Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 390
July 26, 2023
UNESCO calls for a global ban on smartphones in schools
(Image credit: Apple)
techradar
UNESCO believes smartphones should be banned from schools, as they distract students and don’t really contribute to the learning process.
The UN’s educational organization has launched a global new report on technology in education, calling for governments around the world to regulate its use.
Called, “Technology in education: A tool on whose terms?”, the report argues that when used in excess, or without the presence of a qualified teacher, any benefits technology in the classroom might have – disappear.
Learning experience“The digital revolution holds immeasurable potential but, just as warnings have been voiced for how it should be regulated in society, similar attention must be paid to the way it is used in education. Its use must be for enhanced learning experiences and for the well-being of students and teachers, not to their detriment”, warns Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO.
“Keep the needs of the learner first and support teachers. Online connections are no substitute for human interaction.”
UNESCO essentially accused governments around the world of not putting learners first, and doing very little to regulate an important aspect of society: Simply distributing computers to students does very little in terms of improving education, if teachers aren’t involved in the pedagogical process, UNESCO said. Furthermore, it added that “fewer than a quarter” of countries currently ban the use of smartphones in schools.
Teaching children how to use technology responsibly should also be a part of their learning experience, argues Manos Antoninins, Director of the Report. “We need to teach children to live both with and without technology; to take what they need from the abundance of information, but to ignore what is not necessary; to let technology support, but never supplant human interactions in teaching and learning.”
While UNESCO focused on the classroom in this report, excess smartphone use among the younger population is a much wider issue, with some researchers claiming children’s attention spans have dropped, many have become emotionally unstable, and if left without a smartphone for a prolonged period of time, some will even develop suicidal thoughts.
“Keep the needs of the learner first and support teachers. Online connections are no substitute for human interaction.”
UNESCO essentially accused governments around the world of not putting learners first, and doing very little to regulate an important aspect of society: Simply distributing computers to students does very little in terms of improving education, if teachers aren’t involved in the pedagogical process, UNESCO said. Furthermore, it added that “fewer than a quarter” of countries currently ban the use of smartphones in schools.
Teaching children how to use technology responsibly should also be a part of their learning experience, argues Manos Antoninins, Director of the Report. “We need to teach children to live both with and without technology; to take what they need from the abundance of information, but to ignore what is not necessary; to let technology support, but never supplant human interactions in teaching and learning.”
While UNESCO focused on the classroom in this report, excess smartphone use among the younger population is a much wider issue, with some researchers claiming children’s attention spans have dropped, many have become emotionally unstable, and if left without a smartphone for a prolonged period of time, some will even develop suicidal thoughts.
Via https://www.techradar.com/pro/unesco-is-calling-for-a-global-ban-on-smartphones-in-schools
Steve Kirsch: “We Can’t Find an Autistic Kid Who Was Unvaccinated”
The Blogging Hounds
“The Amish are a perfect example of a large group of people who are largely unvaccinated,” testified Steve Kirsch to the Pennsylvania State Senate.
“You won’t find kids with ADD, with autoimmune disease, with PANDAS, PANS, with epilepsy. You just don’t find any of these chronic diseases in the Amish.”
“The US government has been studying the Amish for decades, but there’s never been a report out to the public,” Steve Kirsch denoted.
“After decades of studying the Amish, there’s no report because the report would be devastating to the narrative. It would show that the CDC has been harming the public for decades and saying nothing and burying all the data.”
Steve Kirsch also testified this interesting bit of information about the Amish to the Pennsylvania State Senate.
“I did the calculation,” Steve Kirsch announced.
Given five Amish people died in Lancaster County, PA, “the Amish died at a rate 90 times lower than the infection fatality rate of the United States of America.”
“Now, how is that possible?”Steve Kirsch asked. “It’s possible because the Amish aren’t vaccinated. And because the Amish didn’t follow a single guideline of the CDC,” he answered.
“They did not lock down. They did not mask. They did not social distance, They did not vaccinate, and there were no mandates in the Amish community to get vaccinated. They basically ignored every single guideline that the CDC gave us. Ignoring those guidelines meant a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of America.”
And here are Steve Kirsch’s opening four minutes:
“All these vaccines are causing harm to our kids. It’s not just the COVID vaccines,” attested
Steve Kirsch. “If you compare the results of kids whose moms didn’t get vaccinated, no [vitamin] K shot, and no vaccines, and if you compare the outcomes of those kids versus kids who got the CDC schedule, there is a dramatic difference,” he emphasized.
