s been making inroads and positioning himself as the anti-Trump candidate. This prompted Harris to come out against O’Rourke’s call to tear down the existing 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border during a Wednesday night appearance on Comedy Central's ‘The Daily Show.’” Family matters: Kamala’s dad isn’t happy over her comments on weed - Fox News: “The father of Sen. Kamala Harris is trying to distance himself from the 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful after she said her pot smoking in college stemmed from her Jamaican heritage. … Harris' father, Donald, disapproved of the comments, which he told the Jamaica Global Online constituted ‘identity politics.’ ‘My dear departed grandmothers ... as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,’ he said. Donald Harris continued: ‘Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty.’” Williamson: ‘One last grift for Bernie Sanders’ - National Review: “Right-wing populists and left-wing populists may disagree about such world-changing issues as whether the phrase ‘a man with ovaries’ actually means anything, but on the fundamental policy questions they come down strikingly close to one another. That is because the enemy of populism isn’t the right wing or the left wing — the enemy of populism is liberalism, understood here not in the demented sense we use it in U.S. politics (where liberals are the people opposed to liberalism) but in its proper sense, meaning the classical-liberal regime of property rights, free enterprise, free trade, individual rights, and a worldview based on well-ordered liberty emphasizing cooperation within and between nations.” Disinformation cyber campaign begins against Dems - Politico: “A wide-ranging disinformation campaign aimed at Democratic 2020 candidates is already underway on social media, with signs that foreign state actors are driving at least some of the activity. The main targets appear to be Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), four of the most prominent announced or prospective candidates for president. A POLITICO review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms … suggests that the goal of the coordinated barrage appears to be undermining the nascent candidacies through the dissemination of memes, hashtags, misinformation and distortions of their positions. But the divisive nature of many of the posts also hints at a broader effort to sow discord and chaos within the Democratic presidential primary. The cyber propaganda … is being pushed across a variety of platforms…” POMPEO RULES OUT ON KANSAS SENATE RUN Politico: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that he has ruled out running for a soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat in his home state of Kansas next year in favor of remaining the nation's top diplomat. The former Kansas congressman and CIA director had dodged questions about whether he planned on running in 2020 to claim the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Pat Roberts, fueling speculation that he might by attending certain events and meeting with GOP operatives in the state. But on NBC's ‘Today’ show on Thursday, the secretary of state threw cold water on the prospect, telling anchor Craig Melvin ‘it’s ruled out.’ ‘I love Kansas. I'm going to be the secretary of State as long as President Trump gives me the opportunity to serve as America’s senior diplomat,” Pompeo said. ‘I love doing what I'm doing and I have 75,000 great warriors out and around the world trying to deliver for the American people.’” Poll: Joni Ernst's approval rating soars ahead of 2020 re-election - Des Moines Register: “U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s approval rating has hit its highest point ever as she prepares for a 2020 re-election campaign, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows. Fifty-seven percent of Iowans say they approve of the job she’s doing — a 10 percentage-point increase since September. She earns approval from a majority of Iowans in each of the state’s four congressional districts. That includes a high of 65 percent in the Republican-heavy 4th District, in northwest and north central Iowa, and a low of 51 percent in the Democratic-leaning 2nd District, in southeast Iowa. … Ernst, a military veteran from Red Oak, became the first woman in Iowa elected to either chamber of Congress in 2014. … She announced in December that she intends to seek re-election.” Alabama Rep. Bradley Byrne announces 2020 Senate run - AL.com: “U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne became the first official Republican entrant into the 2020 U.S. Senate race announcing his intention to run in a race that could become one of the most expensive political contests in Alabama history. … Democratic U.S. Senator Doug Jones, who narrowly defeated Republican Roy Moore in that election, raised more than $24 million. … Byrne said he anticipates, similar to the 2017 special election, national attention paid to the Alabama Senate contest next year. The race is considered one of the few 2020 Senate contests in which a Democratic officeholder is seeking re-election against a Republican inside a state that has long been dominated by GOP leadership.” PLAY-BY-PLAY Neal Kaytal: What to expect from the Mueller report - NYT Poll shows Virginians aren’t demanding Ralph Northam’s resignation - Sabato’s Crystal Ball AUDIBLE: NO ONE KNOWS “I have read it and I have reread it and I asked Ed Markey… what in the heck is this?” – Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., discussing his struggle to understand the Green New Deal on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday. FROM THE BLEACHERS “It's midnight. And I'm listening to ITYW podcast and you mentioned a Pawpaw. I hope this finds you because 50 years ago in the movie Jungle Book a Pawpaw is mentioned in the lyrics of Bare Necessities. I sang it all the time and never knew what I was singing about. Now I do. And I love ice cream. So I'll have to [check] that out. Please share my note with Dana.” – Brian Keill, Pearl River, N.Y. [Ed. note: The 1967 animated version was one of my favorites as a little boy. It’s scary enough to give you some bad dreams — that snake! — but funny enough and tender enough to make it beloved. But I hadn’t remembered that paw paws made an appearance. Makes it even *ahem* sweeter.] “Yet another polling question, although I understand the ones you use and the methodologies behind them. What does confuse me is that some days you have a certain set of polls, other days you have a different set of polls. The average can go up or down significantly based solely on one poll being included and another one being removed. Any chance you could enlighten us on that piece?” – Mike Schlender, Minneapolis [Ed. note: As they would say in the business world, Mr. Schlemder, “FIFO” or first in, first out. We cycle out the oldest polls when new one comes in.] Share your color commentary: Email us at HALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM and please make sure to include your name and hometown. GIRL SCOUT OF THE YEAR WISN: “As if any of us needed any more of an incentive to buy even more boxes of Girl Scout cookies, a fifth-grade marketing genius just reinvented her Samoas packaging in the best way possible. The Colorado-based ‘Cookie CEO’ Charlotte Holmberg — who earned the title after selling more than 2,000 boxes in 2018 — is upping her game in a major way in the new year. Turning her Samoas into Momoas, the elementary schooler redesigned her packaging to include a shirtless Jason Momoa, and unsurprisingly, they're flying off the figurative shelves. Holmberg happened to have a marketing professional already on her sales team — her mom — and after spotting a few Momoa Samoa memes, she thought up the rebranding. The pair printed a shot of the ‘Aquaman’ star on the classic purple packaging, and suddenly, everyone was eager for a box.” AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES… “Say it and sign it. To get, you have to give. That’s the art of the deal, is it not?” – Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) writing in the Washington Post on Sept. 1, 2016. Chris Stirewalt is the politics editor for Fox News. Brianna McClelland contributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign up here.

Chris Stirewalt

http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/9ntotgoX9ec/why-civics-education-matters

2019-02-21 21:35:07+00:00

education

vocational education

france24--2019-05-31--Students teachers across Brazil protest Bolsonaros education cuts

france24

Students, teachers across Brazil protest Bolsonaro’s education cuts

Miguel Schincariol, AFP | Demonstrators protesting education budget cuts take to the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 30, 2019. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in dozens of cities in Brazil Thursday for a second nationwide demonstration in as many weeks over the government's plan to slash education spending. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's government has provoked outrage among students and teachers over its proposal to freeze 30 percent of discretionary spending for public universities in the second half of this year. A suspension of post-graduate scholarships for students in science and the humanities has also fueled anger. Protests began in the capital Brasilia in the morning and have since spread across the country to more than 80 cities, local media reported. "The main message is that a 30 percent cut to education is absurd and makes it impossible for higher education in this country," said Lina Vilela, a teacher at the Brasilia rally where protesters held posters with messages such as "Our books and pencils are our weapons." Karina Afonseca said she was protesting against "the intellectual setback" Bolsonaro's actions would cause in Brazil. "I'm here for those who are poor and deserve the right to quality public education," social services student Kaio Duarte said. "I'm worried that the next generation won't have all of the rights to education that I have had." In Rio de Janeiro, protesters carried signs describing Bolsonaro as "the enemy of education." "We can't simply pretend everything is OK -- it is not OK," said university student Isadora Duarte, 24. Tens of thousands protested across Brazil on May 15 -- the first nationwide demonstration since Bolsonaro took power in January, which underscored growing opposition to the embattled president. Bolsonaro, who has railed against socialism as he seeks to promote his ultraconservative ideas, described the May 15 protesters as "useful idiots" and accused leftist militants of stoking the rallies. But Thursday's turnout could be lower after the government said it would free up 1.59 billion reais in funding (about $400 million) for the sector. Thursday's demonstrations come after thousands of pro-Bolsonaro protesters marched in cities across Brazil on Sunday in a show of support for the leader, who has seen his popularity plummet in his first five months in office. Among their demands was for Congress to speed up approval of the government's stalled pension overhaul, seen as key to unlocking other much-needed reforms that are crucial to kick-starting economic growth.

NEWS WIRES

https://www.france24.com/en/20190531-brazil-protests-education-cuts-bolsonaro

2019-05-31 15:03:37+00:00

education

vocational education

freedombunker--2019-02-16--The College Education Racket

freedombunker

The College Education Racket

Although American higher education has been terribly dumbed down since the late 1960s, it still has considerable practical value. College graduates earn more money, enjoy better health, and are less likely to get divorced than those who don’t have such degrees. Plus, their children fare better in these areas than the children of people who don’t get a college education. The credential isn’t necessary to financial success and being able to afford a family, but it’s the surest path to each. So, it continues to be widely believed that everyone should go to college. And of course, academia itself has no objection to the idea. With the government providing grants to needy students and subsidizing student loans, colleges and universities have raised tuitions at exorbitant rates. But while they have reaped enormous profits, the average student in the class of 2016 has $37,172 in student loan debt. Student loan debt is the nation’s second-highest consumer debt category—trailing only mortgage debt—and is much higher than both credit card debt and auto loans debt. Student loan debt is the only type of debt that can’t be got rid of by filing for bankruptcy. Getting a bachelor’s degree in sociology or environmental studies can result in a young person trying to climb out of a financial hole for decades while earning wages that lead him to question the prudence of having “followed his passion.” There are other problems with higher education, reflecting the poor quality of our K–12 education system. In National Affairs, Chester E. Finn Jr. describes the situation well: Although there’s much talk of school standards designed to yield graduates who are “college and career ready,” the grim fact remains that, in recent years, 96% of colleges enrolled students who required remediation, and over 200 schools placed more than half of their incoming students in at least one remedial course. In Maryland, more than one third of community-college matriculants need remediation in reading and writing, and two-thirds need remediation in math. [T]he completion rate for bachelor’s degrees within eight years of entry has long hovered below 40%—almost precisely where the National Assessment of Educational Progress places the extent of “college readiness” in reading among 12th graders. Yet the matriculation rate—the share of those graduating from high school who head straight into some sort of college—is about 70%. It’s scarcely surprising that so many of them need remediation—and that so few make it to graduation. Simply raising the matriculation rate closer to 100% will only exacerbate this problem. These figures suggest that universal college education is simply not tenable. It’s not surprising, given its central importance, that so many people want everyone to go to college. The trouble is that people have very different interests and abilities, and those differences would persist even if students were better prepared for college. To be sure, there are other explanations for why college doesn’t work for many people than sheer ineptitude or lack of interest. The same social problems that beset the K–12 education system—illegitimacy, single-parent families, lack of personal responsibility and of other virtuous habits—hinder success in college as well. But independent of these environmental and personal deficiencies, there never was any reason to believe everyone should go to college, as if it were necessary for the common good or the national interest. Human beings are heterogeneous, so our approach to college education should comprehend that. The post The College Education Racket appeared first on LewRockwell.

No Author

http://freedombunker.com/2019/02/15/the-college-education-racket/

2019-02-16 04:01:00+00:00

education

vocational education

freebeacon--2019-12-09--American Education’s Great Stagnation

freebeacon

American Education’s Great Stagnation

American schoolchildren's educational attainment has stagnated in the 21st century, according to data from two recently updated assessments of reading, math, and science skills. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), released in November, and from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), released Tuesday, indicate that American kids have seen minimal improvement in their academic abilities since the early to mid-2000s. "For all of these ambitious efforts we've seen unfold, they don't seem to be making much difference, at least when it comes to measured student performance in reading and math," Rick Hess, an education policy expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon. Experts who spoke with the Free Beacon agreed that the causes of this stagnation are unclear—as one put it, "it's always kind of a guessing game as to what's behind these numbers." At the same time, this flatlining suggests that the education experiments of the past decade, and in particular of the Obama administration, have had minimal benefits on student achievement and may even have hindered the most disadvantaged students. The NAEP, commonly referred to as the nation's report card, is an assessment of academic proficiency taken by a sample of 4th, 8th, and 12th graders across the country. The test covers a number of subjects, but the most closely watched indicators of academic improvement are the fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math evaluations. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, achievement, particularly in mathematics, rose steadily, but then began to flatten out. As a report from the Brookings Institution notes, "for both fourth grade and eighth grade, the average [math] scores from 2017 were identical to the average scores from 2009." Fourth-grade reading scores have been more or less flat since the 2007 assessment; eighth-grade scores have seen improvement, but not on par with the early growth in math scores. This flatlining obscures an underlying trend: Over the past decade or so, NAEP scores among African-American students, particularly boys and particularly in major cities, have actually declined. That means that the much-bemoaned "achievement gap" between black and white students—which much of education policy is focused on closing—may be widening. "You saw substantial gains by black children relative to white children from the mid-'70s to the '90s, and you saw some of that in the early years after [No Child Left Behind]," Hess said. "One of the striking things has been that you have actually seen a worsening on some of these fronts, both in terms of low-income children and also black children." A similar overall trend is apparent in the PISA, a triennial assessment of 15-year-olds in nations around the world. The United States outperforms the OECD average, but that performance is not a product of improving test scores—in fact, PISA scores have been more or less flat since 2000. The 2018 PISA, released last week, does show at least one bright spot: The share of Americans performing at the top levels in reading increased by about 4 percentage points between 2009 and 2018. But even those gains may not be cause for celebration, as there was no similar improvement among low-achieving students. The flatlining of test scores has taken place even as national spending on education has risen steadily. Through most of the 1990s, when NAEP scores tended to rise, per-pupil spending in primary and secondary schools was below $10,000. Today, spending has easily cleared $12,000 per pupil with little improvement in performance. The underlying cause of this stagnation is unclear. Experts the Free Beacon spoke to did not quite agree when it began—most agreed that there was a bump after the implementation of No Child Left Behind, but disagreed about when that increase slackened off. Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a leading education think tank, linked the flattening to the Great Recession. The recession "likely had a huge negative impact on kids, especially poor kids from the most disadvantaged families," Petrilli told the Free Beacon. "When you're looking at some of these latest results, these are kids who were sort of born into the latest recession or were quite small during the worst years of unemployment." School spending also declined in the wake of the recession, Petrilli noted, although at no point did it fall below pre-Great Recession levels. It's a plausible story—even post-recovery, the recession appears to have fundamentally altered the spending, job-seeking, and even childbearing practices of young adults, so why not also their children's educational outcomes? This, Petrilli argued, means that we may not see more NAEP growth until the Great Recession cohort ages out of school. Max Eden, an education expert at the Manhattan Institute, is not so sure. While offering the caveat that it is hard to draw many conclusions from the data, he suggested that the Obama administration's Common Core did not deliver on its promises to increase achievement and may have actually harmed socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Eden also pointed to Obama administration efforts to reduce school punishments and suspensions—policies it perceived as racially inequitable. One recent study conducted by the nonpartisan RAND corporation found that "restorative practices" in punishment actually worsened educational outcomes in grades six through eight. "I'm very much inclined to believe that this push towards discipline reform, to try to lower suspensions and expulsions … will do more harm than good," Eden said. "I don't think policy can do nothing at all, but I think that the policies we have implemented have done more harm than good." The bad news is not limited to the United States. Eden noted that just as NAEP scores are a blow to Common Core, so too is the rapid decline of PISA scores from Finland, once heralded as a model for education policy. "The people who had been the central opinion makers of education policy were just pretty fundamentally wrong," Eden said. "About 15 years ago Finland was the top-scoring country, pretty near the top in the world, and if you Google for ‘Finland education,' you'll find just hundreds and hundreds of articles written about how the Finland model works.… But just about no country has fallen farther, faster over the past few years than Finland." Hess agreed with Eden's skeptical view of what the education establishment has pitched during the stagnation and emphasized that policy can only go so far in changing outcomes. "The idea that policy can do little to shape education in the short term is always correct," Hess said. "That's been true for a half century plus. Folks have been trying to use federal policy to change school outcomes. All policymakers can really do is move crude levers.… For those things to actually change what happens in schools is at best a multiyear process."

Charles Fain Lehman

https://freebeacon.com/issues/american-educations-great-stagnation/

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 10:00:05 +0000

education

vocational education

instapundit--2019-01-03--HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE The Push For Unconstitutional College Programs Most efforts to r

instapundit

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Push For Unconstitutional College Programs. “Most efforts to r…

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Push For Unconstitutional College Programs. “Most efforts to reduce racial, ethnic, and gender ‘gaps’ and ‘underrepresentation’ are patently unconstitutional.”

Glenn Reynolds

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pjmedia/instapundit/~3/Pwt6xPfSpUY/

2019-01-03 15:00:55+00:00

education

vocational education

abcnews--2019-11-08--Dow agrees to $77M environmental settlement in Michigan

abcnews

Dow agrees to $77M environmental settlement in Michigan

Dow Chemical Co. has agreed to fund environmental restoration projects worth an estimated $77 million to compensate for decades of pollution by its plant in Midland, Michigan, officials said Friday. A deal between the company and government agencies calls for improvements to fish and wildlife habitats tainted by dioxins and other hazardous substances from Dow's manufacturing complex in its headquarters city of Midland. The chemical giant also will pay for new public recreation areas with trails, fishing platforms and boating launches. "This settlement has been more than a decade in the making by a combined team of state, federal and tribal partners working together for the benefit of Michigan's environment and precious natural resources," state Attorney General Dana Nessel said. The agreement would be legally binding and needs a federal judge's approval to take effect. It would resolve a complaint filed by government agencies that alleges the company's pollution harmed birds, fish, invertebrates and mammals in the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers and their watersheds. Dow's facility began operating in 1897. For generations it dumped or incinerated wastes that contaminated the 50-mile-long (80-kilometer-long) river valley, which extends into Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay, with dioxins and related compounds linked to cancer and other illnesses. Cleanup of the Tittabawassee River began in 2007 and is expected to be finished in 2021. No completion date has been set for the other waterways. The pollution has prompted warnings to limit consumption of some fish and wild game, and to avoid touching the soil in certain areas, including parks. Under the agreement, Dow will pay for 13 natural resource projects in Midland, Saginaw and Bay counties that will affect a combined 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares). Construction of a fish passage ramp at a Tittabawassee River dam will provide hundreds of miles of new habitat for migratory species, while the state Department of Natural Resources will get funding to build spawning reefs in Saginaw Bay. Other projects will protect and restore wetlands, farmlands and forests. About 2,000 acres (800 hectares) of private land will be shielded from development through conservation easements. An expansion of the Shiawassee National Wildlife Reserve will provide more room for hunting. Biking and nature trails will be developed in preserved Tittabawassee flood plain areas habitat south of Midland. As part of the settlement, Dow will pay $15 million to a team of trustees including officials with state and federal agencies and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan. Some of the money will be used to maintain and monitor the effectiveness of the 13 projects, while at least $5 million will fund additional natural resource initiatives selected by the trustees with advice from the public. Dow also will reimburse government agencies for costs of studying how its pollution affected the environment. In a statement, the company said it was "committed to working cooperatively with the ... trustees to move forward with implementation of the proposed restoration plan over the next five years" and had set aside money to pay for the settlement. The trustees will host a public meeting Nov. 21 in Saginaw to provide more details about the plan, said Matthew Schneider, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. "We are thankful to Dow and the trustees for their work in reaching this excellent result, which will benefit the residents of the Saginaw Bay area and the wildlife and waterfowl that inhabit it," Schneider said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/dow-agrees-77m-environmental-settlement-michigan-66853994

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 18:13:39 -0500

environment

conservation

abcnews--2019-12-08--Conservation groups' Georgia coast land buy could help save tortoises

abcnews

Conservation groups' Georgia coast land buy could help save tortoises

Conservation groups have purchased a swath of land in Georgia that they describe as one of the largest unprotected open space parcels along the southeast Atlantic coast. The Conservation Fund and Open Space Institute announced Friday that they had bought the 16,000-acre (65-square-kilometer) site along the Satilla River east of Woodbine. They declined to say how much they paid for it. The groups plan to sell it within the next few years to the state of Georgia for use as a wildlife management area where people can hunt, fish and hike. “It’s providing a tremendous opportunity for the people of Georgia to enjoy our great outdoors,” said Andrew Schock, Georgia state director at The Conservation Fund. The land near Cumberland Island — dubbed the “Ceylon property” — has several types of habitat, including salt marsh and longleaf pine forest. Longleaf pine used to cover tens of millions of acres in the southeast U.S., but now only a few million acres remain and most of that is fragmented and in poor condition, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The new property is also home to an estimated 2,000 gopher tortoises, whose burrows provide shelter for many other species. Conservation groups and Georgia officials are aiming to protect 65 of the roughly 122 viable gopher tortoise populations in the state to try to prevent the turtle from a listing under the Endangered Species Act. The new site alone may have as many as four gopher tortoise populations that are capable of sustaining themselves, said Maria Whitehead, senior program manager for the Open Space Institute. Whitehead said the property is also remarkably pristine. There are no structures on it, and it has no development except for a well and cemetery, she said. “That in itself is just incredible," she said. The property had a timber mill in the 1870s that processed longleaf pine coming down the Satilla River, said Jason Lee, with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. But the surrounding town was eventually abandoned, and the property returned to its natural state, Lee said. “We’re really excited to be able to work on something not just this large but this intact from a habitat standpoint,” he said. The conservation groups bought it from the investment firm, Stratford Land. Schock said the property was zoned for homes, commercial development and a marina. The next step is to raise funds to allow the state to purchase it.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/conservation-groups-make-major-land-buy-georgia-coast-67577455

Sun, 08 Dec 2019 16:57:16 -0500

environment

conservation

activistpost--2019-03-19--Green New Deal Plagiarized From 2009 UN Environment Programme Report

activistpost

Green New Deal Plagiarized From 2009 UN Environment Programme Report?

In a stunning revelation from a 2009 UN document titled “Rethinking the Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal“, it is discovered that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ (AOC) Green New Deal is not a new movement of the people, but rather a crafty creation of a small group of global elite working through the United Nations. This 144-page report was headed by Edward B. Barbier, a professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Wyoming at the time, but specifically prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) It was UNEP that sponsored the infamous 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that catalyzed the doctrine of Sustainable Development and produced the Agenda 21 book labeled The Agenda for the 21st Century. UNEP has been at the root of every intellectually bankrupt scheme to flip the world into its resource-based economic system while driving a fatal nail into Capitalism and Free Enterprise. In my books Technocracy Rising and Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order, I have extensively documented that Sustainable Development is nothing more than warmed-over Technocracy from the 1930s. Barbier credits a number of people as important contributors to his paper, but two in particular ring a loud bell: the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). CAP was founded by John Podesta, a prominent member and operative of the Trilateral Commission. Podesta was the principal architect for the U.S. environmental policy for well over 2 decades. He served as Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Special Counselor to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign Manager. In July 2002, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the High-Level Panel On Post-2015 Development Agenda that created the text for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. The Board of Directors for CAP includes Sen. Tom Daschle (Chairman), Stacey Abrams, Donald Sussman, and California billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer. PIEE was founded by Peter G. Peterson (1926-2018), a principal member of the Trilateral Commission for decades. PIEE’s Board of Directors is a Who’s Who of the Trilateral Commission and includes Lawrence Summers, C. Fred Bergsten, Richard N. Cooper, Stanley Fischer, Robert Zoellick, Alan Greenspan, Carla A. Hills, George P. Schultz, Paul A. Volcker, and Ernesto Zedillo. The PIEE paper cited by Barbier was A Green Global Recovery? Assessing US Economic Stimulus and the Prospects for International Coordination The multiple crises threatening the world economy today demand the same kind of initiative as shown by Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, but at the global scale and embracing a wider vision. (p. 5) In an article by VOX titled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is making the Green New Deal a 2020 litmus test, it stated, The comparison to Franklin Delano Roosevelt has been prominent from the first day that Ocasio-Cortez became a public figure. The official Global Green New Deal objectives are also reminiscent of the modern propaganda: If rewritten to current Green New Deal standards, it would look like this: Under the section, Reducing Carbon Dependence, more Green New Deal language, almost word-for-word, is discovered: The report Rethinking the Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal made five nutty predictions, all of which have failed miserably. Currently, the price of oil is $59, the rise in greenhouse gas emissions is not on its way to a 45 percent increase by 2030, the world economy never sustained losses of 5-10 percent of GDP, ecological degradation is not quantifiable, water scarcity is a myth and poverty levels of people with less than $2.00 per day is only 767 million (World Bank, 2018). The predictions from the current iteration of the Green New deal are just as crazy as the Global Green New Deal from 2009. The modern “creators” of the Green New Deal claim that they developed it over a weekend. If true, it was only because they had a copy of Rethinking the Economic Recovery: A Global Green New Deal sitting in front of them to copy text and then localizing it for the United States. Furthermore, these policies are not popular with the American people, as constantly claimed, but have been consistently rejected by citizens. The Green New Deal is simply not a movement of the people, nor has it ever been. Rather, it has been purposely created by the same global elite that started Sustainable Development in the first place, namely, by members of the Trilateral Commission and the Club of Rome working through the auspices of the United Nations Environmental Programme. Shame on you Green New Deal ideologues. Plagiarism by any other name is still plagiarism. You will be rejected as certainly as the global elite has already been rejected. Note: tip of the hat to Dr. Willie Soon for forwarding this story to me, as originally highlighted in an email by Richard Bast of The Heartland Institute You can read more from Patrick Wood at his site Technocracy News and Trends, where this article first appeared.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/03/green-new-deal-plagiarized-from-2009-un-environment-programme-report.html

2019-03-19 00:30:02+00:00

environment

conservation

activistpost--2019-04-30--Watchdognet Promotes Clean Energy Companys Offer of Free LED Light Bulbs to New Customers Even Tho

activistpost

Watchdog.net Promotes Clean Energy Company’s Offer of Free LED Light Bulbs to New Customers Even Though LED Light Bulbs Are Harmful to the Environment

