January 28, 2024

Terence Trent d Arby - A Change Is Gonna Come.

January 28, 2024

Colombia 'strongly' condemns Argentine president's remarks about President Petro as 'Communist killer'

Foreign Ministry summoned ambassador to Buenos Aires for consultations
Alperen Aktaş |
27.01.2024 - Update : 27.01.2024



BOGOTA, Colombia

Colombia on Friday “strongly condemned” Argentine President Javier Milei's remarks that referred to President Gustavo Petro as a "Communist killer sinking Colombia."

"The deep friendship, understanding, and cooperation historically uniting Colombia and Argentina have been violated, and therefore, we have immediately recalled Ambassador Camilo Romero to the country for consultations,” said the Foreign Ministry.

“We strongly condemn Argentine President Javier Milei's disrespectful and irresponsible statements towards President Gustavo Petro," it added.

Milei, in an interview with journalist Patricia Janiot, responded to a question about Petro: "A Communist killer sinking Colombia."

Gustavo Bolivar, a member of the ruling Historical Pact coalition and former senator, expressed support for Petro on X. “Petro has never been a communist and has never killed anyone,” he wrote.

More:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/colombia-strongly-condemns-argentine-presidents-remarks-about-president-petro-as-communist-killer/3120412

Even though Washington/US corportions/Wall Street have always supported Latin American fascists, they are deadly for the people of the Americas, hence the protests, revolutions, etc. If only more people would take the time to pay attention.

January 26, 2024

Also from Borderland Beat: Romanian Gang in California Skimmed EBT Cards to Trade Baby Formula with Mexican Cartels

By Socalj 1/21/2024 02:14:00 PM
"Socalj" for Borderland Beat



Orange County, California authorities arrested 48 alleged members of a Romanian crime ring who allegedly stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from low-income Californians by skimming their state benefit cards.

The suspects are accused of installing skimming devices in stores and using them to swipe the information off of EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards, which low-income families use to buy food and baby formula.

Once they have the information, they bleed the cards dry, buying baby formula which they then bring down to Mexico - where formula is in short supply - and engage in trade with drug cartels.

The victims may not realize they have lost all their benefits until they are at the checkout, trying to buy groceries for their families.

"These are not victimless crimes," said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. "The victims are single mothers struggling to put a roof over their children's heads and food on the table and hardworking people who need a helping hand who find themselves standing at the checkout line with bags full of groceries only to be humiliated when they find that they have no money in their account because a thief has surreptitiously taken everything."

More:
https://www.borderlandbeat.com/2024/01/romanian-gang-in-california-skimmed-ebt.html

January 25, 2024

What is nitrogen hypoxia? Alabama's untested execution method could be dangerous for everyone in the room

Kenneth Eugene Smith is scheduled to become the first death row inmate to be executed with nitrogen. His pastor says the untested procedure is a cruel violation of religious liberties, Bevan Hurley reports

19 hours ago


On 25 January, Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) officials will strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney in Holman Correctional Facility and pump his lungs full of pure nitrogen.

Having survived one horribly botched execution, Smith faces being put to death by a wholly untested method that has been decried as inhumane by death penalty experts and deemed unfit even for killing most mammals.

So experimental is “nitrogen asphyxia” as a form of capital punishment that ADOC has required Smith’s spiritual adviser Reverend Jeff Hood to sign a waiver that forces him to maintain a distance of at least three feet (.9m) during the execution.

The legal document states that it would be possible, though “highly unlikely”, that a hose supplying nitrogen to Smith's mask detaches from his face, filling an area around him with the potentially deadly odourless, tasteless, invisible gas.

“They’re asking for my trust,” Dr Hood told The Independent in an interview. “The problem is they have a history of being untrustworthy.”

More:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/alabama-execution-nitrogen-gas-hypoxia-b2484087.html

January 25, 2024

Nearly 65K rape-related pregnancies occurred in abortion ban states, study estimates

U.S. NEWS JAN. 25, 2024 / 1:01 AM

By Sheri Walsh

Jan. 25 (UPI) -- A new study estimates nearly 65,000 rape-related pregnancies have occurred, since the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, in states with total abortion bans.