“It is a difference that nobody wants to talk about … The fully unvaccinated kids are always healthier.”
The Control Group Data – Vaccinated / Unvaccinated:
• Chronic Conditions – 60% / 5.71%
• Arthritis – 16.67% / 0%
• Heart Disease – 48% / 0%
• Diabetes – 10% / 0%
• Asthma – 7.7% / 0%
• Autism – 2.5% / 0%
• ADHD – 9.4% / 0.47%
• Cancer – 6.0% / 0%
The entirety of Steve Kirsch’s testimony is provided in the link below. He speaks around the 2 hours and 25-minute mark.
[…]
Global Alarm: Governments quietly acknowledge link between COVID-19 Vaccines, Antibody-Dependent Enhancement & Immune System Degradation
The Expose
Since late 2021, official Government reports have indicated the Covid-19 vaccine severely damages the immune system with the potential to cause some new form of Covid-19 vaccine-induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among people who have received multiple injections.
The claims were furiously denied by the mainstream establishment despite the fact it was their data that blatantly outlined this was the case. But rather than prove otherwise most Government agencies just decided to stop publishing the damning data instead.
However, almost two years later, the authorities have quietly decided to begin an investigation into Covid-19 vaccine induced Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and Antibody-Dependent Enhancement after scientists around the world, including many from Harvard and Yale, were forced to admit a debilitating suite of problems have been appearing hours, days or weeks after a Covid-19 vaccine has been administered.
But they have thus far decided to dub the condition ‘Long Vax’ in an attempt to trivialize the deadly consequences of Covid-19 vaccination and give more credence to the alleged condition ‘Long Covid’ which is otherwise known as hypochondria.
But despite this, the world is now gearing up for yet another new round of “boosters”. And like all vaccines, those targeting the alleged Covid-19 virus can cause deadly and debilitating side effects in many people.
According to the establishment and scientists at Harvard and Yale, these include cases of abnormal blood clotting and heart inflammation. Both of these have been known about since early 2021, with a huge rise in myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) being recorded among younger males.
But now scientists at Harvard and Yale are conducting research on what they claim is a newly identified condition they are absurdly referring to as ‘Long Vax’ and are even claiming the chronic symptoms resemble the made-up disease referred to as “Long Covid”.
The new study has materialised due to the quietly announced wider acceptance of the sinister consequences of Covid-19 vaccination among the mainstream medical and scientific community.
“You see one or two patients and you wonder if it’s a coincidence,” says Anne Louise Oaklander, a neurologist and researcher at Harvard Medical School. “But by the time you’ve seen 10, 20,” she continues, trailing off. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
According to researchers “Long Vax” may steam from an immune system overreaction to the spike (S) protein the body is instructed to make once the mRNA contained in the Covid-19 injections invades the body cells.
A spike protein that scientists and doctors assured the public was “harmless” when they decided to conduct the largest experiment on humankind in history following the emergency use authorisation of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 injections.
“I’m persuaded that there’s something going on” with these side effects, Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale University says. “It’s my obligation if I truly am a scientist, to have an open mind and learn if there’s something that can be done.”
Evidence strongly suggests the body may produce a second round of antibodies that mistakenly attack healthy cells or bind to ACE2 receptors, leading to heart rate fluctuations and blood pressure issues. Common symptoms include headaches, extreme fatigue, abnormal heart rate, and blood pressure fluctuations.
In other words, the mainstream scientific establishment now believes the mRNA Covid-19 injections definitely cause Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE), and possibly even Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Just as many warned it would do, including The Expose team, prior to the emergency use roll-out due to the fact all previous trials of mRNA technology had induced the deadly condition.
And this is why mRNA technology had never been authorised for human use prior to the alleged Covid-19 pandemic.
What is Antibody-Dependent Enhancement/Vaccine-Associated Enhanced Disease?Intensive research conducted by health experts throughout the years has brought to light increasing concerns about “Antibody-Dependent Enhancement” (ADE), a phenomenon where vaccines make the disease or immune system response to other pathogens far worse by priming the immune system for a potentially deadly overreaction.
ADE can arise in several different ways but the best-known is dubbed the ‘Trojan Horse Pathway’. This occurs when non-neutralizing antibodies generated by past infection or vaccination fail to shut down the pathogen upon re-exposure or another pathogen on exposure.
Instead, they act as a gateway by allowing the pathogen to gain entry and replicate in cells that are usually off-limits (typically immune cells, like macrophages). That, in turn, can lead to wider dissemination of illness, and over-reactive immune responses that cause more severe illness.
