Apparently to there's fentanyl pouring over the Canadian border into the US. It's really bad. 43 lbs crossed last year. And it's just as bad as the Mexican border where 22,000 lbs were confiscated last year.
Trump threatened 25% tariffs on all goods crossing. Considering about 90% of Canada's exports go there it would destroy the Canadian economy. So lapdog Trudeau ran cap in hand to Maralago on Friday to take the knee and kiss the ring. First G7 P.M. to pay homage to the Once and Future POTUS.
Thing is some components cross the border multiple times each way and could have the tariffs charged multiple times.
Then there's the dirty oil from Alberta. The guy who's in charge of energy for Trump owns the Keystone pipeline and would love to have that cheap dirty oil. I believe Albertan oil has a 20% discount

It seems that Yoon went too soon

comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 5 hours, 42 minutes ago
Meantime in the DRC, more than 140 people have died from an unknown disease that causes flu-like symptoms.
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Maybe that spy plane that flew over the region dropped something.

Two good bits of work from Labour the past couple of days:

South Western Railway set to be first train operator nationalised by Labour.

And

We've ended the scandal of the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme, and now over 100,000 former mineworkers are getting a 32% boost in their pensions.

The DRC is the cradle of lots of horrible diseases, Ebola being a good example

These viruses have been there for millennia and locals usually have some immunity but the push by mining companies ever further into the interior means more people are getting exposure.

This process started decades ago when the Belgians first started building the railways

comment by Boris 'Inky’ Gibson (U5901)
posted 13 minutes ago
The DRC is the cradle of lots of horrible diseases, Ebola being a good example

These viruses have been there for millennia and locals usually have some immunity but the push by mining companies ever further into the interior means more people are getting exposure.

This process started decades ago when the Belgians first started building the railways
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Push by mining companies You couldn't make it up. Is that what explains sudden appearance of diseases in Africa? The most human occupied continent?

The centre of Africa and the sorroundings are the regions that have been inhabited by humans for the longest time in history. We're talking millions of years.

Homo Sapiens came out of Africa and people don't know that even the neanderthals and other hominids still migrated from Africa. Human life comes from Africa and nowhere else. Human life will always survive in Africa, ice age or no ice age.

If any such diseases or organisms existed in that region, humanity would have evolved to handle them a long time ago. There's been millions of years of human exposure to everything in the Congo and now all of a sudden previously unknown diseases are popping up there?

Funny how COVID was made in a lab but everything in Africa is naturally occurring, when Africa has been inhabited by humans the longest by far.

It wouldn't be a Liverpool title charge if we didn't have some unknown disease messing the world up

I don't think the diseases are unknown. Mutations in diseases happen all the time and they are more common in certain areas due to multiple variables (i.e. climate, sanitary conditions, population density, healthcare, access to vaccine development etc.)

Just because an area is somewhere all humans came from millions of years ago, doesn't mean it's not a area that can see a disproportionate number of new diseases.

Ironically, given the new health secretary in the US wants to promote raw milk; we could actually see the US because the new ground zero for new diseases if a virus manages to make a jump between species.

Funny how COVID was made in a lab but everything in Africa is naturally occurring, when Africa has been inhabited by humans the longest by far.
_________

Lol. Was it really man made?

Blaming the Chinese for the RDC's problems is just plain ignorance. The European and American interference in the Congo basin has wrought infinitely more havoc there and for much longer.

Beginning with the Portuguese, Belgians and French in the colonial and immediate postcolonial period, then the Americans jockeying to put Laurent and Joseph Kabila, the British interests through Rwanda and Uganda, Congo was cursed by the Western thirst for its natural and mineral resources long, long before China got involved.

comment by Tamwolf (U17286)
posted 7 minutes ago
Ironically, given the new health secretary in the US wants to promote raw milk; we could actually see the US because the new ground zero for new diseases if a virus manages to make a jump between species.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That’ll be a boon for their private medical sector.

comment by Ruben The King Amorim Tim Tagi Dim (U10026)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Tamwolf (U17286)
posted 7 minutes ago
Ironically, given the new health secretary in the US wants to promote raw milk; we could actually see the US because the new ground zero for new diseases if a virus manages to make a jump between species.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That’ll be a boon for their private medical sector.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Weirdly he'll be persuading people not to get vaccinated.

The world jumped the shark a long time ago.

I’m not one to defend Boris, but I don’t think he’s blaming China for their problems. I don’t know enough about the region, but it looks he’s saying mining companies are increasing exposure to the areas where there’s lots of infectious diseases.

comment by The Welsh Xavi (U15412)
posted 25 minutes ago
It wouldn't be a Liverpool title charge if we didn't have some unknown disease messing the world up
----------------------------------------------------------------------
🫠

comment by Ruben The King Amorim Tim Tagi Dim (U10026)
posted 12 minutes ago
I’m not one to defend Boris, but I don’t think he’s blaming China for their problems. I don’t know enough about the region, but it looks he’s saying mining companies are increasing exposure to the areas where there’s lots of infectious diseases.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's just some theoretical bullsheet that doesn't make sense to me. Have you ever been to some of these places? Which places you talking about that remain untouched so much so that some fatal disease undiscovered for a few million or so years is hiding? I can't see it myself tbh.

comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 24 minutes ago
Blaming the Chinese for the RDC's problems is just plain ignorance. The European and American interference in the Congo basin has wrought infinitely more havoc there and for much longer.

