CHINA'S SHAMEFUL RECORD OF ANIMAL ABUSE : NEW STATUS SPORT INVOLVES KILLING TIGERS

 

It's bad enough that sharks are killed for fins to put in expensive soup.  It's bad enough that elephants are slaughtered for their ivory and rhinos butchered for their horns, all to serve some idiotic customer in Asia.  But now, wealthy Chinese are brazenly pursuing their expensive habits by, among other things, killing full grown tigers for 'sport'.

Horrific images have made the rounds on the internet of recent killings in Guangdong province of mature tigers, who are slaughtered in a myriad cruel and painful ways. 

To make matters worse, some prominent government officials are joining the hunts, if one could call them that, since most of the animals are killed while inside their cages.

Secretly filmed footage has been obtained and then posted on the internet in an attempt to denounce the kilings and break up the ring.  So far, there has been an outcry, but it is unclear if the perpetrators will be prosecuted.

In the footage, which is almost two years old, a group of revelers held a private party in an undisclosed location.  The group was composed of rich businessman and elite politicians.  They are all seen standing in front of a cage where a tiger sits nervously.  A little while later, a man with a long electric prong inserts the deadly instrument in the cage and slowly electrocutes the helpless animal. 

Then the tiger is cut up, with the partiers eagerly standing over the butcherer as he performs his gruesome task. 

Although the local police has made an announcement that 15 of the participants have been arrested, and that they are suspected to have killed at least 10 tigers in the past few years, there is little hope that such actions will stop this new trend.

The tigers apparently are smuggled in from neighboring Vietnam.  The man who is seen electrocuting the tiger in the video, was killed during the raid that led to the arrest of the 15 accomplices.

The more worrisome twist to this story, is that the butchered parts of the tigers end up being sold on the black market for eager shoppers who believe that, just like rhino horns, tigers have healing powers or increase their virility.  The meat itself is sold for about 240 $ per pound. Its bones, however, are sold for about 4000 $ per pound.  

Again, belief in traditional Chinese medicine fuels the cruel slaughter of animals.  And there is little hope that the slaughter will cease, considering the dogged pursuit of traditional methods and  some Chinese's stubborn refusal to come to terms with their responsibilities regarding animal slaughter and extinction. 

A local Chinese blogger, outraged by the video, has accused local politicians and employees for abetting such cruel trade.  

Besides the endangered tigers, the Chinese slaughter secretly many other animals who they believe have healing properties.  Birds, deer, monkeys and other creatures are seized and butchered. 

The involvement of elite businessmen and politicians however, renders even more difficult the enforcement of laws against the slaughter of such animals, if they exist, and gives the practice a semblance of legitimacy.  In fact, some of the local politicians or government employees involved in this ring are actually the ones who arrange for the poaching and transportation of the animals. 

The local blogger implores authorities to step up efforts and to impose severe sentences to send a message to those entertaining the thought of joining the illegal trade.  But there is no way to tell whether the Chinese government will do anything significant and timely to stop the tiger slaughter.   The insular quality of Chinese government is such that it allows for incredible measures to be taken for their own endangered species, such as the pandas, but is very myopic in regards to the rest of the world.

Tigers are already on the brink: practices such as these, could wipe them out in a few years. All that our children will be able to see of these magnificent animals, are pictures in books, or videos on television.

Op_ED

Source : France 24/ 3.31.14

EBOLA EPIDEMIC IN GUINEA TRACKED TO BATS EATEN BY THE POPULATION

 

Guinea has just ordered a ban on eating bats, which are considered a delicacy, for fear that the fruit eating bat is the natural reservoir for the Ebola virus, which has caused a sudden epidemic that has already killed 62 and is spreading to neighboring African states.

Because they are so sought after, the bats are shared in communal meals, and the capture, and handling of the bat during the cooking process is believed to be the reason for the recent outbreak. In some cases, the bats are let dry over fire, a cooking practice that does not destroy the virus.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Ebola and it is highly contageous. The mortality rate for Ebola can reach 90% in infected patients.

Because the disease causes diarrhoea and vomiting, it can be easily spread when other people care for the infected person. All bodily fluids, blood and open wounds are infectious.

A few cases or Ebola are suspected in Liberia and Sierra Leone, which share borders with Guinea.