If you’re on the Watchdog.net email list, you recently received an email offering you 8 free LED light bulbs if you sign up with Arcadia Power by April 30. Did you know that the average household’s electricity usage contributes to over 8,000 lbs of coal production per home. The good news? You can sign your utility account up for clean energy with Arcadia Power at absolutely no cost, and because you are in a state with electricity choice, they use the buying power of over 250,000 individuals like yourself to get lower rates than the utility. Clean energy at a lower cost with no installation – it doesn’t get easier than this. In honor of Earth Month if you sign up by April 30th, Arcadia Power will send you 8 free LED light bulbs to further increase your energy savings. Unfortunately, there are biological, environmental, and safety issues associated with CFL and LED light bulbs.  Warnings about LED light bulbs have come from different sources and for different reasons.  Activist Post has published articles about the different problems associated with these bulbs before. You may use more energy with incandescent light bulbs.  However, you won’t use as much gas driving yourself and your loved ones to and from medical appointments. Provide, protect and profit from what is coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/04/watchdog-net-promotes-clean-energy-companys-offer-of-free-led-light-bulbs-to-new-customers-even-though-led-light-bulbs-are-harmful-to-the-environment.html

2019-04-30 16:33:24+00:00

environment

conservation

activistpost--2019-07-30--NOW Is The Time To Demand 5G Wireless Health Environmental Impact Studies At YOUR State Capitol Or

activistpost

NOW Is The Time To Demand 5G Wireless Health & Environmental Impact Studies At YOUR State Capitol Or Regret Not Doing It Later On

Sample state legislation establishing a commission to evaluate the environmental and health effects of the deployment of 5G wireless technology. If the great State of New Hampshire did it, so can you, the readers, in your respective home states capitols. What did ‘proactive’ activists in New Hampshire, The Granite State, accomplish regarding 5G? New Hampshire became the first U.S. state to enact legislation establishing a commission to evaluate environmental and health effects of 5G wireless technologies. Here is a proposed legislation, which Americans for Responsible Technology suggests everyone uses to contact his/her state capitol legislators in order to get an unbiased evaluation of effects from a never-tested for human and environmental impacts 5G safety broadband network. However, I do not agree with the makeup of the ART’s proposed Commission; it’s already ‘slanted’ from what I read. Respectfully, there are no provisions set forth for accredited 5G or other RFR technology INDEPENDENT researchers suggested for nomination, such as: Who should those scientists, MDs and PhDs be? Magda Havas, PhD., Associate Professor Trent University School Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields. See Dr. Havas’s studies in live blood cells and electrosmog causing clumping technically called “Rouleaux.” https://magdahavas.com/live-blood-cells-and-electrosmog/ Martin Pall, PhD., Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Sciences, Washington State University. See Dr. Pall’s 90-page, online book regarding the effects of 5G here https://peaceinspace.blogs.com/files/5g-emf-hazards–dr-martin-l.-pall–eu-emf2018-6-11us3.pdf David O. Carpenter, MD., Director, Institute for Health and the Environment, University of Albany, co-editor of the BioInitiative 2012 wherein 1800 new studies regarding bio-effects evidence are published about various stresses, health and environmental stressors are documented. https://bioinitiative.org/table-of-contents/ Report charts https://bioinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/BioInitiativeReport-RF-Color-Charts.pdf Any one of the 250 scientists who signed the Petition to the UN “Warning about EMF.” https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/scientists-sign-petition-warning-about-emf/ It is my most sincere, plus scientific, opinion if any of the new state-by-state 5G impact studies legislation do not include at least two of the above-named research scientists, then we might as well forget it, since it will be a waste of time, money and a prolonged effort, as I can tell you right NOW what those results will be. The results will coincide only with consensus EMF/RFR science ICNIRP, World Health Organization, United Nations Agenda 21 and 2030 dictates, BECAUSE 5G is integral platform to implement the Internet of Things (IoT) and AI (Artificial Intelligence)—the most unholy grail of consensus science to control humans, the weather and the environment! Where have all the trees gone? To make way for 5G transmissions! Do you want that? Where have all the forests gone? To understand more fully “controlling the weather” via weather geoengineering, Dane Wigington of Weather Geoengineering.org explains the climate control horrors that have been ongoing for close to 70 years, which now result in a hopefully-not ‘final’ destructive Solar Radiation Management (SRM) strategy that is second to none, including the onslaught of 5G platforms that will pump out microwave RFRs (millimeter waves) at one hundred (100) times the oscillation powers of 4G, which is not in full capacity transmissions! In addition to 4G having much better coverage, it will actually improve with the deployment of the upcoming spectrum like AWS-3and 600MHz. The carriers are going to continue to deploy their existing spectrum and future 4G spectrum that will continue to justify investment as they try to increase capacity and coverage in 4G where they can realistically make money . Below is a 22 minute video regarding the ‘purposeful’ use of forest fires smoke to effectuate Solar Radiation Management.  Please take the time to watch it, as it just may change your mind.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/07/now-is-the-time-to-demand-5g-wireless-health-environmental-impact-studies-at-your-state-capitol-or-regret-not-doing-it-later-on.html

2019-07-30 20:20:57+00:00

environment

conservation

ageofautism--2019-12-16--Author Response to Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Retraction of "A lowered probabili

ageofautism

Author Response to Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Retraction of "A lowered probability of pregnancy in females in the USA aged 25-29 who received a human papillomavirus vaccine injection"

By Gayle DeLong In June 2018, the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A published my article “A lowered probability of pregnancy in females in the USA aged 25-29 who received a human papillomavirus vaccine injection”. Data revealed that 60% of women who had not received the HPV vaccine had been pregnant at least once, while only 35% of HPV vaccine recipients had ever conceived. The article detailed the statistical analysis as well as offered possible biological mechanisms for the results. Three researchers peer-reviewed the article. When the article first appeared, the editors eagerly promoted it by making it free. By early December 2019, the number of views reached close to 24,000. On October 23, 2019, I received an email stating that Taylor & Francis and Editor-in-Chief Dr. Sam Kacew had opened an investigation of the paper, based on “several public and private expressions of concern about flaws in analysis.” They gave me two weeks to respond to comments from four post-publication reviewers, and I did so. On December 10, 2019, I received an email from Taylor and Francis stating that despite my comments, the “concerns raised by the reviewers still stand,” and they were retracting the article. Since the retraction, the number of views has increased to 24, 227. In the retraction notice (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15287394.2019.1669991), Taylor & Francis state that all post-publication reviews, “described serious flaws in the statistical analysis and interpretation of the data in this paper” without going into any detail. However, one of their reviewers determined that I had been careful with the limitations and conclusions of the paper. That reviewer agreed with me that an open debate concerning the findings of the paper specifically as well as vaccine safety in general is essential. The manner in which Taylor and Francis is handling these post-publication criticisms is highly unusual. Typically, if a researcher sees a flaw in a published paper, he or she openly writes a letter to the editor, to which the author can reply. Both the critique and the reply are published in the journal. A basic principle of medical ethics holds that if there is evidence that a treatment, drug or vaccine may be dangerous, even if that evidence is not conclusive, we must investigate those possible problems until we have settled the question one way or another. Suppressing studies simply because we disagree with them only stifles legitimate scientific debate. My paper did not claim to offer a final answer to this issue. It simply raised concerns and called for further investigation into a question that may have an enormous impact on the reproductive health of millions of women. Major post-publication criticisms – as identified by Editor-in-Chief Kacew – along with my responses are as follows: • Methodological Issues: Potential confounders are not accounted for or simply ignored such as an economic downturn, societal trends including postponing pregnancy, increased women in the workforce, changes in contraceptive use, contraceptive failure rates, etc. All these factors impact pregnancy but were not addressed. The trends mentioned in this criticism address the decline in the overall birth rate. The value of my study is that each observation identifies whether a woman received the HPV vaccine and whether that woman had ever been pregnant. To confirm that overall trends were not influencing the results, I added time trends to the statistical analysis and the results remained: Women who received the HPV vaccine were less likely to have ever been pregnant. • Misinterpretation of data: Extrapolation of results that the number of pregnancies due to the vaccine are unfounded and supported by findings from studies by an author that uses VAERS database that relies on self-reported adverse events without verification makes the results dubious. The data I use come from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which is a non-random survey of people living in the United States. By design, each observation represents many more people than the individual who is surveyed. The very essence of NHANES is to generalize from the observations, and the database includes specific weights for each observation. The comment about the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) is not relevant. While I cite an author who uses VAERS, the citation serves merely as background and plays no major role in the analysis. • Validity questionable: The issues of selection bias, lack of similar observations in USA and Europe, weak biological plausibility and inaccurate statement regarding dose response are all factors that raise doubts regarding the data. These criticisms are flat out wrong. No selection bias exists: I use every observation where the person surveyed includes answers to all the questions I use in the analysis. There are similar observations in Europe: In a separate study, I show that birth rates are falling in European countries that have implemented wide-spread HPV vaccine programs. That study is here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2019.1622977 Not only does biological plausibility exist, studies continue to be published that point to a link between the autoimmunity that vaccines can induce and fertility issues. The statement regarding dose response in the paper is correct: I confirmed my interpretation with two independent statisticians.

Age of Autism

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ageofautism/~3/ga07vd5hYtk/author-response-to-journal-of-toxicology-and-environmental-health-retraction-of-a-lowered-probabilit.html

2019-12-16T06:00:00-05:00

environment

conservation

aljazeera--2019-01-07--Brazils environmental chief resigns after Bolsonaro criticism

aljazeera

Brazil's environmental chief resigns after Bolsonaro criticism

The head of Brazil's environmental protection agency has resigned following criticism from the country's newly inaugurated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. A spokesperson for the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) confirmed on Monday that Suely de Araujo stepped down after Bolsonaro suggested there were irregularities in Ibama's budget, Reuters news agency reported. Araujo had led the agency since 2016. The Environment Ministry, which oversees Ibama, told Reuters in an emailed statement that it had been planning to replace Araujo and that a new head of the agency would be named within days. Bolsonaro, a former army captain who swept to power in a tumultuous October election, has routinely attacked Ibama, which is tasked with policing the Amazon rainforest to stop deforestation and illegal mining. On Sunday, the 63-year-old retweeted a Tweet published by Brazil's environment minister, Ricardo Salles, highlighting an alleged 28.7 million reais ($7.73m) budget allocation by the agency for rental vehicles. "We've had a system created mainly to financially violate Brazilians without the slightest care," Bolsonaro, who has toyed with yanking Brazil out of the Paris climate accord, said. Araujo released a written statement on Sunday saying Bolsonaro and Salles, who has previously called climate change a "secondary issue" and alleged many environmental fines are "ideological", had made "baseless accusations." She said the cost was for the rental of 393 four-wheel drive trucks used by Ibama's armed agents across Brazil, and that the contract's amount also included all fuel costs and maintenance. A high-ranking Ibama official told Reuters on Monday that the pressure from Bolsonaro and Salles was simply an attempt "to get rid of our ability to halt policing for those committing environmental crimes." "It's an absurd factoid created to weaken Ibama," the person said on condition of anonymity. "This contract was approved by government regulators, and it is 10 percent less than the previous contract and for more vehicles." The official added that the contract remained valid, but that the agency is concerned there will be attempts to cancel it, possibly leading to a crippling of its ability to patrol the Amazon and other regions. Analysts, meanwhile, said Bolsonaro's actions demonstrated his presidency could pose a genuine "threat to the Amazon". "The protection of the Amazon always relies on strong laws and rules," Thiago de Aragao, a director at the Brasilia-based political consultancy Arko Advice, told Al Jazeera. "So definitely he [Bolsonaro] could be a threat in the sense that he could create a trend that the mindset of protecting the Amazon might not be the number one priority among certain individuals within the government," de Aragao added. The rhetoric of Bolsonaro's administration has left many environmentalists deeply concerned for the preservation of the Amazon under his government. Within 24 hours of taking office on January 1, the Brazilian leader signed an executive order making Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture responsible for the regulation and creation of new indigenous reserves, in a move widely seen as a boost for the country's powerful agribusiness lobby. About 13 percent of Brazil's national territory is demarcated as indigenous land - defined as an area inhabited and exclusively possessed by indigenous people. Approximately 98 percent of such areas are located in the Amazon, an ecosystem considered by environmental scientists as a crucial buffer against the impacts of climate change. The temporary decree, which will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress, also moved the Brazilian Forestry Service, which promotes the sustainable use of forests and is currently linked to the Ministry of the Environment, under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture, according to Reuters. Additionally, the order stated that the Ministry of Agriculture will be in charge of the management of public forests. A close ally of the agribusiness lobby, Bolsonaro pledged during his election campaign to "end all activism" in Brazil. On Monday, he announced that funding of all nongovernmental organisations working in the country will be rigidly controlled, reflecting increased oversight by his new administration over such groups.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/brazil-environmental-chief-resigns-criticism-190107161353404.html

2019-01-07 19:51:10+00:00

environment

conservation

aljazeera--2019-01-27--Environmentalist on mission to preserve island nation Vanuatu

aljazeera

Environmentalist on mission to preserve island nation Vanuatu

The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has a long history of community matters being settled by tribal village chiefs - usually men. But for the first time, a woman, Leimalu Tapesi, has been anointed the chairperson of a village tribal council on the island of Moso. As part of her plans to transform village life, Tapesi is applying a strict environmentalist agenda which includes a marine park and cracking down on illegal logging.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/environmentalist-mission-preserve-island-nation-vanuatu-190127120609913.html

2019-01-27 12:06:09+00:00

environment

conservation

aljazeera--2019-02-23--Climate change Teenage environmentalists protest in Paris

aljazeera

Climate change: Teenage environmentalists protest in Paris

A Swedish schoolgirl has taken her environmental fight to France. Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg is spearheading student strikes against inaction on global warming. She joined hundreds of others at a protest in Paris. It was Paris that was the host city for the signing of the climate accords. But President Emmanuel Macron, besieged by yellow vest protestors, dropped his plans to raise the price of fuel to combat greenhouse gas emissions after the protests that swept across the nation.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/climate-change-teenage-environmentalists-protest-paris-190223133554908.html

2019-02-23 13:35:54+00:00

environment

conservation

aljazeera--2019-02-28--US Senate confirms ex-coal lobbyist to head environment regulator

aljazeera

US Senate confirms ex-coal lobbyist to head environment regulator

The Senate on Thursday confirmed US President Donald Trump's candidate, a former coal lobbyist, to lead the nation's top environmental regulator over the objections of conservation groups and Democrats. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a 54-year-old Washington insider with years of experience working as a congressional staffer, was nominated by Trump in January to permanently replace Scott Pruitt, who resigned in July after widespread criticism over his spending and conduct in office. Wheeler worked at the EPA early in his career and was a top aide at the Senate Environment Committee before becoming a lobbyist a decade ago. Only one Republican in the Republican-controlled Senate opposed Wheeler as the Senate voted 52-47 to confirm him on Thursday. Susan Collins argued Wheeler's efforts to roll back standards on emissions blamed for climate change takes the country in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, Republican Senator John Barrasso, chairman of the Senate environment committee, called Wheeler "uniquely qualified" to lead EPA and said that under Wheeler the agency is putting forward proposals that "both protect our environment and allow the country's economy to flourish". Wheeler's nomination has been welcomed by businesses eager to see reduced regulation, but upset Democrats and conservation groups worried that environmental rollbacks under the Trump administration are going too far. Environmental groups said that although Wheeler's behavior is "less cartoonish" than Pruitt, he supports the same policies. While running the EPA on an interim basis, Wheeler oversaw the weakening of Obama-era rules limiting carbon and mercury emissions from power plants and standards on carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks. He has also advanced an initiative to lift a summertime ban on higher ethanol blends of gasoline that was enacted to curb smog. During his confirmation hearing in January, he said he did not believe climate change was a major crisis - a stance that resonates with Trump's scepticism, but which clashes with the scientific consensus that global warming will have devastating consequences if not addressed urgently. "Throughout his career, Andrew Wheeler has shown a clear disregard for the EPA's mission to protect the public and environment," Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said after voting against him. Wheeler was not making "meaningful progress" on clean water standards either, Democrat Joe Manchin said, citing the agency's failure to limit the amount of highly toxic chemicals contaminating drinking water in West Virginia and around the country. The EPA has announced plans to place legal limits on the chemicals but has not done so yet. The perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known collectively as PFAS, have been linked to health threats ranging from cancer to decreased fertility. Manchin also said he was concerned at EPA's attempt to undo rules designed to limit emissions of mercury, which can damage the brains of infants and young children.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/senate-confirms-coal-lobbyist-head-environment-regulator-190228205122599.html

2019-02-28 22:42:29+00:00

environment

conservation

activistpost--2019-02-10--California Sierra Club Committee Asks National Sierra Club to Oppose 5G and Small Cell Tower Install

activistpost

California Sierra Club Committee Asks National Sierra Club to Oppose 5G and Small Cell Tower Installation without Local Input and Environmental Review

Thanks to the Center for Electrosmog Prevention for immediately posting the California Sierra Club’s Conservation Committee’s resolution requesting National Sierra Club take an opposing position to the deployment of 5G and small cell technology without local input and environmental review: Feb. 9, 2019: passed (Page 1 of 3) Sierra Club California Resolution Adopted by the Sierra Club California Conservation Committee, February 9, 2019 Sierra Club Resolution Title: Request to National Sierra Club to take an oppose position to the deployment of 5G and small cell technology without local input and environmental review Resolution: The Sierra Club California Conservation Committee urges the National Conservation Policy Committee to adopt an oppose position to the FCC’s recent promulgation of a rule that waives environmental review, and limits local control, of the deployment of 5G wireless technology and small cell box installations. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and several tribal groups also voiced opposition as well as taken legal action against 5G legislation. California Sierra Club was also one of many California organizations who submitted a statement of opposition to the state’s small cell bill, SB 649.  Environmental Working Group did as well.  The state bill was vetoed.  On a related note, the San Francisco Sierra Club chapter also filed a statement of opposition against utility “Smart” Meters due to biological and environmental risks. Activist Post has reported countless times about state and federal legislation that has eliminated municipal control over harmful 4G and 5G small cell tower and infrastructure installation.  Many Americans are fighting this in their communities already.  Despite this, many Americans are still completely oblivious to the fact that small cell legislation has already passed in their states as well at the federal level. For more information, visit the following websites:

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/02/california-sierra-club-committee-asks-national-sierra-club-to-oppose-5g-and-small-cell-tower-installation-without-local-input-and-environmental-review.html

2019-02-10 16:13:34+00:00

environment

environmental politics

activistpost--2019-02-22--Trump Tweets In Favor of Risky and Harmful 5G and 6G Tech Despite Opposition from Security Experts

activistpost

Trump Tweets In Favor of Risky and Harmful 5G and 6G Tech Despite Opposition from Security Experts, Doctors, Elected Officials, Environmentalists, Scientists, etc.

The Telecom Industry can’t even say that 5G technology is safe.  Insurance companies don’t even cover them anymore – it’s too risky. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is also being investigated for COLLUSION with the Telecom Industry regarding already passed federal 5G legislation that eliminated municipal control over the installation of risky and harmful 4G and 5G small cell tower and infrastructure technology. An increasing number of Americans are fighting this legislation – and installation – everywhere including doctors, elected officials, environmentalists, scientists, and tribal groups. Not only that – embarrassingly awful Internet of Things (IoT) technology is part of the 5G game plan.  IoT has been lambasted by security experts for the past few years because of its almost 75% failure rate.    By most people’s standards –probably even Trump’s – IoT would be considered for losers. Even more bizarre – since Trump can’t stop insisting we need better national security, why would he support the installation of IoT anywhere?  Besides it being a cybersecurity nightmare – incorporating all of this new related technology is part of the Green New Deal which Trump has vehemently claimed is un-American. Regardless – Trump tweeted yesterday in support of harmful 5G and even 6G technology.  (See 1, 2, 3)  Has 6G even been tested yet?  All of this completely contradicts Trump’s campaign promise to “Give the country back to the people.”  So WTF? “Along with the 5G there is another thing coming — Internet of Things. If you look at it…the radiation level is going to increase tremendously and yet the industry is very excited about it… they project 5G/IoT business to be a $7 trillion business.” — Prof. Girish Kumar, Professor at Electrical Engineering Department at IIT Bombay 5G, the latest and greatest method of faster wireless transmission, is coming on with a storm.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/02/trump-tweets-favor-5g-6g-technology-despite-opposition-security-experts-doctors-elected-officials-environmentalists-scientists.html

2019-02-22 19:50:18+00:00

environment

environmental politics

activistpost--2019-05-03--Environmental Working Group EWG Names Duke Energy as Public Enemy 1 Customers Who Hate Dukes A

activistpost

Environmental Working Group (EWG) Names Duke Energy as Public Enemy #1. Customers Who Hate Duke’s AMI “Smart” Meters Feel the Same.

Environmental Working Group (EWG) recently published a long detailed article about how Duke Energy – America’s biggest electric utility company – is also the worst for the environment. Duke Energy customers in 6 states feel the same animosity toward Duke Energy because of the company’s AMI “Smart” Meters which also happen to be harmful to the environment .  Customer complaints have been reported by many sources over the years (See 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) including by Activist Post. (See 1, 2, 3, 4) ALL “Smart” Meters have been proven to be harmful to the environment because they: Some environmental groups have already publicly opposed “Smart Meters” for these reasons. (See 1, 2) People everywhere don’t want “Smart” Meters (See 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 6 ) for all reasons list above as well as because of: A documentary was produced about problems associated with all “Smart” Meters in 2013, Take Back Your Power.  The film was updated in 2017 and is free to watch online. All “Smart” Meters emit RF radiation which is also referred to as cell phone radiation.  Environmental Working Group (EWS) has acknowledged health issues associated with cell phone radiation exposure before: The largest-ever animal study of cellphone radiation effects, released today by the National Toxicology Program, or NTP, confirms earlier evidence from human studies that cellphone radiation increases the risk of cancer. EWG said the findings reinforce the need for people, especially children, to exercise caution when using cellphones and other radiation-emitting devices. “This report should raise alarms for policymakers and awareness for all Americans,” said Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., senior science advisor for children’s environmental health at EWG. “These studies should have been done before more than 90 percent of Americans, including millions of children, started using this technology day in and day out.” Today, 2G and 3G wireless networks are being replaced with 5G networks, which use a distinct and untested form of radio frequency. As EWG reported, the Federal Communications Commission is bowing to industry lobbyists and clearing the way for 5G installation in a way that would bypass federal environmental laws. Unfortunately, EWG didn’t mention anything in their recent article about the harmful RF (i.e. cell phone) radiation emissions from the Duke Energy AMI “Smart” Meters.  Maybe next time…

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/environmental-working-group-ewg-names-duke-energy-as-public-enemy-1-customers-who-hate-dukes-ami-smart-meters-feel-the-same.html

2019-05-03 15:36:55+00:00

environment

environmental politics

activistpost--2019-05-27--Trump Administration Wants to Exempt Some Light Bulbs From Green Standards Despite Protest LED Bu

activistpost

Trump Administration Wants to Exempt Some Light Bulbs From “Green” Standards Despite Protest. LED Bulbs Are Biologically and Environmentally Harmful Despite Energy Savings.

