I'm old enough to remember the 20th century. It was terrible. We had World War One, World War Two, the Holocaust, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
The worst thing about the 20th century: There was no fucking Internet. Can you imagine no internet? It was terrible. We had to go to stores to buy stuff. How fucking primitive can you get? And people had to pay for the music we listened to. That's ridiculous.
And there was no fucking Wikipedia. To look stuff up I had to go to a fucking library and borrow a book about it.
Thank goodness for the 21st century.
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Monday, August 3, 2020
Thursday, July 9, 2020
Idiot America is winning. We have more coronavirus infections per million residents than every other country.
"Germany reported 35 new cases per million residents over the past week; the U.S. had almost 1,100."
The problem with America is the stupidity. Morons don't wear masks and they do everything else wrong.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
New York Times
Should schools reopen?
An Iowa school district suspended its in-person summer school program this week after an outbreak of fevers. Fort Benning, an Army base in Georgia, had a coronavirus outbreak shortly after new recruits arrived. And multiple sports teams have had to halt practices after athletes or other employees got sick.
All of these recent cases make clear that reopening is not simply a matter of declaring it to be so.
Opening safely during a pandemic, and being able to stay open, requires planning carefully — and usually spending significant amounts of money, to pay for testing, cleaning and new social-distancing procedures.
Across the political spectrum, there have been calls for the reopening of U.S. schools this fall. And understandably so: Remote learning went very badly in the spring. An autumn without in-person school would leave students further behind and leave many parents without child care again.
The good news is that the experience in other countries suggests that it may be possible to reopen schools. Germany, Denmark and others have done so without causing big new virus outbreaks, as President Trump noted yesterday.
But those other countries have taken two steps that the U.S. has not.
One, they have first reduced the overall rate of new infections to low levels: Germany reported 35 new cases per million residents over the past week; the U.S. had almost 1,100. (The Times updates this map every day, tracking the virus around the world.)
Two, some of those other countries have allocated new money for schools, as I heard after surveying some of my Times colleagues around the world.
Hong Kong is covering the cleaning costs for its schools, Bella Huang told me. South Korea is helping schools open day care centers from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or longer, Su-Hyun Lee, who’s based in Seoul, said. Germany is subsidizing laptop purchases for low-income students, to help them combine remote and in-person learning, according to Christopher Schuetze in Berlin. And Italy has sent money to schools to pay for more teachers, student desks, masks and other equipment, Elisabetta Povoledo, a reporter in Rome, told me.
The U.S., by contrast, is suffering through by far the worst coronavirus outbreak of any affluent country, and the federal government has done little to help schools reopen.
Paul Romer, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, told me that reopening U.S. schools was feasible — but would require huge amounts of additional testing, as well as mask wearing, social distancing and keeping windows open.
The problem with America is the stupidity. Morons don't wear masks and they do everything else wrong.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
New York Times
Should schools reopen?
An Iowa school district suspended its in-person summer school program this week after an outbreak of fevers. Fort Benning, an Army base in Georgia, had a coronavirus outbreak shortly after new recruits arrived. And multiple sports teams have had to halt practices after athletes or other employees got sick.
All of these recent cases make clear that reopening is not simply a matter of declaring it to be so.
Opening safely during a pandemic, and being able to stay open, requires planning carefully — and usually spending significant amounts of money, to pay for testing, cleaning and new social-distancing procedures.
Across the political spectrum, there have been calls for the reopening of U.S. schools this fall. And understandably so: Remote learning went very badly in the spring. An autumn without in-person school would leave students further behind and leave many parents without child care again.
The good news is that the experience in other countries suggests that it may be possible to reopen schools. Germany, Denmark and others have done so without causing big new virus outbreaks, as President Trump noted yesterday.
But those other countries have taken two steps that the U.S. has not.
One, they have first reduced the overall rate of new infections to low levels: Germany reported 35 new cases per million residents over the past week; the U.S. had almost 1,100. (The Times updates this map every day, tracking the virus around the world.)
Two, some of those other countries have allocated new money for schools, as I heard after surveying some of my Times colleagues around the world.