Even Dr Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Adviser to the President of the United States, admitted when discussing the Covid-19 vaccine, that this would not be the first time a vaccine that initially looked good, actually made people worse.
In 2016, a dengue virus vaccine was designed to protect against all four serotypes of the virus. The hope was that by inducing immune responses to all four serotypes at once, the vaccine could circumvent the issues related to ADE following disease with the dengue virus.
The vaccine was given to children in the Philippines. However, fourteen vaccinated children died after encountering the dengue virus in the community as they had developed antibody responses that were not capable of neutralizing the natural virus circulating in the community.
In previous clinical trials of vaccine candidates to combat SARS and MERS, the studies each failed during the animal phase due to ADE also known as pathogenic priming or a cytokine storm.
Phase three clinical trials are designed to uncover frequent or severe side effects before a vaccine is approved for use, including ADE.
But here in lies the problem, none of the Covid-19 vaccines completed phase three clinical trials, and this is the reason they were only granted emergency use authorisation. And it was the first time in history a novel “vaccine” was granted emergency use authorisation to be issued to the entire population, including children who have never been at risk of suffering anything worse than the common cold if exposed to the alleged Covid-19 virus.
What is Covid-19 Vaccine-Induced Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome?It’s a common misconception that AIDS is only caused by the HIV virus or that they are even one and the same.
In fact, AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is just the name used to describe a number of potentially life-threatening infections and illnesses that happen when your immune system has been severely damaged.
People with acquired immune deficiency syndrome have an increased risk of developing certain cancers and serious infections that usually occur only in individuals with a weak immune system, or would otherwise be mild in those with a healthy, working immune system.
And sadly, a mountain of evidence suggests that Covid-19 injections should be added to the list of causes.
[…]
Via https://expose-news.com/2023/07/19/gov-admits-covid-vaccine-ade/
Grain Deal Replacement? Russia to Offer Africa New Food Security Plan
Ilya Tsukanov
Sputnik Global
The second Russia-Africa Summit and Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum will take place in St. Petersburg on July 27-28, with President Putin expected to meet with the leaders and representatives of 49 different African countries which have confirmed plans to take part.
Russia will be offering African countries an alternative to the defunct Black Sea Grain Deal to ensure the continent’s continued food security, Russian Foreign Ministry ambassador-at-large Oleg Ozerov has said.
“Of course, it will be not only a discussion as such, but the discussion with solutions for African nations so that they leave St. Petersburg with clear understanding how these issues will be resolved,” the Russian diplomat, who heads the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, told Sputnik.
Russia has already provided assistance to some African countries earlier, including gratis fertilizer shipments to countries including Malawi and Kenya, Ozerov added.
suspended its participation in the Black Sea grain deal last week, citing Western countries’ failure to facilitate Russian food and fertilizer exports, and pointing out that just 3 percent of the grain shipped out of Ukraine under the agreement actually went to countries in need in Africa and Asia, with the vast majority instead ending up in Europe and Turkiye.
Western powers have failed to bully African countries into submission and to persuade them not to attend the upcoming summit in St. Petersburg, Ozerov said.
“Pressure is being exerted. It is of a permanent character. This pressure was exerted through various channels – through the diplomatic corps of Western nations, which literally on a daily basis are trying to dissuade representatives of African states from traveling to Russia, and which demand that African countries firmly pick a camp,” Ozerov said.
The West’s demands look “very strange,” the diplomat said, as they’re coming “from those countries which publicly proclaim democracy and freedom of choice, but in practice demand submission to their dictates.”
There are also other forms of pressure besides politics and diplomacy, the ambassador-at-large said, including economic and financial coercion, with “political conditions put in place for the provision of economic assistance to a number of states both through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where the United States uses its dominant position to put forward political conditions.”
Similar conditionalities are being set up by the European Union, “when the allocation of loans is conditioned on the termination of contacts with the Russian side, or their reduction to a minimum, the non-attendance of a summit or the non-participation in [other] events,” Ozerov said.
Nevertheless, the diplomat stressed that Russia has not seen “African states following this dictate en masse.”
It’s now obvious that that the Western bloc cannot bend all other countries to its will, for objective reasons,” Ozerov said, likely alluding to the G7’s falling political and economic weight in the world as the BRICS countries slowly move the planet in the direction of genuine political and economic multipolarity.
Delegations from 49 of Africa’s 54 countries confirmed their plans to participate in the Russia-Africa Summit by last week, with about half being represented at the highest level – by heads of state or heads of government, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Ahead of the summit, Russian President Putin penned an article outlining his vision on the prospects for cooperation between Russia and African countries.