LED light bulbs may use less energy but research has proven they cause serious biological and environmental harm because they create Light Pollution and emit Dirty Electricity. Research has also proven that exposure to LED lights causes temporary vision impairment as well as macular degeneration and blindness.  Warnings have been issued by the American Medical Association  and other experts (see 1, 2, 3).  Our pets may be affected by exposure as well. So environmentalists who continue promoting LED lights as “green” are basically “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”  Unfortunately – it’s still happening way too much. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday proposed exempting some light bulbs from federal efficiency standards that take effect next year, a move environmentalists said would boost pollution and power bills for consumers. The proposal would remove three-way bulbs, candle-shaped bulbs used in chandeliers, reflector bulbs used in recessed lighting, and others from having to comply with the new efficiency standards. Advanced technologies, including light-emitting diode or LED light bulbs, use far less electricity than incandescent light bulbs, which produce far more wasted heat. The changes would result in $12 billion in extra power bill costs for consumers, said the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. The Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit alliance of business, government, environmental and consumer interests, said the proposal would give a lifeline to makers of inefficient incandescent and halogen bulbs.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/05/trump-administration-wants-to-exempt-some-light-bulbs-from-green-standards-despite-protest-led-bulbs-are-biologically-and-environmentally-harmful-despite-energy-savings.html

2019-05-27 15:15:56+00:00

environment

environmental politics

activistpost--2019-07-31--Disturbing New Report Reveals How Many Environmental Activists Are Murdered Each Week

activistpost

Disturbing New Report Reveals How Many Environmental Activists Are Murdered Each Week

The fight to protect land, homes, livelihoods, and wildlife from destructive, pollution-causing industries turned deadly for more than 160 environmental defenders in 2018, international human rights group Global Witness revealed Monday night in a new report. Organizers campaigning against the destruction of the environment face governments, contract killers, and private security firms trying to stop them—sometimes working together. In total, 164 people were murdered last year while fighting such forces as the mining, logging, and agribusiness industries from taking over swathes of ancestral lands, communities, and natural habitats. The number recorded by Global Witness in its report, “Enemies of the State,” means an average about three eco-defenders were killed per week—but the group notes that because so many of these deaths go unreported, its study represents a “sizable underestimate.” “These are ordinary people trying to protect their homes and livelihoods, and standing up for the health of our planet,” Global Witness reported. “Often their land is violently grabbed to produce goods used and consumed across the world every day, from food, to mobile phones, to jewelery.” The Philippines was the deadliest country for eco-defenders in 2018, with 30 people killed for protecting land and the environment. Nine victims were killed on the country’s island of Negros when gunmen shot the sugarcane farmers as they occupied a plot of land which was covered by President Rodrigo Duterte’s land reform program but had not been distributed to the poor farmers. The National Federation of Sugar Workers said at the time that the government has not created an effective land distribution program and instead “red baits those who assert their rights to the land,” linking the farmers to communist guerillas. The criminalization of eco-defenders is a common tactic used by state forces and corporations to discredit organizers, defend aggressive actions against environmental campaigns, and deter others from joining the fight against extractive and damaging industries, Global Witness reported. “It is a brutal irony that while judicial systems routinely allow the killers of defenders to walk free, they are also being used to brand the activists themselves as terrorists, spies or dangerous criminals,” said Alice Harrison, senior campaigner for Global Witness. “Both tactics send a clear message to other activists: the stakes for defending their rights are punishingly high for them, their families and their communities.” Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a Filipina and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, told Global Witness about her own recent experience being labeled as a criminal by her country’s government. “In March 2018, the Philippines government declared me a terrorist,” Tauli-Corpuz said. “This was in retaliation for me speaking out against indigenous rights violations in my home country. For months, I lived under threat, and could not safely return home. Although I have since been removed from the list, government officials continue to hurl false accusations at me.” “This is a phenomenon seen around the world: land and environmental defenders are declared terrorists, locked up or hit with paralyzing legal attacks, for defending their rights, or simply for living on lands that are coveted by others,” she added. Guatemalan campaigners fighting destructive industries were also subjected to deadly attacks as well as criminalization. In December, two brothers were found shot to death amid their work with their community to fight a hydropower project linked to one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful families and funded by international banks. The Peaceful Resistance of Ixquisis movement has led the fight, saying the two planned dams are polluting water sources, destroying crops, and killing fish populations. At least one other man was killed last year for resisting the project, while many others have been injured and arrested. “They say we are terrorists, delinquents, assassins and that we have armed groups here, but really they’re just killing us,” Joel Raymundo, a member of the movement, told Global Witness. The country saw the largest spike in murders of eco-defenders in 2018, with 16 people—five times more than the previous year—killed for campaigning against the hydropower project, land grabs and forced evictions, mines, and plantations. The death toll makes Guatemala the deadliest country per capita for eco-defenders last year. Resistance against mining projects was linked to the most deaths worldwide last year, with 43 environmental campaigners killed. Julian Carrillo was found shot dead in northern Mexico in October—the sixth member of his family to be killed in recent years amid their community’s fight against mining projects. In February 2018, a 16-year-old eco-defender named Luis Fernando Ayala was reportedly tortured before being killed. He had been a fierce opponent to mining and hydroelectric projects. And in June, three people were killed when police shot live ammunition into a crowd of protesters in The Gambia, where they were demonstrating against sand mining on local rice fields. “Vicious attacks against land and environmental defenders are still happening, despite growing momentum behind environmental movements the world over,” Harrison said. “As we hurtle towards climate breakdown,” she added, “it has never been more important to stand with those who are trying to defend their land and our planet against the reckless destruction being meted out by the rich and powerful.” Top image: Women from Yulchen Frontera who are members of the Ixquisis Peaceful Resistance against the San Mateo Hydroelectric Project, pose for a photo in Ixquisis, San Mateo Ixtatan, Huehuetenango, Guatemala on April 26, 2019. (Photo: James Rodriguez/Global Witness) This article was sourced from The Mind Unleashed. Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Follow us on Minds, Twitter, Steemit, and SoMee. Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/07/disturbing-new-report-reveals-how-many-environmental-activists-are-murdered-each-week.html

2019-07-31 01:57:36+00:00

environment

environmental politics

activistpost--2019-08-10--Indian Activists Oppose Oil Refinery Project Citing Environmental Concerns As Protests Flare up

activistpost

Indian Activists Oppose Oil Refinery Project Citing Environmental Concerns, As Protests Flare up

In March 2019, following large protests from farmers and environmental activists, the Indian government moved a planned $44 billion ‘green’ oil refinery project out of the ecologically sensitive Nanar region in Ratnagiri on the Konkan coast. Recently, calls from pro-refinery supporters to bring the project back to Ratnagiri have stoked fears among activists and farmers that the project will be reinstated in the area, causing damage to the environment and affecting livelihoods. The joint venture between Saudi Arabian oil companies, Aramco and Adnoc, and Indian companies, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation was originally relocated following protests from locals and activists who were critical of India’s continued investment in fossil fuels. The project was moved to Raigad, 100 kilometers from India’s financial capital, Mumbai, as the government announced acquiring 40 villages to kickstart the project. On 28 July 2019, pro-refinery group Konkan Vikas Samiti (KVS) held a rally demanding that the project be reinstated in Ratnagiri, citing the economic opportunities it would bring to local communities. A counter-protest was then held in response by an anti-refinery group to prevent the project. Activists claim India’s land acquisition acts were misused to get lands for the project from farmers. For Satyajit Chavan, convenor of Konkan Refinery Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti, the umbrella body leading the protests, reviving the oil refinery project would spell trouble for the region: Ratnagiri’s Nanar is known for rocky terrains and creeks that act as a breeding ground for various marine species. The region is also a prominent agricultural area, and thousands of farmers rely on mango orchards and fishing for their survival. Locals fear the region’s biodiversity and their livelihoods would be affected by pollution emanating from the refinery project. The project is estimated to require around 16,000 acres of land, leaving many local activists to question its claim to be a ‘green’ refinery and a requirement for an emerging economy like India. “Despite moving the project location from Nanar to Raigad because of environmental impact, would it not create the same problem in Raigad as well?” Social activist Ulka Mahajan asked. While experts say the project, with an estimated output of 1.2 million barrels per day, could offer India steady fuel supplies, others are questioning the pollution it has the potential to generate in Maharashtra’s Raigad district. Questions about its impact on fishing hamlets and mango orchids have also been raised. India’s land acquisition laws were manipulated, added Ulka Mahajan. India’s land acquisition laws mandated consent from at least 70 percent of the affected owners and also required a social impact test. Passed by the parliament in 2013, the law also quadrupled four-fold compensation for rural land, including farmland. There was some democratic space that gave a platform to voice concerns after social assessment surveys were conducted. This provision has been done away with in an amendment in the state laws. This is against the wishes of farmers and local communities, opines Mahajan. India is an oil-dependent economy and over 80 percent of its demands are met from imports from the Middle East,  including Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Analysts say the Iran sanctions and lack of crude from Venezuela have hit the Indian economy, resulting in a slowdown of growth figures. In 2015, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a new alliance of nations on a large-scale expansion of solar energy use and said fossil fuels put the planet in peril. While India is trying to diversify and increase its investments into solar and wind energy, projects involving fossil fuels have continued to rise and receive investments unabated. According to Modi: As India continues to invest locally in dirty fuels, activists and experts are left to question the government’s promises to the global community on climate change.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/08/indian-activists-oppose-oil-refinery-project-citing-environmental-concerns-as-protests-flare-up.html

2019-08-10 15:04:09+00:00

environment

environmental politics

activistpost--2019-10-09--Environmental Working Group Offers 9 Tips to Reduce Kids’ Exposure to EMF; Still Endorses Smart Mete

activistpost

Environmental Working Group Offers 9 Tips to Reduce Kids’ Exposure to EMF; Still Endorses Smart Meters (??)

EWG’s tip sheet serves as a good resource for parents who provide their kids with cell phones despite warnings indicated by many health experts including the American Academy of Pediatrics: It’s probably not news to you that cellphone use may be harmful to you and your kids. Studies have found a possible link between cellphone radiation and brain and heart tumors, not to mention a range of symptoms associated with screen time addiction. With kids headed back to school in a matter of weeks, and wireless devices becoming more common in classrooms, how can parents limit the electromagnetic field exposure that comes with use of tablets, phones and other wireless devices? Here are nine ways to decrease your kids’ EMF exposure: • Encourage airplane mode. Ask your kids to put their phones into airplane mode whenever they’re in class or just not using their phone. This will stop the phone from emitting EMF signals. • Focus on younger kids. Younger kids are most vulnerable to the harmful effects of radiation, so it’s important to keep devices away from them as much as possible, scaling back their use of wireless devices as toys. (If they do play a game on a device, make sure they do so in airplane mode.) • Use wires. Stick to ethernet wires when available. • Promote the use of headphones. The more distance between your kids’ bodies and their cellphones, the better. If you’re worried that headphones and earbuds could damage their hearing because of loud music, look for parent controls that will let you set a maximum volume level. • Limit use at night. Establish a nightly cutoff time, and don’t let your kids take their phone to bed. This will not only lower their EMF exposure but also to improve their sleep. They should never sleep with their phone under their pillow. (Here are other ideas for lowering EMF exposure at home.) • Engaging with your kids’ school. Lots of great lifetime habits begin at school, and that can include safer cellphone use. In fact, school policies can play a role in helping minimize your children’s exposure. Questions to ask your kids’ school administrators or teachers: • What’s the current policy regarding in-school use? • Are kids told to put their phone into airplane mode at the start of every class? • How are educators helping parents and children learn about safer uses of technology? • Remember the router. Wi-Fi routers also emit EMF radiation. Make sure to locate your home’s router away from where kids spend time, and away from their bedroom. Some experts suggest turning off the router at night to minimize EMF. • Carry safely. The best place to carry a cellphone is in a bag. Boys and young men in particular should avoid carrying their device in their front pocket, because of the possible effect of radiation on male fertility. Girls and women should avoid putting their phone in their bra, and pregnant women should limit their cellphone use altogether. • Don’t forget Bluetooth. Bluetooth transmits EMF, although at lower levels compared to cellphones. So consider sticking with old-school wired earbuds, and if your children have Bluetooth-enabled devices, teach them to take the earbuds off when they aren’t using them. The good news is that every day there seem to be more reports about schools banning cell phones and kids embracing this. Hooray! What would be really great is if EWG also started recognizing that utility Smart Meters ALSO expose children and everyone else to harmful EMF and they finally STOP ENDORSING THEM because THEY ARE NOT BENEFICIAL to customers (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and THEY ARE REALLY BAD for the environment. Hint hint!

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/10/environmental-working-group-offers-9-tips-to-reduce-kids-exposure-to-emf-still-endorses-smart-meters.html

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 16:38:06 +0000

environment

environmental politics

activistpost--2019-11-18--Should Yellowstone Nat’l Park Install Environmentally Harmful Wi-Fi at the Expense of Wildlife and N

activistpost

Should Yellowstone Nat’l Park Install Environmentally Harmful Wi-Fi at the Expense of Wildlife and Nature? Public Comments Due This Month.

Research has determined that all sources of wireless radiation – including cell towers and WiFi – are biologically and environmentally harmful. That’s why many environmentalists are fighting cell tower installation at national parks (see 1, 2). Unfortunately, businesses still want to install WiFi in national parks anyway. Yellowstone Park is asking for public comments about this. The deadline is November 29. MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, Wyoming — The National Park Service seeks public comment on a proposal to install indoor Wi-Fi networks and associated equipment throughout Yellowstone National Park’s developed areas for the benefit of park visitors and employees. AccessParks has submitted an application for a right-of-way permit. If approved, the permit would allow for: • The installation of up to 484 small (10 x 10 inch or 7 inch diameter) antennas on employee housing and visitor lodging facilities at Canyon Village, Grant Village, Lake Village, Mammoth Hot Springs, and Old Faithful. • To link the antennas to internet providers outside the park, 39 additional antennas would be required and would include: – 29 x 9 inch antennas installed at various locations in the developed areas at Canyon Village, Grant Village, Lake Village, Mammoth Hot Springs, and Old Faithful – 6-foot-diameter antenna installed at an existing tower at Old Faithful – One 2-foot and one 3-foot-diameter antenna installed on the existing tower at Mount Washburn • Coverage could eventually extend to other developed areas such as Norris, Madison, and Bechler for administrative and employee use. • Exterior antennas would be located in areas to minimize visibility. Where visible, the installations would be painted to match the buildings on which they are installed. • In an effort to have no adverse effect to historic properties or districts, many of the antennas on National Register of Historic Places eligible structures would be located in attic spaces or under eaves. • Examples of typical antenna placements and a list of affected properties are available here: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/ap The proposed installations would provide internet service to park visitors and employees in hotels and housing in developed areas. Consistent with the Yellowstone National Park Wireless Communication Services Plan, wireless access to recommended wilderness and park road corridors would be excluded. Activist Post regularly reports about biological and environmental harm caused by exposure to all sources of Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) aka “Electrosmog”. For more information, visit our archives and the following websites: Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month at Patreon. Follow us on SoMee, Flote, Minds, Twitter, and Steemit. Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/11/should-yellowstone-natl-park-install-environmentally-harmful-wi-fi-at-the-expense-of-wildlife-and-nature-public-comments-due-this-month.html

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 01:04:09 +0000

environment

environmental politics

aljazeera--2019-01-07--Brazils environmental chief resigns after Bolsonaro criticism

aljazeera

Brazil's environmental chief resigns after Bolsonaro criticism

The head of Brazil's environmental protection agency has resigned following criticism from the country's newly inaugurated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. A spokesperson for the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) confirmed on Monday that Suely de Araujo stepped down after Bolsonaro suggested there were irregularities in Ibama's budget, Reuters news agency reported. Araujo had led the agency since 2016. The Environment Ministry, which oversees Ibama, told Reuters in an emailed statement that it had been planning to replace Araujo and that a new head of the agency would be named within days. Bolsonaro, a former army captain who swept to power in a tumultuous October election, has routinely attacked Ibama, which is tasked with policing the Amazon rainforest to stop deforestation and illegal mining. On Sunday, the 63-year-old retweeted a Tweet published by Brazil's environment minister, Ricardo Salles, highlighting an alleged 28.7 million reais ($7.73m) budget allocation by the agency for rental vehicles. "We've had a system created mainly to financially violate Brazilians without the slightest care," Bolsonaro, who has toyed with yanking Brazil out of the Paris climate accord, said. Araujo released a written statement on Sunday saying Bolsonaro and Salles, who has previously called climate change a "secondary issue" and alleged many environmental fines are "ideological", had made "baseless accusations." She said the cost was for the rental of 393 four-wheel drive trucks used by Ibama's armed agents across Brazil, and that the contract's amount also included all fuel costs and maintenance. A high-ranking Ibama official told Reuters on Monday that the pressure from Bolsonaro and Salles was simply an attempt "to get rid of our ability to halt policing for those committing environmental crimes." "It's an absurd factoid created to weaken Ibama," the person said on condition of anonymity. "This contract was approved by government regulators, and it is 10 percent less than the previous contract and for more vehicles." The official added that the contract remained valid, but that the agency is concerned there will be attempts to cancel it, possibly leading to a crippling of its ability to patrol the Amazon and other regions. Analysts, meanwhile, said Bolsonaro's actions demonstrated his presidency could pose a genuine "threat to the Amazon". "The protection of the Amazon always relies on strong laws and rules," Thiago de Aragao, a director at the Brasilia-based political consultancy Arko Advice, told Al Jazeera. "So definitely he [Bolsonaro] could be a threat in the sense that he could create a trend that the mindset of protecting the Amazon might not be the number one priority among certain individuals within the government," de Aragao added. The rhetoric of Bolsonaro's administration has left many environmentalists deeply concerned for the preservation of the Amazon under his government. Within 24 hours of taking office on January 1, the Brazilian leader signed an executive order making Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture responsible for the regulation and creation of new indigenous reserves, in a move widely seen as a boost for the country's powerful agribusiness lobby. About 13 percent of Brazil's national territory is demarcated as indigenous land - defined as an area inhabited and exclusively possessed by indigenous people. Approximately 98 percent of such areas are located in the Amazon, an ecosystem considered by environmental scientists as a crucial buffer against the impacts of climate change. The temporary decree, which will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress, also moved the Brazilian Forestry Service, which promotes the sustainable use of forests and is currently linked to the Ministry of the Environment, under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture, according to Reuters. Additionally, the order stated that the Ministry of Agriculture will be in charge of the management of public forests. A close ally of the agribusiness lobby, Bolsonaro pledged during his election campaign to "end all activism" in Brazil. On Monday, he announced that funding of all nongovernmental organisations working in the country will be rigidly controlled, reflecting increased oversight by his new administration over such groups.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/brazil-environmental-chief-resigns-criticism-190107161353404.html

2019-01-07 19:51:10+00:00

environment

environmental politics

aljazeera--2019-01-27--Environmentalist on mission to preserve island nation Vanuatu

aljazeera

Environmentalist on mission to preserve island nation Vanuatu

The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has a long history of community matters being settled by tribal village chiefs - usually men. But for the first time, a woman, Leimalu Tapesi, has been anointed the chairperson of a village tribal council on the island of Moso. As part of her plans to transform village life, Tapesi is applying a strict environmentalist agenda which includes a marine park and cracking down on illegal logging.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/environmentalist-mission-preserve-island-nation-vanuatu-190127120609913.html

2019-01-27 12:06:09+00:00

environment

environmental politics

aljazeera--2019-01-31--Mining vs the environment The battle over Armenias Amulsar gold mine

aljazeera

Mining vs the environment: The battle over Armenia's Amulsar gold mine

A four-hour drive south of Yerevan, Armenia's bustling capital, takes you to the remote Vayots Dzor province, a rugged mountainous region whose inhabitants are proving to be every bit as tough as their environment. For the last six months, environmental activists and locals from adjacent villages and Jermuk, the only notable town for kilometres around, have been laying siege to a gold mine here, preventing the owners, Anglo-American firm Lydian International, from getting in and working the project up to full production. It is now mid-winter, and at an altitude of 10,000 feet, millions of dollars' worth of trucks and machinery sit idle and frozen around the spectacular snowy summit of a mountain called Amulsar. This is where gold was discovered 10 years ago, and we are the first journalists granted access to the site since the blockade began. Before leaving Yerevan we'd met with Hayk Aloyan, Lydian Armenia's managing director. He was eager to explain the mine's significance and why the company want to develop it. "During the last 14 years we have invested about $500m," he said. "This project is very important for the economy of Armenia. We designed it in a way to be environmentally safe ... there are no issues with water, no issues with the health of the community." He then spelled out what the blockade was costing Lydian, "It's been about $100,000 [a day], but now it's more because we lost key people, professionals. We had to terminate 1,270 contracts." That seems to matter little to the mine's opponents who have been running the blockade via a network of small camps around the mountain. At any moment, they say they can call on some 6,000 people if needed - quite a claim given the remoteness of the location. We arrived to see one group just as they were opening a bottle of sparkling Armenian wine. Mkrtchyan Knyaz, a grizzled bear of a man, was celebrating his birthday. "I am turning 60 years today," he told us, gesturing to the peak behind him, "and I'm ready to spend another 60 years supporting Amulsar. We will not allow her to be exploited." Gagik Margaryan, a veteran from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, explained why he had come to the blockade. "Our community mostly does farming, agriculture and gardening, and we all know perfectly well we can't carry on if the mine starts to work." There were others here too, we discovered; tourist industry workers and villagers simply fearful that their lives will change if the mine goes into production. But all of them seem hardy and committed, determined to fight to the end. Hostility to mining in Armenia is perhaps understandable. The country has a long history of environmental disasters relating to the industry come-and-go projects that, its detractors told us, had enriched a few but from which little or no benefits trickled down to local communities other than some transitory employment. Instead, time after time, they have been left with land contaminated by toxic mine residue - left over heavy metals and poisons such as lead and arsenic. In a country so dependent on agriculture, this kind of pollution has become a critical and very controversial issue. According to Gagik Avagyan of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, "Armenia has got only problems because of these mines. There are hugely corrupt scams, huge crimes. Like most developing countries only the elite have been profiting." Irina Ghaplanyan, Armenia's First Deputy Minister of Nature Protection, agrees saying: "Lax legislation and very low fines on pollution led to an explosion of the mining industry … it's my personal belief and opinion that the mining sector is not good for Armenia." Ghaplanyan is part of a new generation of politicians swept to office during the velvet revolution last summer when journalist-turned-politician, Nikol Pashinyan, began a long march to the capital from the west of the country, promising to end the endemic corruption and economic mismanagement that has dogged Armenia for decades. By the time he reached Yerevan his support had grown to many hundreds of thousands. The country came to a standstill as peaceful protesters defied ominous threats from the authorities and, incredibly, Pashinyan was eventually able to assume the role of prime minister without a shot being fired. He consolidated this in a snap election in December 2018 when he won over 70 percent of the vote and a mandate for change. Now, among the many pressing issues on his desk, is the question of what to do about the Amulsar mine. Backed by the previous administration, it is currently on hold while Pashinyan ponders whether to let it go ahead. That is not a straightforward question. For all the dreadful environmental problems mining has brought Armenia in the past, the country's battered economy is in dire need of the foreign investment and jobs that, properly run and managed, the industry could bring in. Nevertheless, in the wake of the velvet revolution - and drawing inspiration directly from it - the protesters at Amulsar began their blockade in the hope the new government would take notice. A few days before December's poll, Pashinyan travelled to the region to speak to the protesters and, though still outwardly noncommittal about what decision he will take, he dropped some reassuring clues when he told them he would always put the country's environment first. He made similar hints during a speech at his next stop, at the spa town of Jermuk, which is just 9 miles from the mine site. The remarks were warmly received; this is Armenia's Baden-Baden and famous for its mineral water, sold all over the Caucuses. Should any toxic discharge from the mine contaminate these precious aquifers, locals say it would be a catastrophe for the town. Others told us there is an even bigger potential threat from the mine, that it could have a serious negative effect on Lake Sevan, the largest body of water in the whole of the Caucasus, holding some 25 percent of Armenia's fresh water. It was to this extraordinary place we headed next. We had arranged to meet Levon Hkopyan, captain of a Soviet-era research vessel that monitors the lake. "I was born on its banks," he told us. "Since my youth, I've been proud of the lake and I am still proud that I work on it, and live next to it. But we must do our best to keep it clean, transparent - to keep it the way it's always been. In my childhood, I drank this water. We drank it and washed with it at home. So there is no life for us without the lake." At an altitude of 6,000 feet, Lake Sevan is a unique biosphere that attracts scientists from around the world. But Sevan is connected to the nearby Kechut reservoir by a tunnel which has been used since communist times to regulate the water level of the lake. In turn the Kechut reservoir is less than three miles (1.61km) from Amulsar. Inevitably there's concern about whether any toxic discharge from the mine could also threaten Lake Sevan. Artur Grigoryan, Armenia's Mining Inspectorate chief, admitted to being worried about the risk. "Based on current documentation, no one really knows." he told us. There was one last place to go. The remote and breathtakingly beautiful mountain ranges of the Southern Caucasus provides refuge for several endangered animal species. These include the world's rarest big cat, the Caucasian Leopard, of which there are only thought to be 10 left in Armenia. Alexander Malkhasyan, a specialist at the World Wildlife Fund, probably knows as much about this beautiful if reclusive predator as anyone, having spent much of the last two decades charting its fight for survival. He agreed to take us to a secluded spot high in the mountains used by the leopard. "Now we're at the area with rocks and canyons which are essential for the habitat of leopards. There are a lot of wild goats here that are the main prey of leopards," he told us. As he spoke he surveyed the rugged landscape through his binoculars. "Moreover there are badgers, hares, beech martens, a lot of rock ptarmigans, partridges here. That's the landscape which is inherent for leopards in Armenia." Malkhasyan set up a trail camera and we left. It has been 19 years since he has actually seen a leopard but his cameras have captured pictures of the animal on several occasions, which gives some grounds for optimism. When we returned to Yerevan we met with Malkhayan's boss, Karen Manvelyan, Head of WWF Armenia. He showed us a map and explained that there are only two migratory corridors for the leopard in Armenia and that the Amulsar mine is slap bang in the middle of one of them. "It comes from this area and goes like this," he said, tracing the route with his finger, "and you see mountains here - it's very important for migration of leopard and Amulsar connects both these ranges. This leopard is the last biggest cat of Europe and we should protect it." From farming community protesters determined to protect their way of life, to people concerned about the potential of water contamination, to environmentalists desperate to preserve the unique habitat of one of the world's most endangered species (let alone government ministers openly critical about the damage caused by past industrial pollution), it doesn't seem like the vast mining project at Amulsar has many fans in Armenia. But the lure of foreign investment is bound to be strong in a country whose battered economy is in dire need of a boost. Which way Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will go, is an intriguing but as-yet unanswered question.

https://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/europe/2019/01/mining-environment-battle-armenia-amulsar-gold-190130135537637.html

2019-01-31 06:51:58+00:00

environment

environmental politics

aljazeera--2019-03-20--Qatar UAE nuclear plant threat to Gulf stability environment

aljazeera

Qatar: UAE nuclear plant threat to Gulf stability, environment

Qatar has said a nuclear plant under construction in the UAE poses a serious threat to regional stability and the environment. In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), seen by the Reuters news agency on Wednesday, Qatar also called the Vienna-based organisation to create a framework for nuclear security in the Gulf. Relations between Qatar and its neighbour are already strained after the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain severed diplomatic, trade and transport ties with the government in Doha in June 2017. The breach came over allegations that Qatar supports "terrorism", a charge the country denies. In its letter, Qatar said that a radioactive plume from an accidental discharge could reach its capital in five to 13 hours and a radiation leak would have a devastating effect on the region's water supply because of its reliance on desalination plants. The contested Barakah nuclear power plant is located in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. "Qatar believes that the lack of any international cooperation with neighbouring states regarding disaster planning, health and safety and the protection of the environment pose a serious threat to the stability of the region and its environment," said the letter from Qatar's foreign affairs ministry to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. Qatar also said that the technology is relatively untested as there is only one other commercial reactor of this type in operation, in South Korea. The UAE said on Wednesday that its nuclear energy programme conforms to IAEA standards and international best practices. "The United Arab Emirates ... adheres to its commitment to the highest standards of nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation," Hamad al-Kaabi, the UAE's permanent representative to the IAEA, said in a statement to Reuters. He added that the Barakah plant, which was originally set to come online in 2017, was now expected to begin operations by 2020. Qatar said regional concerns about nuclear safety will be amplified when the Saudi Arabian civil nuclear programme is launched. The kingdom is considering building 17.6 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity by 2032, the equivalent of about 17 reactors, making it one of the biggest projects globally. There was no immediate comment by the IAEA.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/qatar-uae-nuclear-plant-threat-gulf-stability-environment-190320184348584.html