The study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine estimates there have been 519,981 reported rapes that led to 64,565 pregnancies in the 14 states, which have enacted abortion bans since the Dobbs decision in 2022.

Researchers from Planned Parenthood and Resound Research for Reproductive Health said most of the 14 states do not have exceptions that allow abortion for cases of rape and, if they do, require the rape to be reported to authorities.

The states included in the study were Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

More:
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/01/25/study-rape-related-pregnancies-abortion-bans/3441706160071/

January 25, 2024

Ecuador's reactionary war

By: Dawn Marie Paley
January 24, 2024

Civil rights annulled. Soldiers in the streets, curfews enforced. Armed men in masks patrol neighborhoods. Packets of marijuana and boxes of money laid out and photographed. US State Department officials in formal dress shake hands with their local counterparts.

Ecuador has recently begun to experience a pattern of violence similar to that of Colombia over the last 25 years and Mexico over the last 15.

Government officials claim that those responsible for the violence in Ecuador are men in criminal gangs, now considered “terrorists,” with nicknames like “Cuyuyuyuy” and “El Ravioli.” In this context, we are told, the military is acting to disrupt organized crime and protect citizens.

Some suggest that a crime boss’s second escape from prison was the straw that broke the camel’s back and that it required an immediate military response. This recalls the so-called escapes of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Journalist Anabel Hernández writes that the first time, Guzmán was wheeled out of the front door of the prison in a laundry cart with the cooperation of the guards. In the second instance, he is said to have escaped from a tunnel that the press has never actually seen.

Just as we question official discourse about austerity policies and economic measures that justify extractivism and benefit the one percent, it is important to question the official discourse on violence and, in particular, militarization.

More:
https://newpol.org/ecuadors-reactionary-war/

January 24, 2024

Mexico wins appeal in lawsuit against US gunmakers filed in Boston

MND Staff
January 23, 2024



The Mexican government's lawsuit is the first made by a foreign country against U.S. gun manufacturers and the Foreign Affairs Ministry estimates it could be worth as much as US $10 billion in damages. (Smith & Wesson Inc./Facebook)

A United States appeals court ruled Monday that a US $10 billion lawsuit filed by Mexico against U.S.-based gun manufacturers in 2021 can proceed, annulling a lower court’s dismissal of the case.

The Boston-based United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned Judge F. Dennis Saylor’s dismissal of the case against gunmakers including Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta and Glock.

Mexico filed its lawsuit in August 2021, accusing seven gun manufacturers and one distributor of negligent business practices that have led to illegal arms trafficking and deaths in Mexico, where U.S.-sourced firearms are used in a majority of high-impact crimes.

In dismissing the case in September 2022, Saylor, chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, said that U.S. law “unequivocally” prohibits lawsuits that seek to hold gun manufacturers responsible when people use their products for their intended purpose.

More:
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-wins-appeal-in-lawsuit-against-us-gunmakers-filed-in-boston/

January 24, 2024

Animals Can See Colors We Can't--And New Tech Offers Us a Glimpse

JANUARY 23, 2024

5 MIN READ

A colorful new video technique lets scientists see the world like birds and bees

BY LAUREN LEFFER



A butterfly through the eyes of a bird. Credit: “Recording Animal-View Videos of the Natural World Using a Novel Camera System and Software Package,” by Vera Vasas et al., in PLOS Biology, Vol. 22, No. 1. Published online January 23, 2024 (CC BY 4.0)


The rainbow looks different to a human than it does to a honeybee or a zebra finch. That’s because these animals can see colors that we humans simply can’t. Now scientists have developed a new video recording and analysis technique to better understand how the world looks through the eyes of other species. The accurate and relatively inexpensive method, described in a study published on January 23 in PLOS Biology, is already offering biologists surprising discoveries about the lives of different species.

Humans have three types of cone cells in their eyes. This trio of photoreceptors typically detects red, green and blue wavelengths of light, which combine into millions of distinct colors in the spectrum from 380 to 700 nanometers in wavelength—what we call “visible light.” Some animals, though, can see light with even higher frequencies, called ultraviolet, or UV, light. Most birds have this ability, along with honeybees, reptiles and certain bony fish.