Ozerov indicated that Russian and African leaders will be adopting an overarching policy declaration, joint action plan, as well as three documents on sectoral cooperation at the summit, with the latter concerned with “the fight against terrorism, the non-deployment of weapons in space and international information security.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry expects that these document will become a platform for joint work with African countries on the creation of a new configuration of international relations, based on equality and a multipolar world rather than on a “unilateral dictatorship,” the diplomat noted.
Security CooperationIn the security sphere, the Russian ambassador-at-large pointed out that Russia has no military presence in Africa, with requests of certain African countries concerning only security assistance.
“We do not have military presence there. There are requests to Russia to provide security assistance. But it is not military presence. Military presence is when one sends troops. We are not sending them. We are sending instructors at the request of African states,” Ozerov said.
July 25, 2023
Blackrock: Hematological Claims Up 520% Above 2022 Trend
The Vigilant Fox“We were looking for data like this, and we found it in the UK Personal Independence [Payment] (PIP) system,” announced former Blackrock portfolio asset manager Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) on the Dr. Drew show. “We need the help of the medical community and the regulators to explain what’s going on because it’s alarming.”
Dowd then presented a slide showing yearly PIP clearances (payments) by body system, using different metrics for 2020, 2021, and 2022.
“And you can see, I’ll point out hematological (blood-related) … that’s up 522% in 2022. And I want to say this is versus trend. It’s not versus 2021 or 2020. It’s versus a trend that we analyzed from 2016 to 2019. So it’s a percent increase over trend. And the trends were stable — and then this exploded.”
Dowd continued to explain the chart in more detail.
“And you can see, if you look at this chart, [increased claims in] different body systems started off slowly in 2020, picked up speed in 21, and just exploded in 2022. So something is going on that is detrimental to the population of the UK,” he concluded.
Here are some of the worrisome numbers of increased claims above trend in 2022:
Hematological – up 522%
Auditory – up 121%
Cardiovascular – up 121%
Dermatological – up 138%
Endocrine, metabolic, and thermoregulation – up 156%
Gastrointestinal – up 145%
Genito-urinary – up 143%
Immune – up 115%
Musculoskeletal – up 93%
Neurological – up 107%
Oncology – up 35%
Psychiatric – up 124%
Respiratory – up 93%
Visual – up 80%
“These numbers are just crazy percentage-wise,” Dowd remarked.
“We can convert these things to what’s called Z scores or standard deviations.”
Dowd explained how a three-standard deviation happens 0.3% of the time. “In Wall Street, that’s a big deal.” “Sometimes we see extreme six-standard deviation events, and that’s kooky,” he added. But alarmingly, the increase in hematological (blood-related) claims equates to a 61 standard deviation. “That’s like the probability of a black hole appearing near the earth, and we get sucked in in two years. It’s not something that is likely to occur mistakenly,” Dowd remarked.
Dowd ended by commenting, “61 standard deviations is lights out, black swan event, something’s gone off the rails. It’s so many zeros and so unlikely to happen by accident that it has to be explained. And that’s what we’re calling on the medical community to explain this. That’s it.”
The full interview between Doctors Drew Pinsky, Kelly Victory, and former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd is available in the video below:
Ed Dowd Reveals New “Bombshell” Data That Looks Like A Cover Up w/ Dr. Kelly Victory – Ask Dr. Drew
Via https://vigilantfox.substack.com/p/ed-dowd-drops-bombshell-data-hematological
McCarthy: Biden case will ‘rise to impeachment’ as 16 Romanian payments allegedly went to ‘shell companies’
Hunter and Joe Biden(Getty Images)
Charles Creitz
Fox News
Impeachment calls mount as Hunter’s ex-business partner to testifyHouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., reacts to Republicans increasing the pressure on corruption allegations on ‘Hannity.’
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted Republicans will gather enough evidence soon to mount an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, as the corruption scandal enveloping him and his son Hunter continues to grow.
McCarthy, R-Calif., made reference to a relatively new revelation from the House Oversight Committee that – while Joe was vice president – Hunter Biden “capitalized” on a financial relationship with a Romanian national later convicted on corruption charges.
According to prepared remarks from House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., in June, the Bidens received more than $1 million in 17 increments.
McCarthy said Monday that 16 of those 17 payments went to what he described as “Biden shell companies” while President Biden was vice president. According to Comer’s prepared remarks, the elder Biden had been “lecturing Romania on anti-corruption policies” while instead being a “walking billboard for his… family to collect money.”