Hong Kong is covering the cleaning costs for its schools, Bella Huang told me. South Korea is helping schools open day care centers from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or longer, Su-Hyun Lee, who’s based in Seoul, said. Germany is subsidizing laptop purchases for low-income students, to help them combine remote and in-person learning, according to Christopher Schuetze in Berlin. And Italy has sent money to schools to pay for more teachers, student desks, masks and other equipment, Elisabetta Povoledo, a reporter in Rome, told me.
The U.S., by contrast, is suffering through by far the worst coronavirus outbreak of any affluent country, and the federal government has done little to help schools reopen.
Paul Romer, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, told me that reopening U.S. schools was feasible — but would require huge amounts of additional testing, as well as mask wearing, social distancing and keeping windows open.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
"The bloc will allow visitors from 15 countries, but the United States, Brazil and Russia were among the notable absences from the safe list."
New York Times
E.U. Formalizes Reopening, Barring Travelers From U.S.
The bloc will allow visitors from 15 countries, but the United States, Brazil and Russia were among the notable absences from the safe list.
By Matina Stevis-Gridneff
June 30, 2020
BRUSSELS — The European Union will open its borders to visitors from 15 countries as of Wednesday, but not to travelers from the United States, Brazil or Russia, putting into effect a complex policy that has sought to balance health concerns with politics, diplomacy and the desperate need for tourism revenue.
The list of nations that European Union countries have approved includes Australia, Canada and New Zealand, while travelers from China will be permitted if China reciprocates.
The plan was drawn up based on health criteria, and European Union officials went to great lengths to appear apolitical in their choices, but the decision to leave the United States off the list — lumping travelers from there in with those from Brazil and Russia — was a high-profile rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Travelers’ country of residence, not their nationality, will be the determining factor for their ability to travel to countries in the European Union, officials said, and while the policy will not be legally binding, all 27 member nations will be under pressure to comply. If not, they risk having their European peers close borders within the bloc, which would set back efforts to restart the free travel-and-trade zone that is fundamental to the club’s economic survival.
Still, some European countries, especially those in the south that see millions of visitors from all over the world throng to beaches and cultural sites during the summer, have been eager to permit more travelers in a bid to salvage their ravaged, and vital, tourism industries.
The United States was the first country to bar visitors from the European Union in March as the pandemic devastated Italy and other European nations.
The bloc implemented its own travel ban in mid-March and has been gradually extending it as the pandemic spreads to other parts of the world. It had set July 1 as the date to begin allowing non-European Union travelers to return, even as Portugal and Sweden, both members, and Britain, which is treated as a member until the end of the year, still grapple with serious outbreaks. Others, such as Germany, are seeing new localized outbreaks drive up their national caseloads.
Britain was exempt from consideration for the list because of its current E.U. status, and countries like Spain and France are considering allowing direct flights from Britain to bring in crucial tourism revenue.
The list of safe countries will be reviewed every two weeks to reflect the changing realities of the coronavirus outbreaks in individual nations, officials said, and countries could be added or removed from the list. Experts say the approach is a sensible way navigate the continent’s reopening as the spread of the virus shifts and ebbs. But it is also bound to create logistical problems for airlines trying to plan routes, and could reap uncertainty for would-be travelers.
The full list of the first 15 countries that the European Union will open up to includes Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and China, provided that China also opens up to travelers from the bloc. It also includes four European microstates, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican.
Exceptions are also being made for travelers from countries outside the safe list, including health care workers, diplomats, humanitarian workers, transit passengers, asylum seekers and students, as well as “passengers traveling for imperative family reasons” and foreign workers whose employment in Europe is deemed essential.
Although travel between the United States and Europe has been severely limited by the earlier lockdown restrictions, exceptions have been made. A regular flight between Newark and Amsterdam, for example, has shuttled essential travelers such as diplomats and health care professionals and repatriated Europeans from the United States.
The prolonged severance of travel ties between the bloc and the United States has disrupted a critical economic, cultural and diplomatic relationship. Business travelers on both sides of the Atlantic are desperate to resume their visits, couples and families have been split up for months, and the differences between the European and American approaches to combating the pandemic have brought to the fore divergent views on science and policy.
