And a whole lot more. . .
First, from the Guardian, the truly alarming:
Revealed: 100 safety breaches at UK labs handling potentially deadly diseases
Blunders led to live anthrax being posted from one lab and holes being found in isolation suits at a facility handling Ebola-infected animals
High-security laboratories that handle the most dangerous viruses and bacteria have reported more than 100 accidents or near-misses to safety regulators in the past five years, official reports reveal.
One blunder led to live anthrax being sent from a government facility to unsuspecting labs across the UK, a mistake that exposed other scientists to the disease. Another caused the failure of an air handling system that helped contain foot and mouth disease at a large animal lab.
Wear and tear also caused problems and potentially put researchers in danger. At a top security Ministry of Defence lab, tears were found in isolation suits at a facility handling animals infected with the Ebola virus.
Reports obtained by the Guardian from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reveal that more than 70 incidents at government, university and hospital labs were serious enough to investigate. Many led to enforcement letters, or crown prohibition notices (CPN), ordering labs to shut until improvements were made. Some were so serious they ended in legal action.
Another alarm from the New York Times:
‘Superbugs’ Kill India’s Babies and Pose an Overseas Threat
A deadly epidemic that could have global implications is quietly sweeping India, and among its many victims are tens of thousands of newborns dying because once-miraculous cures no longer work.
These infants are born with bacterial infections that are resistant to most known antibiotics, and more than 58,000 died last year as a result, a recent study found. While that is still a fraction of the nearly 800,000 newborns who die annually in India, Indian pediatricians say that the rising toll of resistant infections could soon swamp efforts to improve India’s abysmal infant death rate. Nearly a third of the world’s newborn deaths occur in India.
“Reducing newborn deaths in India is one of the most important public health priorities in the world, and this will require treating an increasing number of neonates who have sepsis and pneumonia,” said Dr. Vinod Paul, chief of pediatrics at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the leader of the study. “But if resistant infections keep growing, that progress could slow, stop or even reverse itself. And that would be a disaster for not only India but the entire world.”
Yet another alarm from the New York Times:
Chronic Diseases Are Killing More in Poorer Countries
Chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease are rising fast in low- and middle-income countries, striking far younger populations than in rich countries and causing much worse outcomes, according to a new report.
Deaths from chronic diseases have risen by more than 50 percent in low- and middle-income countries over the past two decades, according to the report, by the Council on Foreign Relations. The increase is part of a shift in global mortality patterns in which infectious diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, have declined substantially and are no longer the leading cause of death in the developing world.
The shift in poorer countries is being driven by urbanization and other major changes that have led to improvements in aspects of public health, such as hand washing, sanitation and vaccines. That has led to sharp declines in infant mortality, and in turn, to increases in life spans. The average life expectancy in Africa, for example, has increased by about eight years since 2000, according to the World Health Organization.
An early warning sign from Global Times:
China’s Fujian reports human bird flu case
East China’s Fujian Province on Wednesday reported a case of human infection of the H7N9 strain of bird flu.
The patient is a 27-year-old man from the city of Fuqing, the Fujian provincial health and family planning commission said in a statement.
The patient is in a critical condition and under observation at a hospital in the provincial capital of Fuzhou.
A corporate chemical alarm from the Center for Public Integrity:
Benzene and worker cancers: ‘An American tragedy’
Documents lay bare petrochemical industry’s $36 million ‘research strategy’ on carcinogen
Internal memorandums, emails, letters and meeting minutes obtained by the Center for Public Integrity over the past year suggest that America’s oil and chemical titans, coordinated by their trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, spent at least $36 million on research “designed to protect member company interests,” as one 2000 API summary put it. Many of the documents chronicle an unparalleled effort by five major petrochemical companies to finance benzene research in Shanghai, China, where the pollutant persists in workplaces. Others attest to the industry’s longstanding interest in such “concerns” as childhood leukemia.
