2016 - news

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www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37641944

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www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37643326

www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/thailands-koenig-bhumibol-ist-tot-a-1116475.html
www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bhumibol-der-geliebte-koenig-thailands-nachruf-a-1116481.html

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www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/bob-dylan-erhaelt-literaturnobelpreis-diese-zehn-songs-muessen-sie-kennen-a-1116484.html

www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/22/bob-dylan-criticised-as-impolite-and-arrogant-by-nobel-academy-member

www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/21/bob-dylan-unacknowledges-nobel-prize-literature-win-removed-website?CMP=fb_gu

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weather.com/storms/typhoon/news/tropical-storm-typhoon-haima-lawin-philippines-taiwan-china-forecast

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www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/21/south-africa-to-quit-international-criminal-court-document-shows



www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/world/africa/ethiopia-protests-arrests.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-0&action=click&contentCollection=Africa®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

[lavender1]

www.presseportal.de/pm/122128/3457404

www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-37655086

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[lavender1]

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/earthquake-today-japan-tsunami-a7372916.html

[lavender1]

www.rt.com/news/364216-italy-quake-hits-perugia/

www.spiegel.de/panorama/italien-schweres-nachbeben-berichte-ueber-einstuerzende-haeuser-a-1118431.html



earthquaketrack.com/p/myanmar/recent

[lavender1]

www.bbc.com/news/health-37767179

www.torontosun.com/2016/10/26/canadian-flight-attendant-cleared-as-patient-zero-in-aids-pandemic

www.nature.com/news/hiv-s-patient-zero-exonerated-1.20877

HIV’s Patient Zero exonerated

A study clarifies when HIV entered the United States and dispels the myth that one man instigated the AIDS epidemic in North America.

Sara Reardon

26 October 2016



In 1982, sociologist William Darrow and his colleagues at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) travelled from Georgia to California to investigate an explosion in cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a type of skin cancer, among gay men. Darrow suspected that the cancer-causing agent — later shown to be a complication of HIV infection — was sexually transmitted, but lacked proof. His breakthrough came one day in April when three men from three different counties told Darrow that they had had sex with the same person: a French Canadian airline steward named Gaétan Dugas.

CDC researchers tracked down Dugas in New York City, where he was being treated for Kaposi’s sarcoma. With his cooperation, the scientists definitively linked HIV and sexual activity1. They referred to Dugas as 'Patient Zero' in their study, and because of a misunderstanding by journalists and the public, the flight attendant became known as the person who brought HIV to the United States. Dugas and his family were vilified for years2.

Related stories

How researchers cleared the name of HIV Patient Zero
South Africa ushers in a new era for HIV
Homophobia and HIV research: Under siege


But an analysis of HIV using decades-old blood serum samples exonerates the French Canadian, who died in 1984. The paper3, published on 26 October in Nature, shows that the virus had been circulating in North America since at least 1970, and that the disease arrived on the continent through the Caribbean from Africa.

Richard McKay, a historian at the University of Cambridge, UK, and study co-author, says that scientists have always questioned the idea of a single Patient Zero, because some evidence suggested that the virus entered North America several times.

A team led by McKay and evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey at the University of Arizona in Tucson wanted a clearer picture of HIV’s arrival. So the team collected more than 2,000 serum samples that health clinics had collected from gay men in 1978 and 1979 while testing for hepatitis B. The researchers found enough genetic traces of HIV that they could sequence in three samples from San Francisco and five from New York City.

Earlier arrival

When scientists examined those genetic sequences in detail, they found them to be similar to HIV strains present in the Caribbean, particularly Haiti, in the early 1970s. However, the strains were different from one another, suggesting the virus had already been circulating and mutating in San Francisco and New York City since about 1970.

Dugas would have been a teenager at that time and unlikely to be sexually active, much less partnering with the hundreds of people he claimed to have had sex with, McKay says. Furthermore, Worobey’s analysis of Dugas’ own blood showed that the HIV strain that killed him didn’t match the others. “There's just no indication that he was anything other than one of many people who were already infected before the disease was noticed,” Worobey says.

The latest study shows how easy it is to jump to conclusions about a virus that does not immediately cause disease, says Beatrice Hahn, a microbiologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Researchers in the 1980s had not yet discovered HIV’s long incubation period: it can stay in the body for ten years on average before making a person ill. The many symptoms associated with AIDS also made it difficult to diagnose.

A devastating understanding

“The history of diseases has always been, in part, that someone needs to be blamed,” says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Maryland. In the 1980s, it was particularly easy for the public to direct their anger toward a 'promiscuous' gay man.