While most European nations went into strict lockdowns early in their outbreaks and have promoting the wearing of masks and other measures to try and control the resurgence of the illness, the United States has seen a patchwork response and the number of new cases has continued to balloon.
The different policy approaches and their subsequent results became obvious to officials tasked with drafting the safe list. The benchmark scientific metric used was new cases over the past two weeks per 100,000 people. The average among the 27 European Union countries was 16 in mid-June; in the United States, it was 107.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week said that the United States and the European Union were working together to reopen travel between the two areas.
“We’re working with our European counterparts to get that right,” he told a German Marshall Fund conference last week. “There’s enormous destruction of wealth.”
Matina Stevis-Gridneff is the Brussels correspondent for The New York Times, covering the European Union. She joined The Times after covering East Africa for The Wall Street Journal for five years. @MatinaStevis
E.U. Formalizes Reopening, Barring Travelers From U.S.
The bloc will allow visitors from 15 countries, but the United States, Brazil and Russia were among the notable absences from the safe list.
By Matina Stevis-Gridneff
June 30, 2020
BRUSSELS — The European Union will open its borders to visitors from 15 countries as of Wednesday, but not to travelers from the United States, Brazil or Russia, putting into effect a complex policy that has sought to balance health concerns with politics, diplomacy and the desperate need for tourism revenue.
The list of nations that European Union countries have approved includes Australia, Canada and New Zealand, while travelers from China will be permitted if China reciprocates.
The plan was drawn up based on health criteria, and European Union officials went to great lengths to appear apolitical in their choices, but the decision to leave the United States off the list — lumping travelers from there in with those from Brazil and Russia — was a high-profile rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Travelers’ country of residence, not their nationality, will be the determining factor for their ability to travel to countries in the European Union, officials said, and while the policy will not be legally binding, all 27 member nations will be under pressure to comply. If not, they risk having their European peers close borders within the bloc, which would set back efforts to restart the free travel-and-trade zone that is fundamental to the club’s economic survival.
Still, some European countries, especially those in the south that see millions of visitors from all over the world throng to beaches and cultural sites during the summer, have been eager to permit more travelers in a bid to salvage their ravaged, and vital, tourism industries.
The United States was the first country to bar visitors from the European Union in March as the pandemic devastated Italy and other European nations.
The bloc implemented its own travel ban in mid-March and has been gradually extending it as the pandemic spreads to other parts of the world. It had set July 1 as the date to begin allowing non-European Union travelers to return, even as Portugal and Sweden, both members, and Britain, which is treated as a member until the end of the year, still grapple with serious outbreaks. Others, such as Germany, are seeing new localized outbreaks drive up their national caseloads.
Britain was exempt from consideration for the list because of its current E.U. status, and countries like Spain and France are considering allowing direct flights from Britain to bring in crucial tourism revenue.
The list of safe countries will be reviewed every two weeks to reflect the changing realities of the coronavirus outbreaks in individual nations, officials said, and countries could be added or removed from the list. Experts say the approach is a sensible way navigate the continent’s reopening as the spread of the virus shifts and ebbs. But it is also bound to create logistical problems for airlines trying to plan routes, and could reap uncertainty for would-be travelers.
The full list of the first 15 countries that the European Union will open up to includes Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and China, provided that China also opens up to travelers from the bloc. It also includes four European microstates, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican.
Exceptions are also being made for travelers from countries outside the safe list, including health care workers, diplomats, humanitarian workers, transit passengers, asylum seekers and students, as well as “passengers traveling for imperative family reasons” and foreign workers whose employment in Europe is deemed essential.
Although travel between the United States and Europe has been severely limited by the earlier lockdown restrictions, exceptions have been made. A regular flight between Newark and Amsterdam, for example, has shuttled essential travelers such as diplomats and health care professionals and repatriated Europeans from the United States.
The prolonged severance of travel ties between the bloc and the United States has disrupted a critical economic, cultural and diplomatic relationship. Business travelers on both sides of the Atlantic are desperate to resume their visits, couples and families have been split up for months, and the differences between the European and American approaches to combating the pandemic have brought to the fore divergent views on science and policy.