Taken together, the documents — put in context by interviews with dozens of lawyers, scientists, academics, regulators and industry representatives — depict a “research strategy” built on dubious motives, close corporate oversight and painstaking public relations. They comprise an industry playbook to counteract growing evidence of benzene’s toxic effects, which continue to command the attention of federal and state regulators and be fiercely debated in court.
“The conspiracy exists, and the conspiracy involves hiding the true hazards of benzene at low doses,” said Robert Black, a Houston lawyer who represents plaintiffs in toxic tort cases. Since 2004, while handling dozens of lawsuits filed on behalf of workers sickened by leukemia, lymphoma and other diseases associated with benzene, Black has obtained 16,000 pages of internal records detailing the industry’s research tactics, which he shared with the Center. Other lawyers provided an additional 5,000 pages.
And the Daily Show looks at the pinkwashing another American corporate chemical carcinogenic stew:
Pink Fracking with John Stewart & Samantha Bee On The Daily Show
Program notes:
Energy giant Baker Hughes launches a breast cancer campaign despite the use of known carcinogens in fracking, and Samantha Bee identifies broader pinkwashing opportunities.
And on the subject of known carcinogens, this from Science:
Smoking erases Y chromosomes
If cancer, heart disease, and emphysema weren’t bad enough, male smokers may have another thing to worry about: losing their Y chromosomes. Researchers have found that smokers are up to four times more likely to have blood cells with no Y chromosome than nonsmokers. That’s worrisome, they say, because a recent study found an association between Y chromosome loss and a shorter life span, as well as a higher risk of multiple cancers.
There is, however, no direct proof that loss of Y sex chromosomes actually causes disease, cautions Stephen Chanock, a cancer geneticist at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, who was not involved with the work.
To conduct the study, molecular oncologist Jan Dumanski and statistician Lars Forsberg of Uppsala University in Sweden took advantage of data collected from three ongoing Swedish trials. The long-term studies are looking for associations between behavioral, lifestyle, or other traits and disease.
Playing hardball climate politics, via Reuters:
China says climate aid inadequate, especially Australia
Rich nations’ pledges of almost $10 billion to a green fund to help poor nations cope with global warming are “far from adequate”, particularly Australia’s lack of a donation, the head of China’s delegation at U.N. climate talks said on Thursday.
Su Wei also urged all rich nations to deepen their planned cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, signaling that a joint Chinese-U.S. announcement of greenhouse gas curbs last month does not mean an end to deep differences on climate policy.
Speaking during Dec. 1-12 talks in Lima, Su said donor pledges last month totaling $9.7 billion to a new U.N. Green Climate Fund (GCF), to help developing nations cut emissions and adapt to climate change, were only a small part of needed cash.
“It is far from adequate,” he told a news conference, noting that developed nations in 2009 agreed to mobilize $100 billion a year from both public and private sources by 2020 to help poor nations suffering droughts, heat waves, floods and rising seas.
More of the same from Channel NewsAsia Singapore:
India says will not be bulldozed at climate talks
India’s economy still is far behind that of China and government officials have argued in the past that this is why the South Asian country should not be obliged to curtail its carbon emissions.
India, the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, said on Thursday (Dec 4) it is committed to tackling global warming but vowed to protect its interests at the latest round of UN climate talks in Lima.
“We will walk with confidence with our own aggressive actions on climate change,” India’s environment minister Prakash Javadekar told Indian television network NDTV on the eve of his departure for the Peruvian capital.
United States and China, the world’s top two emitters of carbon dioxide, signed a landmark deal last month to work together to cut their carbon footprint.
California climate politics in Washington from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Latest California drought bill causes new dust-up
A new California water bill slated to hit the House floor next week would boost irrigation deliveries to farms south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, nudge along planning for new dams and capture more storm runoff for human use.
It would not authorize dam construction, repeal an ambitious San Joaquin River restoration plan or last longer than the state’s current drought.
And whether it survives or dies will almost certainly be up to the Senate, where California’s two Democrats are feeling the heat from every corner.
“I have carefully studied the Republican water bill and I am dismayed that this measure could reignite the water wars by overriding critical state and federal protections for California,” Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said late Wednesday.