2019-03-20 19:53:00+00:00

environment

environmental politics

bbc--2019-10-14--Queen's Speech: New laws on crime, health and the environment

bbc

Queen's Speech: New laws on crime, health and the environment

Boris Johnson's government has set out "ambitious" policies on crime, health, the environment and Brexit in a Queen's Speech that opposition parties have dismissed as an "election manifesto". Plans for tougher sentences for violent offenders and legal targets for cutting plastic pollution are among 26 bills set out at Parliament's State Opening. The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said it was a "long shopping list". But with the PM having no majority, many of the bills may not become law. Our political editor said the PM was keen to focus on "bread and butter issues" like investment in schools and the NHS, or coming up with, at long last, a new way of funding care for the elderly. But she said there was no guarantee the legislative programme would be approved by Parliament. If MPs reject it, it will trigger renewed calls for a generl election. During a debate in the Commons later on Monday, Mr Johnson said his plans offered "a new age of opportunity for the whole country". But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the speech was "a propaganda exercise", adding: "The prime minister promised that this Queen's Speech would dazzle us. On closer inspection, it is nothing more than fool's gold." MPs will be able to debate the Queen's speech for a further five days, with a different theme for each of them, including the NHS and the economy. • All the pomp - but very bizarre circumstances • Bill by bill - what does Boris Johnson want to do? • Why didn't the Queen wear her crown? Despite continuing Brexit uncertainty, the government has said it is determined to press ahead with its plans, announcing its intention to hold a Budget on 6 November. Negotiations over the UK's departure, with Mr Johnson trying to secure an agreement that will enable the country to leave by 31 October. The government says if it can strike a deal with the EU, it will introduce a withdrawal agreement bill and aim to secure its passage through Parliament before the Halloween deadline. The Queen's Speech is famous for its pageantry - with the monarch arriving at the Palace of Westminster in a carriage procession and delivering her speech from the throne in the House of Lords, flanked by the Prince of Wales. Mr Johnson said his government was focused on "seizing the opportunities that Brexit present". • Seven pieces of Brexit-related legislation, including measures to establish new regulatory frameworks for fishing, farming, trade and financial services, and a bill to end freedom of movement and bring in a points-based immigration system from 2021. • Seven criminal justice bills, including measures that will increase sentences for about 3,000 serious or violent criminals by ending automatic release at the half-way point, tougher penalties for foreign national offenders who try to return to the UK after being deported, and greater protection for police officers. Domestic violence legislation will also be carried over from the last session. • Plans for an independent NHS investigations body with legal powers - the Health Service Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) - to look into "serious healthcare incidents", and a pledge to update the Mental Health Act to reduce the number of detentions. • An environment bill to "enshrine principles in law" and set legally binding "improvement targets" to reduce plastics, cut air pollution, restore biodiversity and improve water quality. A separate animal welfare bill to outlaw trophy hunting. • Proposed reforms to the divorce laws to minimise the impact of family breakdown on children, and changes in employment law to require restaurants and cafes to give waiting staff "all tips" owed to them. There is also a commitment to reform adult social care in England, although no legislation planned at this stage. New measures will also be brought forward to tackle electoral fraud, including requiring people to show an approved form of ID before voting in general and local elections. A shake-up of the rail franchising system in England is also being proposed to improve service reliability, reduce "fragmentation" and introduce a "greater distance" between ministers and the day-to-day running of the network. • Law and order - what has the PM promised? • Could there be an early general election? Mr Johnson said the programme, which includes four bills carried over from the last session, demonstrated Brexit was not the limit of the government's ambitions. He told the Commons: "At the heart of this speech is an ambitious programme to unite this country with energy, optimism and with the basic common sense of one-nation Conservatism." But Mr Corbyn criticised a number of the proposals, saying mental health care was "getting worse and worse", social care proposals "offered the same promise after two years of inaction and failure", and plans for education were "shockingly weak". He told MPs: "There has never been such a farce of a government with a majority of minus 45 and a 100% record of defeat in the House of Commons, setting out a legislative agenda they know cannot be delivered in this Parliament." The SNP's Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, focused his criticism on the PM's plans for Brexit, saying the UK had "entered very dark days". He said the EU was "the greatest example of political co-operation and peace - leaving behind the scars of war, the pain of loss, and instead choosing to take the hand of friendship across this continent" and to leave would be a "tragedy". Former Tory cabinet minister Dominic Grieve, who now sits as an independent after rebelling over Brexit, said the PM would find it "very difficult" to govern until Brexit was resolved. That was a very long shopping list of things, but the unsaid reality, of course, is that the biggest question hanging over it all is Brexit. The Queen may have said the government's priority is to leave on 31 October, but there's no way anyone in this square mile can be sure that happens. Whether it happens - and how it happens - is a much bigger influence than anything we've just heard being said. In many ways, it's a Queen's Speech from a parallel universe - one in which Boris Johnson gets his way. Where he definitely gets his deal with Brussels by the end of this week, he definitely gets it through Parliament on Saturday and definitely gets all the Brexit legislation passed. It's also a world in which he definitely gets the general election he wants in the next few weeks and then definitely gets a Conservative majority. We shouldn't dismiss this speech - it does mean something, but what it means is this is what we are likely to see as the basis for a Conservative manifesto whenever that election does come.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50039587

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 18:46:38 GMT

environment

environmental politics

aljazeera--2019-10-11--Ecuador emergency: Protesters infuriated by killings

aljazeera

Ecuador emergency: Protesters infuriated by killings

A large crowd in Ecuador has held a funeral for one of the protesters killed in days of violent demonstrations in the country. At least five people have been killed in Ecuador following a week of violent protests. President Lenin Moreno has imposed austerity measures and cut fuel subsidies which caused petrol prices to double overnight. But Moreno who has moved government operations out of Quito since the protests began has said he will not step down.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/ecuador-emergency-protesters-infuriated-killings-191011142024546.html

Fri, 11 Oct 2019 14:20:24 GMT

environment

environmental pollution

aljazeera--2019-10-17--Environmental groups warn banks over Saudi Aramco: Report

aljazeera

Environmental groups warn banks over Saudi Aramco: Report

At least eight environmental groups have warned banks that are connected to Saudi Aramco's planned market float that they run the risk of financing the destruction of the planet by supporting the public listing of the world's biggest oil producer, a report in the Guardian revealed. The green groups, which include Friends of the Earth and Oil Change International, sent a letter to the chief executives of banks that the listing would undercut efforts to decrease emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The groups warned that the stock market launch would be "the biggest single infusion of capital into the fossil fuel industry" since the agreement was signed. The letter from the green groups also criticised the banks' willingness to help raise billions of dollars for Saudi Arabia "given the horrendous human rights record of the Saudi regime". "Recent examples of this include the role of Saudi agents in the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, and the involvement of Saudi forces in indiscriminate air strikes on civilians in Yemen," the letter said. Aramco has said it plans to float around five percent of the state-owned company in 2020 or 2021 in what could potentially be the world's biggest stock sale. The mammoth initial public offering (IPO) forms the cornerstone of a reform programme envisaged by the kingdom's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to wean the Saudi economy off its reliance on oil. It aims to raise up to $100bn based on a $2 trillion valuation of the company, but investors have debated whether Aramco is worth that much and there have been repeated delays in the launch originally envisaged for 2018.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/environmental-groups-warn-banks-saudi-aramco-report-191017081922669.html

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 11:15:41 GMT

environment

environmental pollution

aljazeera--2019-11-01--Sierra Leone resumes timber exports, worrying environmentalists

aljazeera

Sierra Leone resumes timber exports, worrying environmentalists

The government of Sierra Leone is resuming timber exports in an effort to counter falling revenue from mining. But environment activists are concerned it could erase gains made over the last 10 years to regrow the country's forests.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/sierra-leone-resumes-timber-exports-worrying-environmentalists-191101120301371.html

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 12:03:01 GMT

environment

environmental pollution

aljazeera--2019-12-28--Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva: Fight for climate justice

aljazeera

Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva: Fight for climate justice

The environmentalist says climate change is the result of irresponsible actors, particularly the fossil fuel industry. The protest movement calling for action on climate change gained momentum this year with millions taking to the streets across the world demanding that governments do more to fix the crisis. Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg gained widespread attention for her "you have stolen my childhood" speech at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit in September. The environmental protest movement Extinction Rebellion launched dramatic protests in the United Kingdom and across the world. India's capital New Delhi made headlines after its pollution levels became so bad that the city announced a public health emergency and closed schools. The European Union meanwhile declared a global "climate and environmental emergency". The UN released multiple reports warning of the dangers of climate change. While in the United States, the climate crisis emerged as one of the issues among Democratic presidential hopefuls. Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva has spent her career taking on multinationals as part of her fight to preserve the planet. Originally trained as a physicist, she has written more than 20 books and served as an adviser to both NGOs and the Indian government. She says climate change is the result of irresponsible actors, particularly the fossil fuel industry. "So, I would say the problem is chemical industrial fossil fuel-based farming, and the solution is ecological biodiverse farming, in the hands of small farmers," Shiva said. "I think we have to reduce the infrastructure that was built for the fossil fuel empire. We've got to learn how to have better lives with a lower ecological footprint," she added. Shiva also says there needs to be a global conservation goal. "We [do] need a Green New Deal with the earth, remembering that the earth is alive, and we have to work with her laws and processes to protect her species diversity, avoid the sixth mass extinction, and avoid climate catastrophe," Shiva said. On UpFront, we discuss the fight for climate justice with Vandana Shiva.

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2019/12/indian-environmentalist-vandana-shiva-fight-climate-justice-191228004940555.html

Sat, 28 Dec 2019 12:06:12 GMT

environment

environmental pollution

bbc--2019-03-24--We expect hostile environment in Montenegro - Southgate

bbc

We expect hostile environment in Montenegro - Southgate

England's young players need to be prepared for a "hostile environment" when they take on Montenegro in their Euro 2020 qualifier in Podgorica on Monday, says manager Gareth Southgate. When England played in the city in 2013, players were verbally abused and targeted with missiles. "That is the sort of challenge our players have faced many times before," Southgate said. England beat the Czech Republic 5-0 in their opening Euro qualifier on Friday. "I know the passion the supporters have for their country and of course that gives a huge lift to their own team," Southgate added. "We have to make sure our discipline is right and we focus on what we can affect. "We are guests here, so we will be very respectful about how we speak about the opposition. Our players have to be prepared for hostile environments, whether it is in England for their clubs or travelling around the world." Southgate fielded a young team against the Czech Republic - handing a first competitive start to 18-year-old Jadon Sancho and debuts to Callum Hudson-Odoi, also 18, and Declan Rice, 20. But they were impressive in their opener and top Group A after Montenegro drew 1-1 against Bulgaria. Asked whether he would consider putting out a more experienced side in the circumstances, Southgate said: "I have no hesitation in playing them [the young players]. This is part of their education and to be a top team we have got to adapt to every environment we go into. "Playing at Wembley is always going to be a different sort of experience to going away from home but the only way they can learn and improve is to go through these experiences. "Kyle Walker has been before and he is the only player in the squad who had, so he was able to speak about that. We talked about that in the past there have been flares on the pitch here, and how that should be approached. You build a picture of what they can expect, so it's not a surprise if it happens." Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling scored a hat-trick in the 5-0 win over the Czechs on Friday and Southgate later revealed the 24-year-old had been added to a strong 'leadership group' within the England squad, set up by the manager before the World Cup last summer. "When we started working with the team, I felt there was a lot of burden on one captain and you need other people to take the lead in different moments," Southgate told BBC Radio 5 Live. "Raheem's development as a person over the last year or so made him an absolute ideal person to come into that group. He is behind Jordan Henderson as our most capped player, so it's a no brainer really to involve him. "I think he has enjoyed that responsibility, and whenever you speak to any of the young players that arrive, he's one of the first people they mention that has helped them settle into the camp. They are really important qualities." Southgate said Sterling "definitely has the attributes" to captain England one day and could follow in the footsteps of Eric Dier, Fabian Delph, Henderson and Harry Kane. "Anyone in that leadership group would be in there because we view whether they could captain the team. In our recent fixtures the rest of that group have all done it. So he immediately becomes a candidate in that group." Southgate could name a similar starting line-up against Montenegro but will be without midfielder Dier after he picked up a muscle injury 13 minutes into Friday's win. He was replaced by Ross Barkley, who could be given a start in Montenegro - although Friday's debutant Rice is also an option. Southgate will also check on the fitness of Jordan Henderson, who has a minor ankle problem, and Sancho after he complained of some muscle tightness after excelling in that 5-0 win. If fit to start, Liverpool midfielder Henderson would be making his 50th appearance for England. "I'm proud to play for my country but the type of person I am, I'll not really think about it too much," said Henderson. "Maybe I'll think about it when I finish my career but at the moment I just want to concentrate on doing the best for my team." Southgate said it would be a "great honour" for Henderson to pick up his 50th cap because he joins a group of only 59 players to have achieved the feat. "It requires huge commitment to play for England and on a personal level I think Jordan's qualities as a player have been under-appreciated at times," said Southgate. "He is so important for us, and has been for the last couple of managers." "Everybody values his winning mentality. Good players make other players play well. It's not just about your performance but the impact you have on others and Jordan is a leader." "England were already one of the favourites to qualify directly for Euro 2020 before Friday's 5-0 win against main group rivals the Czech Republic. England are now estimated to have a 96% chance of finishing in the top two of Group A."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47606892

2019-03-24 23:10:01+00:00

environment

environmental pollution

bbcuk--2019-09-17--Are cities as bad for the environment as we think

bbcuk

Are cities as bad for the environment as we think?

Our cities are increasingly under scrutiny over their impact on climate change. But in terms of carbon dioxide - one of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming - could life away from the UK's big towns be doing more damage? According to the most recent government statistics, the UK's 63 largest towns and cities - defined here as built-up urban areas with 135,000 or more people - account for almost half of all of the country's carbon dioxide (or CO2) emissions. London alone makes up 11% of the total. But are these headline stats masking a more nuanced picture about the role of cities as contributors to climate change? If we look at carbon emissions on a per resident basis, it could be that life in smaller towns, villages and the countryside has a greater impact. The European Commission calculates UK emissions at 5.7 tonnes per person. That ranks the UK as one of the lowest carbon emitters per person among major economies. The US produces 15.7 tonnes per resident, while China - despite being the world's largest CO2 polluter - emits a mid-range 7.7 tonnes per person. UK government statistics for 2017 place the average slightly lower, at 5.3 tonnes per head. All but 10 of our 63 largest towns and cities emit below that average, with Ipswich coming out as the greenest major town in the UK from a climate perspective. It emits three tonnes of CO2 for every resident. Even London, despite valid worries about air quality, has the ninth-lowest carbon emissions per resident at 3.6 tonnes per person. Meanwhile, energy-intensive steel and chemicals industries contribute to the Swansea area - including Neath Port Talbot - and Middlesbrough (combined with Stockton, and Redcar and Cleveland) having the highest carbon emissions per person in the UK, at 22.4 and 12.1 tonnes per head respectively. Examining the sources of carbon emissions helps us understand why cities produce comparatively little CO2. Though the differences are not huge, on average, homes in large towns emit slightly less CO2 per person than their more rural counterparts. They tend to be smaller, denser and easier to heat. Twelve of the 20 local authorities with the lowest domestic CO2 emissions per person are London boroughs, with Tower Hamlets - which has the second smallest homes of any authority in England and Wales - emitting the least. One of the biggest differences in carbon emissions comes from transport, with CO2 emissions per head 66% higher away from cities. This is probably because more people drive private cars and make longer journeys for work and leisure. Just 20% of British city dwellers travel more than 10km (6.2 miles) to work according to the latest Census, compared with a third of those who live away from major towns. Clearly, a lack of comprehensive public transport outside cities is a major factor. Another significant difference is that economic activity in major towns tends to be more office and service-based, with manufacturing plants largely outside the boundaries of areas classed as cities. For more on the UK's efforts to tackle CO2 emissions, download the BBC Briefing on energy. Part of a mini-series of downloadable guides to the big issues in the news, it has input from academics, researchers and journalists and is the BBC's response to demands for better explanation of the facts behind the headlines. As well as being lower emitters per resident, cities are also decarbonising at a faster rate, cutting carbon emissions by 36% between 2005 and 2017, against 31% for other areas. Although it remains a big polluter, the area around Middlesbrough has seen the biggest fall in emissions - 64% since 2011. This is linked to economic changes, with the closure of its major steelworks likely to have brought down overall emissions. In contrast, industrial emissions in Slough rose between 2005 and 2017, as a likely result of changes to its local economy. Providing high-quality job opportunities while keeping a lid on greenhouse gas production will be a difficult challenge for cities in the future. However, cities cannot be judged by measuring CO2 alone. While emissions from industrial sources fell by 48%, and domestic sources by 36%, the reduction in emissions from transport lagged at just 11%. This has implications for another major environmental concern of our age: air quality. Transport on UK roads accounts for 32% of all nitrogen oxides, for example, which are linked to respiratory diseases, heart disease and lung cancer, according to 2017 figures. Of all roads that breach legal limits for nitrogen oxides, 88% are in cities. More like this Exhaust fumes in cities, where traffic volumes are highest, are trapped in by tall buildings. This also causes nitrous oxides to build up, resulting in air quality that is much poorer than it is in more rural areas. So far only London has taken the concrete step of introducing an Ultra Low Emissions Zone to penalise polluting vehicles in a bid to clear its air. Other cities will need to confirm and implement similar clean air plans if they are to both improve the air that their workers and residents breathe, and continue the fight against climate change. While carbon dioxide is a key focus of climate change policy, it is far from the only pollutant affecting cities. Others include: * The Centre for Cities' measure combines some authorities into one city area. For example, Swansea includes neighbouring Neath Port Talbot. See the full list. This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation. Paul Swinney is director of policy and research at Centre for Cities, a think tank dedicated to improving the performance of UK city economies. You can follow him on Twitter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49639003

2019-09-17 21:10:37+00:00

environment

environmental pollution

channel4uk--2019-01-03--Environment secretary Gove warns farmers of turbulence in the event of no deal

channel4uk

Environment secretary Gove warns farmers of ‘turbulence’ in the event of no deal

Environment secretary Michael Gove warns farmers that a no-deal Brexit could have severe implications for the agriculture industry. Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union, warns that a lack of agreement on Brexit may spell uncertainty for Britain’s farmers, ahead of a parliamentary vote on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal in two weeks. Theresa May will need to win back at least 100 conservative MPs – as well as the DUP – to get it through.

Michael Crick

https://www.channel4.com/news/environment-secretary-gove-warns-farmers-of-turbulence-in-the-event-of-no-deal

2019-01-03 20:38:25+00:00

environment

environmental pollution

channel4uk--2019-11-29--How the country’s top environmentalists would tackle climate crisis

channel4uk

How the country’s top environmentalists would tackle climate crisis

Sir David Attenborough has told this programme he believes that climate change will mean that the latest generation of young children are likely to see civil unrest, mass migration and a lack of choice in the food they eat. The broadcaster and natural historian also said it was shameful that the Conservative leader Boris Johnson didn’t take part in last night’s climate emergency leaders’ debate on Channel 4. The Conservatives have accused Channel 4 News of a “provocative partisan stunt” over the decision to “empty chair” Boris Johnson after he declined to take part. But some of the country’s biggest environmental groups were there – in the spin room after the debate – with their own proposals on how to tackle the crisis.

Alex Thomson

https://www.channel4.com/news/how-the-countrys-top-environmentalists-would-tackle-climate-crisis

Fri, 29 Nov 2019 19:25:12 +0000

environment

environmental pollution

channel4uk--2019-12-26--Are environmental concerns killing off Boxing Day shopping?

channel4uk

Are environmental concerns killing off Boxing Day shopping?

Shoppers have braved the wet weather to grab a Boxing Day bargain, with total sales today expected to hit around £4 billion across the country. But there are signs that concerns over the impact that fast fashion is having on the environment is putting some consumers off – as Chris Cunningham reports.

Channel 4 News

https://www.channel4.com/news/are-environmental-concerns-killing-off-boxing-day-shopping

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 16:57:24 +0000

environment

environmental pollution

chicagotribune--2019-11-25--‘Dark Waters’ review: Mark Ruffalo mesmerizing as lawyer who won’t let DuPont get away with environm

chicagotribune

‘Dark Waters’ review: Mark Ruffalo mesmerizing as lawyer who won’t let DuPont get away with environmental damage

He gets more than he bargained for. A man on fire with the justness of his cause and livid that no one is paying attention, Tennant has both physical evidence and videotape recordings of the horrors that have been visited on his herd of cattle, 190 of which he has buried.

Kenneth Turan

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/sc-mov-dark-waters-rev-1125-20191125-np6jypvgprggdcshyqgixo3d5e-story.html

Mon, 25 Nov 2019 08:00:38 PST

environment

environmental pollution

delawareliberal--2019-07-23--What is flesh eating bacteria

delawareliberal

What is flesh eating bacteria?

What we call flesh-eating bacteria is really a disease called Necrotizing fasciitis. (NF). (The bacteria itself is frequently  Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) but other flesh-eating bacterias are out there such as Vibrio vulnificus which has been found in Delaware’s waters just waiting for you to ignore your next underwater cut or scrape). Whatever the strain, this shit means business.  The bacteria causes an infection that results in the death of parts of the body’s soft tissue.  The severity of the disease, the sudden onset of symptoms, and its 30% fatality rate give it its fierce reputation. Do you have Necrotizing fasciitis right now? No, you don’t because if you did you’d have red or purple skin in the arm or leg that picked up a cut at the wrong time.  You’d be in severe pain, running a fever and vomiting.  If you cut your foot yesterday, Doctors would be preparing to remove your leg at the knee tonight.   I mean if you are reading this, you don’t have it yet but probably will have it if you swim or work in Delaware’s bays. How do you get Necrotizing fasciitis? Typically, the infection enters the body through a break in the skin such as a cut or burn.  You can increase your risk of contracting it by having a degraded immune system, from diabetes, cancer, obesity or alcoholism or drug abuse.  But you can’t catch it from your infected family member.  Not unless you work at it for some reason, rubbing your wounds on theirs.   YUCK! How do you NOT get Necrotizing fasciitis? You could move to a planet that isn’t under attack from late-stage capitalism.  That would be a good start.  Or, if you don’t have the money for a spaceship, but you have a robust immune system, you can lower your risk with proper wound care.   But even proper wound care isn’t foolproof.  Typically it is treated with surgery to remove the infected tissue, and intravenous antibiotics.  Because we are talking about super-bacteria, a combination of antibiotics is often used, such as penicillin G, clindamycin, vancomycin, and gentamicin. Delays in surgery are associated with a much higher risk of death. Even with high-quality treatment, the risk of death is about 30%. Ed Note:  This was taken almost entirely from Wikipedia because I was curious and thought you might be too.

jason330

https://delawareliberal.net/2019/07/23/what-is-flesh-eating-bacteria/

2019-07-23 18:06:24+00:00

environment

nature

bbc--2019-08-29--What about the animals caught in the Amazon rainforest fires

bbc

What about the animals caught in the Amazon rainforest fires?

It's believed about three million different species of plant and animal - one in 10 of all the species in the world - live in the Amazon. This has been the worst year for Amazon fires since 2010. At the time of writing, Brazil's space agency Inpe reports that there have been almost 85,000 fires in the rainforest so far. So what does this mean for the many animals who call the Amazon home? Some animals may be able to escape. Large mammals, such as jaguars, stand the best chance of getting away because they are able to run fast enough to get away from the fire in time. But many other animals will be killed almost straight away. Dr Claudio Sillero, professor of conservation biology at the University of Oxford, tells BBC News that he's particularly concerned about the smaller creatures in the forest: "They don't stand a hope in hell." "Different groups of animals will fare differently," he says. "But we really need to worry [about] amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates. They live in microhabitats, and if these microhabitats get hit by fire then they will disappear completely, and these animals will die." Their offspring are at risk too: "Their eggs also need to be kept damp - but [in fire] the eggs will be quickly cooked." This, he adds, could cause some species to go extinct. Then there are the Amazon's many small and slow mammals, such as the sloth. Dr Sillero says these animals "tend to panic in the presence of fire, and are more likely to suffer direct mortalities". Birds face similar risks, he adds. While individual birds may be able to fly away and find safety, to do so they will need to abandon their chicks and eggs. Paul Rosolie, an American author and conservationist, has seen this first-hand. Last week, he posted footage on Twitter that he had taken of fires in the Amazon while working in the forest in July. "What's horrible is, and people don't realise, that all these animals are being cooked alive," he tells BBC News. "Baby birds in their nests, snakes, frogs... the monkeys go running for it, but this is the only place these animals have to live." Fleeing the fire is the first step - and as Dr Alex Lees from Manchester Metropolitan University tells BBC News, these animals' chances of survival remain bleak. Straight after a fire, he says, "once the area's burned, it's useless for many species". "It's not like there's necessarily lots of spare space," he says. "Most areas are already at carrying [full] capacity, so they'll need to displace another individual of the same species from their own territory. "That's the major problem here - they can't go somewhere else because those areas are occupied, and they'd be waiting around for a new territory to open up. But they can't re-use their old areas that have been burned." When fires rip through a rainforest like the Amazon, they burn down so many trees that there are holes in the forest's canopy. This means that the environment beneath, which is usually dark and humid, is exposed to the harsh sunlight, and can dry out very quickly. It is then repopulated by new species that usually live on the naturally dry areas on the edge of the forest. This is bad news for animals that rely on the forest's humid, moist environment. Dr Lees, who specialises in bird conservation, gives the example of insectivorous birds who need the ground to be soft and damp in order to be able to stealthily hunt for food. Dry, crunchy leaves on the ground make this impossible for them. He adds that these species are unlikely to be able to return to their home "for decades - probably far in excess of the single life expectancy of any given creature". As well as immediately killing and displacing birds, insects and land mammals, this habitat change will also eventually hit aquatic species, such as the Amazon river dolphin or the rainforest's many different fish. Even though these animals are able to avoid the fires by seeking refuge underwater at first, Dr Mark Bowler, an ecologist at the University of Suffolk, says the rivers and lakes they live in will be altered. "If you burn parts of the forest in order to build a cattle ranch, then aquatic habitats are going to be affected as well," he tells BBC News. "The fish populations and the ecology of the river will change, and that will [also] affect larger animals like the giant otter." Many forest-dependent humans will lose their livelihoods as a result of the fires, too. Dr Rachel Carmenta, an environmental scientist at the University of Cambridge who works with the Amazon's indigenous and mixed-descent communities, tells BBC News that the fires are "a humanitarian problem as well". Many of the animals hunted by these communities, including tortoises and capybaras, are slow-moving and therefore are likely to have died in the fires, she says. Trying to hunt the few remaining animals is almost impossible, as the ground is too noisy for hunters to quietly cross the forest floor. On top of this, the plants they use to build homes and produce medicines would have also been charred. "It's not only about those immediate losses of flora and fauna," she adds, "but also the relationships, the identities, the attachments that people have to their homes and to their landscapes, which are eroded and become unrecognisable as fires pass through." Faced with displacement and starvation, many people's lives are at risk, Dr Carmenta warns. "In the long-run, I don't think that's too strong to say."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49497857

2019-08-29 12:39:49+00:00

environment

nature

eveningstandard--2019-12-27--Nearly 500 million animals killed in Australian bushfires, experts fear

eveningstandard

Nearly 500 million animals killed in Australian bushfires, experts fear

Around 480 million animals are feared to have died in the bushfires sweeping Australia, including nearly a third of the koalas in New South Wales's main habitat. Ecologists at the University of Sydney estimate around 480 million mammals, birds and reptiles have been killed, directly or indirectly, by the devastating blazes since they began in September, The Times reported. This includes almost 8,000 koalas, which are believed to have burnt to death on the state’s mid-north coast. The region, which lies around 240 miles north of Sydney, is home to the largest number of Australia’s koalas, with a population of up to 28,000. Federal environment minister Sussan Ley told ABC "up to 30 per cent of the population in that region" may have been killed, because around 30 per cent of their habitat has been destroyed. “We’ll know more when the fires have calmed down and a proper assessment can be made,” she added. More than 100 fires continue to rage across the country, having so far consumed more than five million hectares of land. Nine people have died and hundreds of homes have been razed to the ground during the unprecedented bushfire season. About four million hectares have been burnt in New South Wales alone. As well as being one of Australia's most populous koala habitats, the mid-north coast region also houses one of the country's main koala hospitals. Dedicated workers at the The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital reportedly treated 72 badly burnt animals on Christmas Day. They were brought in after bushfires destroyed up to three quarters of their habitat, according to the clinical director Cheyne Flanagan. “We have teams on roster for capture if any are in trouble and they are available 24 hours a day,” she told Reuters. A Gofundme page for the hospital has received more than £1.6million ($2million AUD) since September - the largest single amount raised on the site in Australian history, website Newshub reported. According to Mark Graham, an ecologist with the Nature Conservation Council, koalas “have no capacity to move fast enough to get away” from fires that spread from treetop to treetop. “The fires have burnt so hot and so fast that there has been significant mortality of animals in the trees, but there is such a big area now that is still on fire and still burning that we will probably never find the bodies,” Mr Graham told a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry earlier this month. “We’ve lost such a massive swathe of known koala habitat that I think we can say without any doubt there will be ongoing declines in koala populations from this point forward.” The scorched regions include nature reserves in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and parts of the Gondwana rainforests — which have existed since the time of the dinosaurs and are the most extensive area of subtropical rainforest in the world.