Dugas was key to researchers’ efforts to understand HIV, and “there is something more than a little wrong with what has happened in terms of the popular imagination”, Worobey says. Randy Shilts' 1987 book, And the Band Played On, which suggested that the flight attendant deliberately spread the disease, was particularly damning.

When HIV arrived in North America

Dugas did still spread the disease, says a physician who treated him for Kaposi's sarcoma. He continued to have unprotected sex until he was too ill, citing the lack of hard evidence that he could spread the ”gay cancer”, says Friedman-Kien.

Many gay men at the time resisted the idea that unprotected sex spread HIV, says the dermatologist. “It was a very difficult thing — because they had fought so much for sexual freedom and for recognition and acceptance — to be told that every gay man is potentially a carrier of this terrible disease.”

The study is a lesson in how scientifically and ethically difficult it can be to identify a 'patient zero', says McKay. Dugas’ story emphasizes that HIV was “not just a retrovirus undergoing change in some timeless void”, he adds. The quest for scientific understanding of the disease had a very real impact on the man and his family.

Nature
doi:10.1038/nature.2016.20877

[lavender1]

Oct 26, 2016 15:05:32 GMT -5 lavender1 said:

www.rt.com/news/364216-italy-quake-hits-perugia/

www.spiegel.de/panorama/italien-schweres-nachbeben-berichte-ueber-einstuerzende-haeuser-a-1118431.html



earthquaketrack.com/p/myanmar/recent

www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/erdbeben-in-italien-geologischer-zufall-rettete-tausende-a-1118557.html


www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3875648/Powerful-earthquake-hits-ancient-city-Rome-central-Italy.html





~~ theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/tag/earthquakes


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[lavender1]

www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/russland-fliegt-aus-uno-menschenrechtsrat-a-1118805.html

www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/graphics/statue-of-liberty-birthday/

[lavender1]

www.spiegel.de/panorama/schweres-erdbeben-erschuettert-mittelitalien-a-1118888.html


www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/oct/30/italy-earthquake-66-magnitude-tremor-felt-in-rome

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www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/30/norcia-earthquake-damage-as-central-italy-hit-again-by-magnitude-66-shock

Italy earthquake: damage as central Italy hit again by magnitude 6.6 shock

Reports say earthquake was felt over wide area including Rome and Naples and across the border in Croatia and Slovenia


Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Angela Giuffrida in Rome

Sunday 30 October 2016 10.50 GMT
Last modified on Sunday 30 October 2016 11.05 GMT



Italy has been rocked by a magnitude 6.6 earthquake, hitting the central Italian region already reeling from a series of large quakes.

The epicentre of the quake, according to initial reports, was about 40 miles (68km) south-west of Perugia and close to the town of Norcia, which had been hit by two successive quakes on Wednesday night that caused extensive damage.

There were no initial reports of fatalities but the head of the civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio, said ”a dozen” people were injured, with one person described as being in a serious condition.

Emergency services pulled out three people alive from the rubble in the town of Tolentino in Marche.

While there was relief that the area seemed to have been spared mass casualities – in large part because affected areas had already been abandoned after the previous quake – the damage wreaked on ancient structures across the hilly region of Marche and Umbria underscored that the landscape of the historic region would never be the same again.

The quake, which was felt in Rome and Naples, levelled historic structures that had already sustained major damage, including a tower and St Augustine church in Amatrice – the town devastated by a major earthquake in August that killed about 300 people.

In Norcia, a town in Umbria, the basilica of San Benedetto was destroyed, as was the town’s cathedral, where only remnants of the church’s facade still stood.

On Sunday morning, live television images showed firefighters in Norcia’s main square helping people running down small alleyways seeking safety. They included many monks and nuns in their habits from a nearby monastery.

Authorities were also reporting extensive damage in other towns of the region. Apart from Rome and Naples, tremors were also felt in neighbouring countries including Slovenia and Croatia.

“It all came down. Now there is no more town,” said the mayor of Arquata del Tronto, Aleandro Petrucci. There had already been “red zones” in place, abandoned after the previous quakes. “The few people who remained have gone out to the streets and are embracing. Now we’re going around to see what happened,” he said.

Cesare Spuri, the head of civil protection in Marche, said: “There are collapses everywhere. We report collapses in Muccia, Tolentino and in the areas surrounding Macerata. We’re trying to establish if people are underneath the rubble. There was also a strong shock in Ancona.”

“Everything’s collapsed. I see plumes of smoke, it’s a disaster,” said Marco Rinaldi, the mayor of Ussita, a town in the Marche region that was among the worst hit in a 6.1-magnitude quake that struck Italy on Wednesday night.