BBC News covers a crisis in Africa:
African soil crisis threatens food security, says study
Neglecting the health of Africa’s soil will lock the continent into a cycle of food insecurity for generations to come, a report has warned. The publication by the Montpellier Panel said the problem needed to be given a higher priority by aid donors.
It added that soil degradation was also hampering economic development, costing the continent’s farmers billions of dollars in lost income. The study has been published ahead of the 2015 international year of soils.
The Montpellier Panel – made up of agricultural, trade and ecology experts from Europe and Africa – warned that land degradation reduced soil fertility, leading to lower crop yields and increased greenhouse gas emissions.
From the Montpellier Panel:
NO ORDINARY MATTER: CONSERVING, RESTORING AND ENHANCING AFRICA’S SOILS (2014)
Agriculture for Impact presented the new Montpellier Panel report ‘No Ordinary Matter: Conserving, Restoring and Enhancing Africa’s Soils’ on Thursday 4th December 2014 at the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Rome- ahead of World Soil Day on the 5th of December.
In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 65 per cent of soils are degraded, and unable to nourish the crops the chronically food insecure continent requires. Poverty, climate change, population pressures and inadequate farming techniques are leading to a continuous decline in the health of African soils, whilst the economic loss is estimated at USD 68 billion per year. Conversely, better land management practices could deliver up to USD 1.4 trillion globally in increased crop production – 35 times the losses.
This report from the Montpellier Panel argues that if left unaddressed, the cycle of poor land management will result in higher barriers to food security, agricultural development for smallholder farmers and wider economic growth for Africa.
BBC News covers drought Down Under:
Farmers set to receive A$100m drought aid from government
Farmers may soon receive as much as A$100m (£53m) in drought assistance from the Australian government.
The package will offer concessional loans at interest rates pegged at 3.2%.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said some farmers in Queensland had not earned any income for three years because of drought.
Much of Australia has received lower than usual amounts of rain this year, while the country has just experienced its hottest spring on record.
After the jump, India refuses to hew to climate demands, Europe eases up on GMO crop guidelines, a cocked, locked, and loaded fault on the U.S. Pacific Coast?, a massive pipeline leak in the Israeli desert, China drives massive online illegal wildlife trade, an endangered species win in California, the U.S. government screws the Indian out of their land once again, Japan eyes oceanic strip-mining, the Climate Game recolonization of Africa, on to Fukushimapocalypse Now! with a coverup, an institute opened, and another consequence of N-plant shutdowns, major prison time demanded for Spanish nuclear plant protesters, and a case of statutory ape. . .
Europe eases up on GMO crop guidelines, via Shanghai Daily:
EU compromises on GM crops
THE European Union agreed a compromise on growing genetically modified crops Thursday that gives nations the option to ban them, even if EU authorities have approved them for cultivation.
Environmental campaigners said the deal was an improvement on the current regime, but were concerned it would still make it easier to grow GM crops in Europe, while representatives of the GM industry also criticized the deal.
Widespread in the Americas and Asia, GM crops are rare in Europe, where they divide opinion, with opposition in many countries including France and Germany. Britain is in favor of them.
An earlier attempt to reach a compromise on GM cultivation failed in 2012, when EU ministers were unable to agree.
From the London Daily Mail, a cocked, locked, and loaded fault on the U.S. Pacific Coast?:
Is the ‘big one’ coming? Study warns huge 1,000km long fault where megaquake will originate is ‘eerily quiet’
Cascadia ‘megathrust’ fault is a 1,000 Km long dipping fault
It stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino California
Researchers believe fault is ‘locked’ and pressure building in it
The fault zone expected to generate the next ‘big one’ earthquake has gone silent.
Researchers are baffled by the lack of activity at the 1,00km long Cascadia fault which stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino in California.
Experts believe the lack of activity could point to a build up of pressure – which could lead to a massive killer quake.