Harriet Brewis

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/australian-bushfires-new-south-wales-koalas-sydney-a4322071.html

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 16:04:00 GMT

environment

nature

newsweek--2019-02-07--Chernobyl Wildlife Thriving as Scientists Find Exclusion Zone Full of Animals

newsweek

Chernobyl Wildlife Thriving as Scientists Find Exclusion Zone Full of Animals

The word Chernobyl likely conjures up eerie images of buildings long-abandoned by residents who fled the nuclear fallout. But the area in Ukraine is far from deserted, as evidenced by a study showing how a wide variety of animals, from eagles to otters, live there. After the Chernobyl power plant exploded in 1986, causing what is generally regarded as the worst nuclear disaster in history, humans abandoned an area spanning 1,000 square miles north of Kiev, known as the exclusion zone. Since then, scientists have been fascinated by the animals that might inhabit this desolate pocket of Ukraine bordering Belarus. To study the presence of scavengers specifically, scientists from the University of Georgia tied fish to debris, such as tree branches, in 83 locations along the Pripyat River, and in irrigation canals built by farmers in the early 20th century. The positioning was intended to mirror how fish are naturally transported to the fringes of land by the river. Bait was positioned a minimum of 1,100 yards apart so scavengers didn’t become used to visiting the trial sites. The researchers set up cameras to document the critters that might be lured by the fishy treats. After a week, 98 percent of the carcasses had been taken. The footage showed 10 species of mammals and five birds gorged on the fish: mice, the least weasel, American mink, Eurasian otter, pine marten, raccoon dog, red fox, wolf, Eurasian jay, common magpie, raven, tawny owl and white-tailed eagle. Across the various experiments, mesocarnivores—animals such as foxes, whose diet consists of between 30 to 70 percent meat—were the biggest eaters. The team then examined how the animals at the riverside compared with the animals in canals, as well as how many and how quickly the fish were eaten. This led the researchers to conclude the exclusion zone “supports a highly diverse and efficient vertebrate scavenging community,” they wrote in their study, published in the journal Food Webs. Who ate what depended on the location: For instance, scavengers ate more by rivers because fish were easier to spot there. They explained their findings are important because of the effect scavengers have on the wider food web by linking adjacent ecosystems. In a 2015 study, ecologists showed for the first time that animals such as gray wolves inhabited a region in the area spanning around 1,000 square miles. “We’ve seen evidence of a diversity of wildlife in the CEZ through our previous research, but this is the first time that we’ve seen white-tailed eagles, American mink and river otter on our cameras,” commented James Beasley, co-author of the new study and associate professor at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. “We tend to think of fish and other aquatic animals as staying in the aquatic ecosystem. This research shows us that if a reasonable proportion of dead fish make it to shore, there is an entire group of terrestrial and semi-aquatic species that transfer those aquatic nutrients to the terrestrial landscape,” Beasley said. The scavengers studied by the team aren’t the only animals that wander the exclusion zone. A 2018 report by The Guardian documented the around 300 stray dogs that inhabit the zone. Residents of villages near the disaster were banned from taking their pets with them. Most animals were shot, but some survived, leaving behind a community of canines to fend for itself. As for humans, it remains unknown if they will ever be able to safely return.

https://www.newsweek.com/chernobyl-exclusion-zone-wildlife-thriving-nuclear-1321638?utm_source=Public&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Distribution

2019-02-07 13:12:56+00:00

environment

nature

sottnet--2019-07-03--28 killed by wild animals across Nepal in a year - compared to 17 the year prior

sottnet

28 killed by wild animals across Nepal in a year - compared to 17 the year prior

At least 28 people were killed in wild animal attacks in the current fiscal year. According to the latest record of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), 28 people lost their lives in the animal attacks this year while 17 people were killed last fiscal year.in several National Parks and wildlife and conservation areas and buffer zones in the nation.Twelve people were injured in the attack of elephants, 10 in the rhino attack, one in tiger attack, 32 in bear bounce, 15 in leopard, 19 in wild boar and one in mugger crocodile.Bishnu Prasad Shrestha, undersecretary of DNPWC, said that compensation distribution for the victim's families was delayed this year when compensation distribution responsible body, Regional Forest Directorate, was terminated.The compensation distribution work has begun since January after the cabinet decided to distribute compensation through the reserve area offices, he said.It has provides Rs. 72.04 million compensation in the name of damaged property and human loss by wild animals through the 20 conservation areas offices, Shrestha informed.The offices had distributed Rs. 250 million for the families of each deceased, Rs. 11.5 million to the property losses in the attack of wild animal.Similarly, Rs. 4 million was distributed for the damage of stored grains, Rs. 4 million to the damaged of house and shed, 18.5 million to damage to grain, Rs. 8.7 million to treatment for seriously injured people and Rs. 153,704 to minor injured people treatment.

https://www.sott.net/article/416114-28-killed-by-wild-animals-across-Nepal-in-a-year-compared-to-17-the-year-prior

2019-07-03 12:45:13+00:00

environment

nature

theindependent--2019-05-04--Killing off animals and plants now threatens humanity itself UN experts to warn in urgent call for

theindependent

Killing off animals and plants now threatens humanity itself, UN experts to warn in urgent call for action

The future of humanity is under threat from the widespread destruction of the Earth’s plants and animals by people, leading scientists will warn in a dramatic report. Loss of biodiversity threatens the human race just as much as climate change, the experts believe, with up to a million species facing extinction in the world’s sixth mass die-off. The UN’s global assessment on the state of nature – published on Monday, and the most comprehensive of its kind – is expected to say that without urgent action, the wellbeing of current and future generations of people will be at risk as life-support systems providing food, pollination and clean water collapse. The 1,800-page report will lay out a series of future scenarios based on decisions by governments and other policymakers, and recommend a rescue plan. It is expected to highlight how man-made activity has destroyed nature, such as forests, wetlands and other wild landscapes, damaging Earth’s capacity to renew breathable air, productive soil and drinkable water. “The loss of species, ecosystems and genetic diversity is already a global and generational threat to human wellbeing,” said Sir Robert Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in a paper previewing the report. “Protecting the invaluable contributions of nature to people will be the defining challenge of decades to come. Policies, efforts and actions – at every level – will only succeed, however, when based on the best knowledge and evidence. This is what the IPBES Global Assessment provides.” The report is believed to warn the destruction of nature threatens humanity at least as much as human-induced climate change. One author said the report would highlight the “social and ecological emergency” the world is facing, the BBC reported. Three-quarters of the world’s land surface has been altered, according to leaks of the document. Diplomats from 130 countries are meeting in Paris to launch the report which has been in development for three years and has involved hundreds of experts. Sir Robert told The Guardian: “There is no question we are losing biodiversity at a truly unsustainable rate that will affect human wellbeing both for current and future generations. “We are in trouble if we don’t act, but there are a range of actions that can be taken to protect nature and meet human goals for health and development.” Many species will die out within decades, the scientists are expected to say, while ocean fish are being plundered to the edge of sustainability. The loss of pollinating insects, especially bees, will undermine supplies of food crops, they will warn. Populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have shrunk by 60 per cent in just over 40 years, WWF’s Living Planet Report last year said. “The global assessment report comes at an opportune time when the world is waking up to dual threat of biodiversity loss and climate change,” said Guenter Mitlacher, a biodiversity expert at WWF Germany. “This report will play a pivotal role in informing governments and policymakers of the risks of nature loss for future development of societies and economies.”

Jane Dalton

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/un-nature-biodiversity-report-2019-humans-animals-earth-paris-a8899926.html

2019-05-04 21:21:06+00:00

environment

nature

wakingtimes--2019-07-19--Unprecedented Decline of Plants and Animals as Global Red List Reveals Nearly One-Third of Asses

wakingtimes

‘Unprecedented’ Decline of Plants and Animals as Global ‘Red List’ Reveals Nearly One-Third of Assessed Species Under Threat

Calling on global policymakers to act immediately to preserve biodiversity and save tens of thousands of species from extinction, the group behind the world’s most definitive list of endangered animals and plants has added more than 2,600 threatened species to its annual report. The Red List, published Thursday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), revealed that one third of all species the group has assessed are now under threat due to overfishing, pollution, illegal logging and trafficking, threats to water sources and habitats due to the climate crisis, and other factors, including many human activities. “This update clearly shows how much humans around the world are overexploiting wildlife.” —Dr. Grethel Aguilar, IUCNOf the approximately 9,000 species the IUCN assessed over the past year, the group determined about 2,600 to be endangered, critically endangered, or threatened, bringing the total number of vulnerable species to about 28,000 of the more than 100,000 that have now been studied. “Nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history,” said Jane Smart, global director of the IUCN Biodiversity Conservation Group. “Decisive action is needed at scale to halt this decline; the timing of this assessment is critical as governments are starting to negotiate a new global biodiversity framework for such action.” A quarter of all mammals are threatened with possible extinction, while 40 percent of the world’s amphibians and a third of reefs and corals—which in addition to providing thousands of species with habitats, also protect humans’ habitats by halting the erosion of coastlines—are now endangered. On social media, climate action and conservation advocates decried the “bleak assessment” and wrote that the Red List only bolsters the case for taking immediate action to move toward sustainable energy sources and curb the climate crisis. The updated Red List was released less than a year after the World Wildlife Federation revealed that 60 percent of all animal species have been wiped out since 1970 due to human activity. Plummeting biodiversity observed by scientists has prompted the IUCN to call for the United Nations, at its biodiversity summit planned for next year in China, to move toward bold reforms aimed at curbing fossil fuel emissions which have contributed to the climate crisis and ending other human activities linked to the decline of thousands of species. “Loss of species and climate change are the two great challenges facing humanity this century,” Lee Hannah, a scientist with Conservation International, said. “The Red List addresses both, by letting us know the extinction risk faced by all species, including climate change, in that assessment. The results are clear, we must act now both on biodiversity loss and climate change.” “This update clearly shows how much humans around the world are overexploiting wildlife,” said the IUCN’s acting director, Dr. Grethel Aguilar. Species newly listed as “critically endangered”—the category most disconcerting to scientists after regional extinction and extinction in the wild—include the bleeding toad, the Northern Muriqui, the angelshark, and the Rabb’s fringe-limbed treefrog. The South Asian river dolphin and the tri-spine horseshoe crab were also added as “endangered.” A number of trees, including the formerly-common American elm tree, are now considered endangered. About 90 percent of forest trees native to Madagascar, whose wood is widely used and illegally trafficked around the world, are now threatened with extinction. “The implications for people are that we lose valuable resources such as rosewoods and elms, and we also lose ecosystem resilience, undermining the essential ecosystem services that forests provide,” said Paul Smith, secretary general of Botanic Gardens Conservation International. “It is imperative that we not only halt the loss of tree species diversity but that we restore habitats with a diverse range of tree species where these have already been degraded by human activities.” On the IUCN’s assessment of more than 105,000 species around the world, no endangered or vulnerable animal or plant species was listed as having an improved outlook for its survival.

Phillip

https://www.wakingtimes.com/2019/07/19/unprecedented-decline-of-plants-and-animals-as-global-red-list-reveals-nearly-one-third-of-assessed-species-under-threat/

2019-07-19 15:08:54+00:00

environment

nature

drudgereport--2019-04-16--Fossilized Bacteria in Meteorite From Mars is Proof of Life

drudgereport

Fossilized Bacteria in Meteorite From Mars is 'Proof of Life'...

A second Martian meteorite which shows 'signs of microbial life' has been found, Hungarian researchers say in their report on the latest study, published in Open Astronomy, reigniting 'bacterial' fossils claims made 20 years ago by NASA. The meteorite, officially known as ALH-77005, is claimed to contain 'biosignatures', which researchers describe as textures and features left behind by organisms. READ MORE: Heading to Mars: New NASA Study Notes Gene Mods, Changes in Microbe Experts resorted to advanced imaging techniques that they say revealed microfilaments created by fossilised Martian microbes. MYSTERY as Curiosity-Spotted Methane 'Very Surprisingly Disappeared' From Mars A team of researchers from the Hungarian Academy of Science (HAS) Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences used optical microscopy and infrared technology to study the textures and features of the thin sample of ALH-77005. The Hungarian researchers also examined minerals and other material embedded in the stone, and conducted isotope tests to check for the chemical components essential for life. The studies led them to conclude that the microscopic filaments inside could point to the presence of bacteria which survive by eating iron rust. READ MORE: NASA Photo INDICATES There's LIFE on Mars, Stargazer Claims Back in 1996, NASA scientists claimed they found proof of microbial life in a meteorite from Mars known as ALH 84001, similarly citing the appearance of strands and filaments. The rock was produced four billion years ago on Mars and landed on Earth around 13,000 years ago. 'Very Exciting': Scientists CONFIRM Existence of Possible Life-Sign Gas on Mars At the time, even US president Bill Clinton endorsed the scientists' findings, saying the discovery could offer the 'most stunning insights' into the universe. Clinton said: "Today, rock 84001 speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles. It speaks of the possibility of life. If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered." Scientists at the time said that it was impossible to prove or refute such claims as the markings could have been formed by non-biological processes. Dr Ildiko Gyollai from the Hungarian Academy of Science (HAS) Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences in Budapest led the most recent study. Writing in the paper, its authors said: "Comparing recent results and interpretation with other meteorites, it can be raised, that on these similarities the microbially mediated biosignatures can be proposed microbial mediation by [iron oxidising bacteria] on Mars." The meteorite is claimed to contain 'biosignatures', which researchers describe as textures and features left behind by organisms. The image shows a thin section of ALH-77005 in plane polarised light, with the area studied marked by a brown rectangle, and experts concluding that the microscopic filaments inside could point to the presence of bacteria that survive by eating iron rust.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/P6vPIso-O3E/

2019-04-16 20:13:41+00:00

environment

nature

drudgereport--2019-07-25--STUDY Single Apple Carries 100 Million Bacteria

drudgereport

STUDY: Single Apple Carries 100 Million Bacteria...

GRAZ, Austria — How does the old saying go? “100 million bacteria a day will keep the doctor away?” Sounds about right. A new study reveals that a typical 240g apple contains around 100 million bacteria, mostly in the seeds and skin. While that may sound a bit off-putting at first, researchers say that when it comes to gut health, the more bacteria the better. Additionally, researchers at the Graz University of Technology say that organic apples were found to contain even more diverse bacterial-goodness than conventional apples, potentially making them healthier, tastier, and better for the environment. “The bacteria, fungi and viruses in our food transiently colonize our gut,” explains study senior author Professor Gabriele Berg in a release. “Cooking kills most of these, so raw fruit and veg are particularly important sources of gut microbes.” Berg and her team set out to find the best fruit source for beneficial gut microbes, so they decided to set their sights on one of the most popular fruits all over the world: the apple. “Eighty-three million apples were grown in 2018, and production continues to rise,” Berg says. “But while recent studies have mapped their fungal content, less is known about the bacteria in apples.” CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER & GET THE LATEST STUDIES FROM STUDYFINDS.ORG BY EMAIL! Researchers analyzed and compared the bacteria levels in regular store-bought apples and organic ones. Each apple was broken down and analyzed piece by piece, i.e., stem, peel, seeds, etc. Both types of apples displayed generally the same amount of bacteria — 100 million, mostly in the core of the apple. For example, if you remove the core, a typical apple’s bacteria count drops all the way to a measly 10 million. However, the organic and processed apples differed when it come to variety of bacteria. Organic apples displayed much more diverse communities of bacteria than the regular samples. This is noteworthy because when it comes to gut health, diversity is even more important that quantity. “Freshly harvested, organically managed apples harbor a significantly more diverse, more even and distinct bacterial community, compared to conventional ones,” Berg explains. “This variety and balance would be expected to limit overgrowth of any one species, and previous studies have reported a negative correlation between human pathogen abundance and microbiome diversity of fresh produce.” Furthermore, organic apples only were shown to contain Lactobacilli, a fairly well known probiotic. Conventional apples on the other hand, contained bacteria known to harbor pathogens. The research team even say that organic apples contain much more of a specific bacteria, methylobacterium, known to enhance flavor quality in fruits. These findings mesh well with another recent study that found fungal communities among organic apples were much more diverse compared to regular apples grown using pesticides. Berg and her team say that one day microbiome information on fruits and vegetables may be as readily available as more traditional nutrition information. The study is published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Microbiology. Like studies? Follow us on Facebook!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/QZaPQWImbZk/

2019-07-25 23:28:36+00:00

environment

nature

naturalnews--2019-01-06--New gut bacteria discovered Scientists are researching a strain that shows potential for enhancing

naturalnews

New gut bacteria discovered: Scientists are researching a strain that shows potential for enhancing weight loss

(Natural News) If we’re lucky, we can soon learn more about a certain kind of gut bacteria that might have various health benefits such as preventing weight gain. Only a handful of people know about the bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila. But this can all change thanks to the future research of Dr. Gilberto Flores. Dr. Flores is a microbial ecologist at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and he is the recipient of a generous three-year $435,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health. He plans to use this funding “to investigate the health-promoting benefits of this intriguing species of gut bacteria.” Called Akkermansia for short, this of gut bacteria is linked to various “good health outcomes.” This means that it could be a type of probiotic bacteria. Based on study findings, individuals who have healthy metabolisms have more Akkermansia in their gut compared to those who are obese. In the study, mice fed a high-fat diet lost the Akkermansia bacteria in their gut. On the other hand, mice who received a dose of Akkermansia didn’t gain as much weight. Despite having the same diet, the second group of mice didn’t have as many health problems. Dr. Flores shared, “One of the hottest topics in gut microbiome research right now is this particular bacteria.” He continued, “In one recent study, people who had cancer and responded more favorably to biologic treatments, which recruit your immune system to fight the cancer, had a higher abundance of Akkermansia than people who did not respond as well.” (Related: Autoimmune disease and gut health: New study reveals how your microbiome regulates inflammation.) Mother Nature's micronutrient secret: Organic Broccoli Sprout Capsules now available, delivering 280mg of high-density nutrition, including the extraordinary "sulforaphane" and "glucosinolate" nutrients found only in cruciferous healing foods. Every lot laboratory tested. See availability here. He cautions that a cause and effect still hasn’t been established and that while there are interesting theories about Akkermansia, we need to keep in mind that “it’s from a lineage that is vastly understudied.” Dr. Flores reveals that his motivation to apply for the grant stemmed from a desire to learn more about the basic biology of the Akkermansia lineage. He believes that by doing so, we can gain insight into its “potential benefits.” Dr. Flores and his team of graduate and undergraduate students at CSUN are gathering fecal samples from healthy adults, and they are in the process of cultivating new Akkermansia species. Once successful, Dr. Flores and his team will proceed to sequence the genomes of the bacteria to note any similarities and differences to the original species. However, the organism cannot tolerate oxygen. This requires them to come up with a new way to grow Akkermansia. The microbial ecologist noted that this will be more difficult, unlike E. coli, which is easier to grow. He did say that Akkermansia “has unique dietary habits.” While a lot of the microbes in our gut “eat what we eat,” Akkermansia settles on “the mucus layers that line our intestines as its primary energy source.” The gut bacteria don’t eat the food we eat, it instead consumes anything we produce. Dr. Flores’s goal is to delve into the health benefits of Akkermansia, if it has any, or if these are just caused by “other biological processes.” He’s leaving the future of the gut bacteria as a probiotics supplement or as a superfood ingredient to other researchers. He muses that even though there are at least 500 to 1,000 different bacterial species in the large intestine, he is more interested in finding out how “they interact which each other to impact our overall health.” If you want to boost your gut bacteria, try to incorporate more of the following foods in your diet: You can learn more about other findings on gut bacteria at Scientific.news.

Zoey Sky

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-01-06-gut-bacteria-shows-promise-for-weight-loss.html

2019-01-06 06:02:46+00:00

environment

nature

abcnews--2019-01-07--Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg misses Supreme Court session due to cancer recovery

abcnews

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg misses Supreme Court session due to cancer recovery

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, recovering from surgery to remove two cancerous lesions from her left lung, will not attend oral arguments Monday -- the first time she has missed a scheduled public session due to illness in her 25-year career on the high court bench, a court spokeswoman said. Monday's oral arguments come 17 days after surgeons at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City performed a pulmonary lobectomy on Ginsburg, cutting out cancerous tissue in her lung. She has been working from home as she recovers. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Ginsburg still planned to "participate" in the cases by reading the briefs, filings and transcripts from Monday's session. It was not immediately clear whether Ginsburg would return to the bench later this week. The court said last month that doctors found no evidence of any remaining disease and planned no further treatment. Ginsburg spent four days in the hospital following the procedure and spent the remainder of the court’s winter recess recovering at home. The court’s oldest justice at 85, Ginsburg has shown dogged determination to participate in the court's proceedings over the years, despite three serious bouts of cancer, several other health scares and personal setbacks, including the death of her husband in 2010. In just the past two months, Ginsburg was hospitalized twice –- first after suffering broken ribs from a fall in her office in November, then the December surgery to remove tumors –- nevertheless participating, uninterrupted, in court business, a spokesperson for the court said. On Nov. 9, two days after being treated for the broken ribs, Ginsburg was unable to attend the formal investiture ceremony for Justice Brett Kavanaugh but did participate in conference while working from home, a court spokeswoman said at the time. Doctors contacted by ABC News said Ginsburg's resilience is an example for all Americans facing a cancer diagnosis. “Lung cancer suffers from pessimism, stigma, nihilism, but here’s a patient where lung cancer was caught early,” said Dr. Geoff Oxnard, a thoracic oncologist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “There is room for hope. We can change the story here. Patients need to ask themselves, ‘How can I be like Ruth Bader Ginsburg? How can I catch it early?’”

Devin Dwyer

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-returns-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-seat/story?id=60160648

2019-01-07 14:48:46+00:00

health

diseases and conditions

abcnews--2019-12-29--US Rep John Lewis of Georgia says he has pancreatic cancer

abcnews

US Rep John Lewis of Georgia says he has pancreatic cancer

ATLANTA -- Congressman John Lewis of Georgia announced Sunday that he has stage IV pancreatic cancer, vowing he will stay in office and fight the disease with the tenacity which he fought racial discrimination and other inequalities since the civil rights era. Lewis, the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists in a group once led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said in a statement that cancer was discovered this month during a routine medical visit. He said subsequent tests confirmed the diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic cancer. “I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now," he said in a statement. His statement added: While I am clear-eyed about the prognosis, doctors have told me that recent medical advances have made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, that treatment options are no longer as debilitating as they once were, and that I have a fighting chance.''