But it’s difficult to document the moving world through these animals’ eyes. To capture such a wide range of light, cameras must sacrifice visual detail. Scientists can combine high-resolution photographs from multiple cameras tuned to different wavelengths or properties of light. They can also use spectrophotometry, a method that relies on specialized lab equipment to take many different measurements of a single object. Both of these methods are time-intensive, however, and only work on still images taken in highly controlled conditions. For biologists who study animal behavior, these still photographs aren’t enough. “A lot of times, the change of color is the important or interesting part of a signal,” says lead study author Vera Vasas, a biologist now at the University of Sussex in England.

To capture animal vision on video, Vasas and her colleagues developed a portable 3-D-printed enclosure containing a beam splitter that separates light
into UV and the human-visible spectrum. The two streams are captured by two different cameras. One is a standard camera that detects visible-wavelength light, and the other is a modified camera that is sensitive to UV. On its own, the UV-sensitive camera wouldn’t be able to record detailed information on the rest of the light spectrum in a single shot. But paired together, the two cameras can simultaneously record high-quality video that encompasses a wide range of the light spectrum. Then a set of algorithms aligns the two videos and produces versions of the footage that are representative of different animals’ color views, such as those of birds or bees.

More:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/animals-can-see-colors-we-cant-and-new-tech-offers-us-a-glimpse/

January 19, 2024

Cuba's placement on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list has led to damaging consequences

BY MICHAEL GALANT, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 01/05/24 12:00 PM ET

Three years ago this month, as a parting shot mere days before leaving office, Donald Trump placed Cuba on the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list, triggering a range of new sanctions against the island nation. Last month, members of Congress were left “furious” after learning that, despite assurances otherwise, President Biden has not even started the process of reviewing that decision.

Cuba’s SSOT designation was callous and unjustifiable when it was instituted to great dismay by President Trump. It is even more callous and unjustifiable today, as Cuba suffers the worst economic and humanitarian crisis in its contemporary history, largely as a result of U.S. policy.

The U.S. embargo of Cuba has been in place for over 60 years. In that time, its primary effect has been the immiseration of the Cuban people. U.S. sanctions have starved the Cuban economy of over $130 billion; hindered civilian access to essential goods like food, fuel and medicine; exacerbated hunger and poverty; and systematically undermined fundamental human rights. The evidence that broad economic sanctions harm civilians in targeted countries is overwhelming. Indeed, that is arguably the intent.

In 2014, President Obama broke with a half-century of systematic hostility, taking small but meaningful steps to thaw diplomatic relations and provide a measure of relief for the sanctions-starved Cuban economy, including removing the SSOT designation that President Reagan had imposed in the depths of the Cold War. While Trump took a wrecking ball to these fragile advances, many Cubans and Americans alike saw Biden’s election as a chance to return to the path laid by his former running mate.

More:
https://thehill.com/opinion/4390641-cubas-placement-on-the-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-list-has-lead-to-damaging-consequences/

January 19, 2024

Watch Japan attempt to ace its 1st-ever moon landing on Jan. 19 with this free livestream (video)

By Mike Wall
published about 9 hours ago

The nation's SLIM lunar lander will try to touch down at around 10:20 a.m. ET on Friday (Jan. 19).

Japan's robotic SLIM spacecraft will attempt to pull off the nation's first-ever successful moon landing on Friday morning (Jan. 19), and you can watch the action live.

SLIM (short for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon" ) is scheduled to begin its touchdown operations Friday at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT; midnight on Jan. 20 Japan time), with a soft landing on the moon occurring 20 minutes later, if all goes according to plan.

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or directly via JAXA. Coverage will begin at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT; 11 p.m. Japan time).



Artist's illustration of Japan's SLIM lander attempting its lunar touchdown on Jan. 19, 2024. (Image credit: ISAS/JAXA)

SLIM launched atop a Japanese H-2A rocket on Sept. 6 of last year. The moon probe shared that ride with an X-ray space telescope called XRISM, which was deployed into low Earth orbit shortly after launch and recently beamed home its first test photos after a successful checkout period.

More:
https://www.space.com/japan-first-moon-landing-slim-webcast