From BBC News, a massive pipeline leak in the Israeli desert:
Israeli desert hit by major oil spill
Millions of litres of crude oil have caused severe damage after spilling from a pipeline in what is described as one of the worst environmental accidents in Israel’s history.
The spill reached the Evrona nature reserve north of the southern port city of Eilat, close to the Jordan border.
Israeli and Jordanian media report that 80 people near Aqaba have been taken to hospital with breathing difficulties.
Israeli officials say rehabilitation of the area could take months, even years.
China drives massive online illegal wildlife trade, from China Daily:
Illegal wildlife trading rampant on Web
China has become the largest market for illegal wildlife trading with a huge number of related animal products being sold online, according to a new report by a major animal welfare group.
At least 18,590 animal products were for sale online in the country at the beginning of 2014, the International Fund for Animal Welfare reported on Tuesday. Of the 21 online marketplaces monitored in China, wildlife products valued at $2.7 million were available for sale from March 10 to April 18.
The products mainly involved elephant and rhinoceros ivory, turtles, tortoises and exotic birds, the nonprofit group said. The ivory trade dominated all the sales in the country, with nearly 79 percent of them made up of ivory products.
Worldwide, IFAW’s investigators found 33,006 endangered wildlife and related products for sale on 280 online marketplaces in 16 countries early this year.
An endangered species win in California, from the Los Angeles Times:
Tricolored blackbird gains endangered species protection in California
The California Fish and Game Commission on Wednesday granted endangered species protections to the tricolored blackbird, approving the designation on a temporary, emergency basis.
The reason: Statewide surveys show the tricolored blackbird population has plummeted 64% in six years. The population stood at 395,000 in 2008 and is down to about 145,000 this year, the smallest population ever recorded.
Tricoloreds were once among the most common birds in California, with vast colonies of the colorful and highly gregarious species nesting and foraging in marshes and rangelands. Over the last two decades, the birds have adapted to losses of habitat by nesting in dairy silage fields.
The U.S. government screws the Indian out of their land once again, via teleSUR:
US Congress Gives Native American Lands to Mining Company
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) sanctioned giving federal lands belonging to indigenous Americans to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the British Australian multinational, Rio Tinto.
The United States Congress is about to give 2,400 acres of national forest in Arizona that is considered ancestral land by Apache Native Americans to a mining company.
The House and Senate Armed Services Committees quietly amended a provision to a national defense act that would sanction the handover of a large section of the Tonto National Forest to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the British-Australian multinational mining company Rio Tinto Group.
Despite a last minute attempt to remove the land provision from the measure, the amendment moved through the U.S. House Rules Committee on Wednesday night.
Japan eyes oceanic strip-mining, via Kyodo News:
New mineral ore deposits found on sea floor near Okinawa
Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. said Thursday it has discovered a hydrothermal mineral ore deposit off the coast of Okinawa Prefecture, thought to be one of the largest deposits found in the seas surrounding Japan.
Abundant quantities of five minerals — copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc — have so far been found in ore taken from the site.
JOGMEC said it will undertake further excavation surveys with a view to deciding by fiscal 2018 whether to commercialize mining at the site.
The Climate Game recolonization of Africa, from MintPress News:
Carbon Colonialism: How The Fight Against Climate Change Is Displacing Africans
Carbon trading—one of the biggest weapons touted by governments and business in the global fight against climate change—could end up killing the planet. In Africa, human rights campaigners say, it is already killing people.
Since the launch of a World Bank sponsored conservation programme in west Kenya eights years ago, the Bank-funded Kenya Forest Service (FKS) has conducted a relentless scorched earth campaign to evict the 15,000 strong indigenous Sengwer community from their ancestral homes in the Embobut forest and the Cherangany Hills. The pretext? The Sengwer are ‘squatters’ accelerating the degradation of the forest.
This October, with violence escalating, pressure from campaigners finally elicited a public response from World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, who promised to help facilitate “a lasting, peaceful resolution to this long, unfinished business of land rights in Kenya.”