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-rep-john-lewis-georgia-pancreatic-cancer-67973488

Sun, 29 Dec 2019 18:58:53 -0500

health

diseases and conditions

activistpost--2019-08-21--Former US Naval Fighter Pilots Blame Radiation Exposure for Causing Cancer and Deaths

activistpost

Former U.S. Naval Fighter Pilots Blame Radiation Exposure for Causing Cancer and Deaths

It’s horrible that this is happening to our service people – even worse when it may have been prevented. In 1971, the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute had already determined that exposure to non-ionizing radiation (more commonly referred to as cell phone radiation and WiFi) was harmful.  More research conducted since then has determined the same – some of it funded by the American government. Former Air Force and Navy fighter pilots are calling on the military to begin cancer screenings for aviators as young as 30 because of an increase in deaths from the disease that they suspect may be tied to radiation emitted in the cockpit. “We are dropping like flies in our 50s from aggressive cancers,” said retired Air Force Col. Eric Nelson, a former F-15E Strike Eagle weapons officer. He cited prostate and esophageal cancers, lymphoma, and glioblastomas that have struck fellow pilots he knew, commanded or flew with. Nelson’s prostate cancer was first detected at age 48, just three months after he retired from the Air Force. In his career he has more than 2,600 flying hours, including commanding the 455th Air Expeditionary Group in Bagram, Afghanistan, and as commander of six squadrons of F-15E fighter jets at the 4th Operations Group at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. Last month McClatchy reported on a new Air Force study that reviewed the risk for prostate cancers among its fighter pilots and new Veterans Health Administration data showing that the rate of reported cases of prostate cancers per year among veterans using the VA health care system across all services has risen almost 16% since fiscal year 2000. The Air Force study also looked at cockpit exposure, finding that “pilots have greater environmental exposure to ultraviolet and ionizing radiation … (fighter pilots) have unique intra-cockpit exposures to non-ionizing radiation.” Retired Navy Cmdr. Thomas Hill was a career F-4 and F-14 pilot and squadron commanding officer with more than 3,600 flight hours and more than 960 aircraft carrier landings. Hill was 52 when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In December 2011, at age 60, he learned he also had esophageal cancer. Hill has spent the last two years tracking premature deaths or cancers among former commanding officers of F-14 squadrons. So far he’s found more than a dozen who have either been diagnosed or have died from the disease.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/08/former-u-s-naval-fighter-pilots-blame-radiation-exposure-for-causing-cancer-and-deaths.html

2019-08-21 23:11:37+00:00

health

diseases and conditions

activistpost--2019-12-20--At Least 61 US Veterans Who Guarded “Contaminated” Ex-Russian Base Died Or Have Cancer

activistpost

At Least 61 US Veterans Who Guarded “Contaminated” Ex-Russian Base Died Or Have Cancer

At least 61 US special operations forces who were deployed to a former Soviet base just a few hundred miles from the Afghanistan border have either died or have cancer, according to a new report by McClatchy DC’s Tara Copp. The deployment, which began shortly after the 9/11 attacks, were to a military site in Uzbekistan called Karshi-Khanabad, known as K2. It was leased by the United States from the Uzbek government weeks after the 2001 terrorist incident, as it was in close proximity to al Qaeda and Taliban targets. The US troops were greeted by “radiation hazard” warning signs, ‘black goo’ oozing fro the ground, and pond water that glowed green, according to the report. K2 was contaminated with chemical weapons remnants, radioactive processed uranium and other hazards, according to documents obtained by McClatchy. At least 61 of the men and women who served at K2 had been diagnosed with cancer or died from the disease, according to a 2015 Army study on the base. But that number may not include the special operations forces deployed to K2, who were likely not counted due to the secrecy of their missions, the study reported. –McClatchy DC According to the report, the Defense Department knew K2 was contaminated from the start based on documents obtained by McClatchy which are now being made public (see below). After Uzbek soldiers who prepared the base fell ill in 2001, US Central Command ordered an intelligence review of hazards at the facility. “Ground contamination at Karshi-Khanabad Airfield poses health risks to U.S. forces deployed there,” reads the classified report dated November 6, 2001, which added that the “tent city” the US military was building – which included tents for eating, sleeping and showering – were “in some cases directly on top of soil that probably was contaminated” by four separate hazards. First, there was a missile storage facility that had exploded in June 1993. “Ground contamination from the explosion, and subsequent expulsion of missile propellant throughout the area is very likely,” the report said. Two other hazards listed were an abandoned fuel storage facility and an abandoned aircraft maintenance facility identified as the likely sources of the “black goo” which the report said “is most likely a combination of oils, hydraulic fluids, glues, paints, solvents and lubricants.” The fourth hazard noted in the report was that the northeast corner of the tent city was likely affected by “runoff from a CW [chemical weapons] decontamination site” which had appeared on U.S. intelligence imagery in 1987. A separate Army environmental health study of K2 in November 2001 found small areas of dirt contaminated with asbestos and “low level radioactive processed uranium, both from the destruction of Soviet missiles.” –McClatchy DC “Part of this area has already been fenced off by US forces as an expansion area,” reads a November 15, 2001 document obtained by McClatchy. “To call this site a landfill is an insult to landfills.” McClatchy has spoken with several veterans who were stationed at K2, who are now speaking out because of the difficulties faced in having the Department of Veterans Affairs to cover their medical treatment. “After returning from combat years later, we are all coming down with various forms of cancer that the [Department of Veterans Affairs] is refusing to acknowledge,” according to retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Scott Welsch, a special operations military intelligence officer who deployed to K2 in October 2001, and who now has thyroid cancer which was diagnosed in 2014. Eventually warning signs were erected. Outside the berm, a new bright yellow sign went up with black and red letters that said: “Danger Keep Out. Chemical Weapons.” Another black and white sign — “Danger. Off Limits. Radiation Hazard.” — was in front of a row of ponds nicknamed “Skittles” after the candy because the water glowed bright green but often had other colors too. The ponds were located just outside the berm. Several veterans who served at K2 are preparing a letter to Congress to ask for help. “Please come to our aid to assist us in dealing with these illnesses that have forever altered the courses of our lives and the lives of our families,” wrote retired Lt. Col. Omar Hamada, flight surgeon for the Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group, which went to K2 in 2002. Several veterans deployed to K2 report that the Defense Department and the VA have been turning them away, or doubting their health issues altogether. “The most important messages to communicate are there were no K-2 exposures of health consequence,” instructs an undated three-page “Information for Health Care Staff” guide published by the Pentagon’s Deployment Health Clinical Center that was obtained by McClatchy. “Some may believe they were exposed to dangerous chemicals and that they haven’t been told the truth,” reads the guide. “Your reassurances may not lessen the level of concern.” The guide emphasized that medical staff should show K2 veterans respect for their service to the country, observing “It often helps rapport if you thank them for that service.” The VA responded to a query by McClatchy on the number of cancers among the service members based at K2 with a statement saying, “the premise of your inquiry is false. There is no indication of increased cancer rates among veterans who served at Karshi-Khanabad, which is why cancer is not a presumptive condition for veterans who served in that area.” That phrase — “presumptive condition” — can mean the difference between the service member paying the bill for cancer treatments out of their own pocket or having the cost covered by the VA. A presumptive condition is any medical issue that the VA has accepted as likely connected to a veteran’s military service. –McClatchy DC Read the rest of the report here. This article was sourced from Zerohedge.com Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month at Patreon. Follow us on SoMee, Flote, Minds, Twitter, and Steemit. Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.

Activist Post

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/12/at-least-61-us-veterans-who-guarded-contaminated-ex-russian-base-died-or-have-cancer.html

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 16:23:28 +0000

health

diseases and conditions

anonnews--2019-06-14--Laser Destroys Cancer Cells Circulating in the Blood

anonnews

Laser Destroys Cancer Cells Circulating in the Blood

In a study published in the journal “Science Translational Medicine,” a team of researchers discovered that they could destroy cancer cells in the blood with a laser. A laser system developed by the researchers can detect cancer cells in the blood and kill the cells in real time as the laser scans the skin. It is estimated that this system has a sensitivity that is about 1,000 times better than current technology available on the market today. This is such an important breakthrough because traditional cancer treatments have been so dangerous and harmful to the other cells in the body. Meanwhile, this new technology could allow patients to fight cancer without going through the harsh chemotherapy treatments that have become associated with the disease. Vladimir Zharov, director of the nanomedicine center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who led the research, says that there is incredible potential in this technology. “This technology has the potential to significantly inhibit metastasis progression,” Zharov says. When Zharov says “metastasis progression” he is referring to the spreading of cancer throughout the body. When a cancer spreads through the blood, it carries with it CTC’s, or “circulating tumor cells,” which infect other areas of the body. “Zharov and his team tested their system in people with melanoma, or skin cancer. The laser, beamed at a vein, sends energy to the bloodstream, creating heat. Melanoma CTCs absorb more of this energy than normal cells, causing them to heat up quickly and expand. This thermal expansion produces sound waves, known as the photoacoustic effect, and can be recorded by a small ultrasound transducer placed over the skin near the laser. The recordings indicate when a CTC is passing in the bloodstream,” Spectrum reported. It is important to point out that this is just a prototype of a technology that still needs to be advanced, but even so, at these early stages it is still showing incredible potential In one patient, the team was able to kill 96 percent of the tumor cells with a focused laser beam. This is an idea that Zharov has been working on for over ten years. He has made significant progress over the years, successfully testing the new technology on animals to prove its safety to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Similar devices to monitor CTC’s are being developed, but this is the only one that actively kills the tumor cells in real time. Spectrum reported that at least a hundred other CTC monitoring devices are in development, but these systems work a bit differently. The monitoring systems usually require blood to be drawn and then analyzed outside of the body, which is still much more invasive than the method developed by Zhorov and his team. One of the other devices, developed by researchers at the University of Michigan, is worn on the patient’s wrist and extracts blood from their arm. The blood is then scanned for CTCs, which are removed from the blood. Finally, the clean blood is pumped back into the body of the patients. This is also just a prototype, and this one is still having a ton of trouble. In one study involving dogs, the device was only able to process a few tablespoons of blood over a three hour period. By contrast, the device developed by Zharov and his team can scan and clean a liter of blood in about an hour, without needing to remove the blood from the body. One similar study, highlighted in the video below, also uses lasers to target cancer cells. While on the campaign trail, Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden promised to cure cancer if he was elected president in 2020. “A lot of you understand what loss is and when loss occurs, you know that people come up to you and tell you ‘I understand’ if you lose a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter, a family member. That’s why I’ve worked so hard in my career to make sure that — I promise you if I’m elected president, you’re going to see the single most important thing that changes America, we’re gonna cure cancer,” Biden said. The former vice president, who is involved in numerous cancer charities, did not give any specifics about how he would achieve this goal. However, it seems that the team at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is already way ahead of him.

Adam Goldberg

https://www.anonews.co/laser-destroys-cancer-cells-circulating-in-the-blood/

2019-06-14 15:45:19+00:00

health

diseases and conditions

bbc--2019-04-01--BBC Middle East editor has bowel cancer

bbc

BBC Middle East editor has bowel cancer

Veteran BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen has revealed he has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. The former BBC Breakfast host said he was undergoing chemotherapy after noticing "funny pains in my legs and in my back" whilst in Iraq last May. April is bowel cancer awareness month and Bowen revealed his diagnosis to raise awareness of the disease. Bowel cancer screening in England is to start earlier, at age 50, Public Health England said last year. Doctors initially believed the veteran journalist's pain was due to scarring from previous surgery, he told BBC Breakfast, the show which he presented alongside Sophie Raworth between 2000 and 2002. "I had no symptoms - none of the classic bowel cancer symptoms. Nothing at all. But I thought I should get a test", he said. He said he received a positive result and had a colonoscopy - a camera inserted into his colon to look for signs of cancer. "It [the colonoscopy ] is not nearly as bad as it sounds - they give you lots of drugs," he said. Surgeons found a tumour, which they removed, and he was currently having chemotherapy, he said. Bowen, born in Cardiff, and a BBC journalist for 35 years, said his diagnosis "could have been earlier, but had it been later it would have been much more serious". Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, with 42,000 people diagnosed every year. More than 16,000 people die from the cancer annually in the UK. Bowen added: "The key thing is - get tested. I've been saying to all my friends - get tested. "Things to do with your bowels and poo ... are not things people normally want to talk about. But actually it's part of all our lives and you need to work on it." He said a gastroenterologist had told him: "Don't die of embarrassment, for God's sake." He said the chemotherapy "is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be in terms of side effects, but it affects people differently and I think I've just been quite lucky to tolerate it better than I expected". "You've got to keep positive about things in life - it's all part of the journey, as they say on Strictly [Come Dancing]," he added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47771752

2019-04-01 09:31:14+00:00

health

diseases and conditions

bbc--2019-09-03--Cancer biggest middle-age killer in rich nations

bbc

Cancer biggest middle-age killer in rich nations

Cancer now causes more deaths among the middle-aged in higher-income countries than cardiovascular disease, a study suggests. Globally, heart problems and stroke is the leading cause of death at this age. But the researchers say people in rich nations are 2.5 times more likely to die of cancer than cardiovascular disease in their middle years. In poorer nations, the reverse is true - with cardiovascular disease three times more likely to claim the lives. The study, published in the Lancet, is drawn from a global research programme following the lives of thousands of people from across 21 countries. People from the UK are not involved. Researchers led by a team from Canada's McMaster University looked at the fate of 160,000 people enrolled in the programme, between 2005 and 2016. These people had an average age of 50 at the start. There were more than 11,000 deaths, with those in low-income countries nearly four times more likely to die than those in high-income countries. In about 2,000 cases, the cause of death was unclear. Of the others, cardiovascular disease caused more than 40% in middle- and low-income countries but less than a quarter in high-income countries. The researchers say this could be because richer countries provide more medication and treat more people in hospital. Jeremy Pearson, of the British Heart Foundation, said "huge progress" meant many people were surviving heart attacks and strokes but growing numbers were living with "disability and the debilitating after effects" of cardiovascular disease.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49558223

2019-09-03 10:12:52+00:00

health

diseases and conditions

bbcuk--2019-04-20--The breast cancer surgeon who got breast cancer

bbcuk

The breast cancer surgeon who got breast cancer

"Like many women, I did not check my breasts. I thought, 'it's not going to happen to me - I'm a breast cancer surgeon'." Liz O'Riordan ended up having to give up the job she had trained 20 years for, after she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2015, at the age of 40, she had a mastectomy and last May suffered a recurrence of the disease. Dr O'Riordan thought she would practise as a breast cancer surgeon for at least 20 years, but as it turned out she only worked as one for two years. Radiotherapy for the second bout of cancer left her with reduced movement in her shoulder, causing her to make the "emotionally very hard" decision to give up operating. Before she was diagnosed, Dr O'Riordan had found lumps that turned out only to be cysts, while a mammogram six months earlier had showed a healthy breast. But another lump developed and her mother urged her to get it scanned. The surgeon, who lives near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, knew what her prognosis was immediately. "Most patients are drip-fed information. I saw that scan and I knew I'd need a mastectomy, knew I'd probably need chemo because I was young, and I had a good guess of what my chance of being alive in 10 years was, all in that split-second." Dr O'Riordan, 43, said not many doctors develop the illnesses in which they specialise; certainly, no-one in her department at Ipswich Hospital had. At first she was "terrified", and several questions ran through her mind. "How much can I share with my husband and my parents? How much can I stop being a cancer surgeon and just be a patient?" Although she knew what was happening physically, she had no idea what it would be like to experience actually having the disease. "I know what it's like to tell someone they have breast cancer. "I didn't know what it was like to have to have a stiff upper lip, dry your tears, leave the clinic, go through the waiting room, through the hospital corridor to get to the car park and to start howling." After talking it through with her husband Dermot, she decided to announce her illness to her 1,500 Twitter followers, who mostly knew her through her love of baking, triathlons and her profession. Social media, she said, ended up becoming her lifeline and she received an "outpouring of support". "It was patients who told me how to cope. "There is always someone awake at three o'clock in the morning to talk to you when you're on a steroid high." Social media also put her in contact with other medical professionals with cancer, and she has since set up a WhatsApp group for medics with the disease. After treatment for her first bout of cancer, Dr O'Riordan returned to work as a surgeon at Ipswich Hospital. But she said she didn't realise how "emotionally challenging" it would be. She said having had cancer herself, she thought she could help people in a different way. "But it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. "When you're breaking bad news and telling a woman they've got cancer, it's really tough at the best of times, but I was reliving it, and I could see myself and my husband and what we would have looked like when we crumpled and heard the news. "You're so desperate to connect with someone who has a shared experience, but I couldn't - they were my patients." She added: "I was left with pain after my mastectomy and was suddenly operating - I was very much aware that I might give them the pain that I have, and I didn't want to do that, and it was really, really hard." She said she also struggled to sit in weekly meetings discussing patients' prognoses. "In my first meeting back, my first patient basically had my cancer. She was the same age, she had my cancer give or take a millimetre - she was me on paper. "I heard all my colleagues say 'that's really bad'." In 2018, Dr O'Riordan's cancer returned to the same armpit. It was found while she was having a scan before the removal of her reconstructed breast, which had been causing her a lot of pain. It led to a second dose of radiotherapy to the same area, "something rarely done". She was warned that she might not be able to move her arm properly afterwards but, if she did not undergo surgery, the outlook was bleak. The result was more scarring, fibrosis and tethering of the soft tissues, which indeed did reduce movement in her shoulder and meant she had less strength in her arm. She said her employers did their best to help her to resume her career for a second time. "I had intensive physiotherapy, I saw an orthopaedic surgeon - because it's a huge thing to say, 'the thing I've spent 20 years of my life, and degrees, and PhDs, exams and courses to become an expert in the thing I love, I can't do again'. "I can go about my daily life, but to be able to operate safely, that's never going to happen," she said. By now Dr O'Riordan also felt the psychological need to have "cancer-free time", especially given that returning to work before the recurrence had been traumatic. In addition, the risk of the cancer returning yet again was now higher than before, and there was a danger it could come back elsewhere. After about four months she made the decision her career as a surgeon was over. "It was bittersweet, and really, really hard saying goodbye." Ironically, she now advises people on their rights to return to the workplace after cancer. Dr O'Riordan, whose husband is a consultant surgeon, said she was "lucky" to be able to afford not to have to do paid work. She recently began volunteering as an ambassador for the social enterprise, Working with Cancer, which had advised her on her employment rights after she decided to return to work in 2017, following treatment for her first bout of cancer. A temporary director at the hospital had told her at this point that she was expected back on a phased return over four weeks. "I was still suffering from fatigue and trying to get my brain to work again," Dr O'Riordan said. "I didn't realise that if you've had cancer, you are classified as legally disabled under the Equality Act and your employers have to make reasonable adjustments to allow you get back to work. "So many people are just desperate to get their lives back when they have cancer, but it can be incredibly hard to find your way and a lot of employers don't know how to help cancer patients - or whether they should." Dr O'Riordan said most of the coaches at Working with Cancer have had the illness themselves and "they get it". As well information about their rights, they prepare staff and employers for the emotional pitfalls. As a result of her chemotherapy, Dr O'Riordan had short, curly hair. Her coach asked her: "What will you do when people don't recognise you?" She had dismissed the notion, until one day she realised a colleague she was talking to did not realise who she was. The preparation she did with Working with Cancer mostly helped her to avoid any awkwardness. Just before returning she emailed her line manager and explained she was happy to talk about her illness with colleagues, but not during work hours. "You have a right to ask for things to be made easier for you. They can't sack you because that would be discrimination." The former surgeon said her work as an ambassador had helped her reconnect with her sense of purpose. "As a consultant surgeon I was helping 70, maybe 100 women a year with breast cancer. "But through my book, the blogging, the talking and being an ambassador for Working with Cancer, I can help hundreds, thousands of women."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-47767386

2019-04-20 08:44:47+00:00

health

diseases and conditions

bbcuk--2019-06-27--Hopes raised of cervical cancer eradication

bbcuk

Hopes raised of cervical cancer eradication

The success of the HPV vaccination offers hope of one day eradicating cervical cancer, say scientists who carried out a major review of evidence. Vaccination against the human papilloma virus, which causes most cervical cancers, began over a decade ago. A Lancet review of 65 studies covering 60 million people showed a fall in HPV cases and in pre-cancerous growths. Over decades, this should translate into a significant fall, and possible eradication, of the cancer they said. Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust said the data should boost faith in the jab. There are 3,200 cases of cervical cancer and 850 deaths from the disease each year. The review covered studies in 14 high-income countries, including the UK. They looked at HPV rates, plus cases of genital warts and pre-cancerous cells in the cervix called CIN. It found that when rates were compared before vaccination started and eight years after: It also showed people who were not vaccinated benefited. Cases of genital warts in men aged 15-19 fell by almost 50%, and also significantly in women over 30. Rates fell more in countries where a wider age group was vaccinated and where coverage was higher. Public Health England principal scientist Dr David Mesher said: "We are seeing reductions in HPV strains and in cervical disease as well, so there is every suggestion there will be reductions in cervical cancers too." Prof Marc Brisson, from Laval University, Canada, who led the review, said: "We will see reductions in women aged 20-30 within the next 10 years." He said cervical cancer elimination - defined as fewer than four cases per 100,000 - "might be possible if sufficiently high vaccination coverage can be achieved and maintained". Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust said the findings "clearly showed" the impact of HPV vaccination. "This study furthers the growing evidence to counteract those who don't believe that this vaccine works, which is now extremely encouraging," said chief executive Robert Music. "We sincerely hope this will boost public faith in the HPV vaccine, so that more lives can be saved and we get closer to a world where cervical cancer is a thing of the past."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48758730

2019-06-27 07:11:19+00:00

health

diseases and conditions

bbcuk--2019-11-22--Cancer: One in five cancer diagnoses 'in Emergency Departments'

bbcuk

Cancer: One in five cancer diagnoses 'in Emergency Departments'

One in five people in Northern Ireland receive their cancer diagnosis while attending an emergency department (ED), according to research by the NI Cancer Registry. The registry confirmed to BBC News NI that, at present, a quarter of bowel cancers are being diagnosed in EDs. It said mostly older patients are affected. Its research also found that a third of lung cancers in NI are diagnosed after a patient turns up at an ED. The problem is a direct result of some people waiting too long on hospital lists and being brought to emergency departments instead. Earlier this week, BBC News NI revealed that a number of non-emergency operations across Northern Ireland have had to be suspended, as a result of staff shortages. It has also emerged that the number of patients who waited more than 12 hours in Northern Ireland's emergency departments in September was double the same time last year. The head of services at Macmillan Cancer Support, Heather Monteverde, said the statistics about diagnoses were "shocking and extremely worrying". She said emergency departments cannot provide the very specialist care needed by cancer patients. Ms Monteverde added that only 55% of cancer patients in Northern Ireland are starting treatment within the 62-day target, a figure that was "deteriorating month-by-month". "Behind the statistics are individual people who are worried that they are very ill," she told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme. "They have attended their GP and sometimes they are on very long waiting lists; their condition is deteriorating and they feel they have no other option but to pitch up in an emergency department. "Or indeed, sometimes their GPs are so frustrated that they can't get them seen, their GPs are advising them to attend an emergency department." The cancer survival rate is lowest for patients who present via emergency than any other route, although it is thought this is because those patients tend to have later-stage cancers than those who present via other medical routes. Ms Monteverde said EDs are not the ideal environment to learn that you have the disease. "For most people, a cancer diagnosis is a fairly devastating event in their lives," she said. "To be in a really busy A&E department which is quite often mayhem - it's noisy, it's crowded; there's no privacy." Earlier this year, a report by the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry found that 74% of the 4,316 people who died from cancer in Northern Ireland in 2015 were admitted to Emergency Departments in the final years of their lives. Also, one in six (17%) people died within seven days of their last emergency admission and almost all (95%) of these died in hospital. Anna Gavin from the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry agreed with Ms Monteverde that longer waiting lists had added to the number of cancer patients being diagnosed in EDs. "Unfortunately, the people who present through A&E present are at the later stage of disease and their survival [rate] is much lower than if they present through some of the other ways that you can come into the system." Ms Gavin said when there are screening programmes in place, such as breast and bowel cancer screening, it led to a "wide variation" in the number of ED diagnoses, compared to conditions where no regular screening is carried out. However, the 14-day breast assessment target has not been met again in Northern Ireland. During March, 1,387 patients were seen by a breast cancer specialist for a first assessment following an urgent referral for suspected breast cancer. Of these, 85.6 % (1,187) were seen within 14 days compared with 100% in the previous year. Statistics published by the Department of Health show 69.4% of new referrals for suspected breast cancer were classified as urgent in March 2019. The department said the waiting times are "unacceptable". Previously the permanent health secretary said that it would take £1bn to tackle Northern Ireland's hospital waiting lists.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50505731

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 10:33:48 GMT

health

diseases and conditions

veteranstoday--2019-03-12--VA Selects 18 Medical Facilities to Start High Reliability Study

veteranstoday

VA Selects 18 Medical Facilities to Start “High Reliability” Study

Health Editor’s Note:  The VA has a long way to go to provide, across the board, adequate and effective medical care to our veterans.  VA medical centers are here to serve veterans.  These medical centers should already be high reliability organizations (HRO). Veterans should have had in the past and currently should be receiving top notch medical care.  VA medical facilities are always “fixin to” improve care to veterans….it is long past the “fixin to” stage. Do what you have always been intended to do…..TAKE CARE OF OUR VETERANS…..Carol By U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs WASHINGTON — Today (March 7) the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the selection of 18 medical centers that will lead the way in the department’s efforts to transform the nation’s largest integrated health care system into a high reliability organization (HRO). Pioneered in highly complex environments, such as aviation and nuclear energy, HROs put procedures and protocols in place that maximize safety and minimize harm, which in the medical industry assures every patient receives excellent care, every time. “VA has been a leader in patient safety for years,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “Adopting high reliability principles more formally represents the next step for delivering the best health care to Veterans. “These principles align with our greater vision of transforming business operations and delivering exceptional customer service to Veterans,” Wilkie said. “Our culture is changing and pursuing HRO principles nationwide is our pledge to empower staff and keep Veterans the safest they can be on our watch.” Research shows high reliability organizations experience fewer accidents despite being high-risk environments where small errors can produce catastrophic results. A February Leadership Summit kicked off the HRO journey and introduced high reliability concepts and practices to the 18 sites. Lessons learned from these 18 sites will guide a more impactful rollout across every Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical facility in 2020. The 18 sites selected are: Manchester VA Medical Center (VAMC) (N.H.); Albany Samuel S. Stratton VAMC (N.Y.); Erie VAMC (Pa.); Beckley VAMC (W.Va.); Durham VAMC (N.C.); Ralph H. Johnson VAMC (Charleston, S.C.); James A. Haley Veterans Hospital (Tampa, Fla.); James H. Quillen VA Healthcare System (HCS) (Johnson City, Tenn.); Louis Stokes Cleveland VAMC (Ohio); William S. Middleton VA Hospital (Madison, Wis.); Kansas City VAMC (Mo.); G.V. Sonny Montgomery VAMC (Jackson, Miss.); Audie L. Murphy VA Hospital (San Antonio, Texas); Oklahoma City VA HCS (Okla.); Boise VAMC (Idaho); VA Sierra Nevada HCS (Reno, Nev.); VA San Diego HCS (Calif.); and St. Cloud VA HCS (Minn.). The VHA journey to become an HRO is consistent with national safety goals set forth by the Joint Commission, an independent, nonprofit organization that accredits and certifies approximately 21,000 health care organizations and programs in the U.S. In addition to a safer environment focused on reducing errors and preventing patient harm, HRO principles and values call for deference to expertise; oftentimes, the patient’s family caregiver is that expert. HRO will empower Veterans and their family caregivers, along with employees who work hands-on with Veterans, to make decisions and impact improvements that aim for excellent care for every patient, every time.