Guinea is not usually a place where researchers have tracked Ebola outbreaks in the past.  It is usually the Congo or other countries deep in the heart of Africa that have experienced outbreaks.  However, there have been outbreaks in both the Congo and Uganda just recently.

The aid organization Medicines Sans Frontieres has already mobilized 33 metric tons of medication to the area, in an attempt to stem the spread of the disease and to set up triage and medical quarters in case the epidemic does widen.  Quarantine sites have been put up in Southern Guinea.  The WHO is also coordinating efforts and organizing information packets and going on the radio to inform the public on how to avoid becoming infected.

Although at first suspected to be Marburg, a much more virulent and deadly virus, the Ebola epidemic took everyone by surprise in Guinea.  In neighboring Sierra Leone, health authorities have still not confirmed that the few suspected cases they have are actually Ebola, altough at least in one case, the person who died was part of a family that was stricken by Ebola in neighboring Guinea.

Five more people have been reported dead in Liberia but their cases have not been confirmed as being Ebola infections yet. Those people had come to Liberia from Guinea to seek medical treatment when they fell ill.

What is worrisome is the finding that this particular Ebola epidemic in Guinea is of the Zaire Strain, which is the most lethal among known Ebola strains, raising the highest level of concern at the Pasteur Institute in Paris that has confirmed its type and in the aid organizations now mobilized in Guinea. 

The Zaire strain in this case is believed to have been passed directly from bats, since Ebola is a zoonotic virus, and the only way it crosses the animal barrier is when man interacts with the animals or eats it and comes in contact with the virus.  Bats are carriers of many extremely deadly virusus, but they are healthy carriers so that they do not display symptoms, leading people to think they might be safe to eat.

In the meantime, the number of suspected cases is rising. As of Monday, the total number was up to 86 cases.

An information campaign has been launched that sends SMS messages to inform the public on how to avoid becoming infected.

One case of Ebola connected to the Guinea outbreak, was suspected to have been detected in Canada, when a man had traveled from Guinea to Canada this week.  But Canadian authorities have said that the illness was not Ebola.

Guinea authorities insist that the epidemic has been contained.

For now, public funerals have also been banned to avoid people touching the infectious corpse.

Source: Theglobeand mail/bbc: 3.27.14

THE RAVAGES OF COAL CAPITALISM : HOW THE RICHEST COAL STATE IS SLOWLY DROWNING IN POVERTY AND DRUGS

Virginia was once a lush heaven of mountains and valleys, where American Indians and immigrants had settled in peace, and toiled side by side.  At first, that is.

Once the Indians were sent away on the trail of a million tears, which saw indigenous tribes travel hundreds of miles on foot to lands they had never known, only the immigrants were left.

Virginia was also a harsh country.  Soon after the settlers took over the bucolic landscape, Virginia became the coal capital of the world. Rich veins were discovered that ran throughout the state. From this tiny state came the fuel that made America into the economic and industrial power of the past two centuries. 

But the coal has been both the saviour and the damnation of the state, where rapacious energy interests have not provided for the locals as they relentlessly extracted the coal, and have never shared in the enormous bounty that came from Virginia's coal beds.

Now however, the coal is slowly vanishing.  The deep veins that ran through West Virginia's majestic hills have all but been stripped, and soon whatever meager earnings West Virginians drew from the coal industry will dry out.

Already, the signs of an impending doom are becoming manifest and daunting.  Poverty and poor education are paving the way for a drug epidemic that could define West Virginia as the failed state it will probably become. 

In some areas, authorities have told teachers and school personnel to be on the lookout for possible abuse, as more and more children go to school unfed and unwashed, often a sign that parents have succumbed to heroin or other severe drug addictions. 

In McDowell County, drug addiction levels are unprecedented, and are adding to the crushing poverty and lack of resources of the place.  Now that the mining jobs are gone there is nothing to take their place, people are falling into the deepest desperation.  The coal industry, which has contaminated and wrought havoc on the West Virginia landscape through leaching of coal processing chemicals and the ripping apart of mountain to expose the coal veins, has never provided for these communities aside from the dangerous and often underpaid mining jobs and the few small enterprises that fed from the meager revenues of the miners.  

McDowell, in fact, has the frightening reputation of having the highest drug overdose rate in all of West Virginia, which already has its own dismal rates county-wise and statewide.

The decadence of McDowell county however, is not a sudden event.  Since the 1980s when the steel industry all but collapsed and more jobs became mechanized, the moderate wealth afforded by mining jobs was already greatly diminishing.  