“When President Biden was running for office, he told the American public that he’s never talked about [Hunter’s] business. He said his family has never received a dollar from China, which we now prove is not true,” McCarthy said on “Hannity.”
He said evidence and legitimacy of their caucus’ probes are mounting, as he described the two IRS investigators who testified before Congress last week as “some of the most credible” to come forward.
McCarthy cited the FBI 1023 form wherein a confidential human source told the bureau that Biden was paid $5 million by a Burisma executive while he was vice president and while Hunter was on the board.
Biden has long denied discussion or involvement in Hunter’s business deals, recently rebuffing a New York Post reporter who asked why he is reportedly referred to as the “big guy” in the FBI form – which is the same nickname purportedly used as a pseudonym in a message gleaned from previously released documentation connected to Hunter.
“Now you have found millions of foreign money – just what the 1023 alleges they did to Biden’s family. Now, we found that it has funneled through shell companies,” McCarthy said.
“We wouldn’t know none of this if Republicans had not taken the majority. We’ve only followed where the information has taken us – this is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed.”
McCarthy further accused Biden of acting in a way not seen at the White House since President Richard M. Nixon – “us[ing] the weaponization of government to … deny Congress the ability to have oversight.”
[…]
German Business Fears Best Days Behind It as Economy Crushed by Loss of Russian Energy
By Ilya Tsuanov
Sputnik International
European industrial behemoth Germany has found itself among the nations hit hardest by the West’s attempt to “punish” Russia for its military operation in Ukraine, with industrial output slumping and the country sinking into a recession earlier this year after losing access to the cheap and reliable supply of Russian hydrocarbons.
German business, administrative, and government leaders have expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the government’s energy and economic policy, and expressed fears that the Central European industrial powerhouse’s economy may have “passed its zenith,” with its best days behind it.
A survey of 484 company board members, managing directors, government ministers, and other senior decision-makers by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research for German media has found that only 24 percent of the country’s managerial class is satisfied with Economic and Climate Minister Robert Habeck’s job performance, down from 91 percent just a year ago.
Fewer than a quarter of those surveyed expect things to improve over the next six months, with two thirds saying there’s “little chance” the country can restore its lost international competitiveness, and 76 percent saying they don’t believe Habeck or the Ministry of Economic Affairs has the interests of German business in mind to a sufficient degree.
Among the top five problems cited by managers which hamper Germany’s competitiveness are high energy costs (77 percent), a shortage of skilled workers (70 percent), excessive government regulation (68 percent), a backlog in digitization programs (65 percent), and dilapidated infrastructure (61 percent).
58 percent of those polled said Germany appears to have “passed its zenith” economically, with just 22 percent expecting the economy to pick up again.
About three quarters of respondents expressed criticism of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Traffic Light coalition (which includes Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, the Greens – represented by Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and the Free Democratic Party). Satisfaction with the coalition government has dropped from 62 percent in 2022 to 21 percent now, with 65 percent of those polled suggesting the coalition’s policies are “weakening the country.”
The Allensbach Institute conducted its survey between June 13 and July 7, with the 484 businessmen and officials polled including 89 board members of large companies, 18 ministers, and 28 heads of firms.
The German economy officially sunk into a recession in May after economic growth shrunk by 0.3 percent in the first three months of 2023.
In the aftermath of the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine in February 2022, Germany has faced all the problems other Western countries have related to the decision to decouple themselves economically from Russia, like high inflation and spiking energy prices. However, as Europe’s main industrial economy, Germany’s crisis has been even more painful for local businesses, which have expressed concerns about the loss of competitiveness to other global behemoths like the US and China due to the energy-intensive nature of their products.
Washington added insult to Germany’s injuries last year after announcing federal subsidies to certain “green” industries, effectively trying to entice European industry to relocate to the United States for tax breaks and cheaper energy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in May 2022 that decoupling the European economy from Russian energy resources would threaten the entire region with widespread deindustrialization and loss of competitiveness.
Last month, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced that cuts in the budget had forced Berlin to halt additional contributions to the European Union’s budget.
“Germany is both an important supplier for other European countries and an important buyer. A lasting recession in the German economy will certainly have significant effects on France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands,” Paris-based economist Jacques Sapir told Sputnik earlier this month.
“If this recession lasts until next spring, the economies of the countries mentioned will also go into depression, which in turn will affect the German economy even more,” Sapir predicted, characterizing Berlin and Europe’s anti-Russian sanctions policy as “a form of suicide.”