Carol Duff, MSN, BA, RN

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/03/12/va-selects-18-medical-facilities-to-start-high-reliability-study/

2019-03-12 15:30:47+00:00

health

health facility

cnsnews--2019-08-29--HHS Warns Vt Medical Center After it Allegedly Forced a Nurse to Assist in Abortion

cnsnews

HHS Warns Vt. Medical Center After it Allegedly 'Forced a Nurse to Assist in Abortion'

(CNSNews.com) -- On Wednesday, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) for the Department of Health and Human Services issued a Notice of Violation letter to the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) because it allegedly forced a nurse to assist in an abortion in violation of her conscience. The OCR demanded that the Medical Center comply with the conscience law or face potential loss of its federal funding, the last cycle of which totaled $1.6 million. “Forcing medical staff to assist in the taking of human life inflicts a moral injury on them that is not only unnecessary and wrong, it violates longstanding federal law," said OCR Director Roger Severino. "Our investigation has uncovered serious discrimination by UVMMC against nurses and staff who cannot, in good conscience, assist in elective abortions.” “We stand ready to assist UVMMC in changing its policies and procedures to respect conscience rights and remedy the effects of its discrimination," said Severino. According to the OCR letter, a nurse at the Medical Center filed a conscience and religious discrimination complaint on May 9, 2018. The complaint contended that the nurse "was forced to assist an abortion in violation of the nurse’s conscience rights." The OCR subsequently contacted the Medical Center on multiple occasions for more information "but the hospital refused to conform its policies to federal conscience laws, provide all the documents requested by OCR, or produce witnesses for OCR interviews," states the letter. Despite the Medical Center's apparent lack of cooperation, OCR continued its investigation and reported the following, -- "UVMMC forced the nurse complainant to assist in an abortion against the nurse’s religious or moral objection. The nurse had expressed an objection for many years and was included in a list of objectors, but UVMMC knowingly assigned the nurse to an abortion procedure. The nurse was not told the procedure was an abortion until the nurse walked into the room, when the doctor -- knowing the nurse objected to assisting in abortions -- told the nurse, 'Don’t hate me.'" -- "[T]he nurse was required to assist with the abortion anyway. If the nurse had not done so, the nurse reasonably feared UVMMC would fire or report the nurse to licensing authorities." -- "OCR spoke with several other UVMMC health care personnel who, since at least the spring of 2017, have been intentionally, unnecessarily, and knowingly scheduled by UVMMC to assist with elective abortions against their religious or moral objections. Such personnel were often not told in advance that the procedures they were being assigned to assist with were abortions." -- "UVMMC maintains a staffing policy that facially violates the Church Amendments because the policy admits to circumstances where UVMMC can and will force staff -- on pain of adverse action or discipline -- to participate in abortions against their moral or religious objections. The policy also violates UVMMC’s agreement, as a condition of receiving HHS funds, to comply with federal law, including the Church Amendments and HHS’s grants regulations." -- "UVMMC is violating 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(c)(1) of the Church Amendments by discriminating against health-care personnel who have religious or moral objections to abortion, and subjecting them to different terms or conditions of employment than other health-care personnel." The OCR gave the Medical Center 30 days to communicate that it would comply with the civil rights office and changes its practices to conform with the law, and "take immediate steps to remedy the effect of its past discriminatory conduct." If the Medical Center does not comply, the OCR said it would forward the Notice of Violation to the HHS's Health Resources and Service Administration, which provides grant funds to the Center. "Since October 1998, UVMMC has received -- and continues to receive -- grants from HRSA," stated the OCR.  "For the most recently completed three-year project period, which ended April 30, 2018, UVMMC reported that it cumulatively expended $1.6 million of federal financial assistance." In a statement given to The Hill, the Medical Center spokeswoman Annie Mackin said, “When the UVM Medical Center first learned of the allegations that are the subject of OCR’s letter, we promptly and thoroughly investigated them and determined that they were not supported by the facts." “We do not discriminate against any employees for exercising their rights to opt out of procedures to which they object,” said Mackin. Francis Manion, a lawyer with the American Center for Law & Justice, which is representing the nurse, said, “She suffered immediate emotional distress, attempted to suppress the event psychologically, and has been haunted by nightmares ever since. In addition, her employer has created a hostile environment targeting [redacted] and other employees who conscientiously object to participating in abortion procedures.”

Michael W. Chapman

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/hhs-warns-u-vt-hospital-after-it-unlawfully-forced-nurse-assist

2019-08-29 17:47:01+00:00

health

health facility

greenwichtime--2019-11-07--New medical center in Greenwich officially opens

greenwichtime

New medical center in Greenwich officially opens

GREENWICH — Yale New Haven Health hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday to officially open the newly renovated West Putnam Medical Center, which offers patients local access to cardiac, primary care, pediatric, endoscopy, laboratory, diagnostic imaging and rehabilitation services under one roof. About 170 people attended the grand opening of the outpatient facility at 500 W. Putnam Ave., which includes services from Greenwich Hospital, Yale New Haven Health Heart and Vascular Center, Yale Medicine and Northeast Medical Group. “The future of medicine is in keeping people healthy and out of the hospital. Having a comprehensive outpatient center on the New York/Connecticut border ... empowers the health of our community,” said Norman G. Roth, Greenwich Hospital’s president and chief executive officer. Greenwich Hospital provides diagnostic imaging, laboratory, physical medicine and endoscopy services at West Putnam Medical Center. Dr. Keith Churchwell, executive director of Yale New Haven Heart and Vascular Center, said access to heart and vascular services from Yale Medicine specialists had “grown exponentially” with the opening of the Greenwich facility. The center includes general cardiologists, interventional cardiologists, electrophysiologists, cardiovascular surgeons and other physicians. “The ability to build a heart and vascular center in collaboration with our partners in primary care, obstetrics and pediatrics is a dream come true,” he said. Prathibha Varkey, president and chief executive officer of Northeast Medical Group, said the multispecialty facility provided an “incredible opportunity to be part of the community and be with our patients when they are going through illness or interested in enhancing their health.” Northeast Medical Group has an internal medicine practice at West Putnam Medical Center and an obstetrics/gynecology practice will open at the site in January. West Putnam Medical Center also houses the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Pediatric Specialty Center and Greenwich Hospital’s Pediatric Outpatient Center, which both opened last year. The YNHCH Pediatric Specialty Center provides children and their families with access to nationally ranked specialties. The Greenwich Hospital Pediatric Center provides care to thousands of under- and uninsured children each year.

Staff reports

https://www.greenwichtime.com/local/article/New-medical-center-in-Greenwich-officially-opens-14825900.php

Thu, 7 Nov 2019 05:00:00 UT

health

health facility

sputnik--2019-05-07--Scabies Scare At Least 13 People Impacted by Mites at DC Medical Center

sputnik

Scabies Scare: At Least 13 People ‘Impacted’ by Mites at DC Medical Center

According to NBC, at least one patient and at least a dozen staff members have been diagnosed with scabies infections. In addition, medical teams are following precautions to prevent the disease from spreading to others. However, the 120-bed residential medical center is continuing its operations as usual. A spokesperson for the veterans hospital did not confirm whether the 12 employees and patient contracted scabies, but instead stated that they were "impacted" by it. According to a report by DisabledVeterans.org, the Washington DC VA Medical Center has multiple sanitary issues, including failing to use "proper protocol to remove recalled supplies and equipment" as well as "failing to ensure supplies are sterile." According to the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), scabies is caused by an infestation of the skin by a mite (Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis). The scabies mite burrows its way into the upper layer of skin, where it lays its eggs. Scabies symptoms include "intense itching" and a "pimple-like skin rash." The rash is usually found on the wrist, elbow, armpits, penis, nipples, waist and buttocks, as well as in between the fingers. The disease is usually spread by "direct, prolonged, skin-to-skin contact" with an infected person or exposure to infected bedding, clothing or even furniture, according to the CDC. Scabies can also lead to potentially dangerous complications. "The intense itching of scabies leads to scratching that can lead to skin sores. The sores sometimes become infected with bacteria on the skin, such as Staphylococcus aureus or beta-hemolytic streptococci. Sometimes the bacterial skin infection can lead an inflammation of the kidneys called post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis," the CDC warns on its website. The infection is treated with scabicide lotion or cream, which can kill scabies mites and eggs.

https://sputniknews.com/society/201905071074796322-at-least-13-impacted-scabies-medical-center/

2019-05-07 19:58:00+00:00

health

health facility

thehuffingtonpost--2019-11-17--Trump Visits Walter Reed Medical Center For Unannounced Exam

thehuffingtonpost

Trump Visits Walter Reed Medical Center For Unannounced Exam

President Donald Trump on Saturday made an unannounced trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a routine exam, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said. The two-hour visit to the Bethesda, Maryland, hospital included lab work and was not on Trump’s schedule, according to The New York Times. In an appearance on Fox News, Grisham said the president was preparing for “a really busy year ahead” by getting “a head start with some routine checkups as part of his annual exam.” “He is healthy as can be,” she added. “He’s got more energy than anybody in the White House.” Fox News opinion host Jeanine Pirro, a staunch defender of the Trump administration, praised the president as “almost superhuman.” White House Press Secretary says Trump has "more energy than anybody else in the White House" and Jeanine Pirro says "he's almost superhuman" pic.twitter.com/i5hUOuqAFU — Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) November 17, 2019 In a midnight tweet on Sunday, Trump said he had been visiting “a great family of a young man under major surgery” at Walter Reed. The patient is a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who was wounded in Afghanistan, CNN reported. While there, Trump said he “began phase one of my yearly physical.” Visited a great family of a young man under major surgery at the amazing Walter Reed Medical Center. Those are truly some of the best doctors anywhere in the world. Also began phase one of my yearly physical. Everything very good (great!). Will complete next year. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2019 Trump’s previous physical in February, which also took place at Walter Reed, was on his public schedule. Sean Conley, a Navy officer and the president’s personal doctor, said in a memo at the time that he determined in the four-hour exam that Trump was “in very good health” and anticipated that he would “remain so for the duration of his Presidency, and beyond.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-walter-reed-medical-center-unannounced-exam_n_5dd15aeae4b01f982f03a478

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 11:21:31 -0500

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health facility

thehuffingtonpost--2019-11-19--Trump's Doctor Says Unannounced Exam At Walter Reed Medical Center Was 'Routine'

thehuffingtonpost

Trump's Doctor Says Unannounced Exam At Walter Reed Medical Center Was 'Routine'

President Donald Trump’s physician on Monday released a note about the president’s unannounced examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center two days earlier amid “some speculation” about his health. Dr. Sean Conley, in a memo to White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, said Trump’s visit to the Bethesda, Maryland, hospital was for a “routine, planned interim checkup as part of the regular, primary preventative care he receives throughout the year.” “Due to scheduling uncertainties, the trip was kept off the record,” Conley wrote. “Despite some speculation, the President has not had any chest pain, nor was he evaluated or treated for any urgent or acute issues. Specifically, he did not undergo any specialized cardiac or neurologic evaluation.” Trump’s annual physical exam was on his public schedule last year, causing some to wonder whether the president had a medical issue that prompted the weekend Walter Reed visit. Grisham denied anything was wrong with the president during an appearance Saturday on Fox News. “We’ve got a really busy year ahead,” Grisham said, “and so the president decided to go to Walter Reed and kind of get a head start with some routine checkups as part of his annual exam.” Conley wrote in his memo that a summary of results for Trump’s lab tests and exams would be incorporated in a full report next year, but he provided the president’s cholesterol levels, which have improved since last year. The president has total cholesterol of 165 (mg/dL) and his LDL or “bad” cholesterol is 84, Conley wrote. At his physical in February, Trump’s total cholesterol was 196, down from 223 in January 2018. His LDL was 122 in February, a decrease from 143 a year earlier. Doctors recommend a total cholesterol level in adults below 200 and an LDL between 70 and 130. “Primary preventative care is something that occurs continuously throughout the year,” Conley wrote. “It is not just a single event. As such, I will continue to monitor the President’s health, planning a more comprehensive examination after the New Year.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-unannounced-walter-reed-visit-doctor_n_5dd3dd26e4b0d6f02fa53109

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 08:34:10 -0500

health

health facility

themoscowtimes--2019-07-24--Putins Eldest Daughter Steps In as Shareholder of 634M Medical Centers Developer

themoscowtimes

Putin’s Eldest Daughter Steps In as Shareholder of $634M Medical Center's Developer

Nomeko, a contraction of the Russian phrase for ‘new medical company,’ was founded in January 2019 and is closely involved in the state-of-the-art medical center’s development. The center will be located in the Leningrad region and is expected to be equipped with advanced cancer treatment technology. President Vladimir Putin’s eldest daughter Maria Vorontsova has taken her first steps into the business world as a shareholder of a new firm developing a $634 million medical center near St. Petersburg, BBC Russia has reported. Nomeko may become the 40 billion ruble center’s managing company, BBC Russia reported on Wednesday. The 200,000-square-meter complex will be able to hold 20,000 patients and carry out 10,000 operations a year. It will include an oncology center, a multidisciplinary clinic, a rehabilitation and sports center, an educational complex and a nuclear medicine center. “It will be like a hypermarket of medical services, everything will be provided from diagnostic and polyclinic services to the most complex types of medical care,” Gleb Mikhailik, the founder of a chain of high-profile clinics, told BBC Russia. Little is publicly known about Vorontsova, who has never been officially confirmed as Putin’s daughter. She is most known for her work in medicine and endocrinology. One of the project’s primary investors, the insurance company Sogaz, is partially owned by Putin’s friend, the banker Yury Kovalchuk. To date, the firm has invested 30 billion rubles ($476 million) in the project, BBC Russia reported. Vladislav Baranov, the managing director of Sogaz’s subsidiary company SogazMedicine, is one of five shareholders in Nomeko, each of whom holds a 20% stake in the company. The center is expected to be up and running by 2021, BBC Russia reported.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/07/24/putins-eldest-daughter-steps-in-as-shareholder-of-634m-medical-centers-developer-a66558

2019-07-24 15:04:00+00:00

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truepundit--2019-04-29--Veteran takes his own life outside Cleveland VA Medical Center

truepundit

Veteran takes his own life outside Cleveland VA Medical Center

CLEVELAND– The Cleveland VA Medical Center reports a veteran took his own life outside the Wade Park emergency department Monday morning. An email about the incident was sent to employees around 10 a.m. The VA center reports they have grief counselors on site. Due to privacy regulations, the VA cannot provide further details. – READ MORE

admin

https://truepundit.com/veteran-takes-his-own-life-outside-cleveland-va-medical-center/

2019-04-29 19:22:08+00:00

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veteranstoday--2019-08-28--VA Murdering Patients at Medical Center in West Virginia 11 dead so far

veteranstoday

VA Murdering Patients at Medical Center in West Virginia (11 dead so far)

Editor’s note:Our sources say 11 veterans have been murdered by a serial killer VA employee.  The vets, none diabetics, were murdered with fatal doses of insulin administered by force by a serial killer who is still on the VA payroll but “limited to non-contact with patients.” However, local law enforcement has deemed this a homicide and has taken a slightly different tack than the VA has.  Similar cases at VA facilities have been covered up many many times. Our suggestion for the VA is that supervisors and administrators be given a class that teaches them to report serial killers among their staff and to begin cooperating with local authorities when staff members and subordinates go on mass murder sprees. Simply killing patients, something the VA is very good at or hiring SWAT teams for VA facilities to intimidate irate victims of malpractice is probably no longer going to be enough. CNN: The US Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating 11 suspicious deaths at a medical center in West Virginia, according to a statement from Sen. Joe Manchin’s office.

VT Network Editor

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/08/28/va-murdering-patients-at-medical-center-in-west-virginia-11-dead-so-far/

2019-08-28 19:49:55+00:00

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abcnews--2019-11-08--10 hospitalized from Oklahoma facility after flu shot mix-up

abcnews

10 hospitalized from Oklahoma facility after flu shot mix-up

Ten people at an Oklahoma care facility for people with intellectual disabilities were hospitalized after they were apparently accidentally injected with what's believed to be insulin rather than flu shots, authorities said. Emergency responders were called Wednesday afternoon to the Jacquelyn House in Bartlesville, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Tulsa, on a report of an unresponsive person and found "multiple unresponsive people," Bartlesville Police Chief Tracy Roles said. The facility had contracted with an experienced pharmacist to administer the influenza vaccine, Roles said, but all received injections of what's believed to be insulin instead. Roles said the pharmacist is cooperating with police but that investigators believe it was an accident. The eight residents and two staff members were taken to a Bartlesville hospital, and officials said that all have either been released or will be soon. "I've never seen where there's been some sort of medical misadventure to this magnitude," Roles said. "It could have been worse. Not to downplay where we are, but thinking of where we could be, it certainly could have been very tragic." A similar mishap occurred in September in Indianapolis, when 16 students were mistakenly injected with insulin during a tuberculosis skin test. Insulin is typically administered to someone with diabetes, a disease in which blood sugar levels are too high. The side effects of a too high injection of insulin includes sweating, nervousness, hunger and irritability and in severe cases, confusion and loss of consciousness, according to the Mayo Clinic.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/10-hospitalized-oklahoma-facility-flu-shot-mix-66847608

Fri, 08 Nov 2019 18:41:09 -0500

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drudgereport--2019-08-01--Can diet help cancer treatment Study in mice offers clues

drudgereport

Can diet help cancer treatment? Study in mice offers clues...

The study found restricting intake of an amino acid found in red meat and eggs significantly enhanced cancer treatment in mice, slowing tumour growth. Diet is already a key part of managing diseases like diabetes and hypertension, but new research adds to a growing body of evidence that it could help cancer treatment too. The study, published Thursday in the journal Nature, found restricting intake of an amino acid found in red meat and eggs significantly enhanced cancer treatment in mice, slowing tumour growth. "These are very strong effects, and they are effects that are as strong as we would see with drugs that work," said lead researcher Jason Locasale, an associate professor at Duke University's School of Medicine. "What this study is showing is that there are many situations where a drug by itself doesn't work, but if you combine the drug with the diet, it works, or the radiation therapy doesn't work well, but if you combine... with the diet, it works well," he told AFP. The study focused on restricting intake of the amino acid methionine which is key to a process called one-carbon metabolism that helps cancer cells grow. Methionine restriction has already been associated with both anti-aging and weight loss, but its importance to cancerous cells suggested it could also be a promising way to enhance cancer treatment. The researchers first tested methionine restriction in healthy mice to confirm it was having the desired effects on metabolism and then moved to testing it in mice with colorectal cancer and soft tissue sarcomas. They found that a low dose of chemotherapy, which on its own had no effect on colorectal cancer, led to "marked inhibition of tumour growth" when combined with methionine restriction. Similarly, combining methionine restriction with radiation therapy in the case of the soft tissue sarcoma reduced tumour growth. "You're starving the cancer cells of certain nutrients, at a very basic level," explained Locasale. He cautioned that the results should not be extrapolated beyond the cancers tested so far, and that the research was far from being tested in humans. "This is certainly not a be-all, end-all to cancer, this is not some panacea," he said. "What it's showing is that there are very interesting interactions between the food we eat, how it changes metabolism... and then how those changes in cellular metabolism might have an effect on tumour growth." Independent experts also warned against reading too much into the study just yet. "Before drawing any conclusions about the potential for dietary restriction as an approach to treating cancer, human studies are needed," said Paul Pharoah, a professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the University of Cambridge. Locasale and his colleagues extended the research by testing a methionine restricted diet in six healthy humans, and found that the effect on human metabolism appeared similar to that seen in mice. That suggests that the diet could have a similar effect on certain tumours in humans, though Locasale warned it was far too early to draw any definitive conclusions. And Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King's College London, warned that "there is no evidence from this study to suggest following a vegan diet with help patients with cancer." Locasale said he hoped to eventually test the research in humans with cancer, but noted that nutrition research often struggles for funding because it proposes treatments that are not easily monetizable. Still, he said the work adds to a body of research that suggests diet may play an important role in cancer treatment. Last year, a study showed one type of chemotherapy drug was more effective in combination with a diet low in sugar and high in protein and fat. Other cancers appear to be better combatted in combination with low-sugar diets. "It's just a really exciting area right now... where we're seeing that diet has a huge effect on human health," Locasale said. He hopes for a future where doctors will eventually be able to advise cancer patients to follow specific diets to assist their treatment. "We're not there yet, but the goal is to eventually get there."

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/shr2AnYncrw/diet-help-cancer-treatment-study-mice-offers-clues-180127830.html

2019-08-01 00:31:38+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-01-10--Study suggests that a dietary boost can reshape gut microbiome to enhance the bodys ability to figh

naturalnews

Study suggests that a dietary boost can reshape gut microbiome to enhance the body's ability to fight disease

(Natural News) The food you eat nourishes gut bacteria, and these bacteria then produce essential nutrients that fight off pathogens, guide immune responses, and keep you healthy. Now, according to a study by researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine, it may be possible to manipulate gut bacteria and prevent disease. In theory, learning how and why certain bacterial strains humans ingest can thrive in the large intestine while others are rejected may help scientists find out how to manipulate the makeup of thousands of bacterial species to boost overall health or help prevent diseases. However, gut ecology is complex, making this task seem impossible. For the study, researchers tested laboratory mice to find out they can manipulate the mice’s diet to influence the engraftment of a particular bacterial strain. The team of researchers shared that they have discovered how to control how much a bacterium grows in the intestine by adjusting the amount of a specific carbohydrate in each mouse’s food or water. Dr. Justin Sonnenburg, associate professor of microbiology and immunology, explained that everyone has a microbial community in their gut that formed in an uncontrolled manner during the first few years of life. As you grow older, you continue to acquire new strains. However, this acquisition is “a poorly orchestrated and not-well-understood process.” Dr. Sonnenburg posited that the study results imply that it is possible to reshape the microbiome to boost health and fight off disease. (Related: Gut bacteria “signatures” predict how the body will respond to poor food choices, predicting risk for diabetes, heart disease.) 100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site. The growing field of probiotics, which involves beneficial live bacterial cultures naturally found in food like yogurt or supplements, illustrates the need for the public to be educated on the importance of gut bacteria. Not everyone takes probiotics or consumes yogurt, but everyone “unknowingly consumes low levels of gut-adapted microbes” throughout their life. Regardless of the source, experts still don’t know why one bacterial strain is more successful over another. Dr. Sonnenburg et al. wanted to find out if a dietary boost could help certain bacterial strains survive in the human gut microbiome. The team started the study by visiting the San Jose Wastewater Treatment Facility to acquire members of the genus Bacteroides. This is the most prominent genus in the human gut microbiota. The researchers searched for strains that can digest nori, an ingredient relatively rare in American diets. Nori is nutritious, and the seaweed is often used in sushi rolls and other Japanese foods. A separate study has determined that four grams of nori contain 2.4 micrograms (mcg), or 100 percent of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) of vitamin B12. Researchers screened the bacteria collected in the primary effluent to find a strain that can use porphyran, a carbohydrate found in nori. Dr. Sonnenburg said that in humans, the genes that allow a bacterium to digest porphyran are very rare in people who don’t usually consume seaweed. He added that this let the researchers test how they can bypass the rules of complex ecosystems. To do so, the researchers created “a privileged niche that could favor a single microbe by allowing it to exist in the absence of competition from the 30 trillion other microbes in the gut.” After the researchers identified a strain of Bacteroides that could consume nori, the team tried to introduce the seaweed into three groups of laboratory mice. Two mice groups had their own gut bacteria eliminated and replaced with the naturally occurring gut bacteria taken from two healthy human donors. Both individuals donated exclusively to each mice group. The third group of mice retained a conventional mouse-specific community of gut microbiota. The test results showed that when the mice were fed a typical diet, the strain that could digest porphyran engrafted in two groups of mice to varying and limited degrees. One mice group with human gut bacteria completely rejected the new strain. Meanwhile, the mice group that followed a diet enriched with porphyran-rich diet produced significantly different results: the bacteria steadily engrafted at similar levels in all the mice. Dr. Sonnenburg also said that she was able to “precisely calibrate” the population size of the engrafted bacteria by changing the amount of nori that the animals consumed. She noted that the results of the dilution experiment were extraordinary and that it clearly showed the direct effect of diet on the bacterial population. After the researchers confirmed that they could manipulate the engraftment and growth of the bacterial strain, they also managed to prove that the genes required for the digestion of porphyran exist as a unit. These genes could be engineered into other Bacteroides strains to give them the same engraftment advantage. The researchers are now trying to identify other genes that may give similar dietary abilities. Dr. Sonnenburg stated that for the past decade, gut microbes had been proven to be connected to various aspects of human biology. Thanks to the study, the research team was also able to show that these bacteria are “very malleable.” The research team is hopeful that their discovery can be used to revolutionize how precision health is practiced. The study was published in the journal Nature. You can browse more articles about nori and other foods with various health benefits at Healing.news.

Zoey Sky

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-01-10-study-suggests-that-a-dietary-boost-can-reshape-gut-microbiome-to-enhance-the-bodys-ability-to-fight-disease.html

2019-01-10 00:08:25+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-01-19--Research suggests that even short term exposure to the standard Western diet increases risk for dise

naturalnews

Research suggests that even short term exposure to the standard Western diet increases risk for disease

(Natural News) As the Western diet becomes increasingly prevalent, a new study has revealed that even short-term exposure to unhealthy foods may still raise the odds of developing cardiometabolic disorders such as diabetes and heart disease. The study funded by the American Heart Association (AHA) focuses on the effects of excessive fat and sugar intake on the female population, which is known to possess protective hormones that reduce the risk of cardiovascular conditions. As part of the study, a team of researchers at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) examined female rats fed with a meal supplement that resembled the ingredients of the typical American diet. According to the researchers, the animal models were regularly given pellets that looked and smelled like fast food French fries for five months. Another set of rats were used as a control group and were given regular supplements. The findings showed that rats exhibited common diabetes symptoms such as blood vessel damage and high blood pressure following short-term exposure to the western diet. The research team also observed that the rats developed about four times more abdominal fat compared with the control group. However, the scientists found that the sick rats did not even appear to be outwardly obese. The sick rats likewise did not show typical diabetes markers such as increased blood glucose levels and hemoglobin A1c levels. The findings suggest that the negative effects of western diet may set in long before the more traditional disease markers manifest, the researchers say. Mother Nature's micronutrient secret: Organic Broccoli Sprout Capsules now available, delivering 280mg of high-density nutrition, including the extraordinary "sulforaphane" and "glucosinolate" nutrients found only in cruciferous healing foods. Every lot laboratory tested. See availability here. “Our findings suggest that short-term exposure to the western diet can put individuals at risk for developing vascular damage long before the tell-tale signs of diabetes are present. This may explain why some diabetics who successfully manage their blood glucose still experience other cardiovascular diseases, like hypertension, even while receiving treatment,” researcher Maria Alicia Carrillo Sepulveda told Science Daily online. The results also highlight the importance of osteopathic medical education, which not only focuses on disease management but also trains physicians to consider the consequences of the disease and the effects they have on the patients’ health care and lifestyle. (Related: TOXIC FOOD is killing humanity: One-fifth of global deaths now linked to processed junk food and toxic ingredients.) “This experiment reminds us that focusing solely on one aspect of disease does not adequately tell the complete story of one’s health. Without the presence of traditional biomarkers, there were still multiple indications suggesting the onset of prediabetes, and we would have been unaware of dire medical conditions had we simply been looking for the conventional signs. Translating the study results to potential patients, the problem is the food our patients are eating. If we can educate and encourage them to make better food choices, we can play a key role in the prevention of the development of diabetes,” researcher Benjamin Kramer adds. Adopting a better lifestyle and choosing healthier food items such as fruits and vegetables in place of oily and sugary foods may well reduce the risk of diseases associated with western diet. An article posted on the Help Guide website has listed a few tips to improve dietary patterns and the body’s overall health. These tips include:

Russel Davis

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-01-19-exposure-to-the-standard-western-diet-increases-risk-for-disease.html

2019-01-19 03:43:34+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-01-23--Recent study demonstrates how a healthy diet can reduce symptoms of depression

naturalnews

Recent study demonstrates how a healthy diet can reduce symptoms of depression

(Natural News) Recent research provides further evidence that a healthy diet may improve symptoms of depression. However, the diet featured on the study did not involve some type of new supplement, nor a new dietary approach. The SMILES trial (Supporting the Modification of Lifestyle in Lowered Emotional States) highlighted a general healthy Mediterranean-inspired diet which focused on increasing the consumption of fruits, vegetables, lean protein, and whole grains, while decreasing the consumption of carbohydrates, sweets, and heavily processed foods. For the study, the participants were allowed to continue the treatments for depression that they were currently doing, which mainly involved psychotherapy, antidepressant medications, or some combination of the two. This ensured that the researchers could determine the added benefit of dietary modification rather than testing the diet as a primary intervention. The study involved 67 patients suffering from major depressive disorder which ranged from moderate to severe. They also had baseline diets that were not particularly healthy in the first place. Half of the participants were randomly grouped into a dietary modification group which received seven sessions of personalized nutritional counseling and motivational support called “ModiMedDiet.” It emphasized healthier food choices as described above. The counselors also focused on reducing alcohol consumption – they allowed a maximum of two glasses of wine per day. The rest of the participants went to a control group that had social support, which was basically friendly chats with a research assistant. The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site. Results showed that the participants in the dietary modification group generally improved their eating habits, which in turn improved symptoms of their depression. The main instrument used to track the participants’ depression severity indicated that those in the dietary modification group improved significantly more than the control group – in terms of raw scores, the mean depression score for the dietary modification group dropped from 26 to 15 over a period of 12 weeks, while the control group fell from 25 to only about 20. This shows a fairly large effect that is comparable to some studies of antidepressant “augmentation” with other medications, such as antipsychotic agents, which are linked to some serious side effects. By the end of the study, about a third of the participants in the dietary modification group were rated as being “in remission” from their depression symptoms compared to only eight percent in the control group. Anxiety scores also improved with the dietary modification. The improvement in depression symptoms was found to be independent of changes in weight. The researchers acknowledge that it’s still unclear how a better diet improves depression symptoms, but they note that other research suggests pathways related to decreased inflammation, antioxidant effects, and changes in a person’s gut bacteria can affect brain activity. As with any health problems, eating the right foods help manage the symptoms and even treat them. For depressive disorders, here are some foods that have been shown to improve its symptoms. It’s important to consult your healthcare provider before deciding to add a diet plan as part of your depression treatment. DO NOT stop antidepressant medications on your own. Learn more about depression and the natural ways to improve its symptoms at BeatDepression.news.