While most European nations went into strict lockdowns early in their outbreaks and have promoting the wearing of masks and other measures to try and control the resurgence of the illness, the United States has seen a patchwork response and the number of new cases has continued to balloon.
The different policy approaches and their subsequent results became obvious to officials tasked with drafting the safe list. The benchmark scientific metric used was new cases over the past two weeks per 100,000 people. The average among the 27 European Union countries was 16 in mid-June; in the United States, it was 107.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week said that the United States and the European Union were working together to reopen travel between the two areas.
“We’re working with our European counterparts to get that right,” he told a German Marshall Fund conference last week. “There’s enormous destruction of wealth.”
Matina Stevis-Gridneff is the Brussels correspondent for The New York Times, covering the European Union. She joined The Times after covering East Africa for The Wall Street Journal for five years. @MatinaStevis
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
The fat little dictator of North Korea: "Duh, hey everyone, look at me." What a stupid fucking asshole.
North Korea to deploy troops into former inter-Korean cooperation zones
North Korea has announced it will send troops into sites previously used to foster cooperation with South Korea a day after demolishing an inter-Korean liaison office.
Why it matters: North Korea is wiping out all remnants of the detente with South Korea that began in 2018, and taking dramatic symbolic steps to signal a new more hostile era in relations. Pyongyang has also said it will resume military exercises and reestablish guard posts near the heavily fortified border.
Behind the scenes: Experts generally view this as a play for leverage from Kim Jong-un’s regime, which has expressed fury over America's unwillingness to loosen sanctions and is believed to be facing a severe economic downturn amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
North Korea has also expressed outrage over propaganda leaflets sent across the border from the South.
Kim Yo-jong, the sister of Kim Jong-un, has been taking a central role in the rhetorical offensive from Pyongyang.
What to watch: Nuclear talks are likely to remain on ice this year, with an election approaching in the U.S.
The Kim regime’s goals include weakening the U.S.-South Korea alliance and reminding Washington “that North Korea is still a force to be reckoned with,” said Glyn Davies, who served as a special representative for North Korea during the Obama administration, in a recent International Crisis Group webinar.
U.S. intelligence says North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear program since President Trump’s two summits with Kim, which did not yield a deal on denuclearization.
Flashback: South Korean President Moon Jae-in, an advocate of warmer ties with North Korea, also held a series of summits with Kim in 2018.
Just two years later, one symbol of the friendlier relations those three meetings seemed to signal has been exploded. Others are now being actively militarized.
North Korea has announced it will send troops into sites previously used to foster cooperation with South Korea a day after demolishing an inter-Korean liaison office.
Why it matters: North Korea is wiping out all remnants of the detente with South Korea that began in 2018, and taking dramatic symbolic steps to signal a new more hostile era in relations. Pyongyang has also said it will resume military exercises and reestablish guard posts near the heavily fortified border.
Behind the scenes: Experts generally view this as a play for leverage from Kim Jong-un’s regime, which has expressed fury over America's unwillingness to loosen sanctions and is believed to be facing a severe economic downturn amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
North Korea has also expressed outrage over propaganda leaflets sent across the border from the South.
Kim Yo-jong, the sister of Kim Jong-un, has been taking a central role in the rhetorical offensive from Pyongyang.
What to watch: Nuclear talks are likely to remain on ice this year, with an election approaching in the U.S.
The Kim regime’s goals include weakening the U.S.-South Korea alliance and reminding Washington “that North Korea is still a force to be reckoned with,” said Glyn Davies, who served as a special representative for North Korea during the Obama administration, in a recent International Crisis Group webinar.
U.S. intelligence says North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear program since President Trump’s two summits with Kim, which did not yield a deal on denuclearization.
Flashback: South Korean President Moon Jae-in, an advocate of warmer ties with North Korea, also held a series of summits with Kim in 2018.