Discovery of Radioactive Fish Near Fukushima Reignites Concerns Over Plan to Dump Contaminated Wastewater
Noryangjin Fish Market in Seoul, South Korea. Photo credit: Jirka Matousek/ flickr
By Julia Conley
Common DreamsAs Tokyo Electric Power Company moves to release more than a million tons of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, critics argue radioactive isotopes cannot be fully eliminated.
With the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) planning to begin a release of 1.3 million tons of treated wastewater from the former Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan next month, reports of radioactive fish in the area have raised alarm in recent years — and new reporting on July 23 revealed that the problem is far from mitigated, prompting questions about how dangerous the company’s plan will be for the public.The plant operator, known as TEPCO, analyzed a black rockfish in May that was found to contain levels of radioactive cesium that were 180 times over Japan’s regulatory limit, The Guardian reported.
The fish was caught near drainage outlets at the plant, where three nuclear reactors melted down in March 2011 during a tsunami.
Rainwater from the areas surrounding the reactors flows into the area where the fish was caught.
The high level of cesium — which, depending on the level of exposure, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, coma and death in people who eat contaminated food — was discovered as TEPCO prepares to begin the discharge of treated wastewater which has been used to cool fuel from the melted reactors.
The wastewater has been mixed with rainwater and groundwater since the tsunami.
TEPCO has acknowledged that fish near the drainage outlets have been unsafe for consumption, as the concentration of cesium in seabed sediment in the area has measured more than 100,000 becquerels per kilogram. The maximum legal level is 100 becquerels per kilogram.
“Since contaminated water flowed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station port immediately after the accident, TEPCO has periodically removed fish from inside the port since 2012,” an official for the company told The Guardian.
A fish was detected to have high levels of radiation near Fukushima in January 2022, with authorities positing that the fish had escaped from the drainage outlet.
Shipments of black rockfish caught off the coast of Fukushima prefecture were promptly suspended and have not been resumed.
More than 40 fish with cesium levels over the legal limit were found in the plant’s port between May 2022 and May 2023, and 90% came from the inner breakwater where water flows from the area around the melted reactors.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan and the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency have both given their approval of TEPCO’s plan to release the wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, which it says it needs to do to secure space for decommissioning the plant.
The discharge process, using an Advanced Liquid Processing System, would take decades to complete.
While the International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier in July the plan will have a “negligible radiological impact to people and the environment,” Paul Dorfman of Ireland’s Radiological Protection Advisory Committee said Monday that reports like the one about the contaminated rockfish are likely “far from over.”
Fukushima fish with 180 times legal limit of radioactive ceasium fuels water release fears.
It's far from over.#nuclear #Fukushima #NuclearEnergy #climatehttps://t.co/XR4BLsa9a2
— Dr Paul Dorfman (@dorfman_p) July 24, 2023
“Believing [and] pretending some things are not harmful because it is convenient is literally killing the planet,” said American University sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale, comparing the ecological and climate crisis to authorities’ insistence that the water discharge is safe. “Corporate interests triumph at global expense once again.”
Officials in Hong Kong have said they will ban food imports from 10 prefectures in Japan if the release moves forward in August, and some Chinese wholesalers have stopped accepting seafood imports from the country.
In addition to concerns about cesium, TEPCO has admitted that the Advanced Liquid Processing System it plans to use may not eliminate isotopes including ruthenium, cobalt, strontium and plutonium. The system is also not able to remove tritium, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
Masanobu Sakamoto, president of JF Zengyoren, Japan Fisheries Cooperatives, said in June that the group “cannot support the government’s stance that an ocean release is the only solution.”
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/radioactive-fish-fukushima-contaminated-wastewater-cd/
India’s Early Sultans
Episode 18 The Indian Sultans
A History of India
Michael Fisher (2016)
Film Review
The Indian sultanates established in the 14th century all had majority Hindi populations despite their Muslim rulers. Although a few Hindu temples were destroyed or converted to mosques under their rule, some Muslim sultans supported them financially.
In 711 Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, an Arab military commander in service of the Umayyad caliphate, established a major Islamic Caliphate in Sindh. In addition to expanding his territory as far east as Bengal, he also conducted raids throughout the Indus valley, as well as attacking other Muslim sultanates. His military conquests brought Arabian culture to India, despite a low rate of Muslim immigration.
The Ghund clan continued the raids following Muhammad’s death, employing Central Asian mamluks (slave soldiers) as warriors. Under Turkish occupation, Afghan rulers raised slaves to become warriors, with some of them becoming generals. In most cases, territory they seized became the property of their owner although some mamluks were permitted to bequeath their conquests to their descendants.