Janine Acero

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-01-23-healthy-diet-can-improve-symptoms-of-depression.html

2019-01-23 19:00:29+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-01-28--Study confirms that healthy diet and regular exercise are the BEST ways to prevent prostate cancer

naturalnews

Study confirms that healthy diet and regular exercise are the BEST ways to prevent prostate cancer

(Natural News) Are you worried about prostate cancer? Not only is it easy to detect, but it can also be prevented through simple means that don’t involve expensive drugs or painful treatments. An article in Natural Health 365 asserted that eating the right foods and working out on a regular basis are more than enough to beat the second deadliest cancer that threatens American men. Every year sees more than 180,000 new cases of prostate cancer and 26,000 deaths related to it. It is considered to be one of the deadliest cancers in the U.S. However, it is also very easy to detect any signs of the disease. Prostate cancer is closely linked to prostate-specific antigen (PSA), an important enzyme produced by the prostate gland. Normally, PSA is present in small amounts. Higher levels are considered a warning that the prostate gland is having problems – such as the impending onset of prostate cancer. A simple blood test can determine the PSA levels of a man. This PSA blood test has been a staple when it comes to detecting the early stages of prostate cancer so that potential patients can take the right measures to prevent it. While there are conventional treatments for prostate cancer, they are expensive and not guaranteed to work. So the best way to deal with the disease is to avoid it in the first place. And to do this, you have to change your lifestyle. (Related: Italian style coffee found to significantly reduce the likelihood of prostate cancer.) The University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) studied the effects of healthy lifestyle choices on prostate cancer markers in men in 2005. They found that the participants who adopted healthier lifestyles were able to reduce their PSA levels. The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site. These men chose to exchange their usual fatty food intake for more servings of fruits and vegetables. They also started working out on a regular basis. UCSF researcher and study author Dean Ornish noted that increasing the amount of healthy food and exercise resulted in a commensurate improvement of prostate cancer markers. He also detailed how his team took blood serum samples from the participants and added them to cultured prostate cancer cells. In Ornish’s paper, he detailed how the blood serum of healthy individuals slowed the growth of prostate cancer tumors by 70 percent. Meanwhile, the serum from participants with less healthy lifestyles achieved only a nine percent inhibition rate. The study concluded that a combination of nutritious food and moderate levels of exercise is not just able to help prevent the onset of prostate cancer. It can also slow down the spread of the disease in a man who has been diagnosed with cancer by making his blood much less livable for tumors. Other research papers corroborated the findings of the UCSF study. For example, a 2014 study by Iran’s National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute reported that there was a connection between a participant’s intake of fruits and vegetables and his resistance to prostate cancer. The Iranian study identified apples, cabbage, pomegranates, and tomatoes as the foods consumed by its participants. They decreased the risk of cancer by 67 percent. Another study – this one performed by Italy’s IRCCS-Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri” – warned against eating animal products and starchy foods. These unhealthy foods were considered to increase the chance of cancer by a large margin. Instead, it recommended foods that contained plenty of fiber and vitamins. Find out how a healthy lifestyle is the best defense against all kinds of cancer at AntiCancer.news.

Edsel Cook

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-01-28-healthy-diet-regular-exercise-best-way-to-prevent-prostate-cancer.html

2019-01-28 17:34:20+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-02-06--Following a plant-based or vegan diet can reduce risk factors of Type 2 diabetes research indicates

naturalnews

Following a plant-based or vegan diet can reduce risk factors of Type 2 diabetes, research indicates

(Natural News) Plant-based and vegan diets are becoming more and more popular due to their many health benefits. A study published in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care found that these types of diets are especially beneficial for people with Type 2 diabetes. The review also suggests that diabetics who switch to plant-based or vegan diets can enjoy improvements in their physical and psychological well being. Type 2 diabetes is one of the most prevalent diseases in the world. This is very alarming since patients who are not able to manage this condition can suffer from a wide range of complications. This includes heart disease, nerve damage, blindness, sleep apnea, and Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to these, Type 2 diabetes can take a toll on a patient’s psychological health, increasing their risk of depression by up to three times.  This can have a significant effect on how they manage and control their disease, especially since depression has been associated with poor blood sugar control. Diet is an important factor in both the development and the treatment of diabetes. Previous studies have shown that high meat consumption, especially of red and processed meat, is associated with a higher risk of Type 2 diabetes. This suggests that plant-based diets that are free of most or all animal products may be best for diabetics and those who are at risk of the disease. To determine if this was the case, the researchers, who came from various research institutions in the U.K., conducted a systematic review of 11 articles with a total of 433 participants. On average, the trials that were included in the study lasted for 23 weeks. 100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site. From the studies, the researchers observed that plant-based or vegan diets led to significant improvements in physical quality of life and emotional well being, as indicated by improvements in depressive symptoms. They also noted that following these diets improved blood sugar levels and reduced nerve pain, which is a common complication caused by diabetes. Furthermore, following a plant-based diet helped the participants lose weight, having an average loss of 5.23 kg compared to the 2.83kg of those who still ate animal products. This is important for diabetes prevention since being overweight or obese is a major contributor to the development of this disease. Overall, these results indicate that becoming a vegetarian or vegan can help prevent Type 2 diabetes and its complications by helping maintain healthy blood sugar levels. (Related: Diabetes sufferer switched to vegan diet, blood sugar stabilized after 10 days.) Plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are rich in fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals that are great for your health. By increasing your intake of these foods, you can enjoy many health benefits, including:

Ellaine Castillo

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-02-06-vegan-diet-can-reduce-risk-factors-of-type-2-diabetes.html

2019-02-06 02:56:18+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-02-14--Pediatric cancer patients found to benefit from improved diet and exercise boosting treatment succe

naturalnews

Pediatric cancer patients found to benefit from improved diet and exercise, boosting treatment success

(Natural News) Even as you undergo cancer treatment, simple things like proper diet and exercise can help increase your levels of successful treatment and recovery. This is according to researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital, who recently performed a study that was published in an online issue of Pediatrics Research. According to the researchers, diet and exercise still have strong potential to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy as well as reduce the risk of late effects in patients with pediatric cancer. This research opens the door to determining how energy balance, which is a combination of an individual’s diet and exercise, can be implemented effectively alongside treatment for managing or treating obesity. In total, the researchers looked at 67 studies – including 32 clinical trials in pediatric patients – as well as data from different patients diagnosed with different kinds of cancers. Their research included patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, brain tumors, and rhabdomysarcoma. They also highlighted the cellular mechanisms through which energy balance affects tumor growth. According to Joya Chandra, Ph.D., an associate professor of Pediatric Research and the lead author on the study, their aim in conducting the research was to find out what works for the pediatric patients as far as both diet and exercise were concerned. “The purpose of the review was to delineate between obesity reduction as a goal for energy balance interventions versus simply changing diet or adding exercise,” she said. “For example, our review confirmed modifying diet or adding moderate exercise can improve chemotherapy efficacy independent of weight loss.” The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site. What is also confirmed from the research that they conducted is that having a poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle negatively affects a patient’s chances for successful treatment recovery. In fact, the researchers confirm that both of these things lead to obesity. However, the link between tumors in different cancers and how proper diet and exercise can affect them still needs to be analyzed, as the researchers still haven’t fully understood it. According to Keri Shadler, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Pediatric Research and a co-author on the study, there are many different factors that need to be considered when creating a custom-made exercise program for patients. These include the type of tumor present, the patient’s health status, and the frequency and duration of the exercise being performed. “Exercise during treatment is safe and improves physical fitness in patients,” Shadler said. “We have several clinical trials underway including one testing exercise interventions in bone tumor patients.” This research sheds new light on what’s possible while administering treatment to patients with pediatric cancer. Common knowledge dictates that special diet interventions aren’t usually part of such treatment, despite the fact that healthy eating is encouraged while a patient is being treated. That’s doubly true for physical activity; as a matter of fact, physicians are often cautious about suggesting it in a cancer care setting. For now, the researchers are going to continue running tests, particularly in administering nutrition interventions as well as looking at weight trajectory in all patients. Other aspects of their research look at other things, such as the impact of diet and exercise intervention on the effectiveness of chemotherapy, the long-term risk of toxicity for leukemia, and osteosarcoma. Although it may all seem counter-intuitive, the data from the research clearly suggests that something good can come from diet and exercise even in the midst of cancer treatment.

David Williams

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-02-14-pediatric-cancer-patients-benefit-from-improved-diet-exercise.html

2019-02-14 19:05:07+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-08-20--Make dietary changes to manage your underactive thyroid naturally

naturalnews

Make dietary changes to manage your underactive thyroid naturally

 * * * ([Natural News](https://www.naturalnews.com)) Hypothyroidism occurs when your body is unable to produce enough thyroid hormones. These hormones help control the body’s growth, repair, and metabolism. Hypothyroidism is often linked to symptoms such as fatigue and weight gain. If you have this thyroid condition, consider making [dietary changes or take herbal remedies and supplements](https://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/hypothyroidism-and-natural- treatments-could-diet-and-herbs-help-treat-your-underactive-thyroid) to manage your symptoms. Hypothyroidism affects at least one to two percent of people around the globe, but the condition is ten times more likely to affect women than men. ## What happens when you have hypothyroidism? The **thyroid gland** , a small, butterfly-shaped gland at the base of your neck, produces and stores thyroid hormones that [affect almost all of the cells in your body](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/hypothyroidism-diet). When the thyroid gland receives a signal called **thyroid-stimulating hormone** (TSH), it releases thyroid hormones into your bloodstream. This signal is sent by the pituitary gland, a small gland at the base of your brain, when thyroid hormone levels are low. Sometimes, the thyroid gland doesn’t release thyroid hormones even when you have TSH. This condition is called **primary hypothyroidism** , the most common type of hypothyroidism. About 90 percent of primary hypothyroidism occurs because of [Hashimoto’s thyroiditis](https://www.naturalpedia.com/hashimotos-thyroiditis-causes-side- effects-and-treatments-at-naturalpedia-com.html), an autoimmune disease wherein the immune system attacks your thyroid gland by mistake. Primary hypothyroidism can also be caused by a genetic disorder, an iodine deficiency, taking certain medications, and surgery that removes part of the thyroid. If you have **secondary hypothyroidism** , your pituitary gland is unable to work properly. This condition occurs when the thyroid gland doesn’t receive enough TSH. [](https://prevent-and-reverse-heart-disease.naturalnews.com)| _ **Discover how to prevent and reverse heart disease (and other cardio related events) with this free ebook** : Written by popular Natural News writer Vicki Batt, this book includes [everything you need to know](https://prevent-and- reverse-heart-disease.naturalnews.com) about preventing heart disease, reversing hypertension, and nurturing your cardiac health without medication. [Learn More.](https://prevent-and-reverse-heart-disease.naturalnews.com)_ ---|--- Thyroid hormones are crucial since they control your metabolism, the process by which your body converts food into energy. This process affects your temperature and how fast you burn calories. Changes in metabolism are the reasons why those with hypothyroidism usually feel fatigued and cold and gain weight easily. ## Low-calorie and low-carb diets for hypothyroidism Certain drugs, such as levothyroxine, can be used to treat hypothyroidism. However, these medications are also [associated with negative side effects](https://www.rxlist.com/consumer_levothyroxine/drugs- condition.htm#what_are_side_effects_of_levothyroxine) such as chest pain, congestive heart failure, infertility, insomnia, and palpitations. Individuals with hypothyroidism usually have a slower metabolism. According to studies, aerobic exercise can help boost your thyroid hormone levels. Additionally, eating more protein can help boost your metabolism. While foods alone won’t cure hypothyroidism, combining the right nutrients, herbs, and supplements will help restore thyroid function and address your symptoms. In a study published in the journal  _Metabolism,_  researchers observed participants who were forced to drastically reduce their caloric consumption to 1000 calories per day while enrolling in an exercise program. Nutritionists designed diets with either high carbohydrate levels or with low carbohydrate levels for the participants to follow. The researchers separated them into two groups, and each group followed one of the two diets to help them build up to 1000 calories. Once the study concluded, the researchers found that a low-calorie diet helped reduce the severity of hypothyroidism in both groups, but thyroid function returned to near-normal levels much faster in the volunteers who followed a low-carb diet. If you have hypothyroidism, follow a low-calorie and low-carb diet to manage your symptoms and promote weight loss. ### Herbs, nutrients, and supplements for an underactive thyroid An extract called **ashwagandha** is often used as an herbal supplement for managing anxiety. Data suggest that, aside from regulating the levels of cortisol which makes you anxious, [ashwagandha](https://www.naturalpedia.com /ashwagandha-sources-health-benefits-nutrients-uses-and-constituents-at- naturalpedia-com.html) also works on the thyroid hormones secreted by the pituitary gland. However, ashwagandha has several side effects, one of which is weight gain. (Related: [Home remedies for hypothyroidism](https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-10-08-home-remedies-for- hypothyroidism.html).) Patients who have hypothyroidism may also have conditions like vitamin B12 deficiency and [celiac disease](https://www.naturalpedia.com/celiac-disease- causes-side-effects-and-treatments-at-naturalpedia-com.html). To improve your vitamin B12 levels, make dietary changes and consume more foods that contain the vitamin, like dairy products, dark leafy vegetables, and fortified cereals. Increasing your intake of certain nutrients can also help improve your condition. * **Iodine** – [Iodine](https://www.naturalpedia.com/iodine-sources-health-benefits-and-uses.html) is an essential mineral that you need to produce thyroid hormones. Sources include dairy, eggs, fish, and seaweed. * **SeleniumÂ** – Selenium helps your body activate thyroid hormones so they can be used by the body. The nutrient also helps minimize inflammatory reactions and improves thyroid function. Additionally, increased selenium levels are linked to a stronger immune system and improved cognitive function. Sources include [Brazil nuts](https://www.naturalpedia.com/brazil-nuts-sources-health-benefits-nutrients-uses-and-constituents-at-naturalpedia-com.html), eggs, legumes, sardines, and tuna. * **Zinc** – Zinc also helps your body activate thyroid hormones. Zinc-rich food sources include beef, chicken, oysters, and other shellfish. Follow a nutritious diet and consume [foods rich in nutrients like iodine](https://healing.news/), selenium, and zinc to manage your hypothyroidism. **Sources include:** [SteadyHealth.com](https://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/hypothyroidism-and- natural-treatments-could-diet-and-herbs-help-treat-your-underactive-thyroid) [Healthline.com](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/hypothyroidism-diet) [RXList.com](https://www.rxlist.com/consumer_levothyroxine/drugs- condition.htm#what_are_side_effects_of_levothyroxine)

Zoey Sky

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-08-20-make-dietary-changes-to-manage-your-underactive-thyroid-naturally.html

2019-08-20 18:07:44+00:00

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health treatment

naturalnews--2019-08-23--Live longer and prevent disease by adding mushrooms to your diet

naturalnews

Live longer and prevent disease by adding mushrooms to your diet

(Natural News) If healthy food is medicine, then mushrooms are highly medicinal. These edible fungi contain numerous nutrients and produce natural compounds that help protect against diseases. They can even increase the longevity of people who eat them regularly. Researcher Paul Stamets explains that fungi can convert rotting organic materials into humus soils that help plants flourish. He calls them one of nature’s most vital disassemblers of organic molecules. By turning decaying matter into usable nutrients, fungi provide nourishment to both plants and animals, including humans. They also biosynthesize some of the most potent substances on Earth for human use. Penicillin and other antibiotics come from fungi like Penicillium. Other fungi also show considerable potential as medicinal treatments for diseases and other health conditions. Some mushrooms produce mind-altering effects on humans who ingest them. Ancient cultures and peoples valued these psychotropic fungi, while modern-day researchers believe that these “magic mushrooms” may be the key to human evolution. (Related: Nutrient powerhouse: 5 Health benefits you can gain from medicinal mushrooms.) Fungi conduct most of their activities in the soil, away from the prying eyes of humans. Stamets wrote that the underground network of mycelia acts as the soil’s nervous system. Furthermore, he theorized that fungi possess a form of sentience. Mushrooms and other types of fungus display a natural awareness of the requirements of their host. They respond to environmental stimuli by producing enzymes and chemical reactions. Building on this theory, Stamets proposed that mushrooms have a co-creative consciousness. He also believes in the possibility of interacting with this consciousness. “Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape,” Stamets wrote. As part of his research, Stamets looked at the human digestive system. The gut enables interaction between fungi and their human hosts. Mushrooms are prebiotic foods. They enhance digestion and overall health by boosting the population of beneficial bacteria that live in the gut. A 2017 study by researchers from The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) showed that some nutritionally dense mushrooms have high amounts of ergothioneine, glutathione, and other antioxidants. An antioxidant-rich diet can protect cells against oxidative stress and slow down the aging process. Mushrooms not only increase longevity, they also supply valuable nutrients. For instance, their vitamin D content ensures that the immune system can function properly. Any edible mushroom brings a lot of antioxidants and nutrients to the dining table. In their study, Penn State researchers identified seven edible mushroom species with the highest antioxidant activity and the greatest concentration of nutrients. Porcini mushrooms appear in specialty markets for most of the year. They flourish in the undergrowth of chestnut, hemlock, pine, and spruce trees. In contrast, golden oyster mushrooms are usually cultivated. A simple straw mat with compost is enough to induce the growth of this nutritious fungi. Pioppino mushrooms have a mild flavor akin to pepper. They are found on rotting logs or at the base of hardwood trees. One of the most familiar types, oyster mushrooms are easy to cultivate. Their sweet scent is similar to anise’s. Lion’s mane mushrooms spur the production of nerve growth factor, a protein that helps neurons in the central and peripheral nervous systems regenerate. A staple in traditional Chinese medicine, they enhance memory and mood. Maitake mushrooms often feature in animal studies. They reduce cholesterol and blood glucose levels in rats. Asian cultures consider shiitake mushrooms to be a symbol of longevity. They are also considered medicinal.

Edsel Cook

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-08-23-live-longer-prevent-disease-by-adding-mushrooms-to-your-diet.html

2019-08-23 18:52:29+00:00

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naturalnews--2019-09-09--Can a keto diet improve cancer symptoms Heres what you need to know

naturalnews

Can a keto diet improve cancer symptoms? Here’s what you need to know

(Natural News) Recently, more people are adhering to the ketogenic diet – a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carbohydrate diet. It restricts the intake of carbohydrates coming from bread, crackers, certain fruits, pasta, rice, root vegetables, and sugar. While most commonly known for its ability to aid in weight loss, the keto diet was also found to fight against some types of cancer. One study published in the journal Cancer & Metabolism reported that 80 percent of human cancer cells have an increased intake of glucose and produce very little energy without the presence of oxygen. This mechanism is completely unusual compared to normal energy metabolism – where a small amount of glucose yields a huge amount of energy in the presence of oxygen. These findings suggested that the metabolism of most cancer cells is altered. However, by adhering to the keto diet, the metabolism of the tumor can potentially be changed. This can be done by reducing the intake of sugar and other nutrients, such as insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), the tumor feeds on. As a result, the blood flow to the tumor is reduced, making it much less favorable for cancer cells to grow. This cancer-fighting effect of the keto diet was confirmed in a study published in the Journal of Nutrition. In this study, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham wanted to determine if the keto diet can help women with cancer lose more body fat and lower their insulin levels. To do so, they randomly assigned women with ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer to a keto diet or the American Cancer Society diet for 12 weeks. They measured the participants’ body composition, fasting serum insulin, IGF-1, and beta-hydroxybutyrate before and after the treatment. They also measured their urinary ketones throughout the study period. The results showed that the ovarian and endometrial cancer patients who followed the keto diet experienced significant improvements in their condition. The keto diet helped reduce the fat mass, insulin, and IGF-1 of obese endometrial and ovarian cancer patients. This led to the reduction of their tumor burden. Another study, which was published in the journal Neuro-Oncology, found that the keto diet sensitizes cancer cells to be killed and saves healthy cells during chemotherapy and radiation. Most studies that have supported the cancer-fighting effects of the keto diet are mainly for brain tumors. (Related: The keto diet: Tips to make sure that the eating plan is working for you.) While existing evidence on the beneficial effects of the keto diet on cancer is promising, there are several things you need to consider if you are diagnosed with cancer and are currently on treatment. For one, people with non-small-cell lung cancer; esophageal, pancreatic, or gastric cancer; or are undergoing a stem-cell transplant burn calories much faster than those with other cancers and have a metabolism that tends to be more altered. In addition, pancreatic cancer and cancers of the bile duct and gallbladder typically cause fat malabsorption. For these reasons, the keto diet may not work for these people. Following the keto diet may also cause nutrition-impact side effects that may be difficult to manage, such as nausea and diarrhea. As mentioned earlier, the keto diet can lower glucose levels, which can be dangerous for people who are prone to hypoglycemia and those taking blood sugar-lowering drugs. Overall, if you are diagnosed with cancer, it’s best to consult a nutritionist who can tell if the keto diet is suitable for your condition.

Melissa Smith

http://www.naturalnews.com/2019-09-09-keto-diet-can-improve-cancer-symptoms.html

2019-09-09 09:45:58+00:00

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health treatment

theindependent--2019-02-22--Inside Turkeyaposs largest animal hospital saving thousands of sick animals every year

theindependent

Inside Turkey's largest animal hospital saving thousands of sick animals every year

A horse with an injured ankle, a stressed cockatoo that plucked out the feathers on its wings and a peacock suffering from an inflamed eye were just some of the patients undergoing treatment at Turkey’s largest animal hospital recently. The Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Faculty of Veterinary Science Hospital opened in 1987 and treats thousands of sick animals every year. After visiting the centre two years ago, Erdem Sahin felt compelled to visit once again in order to see how its 60 veterinarians nurse poorly animals back to health. The first patient he came across was a dog in a basket, who looked to be in pain. It transpired the canine, who was called “Duman”, which is Turkish for “smoke”, was suffering from constipation. Duman had to undergo five days of treatment before “seeming very happy and relaxed”, according to the photographer. Another canine, wearing a diaper and confined to a stretcher, was undergoing treatment for cancer. While that dog had a long and difficult road ahead, the vet treating him was hopeful about the animal’s future. The hospital is split into five departments specialising in internal diseases, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, artificial insemination and wild animal reproduction. It also has an emergency room that is staffed 24 hours a day. Doctor Serhat Ozsoy, the head of the department of animal diseases and ecology, was treating a wild hawk that had been found in another part of the city and brought in with a broken wing. The bird would be released back into the wild once it had made a recovery. The hospital treats some 50,000 animals every year, mostly pets, and is funded by vet bills paid by owners.

Erdem Sahin

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/turkey-biggest-animal-hospital-istanbul-sick-pets-photos-vets-a8784686.html

2019-02-22 18:02:34+00:00

health

non-human diseases

newyorkpost--2019-03-19--Gaza parrot gets treatment from Israeli animal rights group

newyorkpost

Gaza parrot gets treatment from Israeli animal rights group

EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip — An ailing parrot in the blockaded Gaza Strip received treatment Tuesday from an Israeli animal rights group after its Palestinian owner appealed for help via Facebook. Abdullah Sharaf told The Associated Press that his African grey parrot, Koki, drank bleach that burned a hole in his throat. He said local veterinarians, ill equipped to handle specialized cases, suggested his exotic pet be put down. Unconvinced, Sharaf appealed via Facebook to an animal rights group in central Israel, which agreed to help. The group sent a mobile surgery clinic to the Israel-Gaza frontier and successfully treated the bird at the crossing. Tuesday’s rescue was coordinated with COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs. Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power in 2007. Palestinians in Gaza face severe travel restrictions, making it difficult to get specialized medical treatment.

Associated Press

https://nypost.com/2019/03/19/gaza-parrot-gets-treatment-from-israeli-animal-rights-group/

2019-03-19 20:12:36+00:00

health

non-human diseases