Just two years later, one symbol of the friendlier relations those three meetings seemed to signal has been exploded. Others are now being actively militarized.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Venezuela
Washington Post
The Post's View
Opinion
Why the spread of covid-19 in Venezuela is a particularly frightening prospect
By Editorial Board
March 20, 2020
SOME OF the most devastating impacts of the novel coronavirus pandemic could hit the Trump administration’s leading foreign adversaries. Iran is already being ravaged by the coronavirus, with more than 18,000 cases and 1,200 fatalities as of Thursday, including a dozen from among its political elite. No one believes North Korea’s claims to have escaped the epidemic; one South Korean report says hundreds of its soldiers have been killed by it and thousands of people are quarantined.
Then there is Venezuela, whose authoritarian regime imposed a national lockdown on Monday after reporting 33 confirmed cases — and hundreds more pending. The apparently rapid spread of the epidemic there presents a particularly frightening prospect, given that the country’s health-care system already was in a state of collapse, its citizens have been fleeing to other Latin American countries at the rate of thousands per day, and its illegitimate and corrupt government is entirely incapable of meeting the new challenge.
Hospitals in the United States and other developed countries worry they may not have enough respirators or intensive care beds to cope with the severely ill. But in Venezuela, according to one survey, more than 30 percent of hospitals lack power and water, and 80 percent lack basic supplies or qualified medical staff — many of whom are among the 4.8 million people who have fled the country.
Humanitarian agencies have already been battling outbreaks of measles, diphtheria and malaria in Venezuela. Meanwhile, one survey of people older than 50 in September showed that 80 percent lacked adequate supplies of food, meaning the population most vulnerable to the virus is already weakened.
The regime’s response to the crisis has been a familiar mix of repression and propaganda. After President Nicolás Maduro announced a national quarantine on Monday, the same security forces that have brutally suppressed opposition demonstrations were dispatched to keep people off the streets of Caracas and set up roadblocks along highways. Mr. Maduro then dispatched a letter to the International Monetary Fund requesting $5 billion from its emergency rapid financing instrument — an appeal he must have known would be turned down.
Sure enough, the IMF swiftly issued a statement saying it could not consider the request, since it was unclear whether the Maduro regime is recognized by the international community; more than 50 countries have accepted the claim of opposition leader Juan Guaidó to be the acting president. Mr. Maduro may now seek to blame the IMF and President Trump for medical shortages — but that won’t prevent the epidemic from escalating.
If the regime actually wished to address the health emergency, there is a way forward: It could enlist Mr. Guaidó’s cooperation in seeking international aid, while pledging to hold internationally supervised elections for president and the National Assembly once the crisis passes. Such a deal could lead to the lifting of U.S. sanctions that are strangling Venezuela’s vital oil industry.
Sadly, the regime is unlikely to accept political compromise, even in this emergency. That means that a country of about 30 million people 1,000 miles from Florida could soon become a new epicenter of covid-19 — and an even greater danger to its Latin American neighbors.
The Post's View
Opinion
Why the spread of covid-19 in Venezuela is a particularly frightening prospect
By Editorial Board
March 20, 2020
SOME OF the most devastating impacts of the novel coronavirus pandemic could hit the Trump administration’s leading foreign adversaries. Iran is already being ravaged by the coronavirus, with more than 18,000 cases and 1,200 fatalities as of Thursday, including a dozen from among its political elite. No one believes North Korea’s claims to have escaped the epidemic; one South Korean report says hundreds of its soldiers have been killed by it and thousands of people are quarantined.
Then there is Venezuela, whose authoritarian regime imposed a national lockdown on Monday after reporting 33 confirmed cases — and hundreds more pending. The apparently rapid spread of the epidemic there presents a particularly frightening prospect, given that the country’s health-care system already was in a state of collapse, its citizens have been fleeing to other Latin American countries at the rate of thousands per day, and its illegitimate and corrupt government is entirely incapable of meeting the new challenge.
Hospitals in the United States and other developed countries worry they may not have enough respirators or intensive care beds to cope with the severely ill. But in Venezuela, according to one survey, more than 30 percent of hospitals lack power and water, and 80 percent lack basic supplies or qualified medical staff — many of whom are among the 4.8 million people who have fled the country.
Humanitarian agencies have already been battling outbreaks of measles, diphtheria and malaria in Venezuela. Meanwhile, one survey of people older than 50 in September showed that 80 percent lacked adequate supplies of food, meaning the population most vulnerable to the virus is already weakened.