Muhammad Ghund ordered his slave commander Gudaputine to occupy Delhi, on the western boundary of the Ganges Valley. The region, blessed by rich Ganges silt, was irrigated both by the river and runoff from the Himalayan foothills. After winning his freedom from Muhammad’s weak successors, Gudaputine declared himself sultan, creating the first of five Delhi sultanates.
Iltutmish, the third Sultan of Delhi sent tribute to the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. However the takeover of Afghanistan by Genghis Khan* in 1221 led to greater independence for India’s Muslim sultanates, as well as an influx Central Asian and Turkmen immigrants. As the latter increased Persian influence in India (especially in architecture), by 1285 the Delhi sultanate had become fully independent of the Abbasid Caliphate.
There were always major succession battles among the mamluks controlling the Indian sultanates. Hereditary succession on began In 1290, after the Khalji clan of Afghan Turks seized power. Although Khalji himself conquered territory all the way to Magada at India’s southern tip, his successors failed to keep hold of his conquests.
The Khalji clan was overthrown by the slave commander who founded the Tughluq dynasty in 1320. the latter controlled the Delhi sultanate for over a century and issued India’ first copper coins.
The exploits of Firaz Shah, Tughlug’s successor, were recorded by Ziaunn Birhani in the the first Persian-style history of north India. Following Firaz’s death, incompetent administration led numerous provinces to break away from the Delhi sultanate:
Madura – 1334Kashmir – 1339Deccan – 1345Jaunpar – 1394Gujarat broke – 1407.There were also numerous Hindu rajput rulers who overthrew the Muslim sultans who ruled them. The largest would eventually give rise to the Vijanagara Dynasty, on the South Deccan Plateau.
Over the next 125 years, north India underwent three significant regime changes:
1398 – Tamerlane (Timur), a Muslim from Central Asia, sacks Delhi and installs a new regime, the Sayyids.1458 – the Lodi Afghan clan reconquers most of north India.1526 Babur (the Afghan descendant of both Tamerlane and Genghis Khan invades India and to establish the Mughal empire*See The Great Mongol Conqueror Ghengis Khan Arrives on the Steppes
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/366254/366207
July 24, 2023
Feds Have a Plan to Block the Sun — What Are the Risks?
Solar radiation modification is a form of geoengineering that aims to cool off the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space. The controversial strategy comes with significant risks, but that didn’t stop the White House from moving forward with a research plan for “solar and other rapid climate interventions.”
Story at a glance:Solar radiation modification (SRM) is a form of geoengineering that aims to cool off the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space.The controversial strategy comes with significant risks, but that didn’t stop The White House from moving forward with a research plan for “solar and other rapid climate interventions.”The congressionally mandated research plan is focused on atmospheric-based approaches, such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and marine cloud brightening (MCB).SRM can have unintended consequences, including lower average precipitation, loss of biodiversity and impacts on food production, along with heightening geopolitical tensions.There’s also a risk that climate modification technologies could be weaponized against the global population by controlling rainfall and drought.SRM is a form of geoengineering that aims to cool off the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space.
The controversial strategy comes with significant risks, but that didn’t stop the White House from moving forward with a research plan for “solar and other rapid climate interventions.”
The congressionally mandated research plan is focused on atmospheric-based approaches, such as SAI and MCB, as opposed to space-based approaches, which include mirrors in space or white roofs and other local-scale measures to increase surface reflectance.
The research “would help to prepare the United States for possible deployment of SRM by other public and private actors,” the report notes, suggesting the government is seriously considering the use of this extremely risky technology — if it hasn’t already decided to move forward.
What is stratospheric aerosol injection?
SAI involves injecting reflective aerosol particles into the stratosphere, where they reflect sunlight away from the Earth.
Volcanic eruptions are natural versions of SAI, but technological constraints surround man-made SAI, as “dispersing aerosols in sufficiently high altitudes is challenging,” according to a Climate Analytics report.
The Union of Concerned Scientists explained:
“In effect, SAI simulates what happens during large volcanic eruptions, when volcanoes emit small particles into the upper atmosphere (called the stratosphere). These particles reflect sunlight and lead to cooling for as long as they remain in the stratosphere, which may be up to a few years after injection.
[…]
The White House report also highlighted potential issues with SAI, noting:
“SAI approaches could worsen soil acidity, with impacts to food production, compared to warming at Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) levels without SAI in some regions due to acidic deposition (e.g., the Pacific Northwest, southern Greenland, the Himalayas, and polar regions).