But according to British film-maker Dean Puckett, who is currently on the ground in Embobut forest in west Kenya capturing extraordinary footage of recent events, the plight of the Sengwer has only worsened dramatically since Kim’s intervention.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now! with a coverup from NHK WORLD:
Cover put back over Fukushima reactor
The operator of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says the temporary removal of part of the cover of a reactor building over the past month did not cause a significant rise in radiation levels nearby.
Tokyo Electric Power Company used a remote-controlled crane to put 2 of the 6 panels from the ceiling of the No.1 reactor building back in place on Thursday.
TEPCO removed them in late October and early November to see if this would cause radioactive substances from the debris inside the building to drift out into the environment. Before starting the work, it injected chemicals through openings made in the cover to prevent dust from spreading.
An institute opens from the Asahi Shimbun:
Global eco-radiation research institute opens in Fukushima
With its team of international researchers, Fukushima University’s Institute of Environmental Radioactivity moved into full-scale operation on Dec. 3.
An official ceremony was held to mark the opening of its new two-story-high facility built with a government subsidy of roughly 1.8 billion yen ($15 million).
Established in July 2013, the institute studies the effects of the fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant accident triggered by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster as well as various forms of environmental contamination globally.
“With varying factors such as terrain, soil composition, water flow and vegetation, each region is influenced differently by radiation,” said Takayuki Takahashi, director of the institute and a professor of robotics at the university. “Rather than conducting symptomatic treatments, we aim to take part in the recovery efforts by clarifying what effects radiation has in a scientific scope.”
And another consequence of N-plant shutdowns from NewsOnJapan:
Japan greenhouse gas emissions hit record on N-Plant halts
Greenhouse gas emissions in Japan in fiscal 2013 rose 1.6 pct from the previous year to the equivalent of 1,395 million tons of carbon dioxide, hitting a record high since the statistics began in fiscal 1990, the government said Thursday.
The increase chiefly stemmed from a rise in fossil fuel consumption for thermal power generation as all nuclear reactors in the country are currently offline due to safety concerns following the March 2011 accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The Ministry of Environment said that the country’s greenhouse emissions would have fallen by 147 million tons if it were able to maintain the sources of electricity before the accident.
Major prison time demanded for Spanish nuclear plant protesters, via El País:
Greenpeace faces “toughest trial” yet in Spain over nuclear plant protest
Prosecutor seeking two-and-a-half-year jail terms for 16 activists and a photographer
After three decades of environmental activism in Spain, Greenpeace has got used to its protest actions ending in court sanctions.
Right now, the group has 19 proceedings open against it in the country, in which it is facing around €623,000 in fines. “Our actions normally finish with a punishment for disorder, which we end up paying,” says Greenpeace’s director in Spain, Mario Rodríguez.
But the case involving the group’s actions at the Cofrentes nuclear power plant in Valencia is different: not only because of the size of the fine the group is facing – €357,371 – but also because those involved could also be sentenced to prison. The public prosecutor has called for 16 Greenpeace activists and prize-winning photojournalist Pedro Armestre to be jailed for two years and eight months for entering the plant, painting graffiti and placing a placard in the early hours of February 15, 2011.
Finally, call it a case of statutory ape. From the Guardian:
New York court denies ‘legal personhood’ of Tommy the chimpanzee
Owner of Tommy the chimp tells Guardian case is ‘ridiculous’
Attorney for Nonhuman Rights Project likely to continue appeal
A chimpanzee is not a legal person, a New York appeals court has decided, saying that no matter how great apes are, they cannot give back to society in a way that merits human rights.
Rejecting an animal rights group’s bid to expand the definition of “legal person” to chimpanzees, a five-judge panel found that although the animals are autonomous beings they do not take part in the societal bargains that guarantee rights like bodily freedom.
In October the attorney Steven Wise, representing the Nonhuman Rights Project, made a case that a privately owned chimpanzee named Tommy was unlawfully imprisoned in New York, and should be transferred to a Florida sanctuary. Wise argued that chimpanzees, having shown self-awareness, intelligence and empathy, are close enough kin to humans as to deserve some rights.
