Category: International Affairs,

50,000 Year-Old String Shows Neanderthals Were Technologically Advanced

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Bruce Hardy and colleagues discovered a six-millimeter-long cord fragment consisting of three bundles of fibers twisted together and adhering to a 60-millimeter-long, thin stone tool. The authors speculate that the cord was wrapped around the tool as a handle or was part of a net or bag containing the tool. They date the cord fragment, which they discovered in Abri du Maras, France, to between 41,000-52,000 years ago. Using spectroscopy and microscopy, they identified that the cord likely consists of fibers taken from the inner bark of a non-flowering tree such as a conifer.

50,000 Year-Old String Shows Neanderthals Were Technologically Advanced

cool.

Also, why do ALL of these articles start off the premise that any sign technology among out ancestors is such a surprise?

Coronavirus: The race to stop the virus spread in Asia’s ‘biggest slum’

On By peanutgallerynhIn Southern Central Asia,Leave a comment

But an outbreak of coronavirus in a place where social distancing is an oxymoron could easily turn into a grave public health emergency and overwhelm the city’s stretched public health system.

Nobody realises this more than the officials racing to track and contain the infection.

Patient No 1 of Dharavi lived with his eight-member family – his wife, four daughters, and two sons – in a poky 420 sq ft one-room apartment in a low-rise slum tenement ringed by squalid shanties.

…The man owned another apartment in the same complex. There he hosted five people who had reportedly arrived from Delhi after attending a conference in early March organised by Tablighi Jamaat.

…Hundreds of people who attended the religious event in the capital set off several Covid-19 clusters across the country and are now linked to some 650 cases across 14 states.

The police believe the five men lived in the Dharavi apartment for two days – between 19 and 21 March- before they left for Kerala. “We are trying to trace these people,” said Mr Dighavkar.

…On Thursday, a 35-year-old doctor working with a private hospital and living in the slum tested positive for the virus. Municipality workers scrambled to isolate and seal 300 people living in the doctor’s building. They have also identified 13 high-risk contacts in the building and sent their swabs for testing. The doctor told officials that two nurses in his hospital had tested positive for the virus. And at the weekend, a 30-year-old woman inside the same building complex as the trader, a 60-year-old man, who owns a metal fabrication shop and a 21-year-old male lab technician, tested positive.

“We are still able to try to contain the infection of the gated slum colonies. But there are the slums outside, and if we get cases there, we can’t isolate them at home, and have to send even the high-risk cases to the sports complex quarantine centre,” says Mr Dighavkar.

Coronavirus: The race to stop the virus spread in Asia’s ‘biggest slum’ – BBC News

hmmm

In the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Construction Is Set to Resume on the Keystone Pipeline

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, The Americas,Leave a comment

So here’s the situation: in the middle of a pandemic, construction workers will move into isolated rural communities with already strained hospital resources. The “man camps” where many such workers in the industry live are associated with violence against women and other crimes, even in the best of times. Now, with the pandemic, many of the Native communities that live along the pipeline route fear for the worst. “This causes eerie memories for us with the infected smallpox blankets that were distributed to tribes intentionally,” Faith Spotted Eagle, a leader of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, said. (The coronavirus is already wreaking havoc on isolated reservations in other parts of the country, and the chronically underfunded Indian Health Service is struggling to meet the crisis.)

…I don’t know if corporations can be evil—I don’t think so, even if the Supreme Court insists on describing them as people. But this is capitalism at its most naked, willing to endanger people in the covid-19 crisis and to heat the earth in the climate crisis, all in search of a bit more profit. In a world running right now on bravery and love, it’s hard to imagine anything much darker.

In the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Construction Is Set to Resume on the Keystone Pipeline | The New Yorker

hmmmmm

COVID-19 Was Catalyst in Fight to Free Detained Americans

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Granite State,, Middle East,Leave a comment

“Sen. Shaheen was involved from Day 1. New Hampshire should be proud of a senator like this – who will not put up with one of her constituents being unlawfully detained,” Atallah said.

…Shaheen, along with several other senators, also was deeply involved in the push for the release of North Carolina pastor Andrew Brunson, who was detained in Turkey for two years on trumped up charges and released in late 2018.

…With Fakhoury en route home, Shaheen late last week thanked Atallah as well as National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, NSC staffer Virginia Boney, Roger Carstens, the presidential envoy for hostage affairs who replaced O’Brien in that position, as well as Shea and several other top State Department officials, including Pompeo and Schenker.

“This is exactly how our government should work,” she told reporters. “… Congress and the administration came together on a bipartisan basis to work together to help Americans in need.”

COVID-19 Was Catalyst in Fight to Free Detained Americans | RealClearPolitics

‘Nature is taking back Venice’: wildlife returns to tourist-free city

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

La Serenissima’s hundreds of canals have been emptied of speeding motorboat taxis, transport and tourist boats. The chugging vaporetti water buses now run on a reduced timetable. Even most of the gondolas are moored.

The clarity of the water has improved dramatically. Cormorants have returned to dive for fish they can now see.

…The reason is the absence of motorised transport, which normally churns up the muddy canal floor.

….In a queue to buy fish at his local fishmonger in Canareggio, Franco Fabris, an architect, reminisced: “When I was a kid growing up, there were far less boats in the canals and lots of kids would jump in and go swimming.”

“For the moment I am not going out fishing as all the restaurants I supply have closed, so what is the point?” said Franco Folin, a fisherman. “But when this all over, we may well see more fish returning because for the moment pleasure fishing is prohibited – there will be an awful lot of extra marine life in the lagoon.”

‘Nature is taking back Venice’: wildlife returns to tourist-free city | Environment | The Guardian

hmmm

Kremlin In Denial Over Clear Evidence of Russian COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign

On By peanutgallerynhIn Central Northern Asia and The Caucasus,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Sputnik’s affiliate in Belarus published a story claiming the virus is an “Anglo-Saxon” plot to counter China. EUvsDisinfo also cited a report by Sputnik’s affiliate in South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia occupied by Russian troops, which claimed the epidemic had been turned into a “weapon” for “information warfare” by the West.

In another case, Sputnik’s Armenian affiliate put out a story claiming, without any evidence, that the COVID-19 virus was created in a U.S. laboratory. Sputnik Latvia ran an article suggesting the virus could have originated in Latvia.

EUvsDisinfo also cited disinformation that appeared on websites that are not owned by the Russian government but regularly promote Kremlin talking points.

‘Russophobic’: Kremlin Denies Evidence of Russian COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign

hmmmm