Today to the nature reserve.
One white stork head sticking out from the nest; another stork standing besides it. Later, a stork walking on the meadow.
In the forest, a speckled wood mating flight.
Sounds of the great spotted woodpecker and the green woodpecker. Grey herons flying to their treetop nests.
In the castle moat, three carp. Edible frogs near the bank.
This is a great egret video from the USA.
Later, from the train near Weesp, a great egret.
By David Walsh and Sean South in the USA:
Politics and economics dominate response to swine flu epidemic30 April 2009
The outbreak of a swine flu epidemic that threatens to assume global proportions is exposing the disastrous consequences of the subordination of all aspects of social life to the capitalist market and the competing interests of nationally-based corporate elites. The potential toll in illness, death and economic disruption is compounded by the scourges of poverty, social inequality and the lack of basic health care infrastructure in much of the world.
A rational and coordinated application of modern medical science and technological resources to deal with a world threat is frustrated at every turn by national boundaries and nationally based responses.
In the industrialized countries, above all the United States, the potential human cost from the flu epidemic is magnified by the decades-long neglect of public health by governments, beholden to financial interests, that have starved the health care infrastructure of resources.
In response to the spread of the swine flu, the World Health Organization on Wednesday raised its alert to Phase 5, a level characterized by widespread human infection and the danger of a pandemic.
Mexico: Epidemic deepens the social crisis: here.
The item Swine flu? A panic stoked in order to posture and spend, by Simon Jenkins, considers that the epidemic risks are exaggerated.
From German daily Bild:
SWINE FLU Virus traced back to Mexico farmThe swine flu outbreak has been traced back to a pig farm in Mexico. The first known case of the virus emerged a fortnight earlier than previously thought in a village called La Gloria, where residents have long complained about the smell and flies from a nearby pig farm. Locals in the community of 3,000 believe their town is ground zero for the swine flu epidemic, even if health officials aren’t saying so. More than 450 residents say they’re suffering from respiratory problems from contamination spread by pig waste at nearby breeding farms.
Modern factory farms have created a ‘perfect storm’ environment for powerful viruses: here.
The sick face of food production under capitalism: here.
The handling of the swine flu outbreak underscores the difficulty, in the present political environment, of separating medical science from corporate interests and the political agendas of governments that are beholden to them: here.
Profiteers helped to cause swine flu threat: here.
Hogwash Alert: How to Survive the Pandemic of Swine Flu Scams and Swindle: here.
By Perla Astudillo:
12 May 2009The current swine flu virus may not mutate into a more dangerous form and the danger will then subside. Scientists, however, remain concerned that the virus is poorly understood and may be susceptible to mutation.
Poultry slaughterhouse ‘stomach-churning’: here.
This is a video about Portuguese men-of-war.
From British daily The Guardian:
Potentially lethal Portuguese men-of-war seen off Mediterranean beachesInvertebrates with sometimes deadly stings make unusual incursion into waters normally considered too warm for them
See also here.
Cornwall beach-goers warned to watch out for Portuguese man-of-war: here.
This video from the USA is called ACLU Challenges Jeppesen Dataplan and CIA Rendition.
From British daily News Line:
Thursday, 30 April 2009RENDITION CASE PROCEEDS
THE Obama Administration cannot use state secrecy doctrine to block Binyam Mohamed’s litigation against aviation company, Jeppesen Dataplan, a US Federal Court ruled yesterday.
The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal rejected the Administration’s invocation of state secrets privilege and instructed the District Court to proceed with the case.
The company is said to have supplied crucial logistical support and to have profited from a lucrative contract in transporting prisoners.
The Bush Administration had applied to get the case thrown out on the grounds that, by exposing details of the US renditions programme, the case would jeopardise national security. To the disappointment of human rights supporters, the Obama Administration took the same view.
Although the District Court accepted this argument, the Appeals Court yesterday reversed their decision, stating that it is not acceptable to throw out an entire case for national security reasons.
Rather, Judge Hawkins states that each piece of evidence must be weighed separately as to the ‘danger’ it would pose if made public. The case may then proceed with whatever evidence is safe to be revealed.
‘This is a tremendous step forward in the battle to stop corporations making money from the rendition, torture and suffering of the prisoners we represent,’ said Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve.
‘Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi and perhaps many others, are one step closer to making the CEOs of these companies stop and think before they commit criminal acts for profit.’
Renditions investigator Clara Gutteridge said: ‘It is a relief that the United States’ courts are finally taking these torture claims seriously. However, we are only beginning to uncover the truth of exactly how these torture flights were allowed to happen.
‘It is inconceivable that Jeppesen acted alone. People in the highest echelons of the US – and in some cases the UK – governments have authorised illegal rendition flights and must also be held accountable.’
ACLU reaction to this: here.
A federal appellate court has unanimously reinstated the lawsuit brought by five men against a Boeing subsidiary for allegedly flying them to secret prisons to be tortured as part of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program, rejecting arguments by Bush and Obama administration lawyers: here.
Spain and the United Kingdom have already initiated investigations of Bush administration officials over torture — to continue to ignore the mounting evidence of clear wrongdoing is a national humiliation: here.
Dutch involvement in torture flights: here.
Q&A: “Too Many People Don’t Want the Truth on CIA Flights to Come Out”, here.
Remember all that NATO propaganda about their bloody Afghan war supposedly being for freedom, including media freedom blah blah blah blah? Well, there is no press or other media freedom in the “new” Afghanistan, made by George W. Bush, inherited by Barack Obama. No free speech there. Not for Afghans.
Not for journalists from NATO countries either.
By The Canadian Press:
Wed, April 29, 2009Restrictions on war coverage
OTTAWA — NATO has imposed tough new restrictions on foreign journalists covering the war in southern Afghanistan, changes that could affect how much Canadians see and hear from war-torn Kandahar.
The new measures, imposed in early March, mirror the way the U.S. military manages reporters in Iraq.
The restrictions make it virtually impossible for Canadian journalists to leave Kandahar Airfield on their own to interview local Afghans.
Last month, Canadian soldiers were required to escort newly arrived journalists everywhere on the airfield, including to the dining hall and showers. A photographer from the Reuters news agency and a handful of Canadian journalists were escorted between buildings and confined to their sleeping quarters when not working.
The practice has been temporarily suspended under pressure from the Canadian military, which has tried unsuccessfully to have the policy reversed.
Using over polite words, like “managing reporters” instead of “censoring reporters”, this item may be the maximum one may find in the mainstream media about those media being not free, but under military dictatorship. It may be a code message from the journalists involved to say: “Next time, when you read a pro NATO report on the Afghan war by me, don’t trust me. It will be untrue.”
Afghan paper accuses government of internet censorship: here.
The New Zealand National government of Prime Minister John Key revealed on April 19 that it had received an official request from the United States for the highly trained Special Air Services combat unit to return to Afghanistan: here.
Tens of thousands of Pashtun-speaking villagers have been forced to flee from their homes in recent days as the result of the punishing offensive the Pakistani military has mounted, at Washington’s urging, against pro-Taliban militants in the country’s North-West Frontier Province: here.
Kabul’s new elite live high on West’s largesse: here.
Australia and Afghanistan: here; and here. Spain and Afghanistan: here.
Pakistan: The US political and military establishment and the American media have been mounting an increasingly shrill campaign to bully Islamabad into fully complying with US diktats in what Washington has redefined as the AfPak war theater: here.
AfPak war depopulates and devastates north-west Pakistan: here.