Beginning with the Portuguese, Belgians and French in the colonial and immediate postcolonial period, then the Americans jockeying to put Laurent and Joseph Kabila, the British interests through Rwanda and Uganda, Congo was cursed by the Western thirst for its natural and mineral resources long, long before China got involved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just another narrative.

comment by Disband the PGMOL (U1282)
posted 1 hour, 17 minutes ago
comment by Boris 'Inky’ Gibson (U5901)
posted 13 minutes ago
The DRC is the cradle of lots of horrible diseases, Ebola being a good example

These viruses have been there for millennia and locals usually have some immunity but the push by mining companies ever further into the interior means more people are getting exposure.

This process started decades ago when the Belgians first started building the railways
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Push by mining companiesYou couldn't make it up. Is that what explains sudden appearance of diseases in Africa? The most human occupied continent?

The centre of Africa and the sorroundings are the regions that have been inhabited by humans for the longest time in history. We're talking millions of years.

Homo Sapiens came out of Africa and people don't know that even the neanderthals and other hominids still migrated from Africa. Human life comes from Africa and nowhere else. Human life will always survive in Africa, ice age or no ice age.

If any such diseases or organisms existed in that region, humanity would have evolved to handle them a long time ago. There's been millions of years of human exposure to everything in the Congo and now all of a sudden previously unknown diseases are popping up there?

Funny how COVID was made in a lab but everything in Africa is naturally occurring, when Africa has been inhabited by humans the longest by far.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
As I said, indigenous people living in remote regions of the DRC had developed an immunity to diseases like Ebola so I don’t really see your point

comment by Ruben The King Amorim Tim Tagi Dim (U10026)
posted 43 minutes ago
I’m not one to defend Boris, but I don’t think he’s blaming China for their problems. I don’t know enough about the region, but it looks he’s saying mining companies are increasing exposure to the areas where there’s lots of infectious diseases.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't think what he posted was that unreasonable to he honest. I actually thought it would create a decent discussion point on the impact of these things and maybe a knowledge share about the region, new diseases, impact of developed nations on Africa past and now present etc.

Instead people got defensive and attacked stuff that he hadn't really said. Way of the world these days I guess. Everything has to be tribal and topics shut down if you don't like it.

I think everyone is aware of the impact of contacting lesser contacted indigenous tribes throughout the world and how western diseases and just standard illnesses can impact them. That impact can actually work the other way too, but it is a lesser considered problem as I guess the probability is lower.

Not the article in the Sunday I was looking for but along the same lines

https://www.sundaytimes.lk/141005ed/sunday-times-2/hiv-pandemics-roots-traced-back-to-1920s-kinshasa-121036.html

comment by Tamwolf (U17286)
posted 3 minutes ago
I think everyone is aware of the impact of contacting lesser contacted indigenous tribes throughout the world and how western diseases and just standard illnesses can impact them. That impact can actually work the other way too, but it is a lesser considered problem as I guess the probability is lower.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In a nutshell 👍

comment by Disband the PGMOL (U1282)
posted 37 minutes ago
comment by Ruben The King Amorim Tim Tagi Dim (U10026)
posted 12 minutes ago
I’m not one to defend Boris, but I don’t think he’s blaming China for their problems. I don’t know enough about the region, but it looks he’s saying mining companies are increasing exposure to the areas where there’s lots of infectious diseases.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's just some theoretical bullsheet that doesn't make sense to me. Have you ever been to some of these places? Which places you talking about that remain untouched so much so that some fatal disease undiscovered for a few million or so years is hiding? I can't see it myself tbh.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A very comfortable majority (est. 75%) of new or reemerging infectious diseases are zoonotic. 80% of all viruses infecting humans are zoonotic.

Leaving aside completely our reasons for finding more in recent years, it is an incontestable, empirical fact that a very disproportionate number of significant, newly identified zoonoses, particularly viral zoonoses, are of sub-Saharan origin.

As to the reasons for an increased identification of zoonoses, there are myriad factors to consider relating to both emergence and identification/reporting, including (hugely) increased human encroachment on wildlife habitats, habitat destruction leading to animal encroachment on human living spaces, intensive animal husbandry, increased population densities, exposure of non-locals to endemic zoonoses, ease and growth of human movement and interaction, improved public health systems in the developing world, academic access to infection zones and samples, wide and quick information sharing, etc.

Very easy to point fingers. Wholly unconstructive without carefully analysed data and carefully considered context.

comment by RRRU-ben a-moo-REENG (U17054)
posted 58 seconds ago
As to the reasons for an increased identification of zoonoses, there are myriad factors to consider relating to both emergence and identification/reporting, including (hugely) increased human encroachment on wildlife habitats, habitat destruction leading to animal encroachment on human living spaces, intensive animal husbandry, increased population densities, exposure of non-locals to endemic zoonoses, ease and growth of human movement and interaction, improved public health systems in the developing world, academic access to infection zones and samples, wide and quick information sharing, etc.

Very easy to point fingers. Wholly unconstructive without carefully analysed data and carefully considered context.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I read somewhere an area the size of Costa Rica is burnt or destroyed in the Amazon every year leading to the displacement of indigenous peoples and animals.