“The impacts of sunlight scattering could have negative effects on crop growth that harm nutrition and negate the benefits of limiting temperature increases using SAI. SRM would not address ocean acidification or its implications for ocean ecosystems.”
Other problems include the potential that SAI could result in increased exposure to particulate matter from the injected aerosols and “changes in radiative forcing,” which could offset any potential health benefits from SAI, such as reduced ozone formation.
There’s also concern that SAI could increase wildfires and smoke exposures in some areas, as well as increase health impacts due to waterborne disease in others.
What is marine cloud brightening?
MCB involves spraying salt or other chemicals into marine clouds in order to increase their reflectiveness.
“[…]
Little research into MCB has been conducted, but field trials have already begun in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Using a seawater sprayer attached to a barge, seawater is sprayed into the air, creating sea salt crystals.
“These crystals float into the sky to form a fog and bolster the existing clouds’ reflectivity,” according to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
The “brightened” clouds may also stay above the reef longer than ordinary clouds, reflecting even more sunlight.
The problem, however, is that this untested strategy could have unintended consequences.
“Potential negative effects could include influencing local weather patterns, potentially mildly suppressing rainfall over the reef and adjacent land,” the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program explained.
David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University, added that several “key risks” exist for marine cloud brightening, which is why his research team does not focus on it:
“Even if marine cloud brightening could work, it could affect large scale climate and weather patterns if it were used on a large enough scale, say to achieve a level of ‘radiative forcing’ that would be big enough to offset some of the greatest impacts of climate change.
“(This is because marine cloud brightening could only be implemented in limited areas, where the right kinds of clouds exist, which is perhaps only 10 percent of the planet’s surface.) There are several key risks that need to be better understood.”
Increasing geopolitical tensions
Adding to the controversy, the use of SRM carries “significant geopolitical risks,” the White House report noted.
An example of this occurred in 2023 when a startup team — Make Sunsets — said it had launched weather balloons containing helium and sulfur dioxide (SO2) into Mexican skies in order to alter the stratosphere.
The company was selling “cooling credits” via its website for $10, in exchange for releasing 1 gram of SO2. The Mexican government fought back, however, announcing plans to “prohibit and, where appropriate, stop experimentation practices with solar geoengineering,” causing the team to suspend its operations.
However, Make Sunsets is still reportedly planning to conduct further weather modification experiments in the U.S.
But the fact remains, if and when SRM becomes widely used, it will have global effects that transcend borders. Supercomputers have run models to predict how solar radiation management may affect different parts of the Earth, not only in terms of temperature but also rainfall and snowfall.
[…]
Will biodiversity suffer?
Among the risks outlined by the White House were those related to biodiversity.
[…]
In a news release from Springer Nature, it’s explained that, once started geoengineering is too dangerous to stop — but given the politicized nature of the technology, such rapid starts and stops are likely:
“Abrupt termination causes changes in local climates that are 2-4 times more rapid than those caused by climate change itself. …
“In many cases, rapid geoengineering threatens ecosystems by forcing species to move in one direction to maintain similar temperature conditions and a different direction for similar precipitation conditions.
[…]
Could geoengineering backfire, lead to agricultural control?
There are other concerns about geoengineering’s nefarious side, particularly since Bill Gates remains heavily invested in climate modification technologies that not only will destabilize the Earth’s climate systems more but also can be weaponized against the global population by controlling rainfall and drought.
In a previous interview I conducted with Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., she explained:
“The company that collects patents on gene-edited organisms, both in health and agriculture, is Editas, founded by a main financial investor for the Gates Foundation. Gates is also a big investor in Editas.
“So, here’s a company called Editas to edit the world as if it is a Word program. The two scientists who got the Nobel Prize this year have both been funded in their research by Gates. My mind went back to how Rockefeller financed the research, got the Nobel Prize, and then made the money.
“So, you finance the research. Then you finance the public institutions, whether they be national or international. You invest and force them down the path where they can only use what is your patented intellectual property.
[…]
“At the end of it, where does food come from? It comes from seed. He wants to control it. It comes from land. He’s controlling that. He’s [become] the biggest farmland owner [in the U.S.] But you need weather [control]. You need a stable climate.
“So, what could be a weapon of control of agriculture? Weather modification. He calls it geoengineering. This is engineering of the climate. Again, making it look like he’s going to solve global warming by creating global cooling.”’
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/feds-block-sun-geoengineering-cola/
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