As more economic instability ensued and small businesses supported by the coal mining jobs shuttered, gloom and anxiety set in.  Alcohol was always a favorite escape.  Now however, that gloom is fast transforming into total despair and people are increasingly relying on prescription medication, often gateway drugs, and then on hard drugs readily and cheaply available on West Virginia streets. 

What has been observed nationally as a trend, the rise in heroin addiction generated by gateway drugs such as Oxycontin and other potent opiate derivatives, is already a full blown crisis in West Virginia. 

In one school alone in War, West Virginia, 48% of the students have lost one parent or both to drug addiction, either through death by overdose or because the state had to remove the child from the household. In some more severe cases, children were removed from their homes because the parents were selling them to paedophiles for drug money.

In another school in the same city, 40% of kids need special education assistance and a good percentage of those were born addicted because their mothers used drugs during gestation. 

The new generation, in the city  of War, and the county and in every city in West Virginia ravaged by poverty, is by many people's assessment a lost one.  So many children are scarred biologically and psychologically, that the people who are now taking care of them are almost at a loss on how to deal with their emotional wounds. 

Recent data compiled on drug addiction in America pins West Virginia as the hardest case. Appalachia has the highest number of drug overdoses, with 28.9 deaths per 100,000 individuals.  That's a 605% increase in 14 years.  Back in 1999, the rate was only 4.1 per 100,000 individuals.

Since the late 1990s through today, West Virginia had become the thru way for prescription drug abuse.  Couriers travelling to Florida pill mills often made their stop in West Virginia on their way back to the Mid-West.  Some of the couriers were West Virginians, who ferried the drugs that were becoming increasingly in demand in the beleaguered state, and created their own pill mills.  

Many cities in West Virginia have no infrastructure.  Kermit, West Virginia is one of them.  Only 300 people live there, but there is no supermarket, no mall, no cinema, not even a city centre.  

However, Kermit has a pharmacy, which, until the drug companies changed the formulation of opiate derivatives into non-crushable form, was busier than grand central station. Lines at the drive through sneaked for city blocks and beyond as addicts waited to get their pills.  

The pharmacy in Kermit had become a pill mill in its own right, and people knew that just about any opiate could be obtained there easily and seemingly legally.  Just like Florida, tiny Kermit had become a pill mecca, and people drove to its remote location all the way from the north east to get their stuff. 

DEA finally stormed the pharmacy in Kermit and shut down the operation. They found that the small pharmacy was doling out enough pills for the entire state to consume, to the tune of 3.2 million dosage of hydrocodone alone in just one year, 2006.  Cash was so stuffed in drawers at the tiny pharmacy that they would not even close.

The closure of this pill mill however, created a fatal vacancy: soon people were looking for substitutes to the easily obtainable opiates.  And that's when heroin dealers moved in. In fact drug gangs from as far as Detroit and Atlanta moved in to provide both the pills and their harder substitute, heroin. 

The pills and now the heroin consumption are also bringing the obvious child of rampant addiction: violence.  In Mingo county, authorities are almost helpless to stop what they are calling a catastrophic increase in violence that spans the entire gamut, from domestic violence, to murders, to burglaries to DUIs.  Mingo county, just a decade ago, was the kind of place where one incidence of violence would have been the talk of the town.  Now, no one is talking, as violence engulfs the impoverished county. Shootings in broad daylight have become so common, they barely make the news. 

Many people blame the mining companies for more than just pillaging.  Many miners are addicted to pills because of the injuries received from the work in the mines.  Almost all miners have back problems and lung ailments.  Oxycontin, in fact, was probably a staple adopted in the late 1990s.  

Just recently, two West Virginia agencies have sued the pharmaceutical companies for causing the drug epidemic that is tearing the state apart. In a state where the Attorney General's wife is a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical company that makes opiates, there is doubt that such action will bring a quick or even effective resolution to the problem. 

But suing they are.  Governor Earl Ray Tombling's office is pushing the action through.  All money from possible settlements would go to the families of the people who have been affected by the prescription pill epidemic.  

And that is only because the drug epidemic has so depleted West Virginia's medical and enforcement resources that they have to find a solution to the problem. 



Partial Sources: Al Jazeera/Healthyamericans.org/Salon/Med. Malpractice:  3.26.14