In Rome, the quake caused far more concern than Wednesday’s as it was felt much more strongly and for a longer period. The city’s metro was shut down for safety checks in case of damage.

“I was woken up by the earthquake,” Gianpaolo Giovannelli, who lives in the Flaminio area of Rome, told the Guardian. “The apartment started to shake. We feel them here in Rome, but we never get used to them so each time we feel fear.”

Assia Staffoli, a mother of two from Rome, said her husband put their six-year-old daughter under the table when they felt the earthquake, which caused their bedrooms, on a mezzanine level, to shake badly.

“That’s what you’re told to do when there’s an earthquake, go under the table,” Staffoli said. “I was feeding my son [aged seven months] when it happened. We then quickly left the apartment.”

[lavender1]

en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/10/31/pope_and_lutheran_leaders_mark_a_new_beginning_in_sweden/1269219

www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/papst-franziskus-am-reformationstag-zu-besuch-bei-luthers-erben-14506365.html


www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37827736


cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/10/30/questions-answers-pope-franciss-visit-sweden/

[lavender1]

Nov 1, 2016 7:46:38 GMT -5 lavender1 said:

en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/10/31/pope_and_lutheran_leaders_mark_a_new_beginning_in_sweden/1269219

www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/papst-franziskus-am-reformationstag-zu-besuch-bei-luthers-erben-14506365.html


www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37827736


cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/10/30/questions-answers-pope-franciss-visit-sweden/

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/01/pope-francis-women-never-roman-catholic-priests-church?CMP=fb_gu


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[lavender1]

www.choiceandtruth.com/2016/11/french-citizens-rise-up-in-their.html

French Citizens Rise Up In Their Millions To Protest Ruling Elite


France is in chaos yet again, as protesters flood the streets by the millions to protest against the ruling elite, who they say are taking away their rights and stealing their freedom.

As expected, the gravity of the events is being dramatically watered down by the Western mainstream media in an attempt to suppress a domino effect from taking place in other European countries, and parts of the world.


YNW reports: protesters are rising up in their millions against a ruling class determined to take away their rights. There is anarchy on the streets of France as the mainstream media continues to suppress the scale of events.

Thousands of masked protesters and police fought running street battles in France this week, with police using water cannon to quell rioters who hurled projectiles at them and destroyed storefronts, joining the millions of French citizens who have protested against new anti-worker laws that are designed to protect and enrich a wealthy elite at the expense of ordinary people.

The protesters in Paris represent all working class people united, mobilized, and resisting the greed of globalist elites. Police involved are violently fighting against the people and protecting the interests of the ruling class.

However as the government, police and mainstream media continue to suppress this important movement’s progress, the people continue to rise up.

Western mainstream media continues to suppress information regarding the scale and intensity of the revolution taking place on French streets.

While the world distracted by the Euro 2016 football championships in France, the elites are taking away people’s rights and blood is being shed on the streets.


Here is anarchy in the streets and the police are having trouble keeping pace. They have begged the protestors to stop the relentless protests, complained of exhaustion, and have even held their own protest against ‘the brutality of the protestors’ – that resulted in a police car getting torched.

The government have also tried to make protesting illegal, while they attempt to push the new laws through the lower house without a vote using a constitutional manoeuvre. With the two chambers unlikely to agree on a final version, the lower house will have the final say, and the government is expected to use the same manoeuvre to pass the bill into law without a vote.

According to an opinion poll published on Tuesday, 73 percent of the French would be “shocked and appalled” by such a move.

The new law is referred to by the name of the Minister of Labour Myriam El Khomri, and was first presented by her in February, sparking a series of relentless protests that show no sign of stopping.
The El Khomri legislation was introduced in its original French as the “draft legislation aimed at implementing new freedoms and protections for businesses and workers.” To refer to this law as a new freedom or protection for workers is laughable, and is really a kick in the face for the people. What the law really does is expand protections and freedoms for the wealthy elite and no one else.
The protests began on March 9 with the movement being called “Nuit debut,” translated roughly as “standing up all night.” The French ruling class is trying keep control through the police baton in order to keep the masses down. The El Khomri bill essentially boils down to stripping people of their rights and giving more control to the elites.

The French job market reform is outrageous for a country struggling with a high unemployment rate of 10 percent and a stagnant economy.

Although the movement is centered primarily around the job market reform bill, there are much broader concerns involved, such as: universal basic income, opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), amnesty for undocumented workers, solidarity with refugees, and the gender pay gap.

France’s mobilized collective are on a progressive mission to create another world to realize social justice and demand dignity for ordinary people.