The regime’s response to the crisis has been a familiar mix of repression and propaganda. After President Nicolás Maduro announced a national quarantine on Monday, the same security forces that have brutally suppressed opposition demonstrations were dispatched to keep people off the streets of Caracas and set up roadblocks along highways. Mr. Maduro then dispatched a letter to the International Monetary Fund requesting $5 billion from its emergency rapid financing instrument — an appeal he must have known would be turned down.
Sure enough, the IMF swiftly issued a statement saying it could not consider the request, since it was unclear whether the Maduro regime is recognized by the international community; more than 50 countries have accepted the claim of opposition leader Juan Guaidó to be the acting president. Mr. Maduro may now seek to blame the IMF and President Trump for medical shortages — but that won’t prevent the epidemic from escalating.
If the regime actually wished to address the health emergency, there is a way forward: It could enlist Mr. Guaidó’s cooperation in seeking international aid, while pledging to hold internationally supervised elections for president and the National Assembly once the crisis passes. Such a deal could lead to the lifting of U.S. sanctions that are strangling Venezuela’s vital oil industry.
Sadly, the regime is unlikely to accept political compromise, even in this emergency. That means that a country of about 30 million people 1,000 miles from Florida could soon become a new epicenter of covid-19 — and an even greater danger to its Latin American neighbors.
Monday, November 11, 2019
This is what happens when brainwashed children worship the wrong god fairy.
On This Day...
November 11, 2013: Damascus, Syria
Children at a Catholic school are targeted by terrorists: 9 Killed
Bangkok Post
Nine children were killed and 27 people wounded when mortar rounds hit a Catholic school and a school bus in the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday, state television reported.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
In other news from the Bangkok Post, this is much more interesting and a bit disgusting.
"A cheap source of protein, dog meat is still consumed in several Asian countries from China and South Korea to Vietnam and non-Muslim communities in Indonesia."
I would not eat a dog. I would rather starve to death. I prefer chicken thighs.
This is much worse than disgusting. "Warning: graphic videos."
Bangkok Post - 'It's a sin': Cambodia's brutal and shadowy dog meat trade
SIEM REAP: Cambodia: Cambodian dog meat traders drown, strangle and stab thousands of canines a day in a shadowy but sprawling business that traumatises workers and exposes them to deadly health risks like rabies.
Khieu Chan bursts into tears when describing a job that haunts him as he goes to sleep: he kills up to six dogs a day, slicing their throats.
"Please forgive me. "If I don't kill you, I can't feed my family," the 41-year-old tells the 10 dogs awaiting their fate in a cage.
A cheap source of protein, dog meat is still eaten in several Asian countries from China and South Korea to Vietnam and non-Muslim communities in Indonesia.
Animal welfare activists say consumption has declined as the region's middle class has grown -- more people own pets, and there's greater stigma associated with eating dog.
But the brutal trade has flown under the radar in Cambodia where new research shows a thriving business involving roving dog catchers, unlicensed slaughterhouses and many restaurants in cities selling so-called "special meat".
An estimated two to three million dogs are slaughtered annually in Cambodia, according to the NGO Four Paws, which identified more than 100 dog meats restaurants in the capital Phnom Penh and about 20 in the temple town of Siem Reap.
"It has this massive trade," says Katherine Polak, a Thailand-based veterinarian who works with the NGO, which recently presented findings to the government.
Officials were "shocked" by the magnitude, she claims.
- Rabies crisis -
Motorbike riders criss-cross northern Cambodia trading pots, pans and cookware for unwanted dogs, loading them into a heavy rectangular cage on the back seat and making deliveries to middlemen.
Live specimens fetch $2 to $3 per kilo, incentivizing suppliers to collect as many as possible.
Researchers say the dog meat trade is a public health crisis because it carries potentially infected animals all over the country.
Cambodia has one of the highest incidence rates of rabies in the world and most cases are from dog bites.
The trade also undermines local canine immunization efforts by removing and killing vaccinated dogs.
Unsanitary slaughterhouses have no safety regulations as they aren't overseen by the government, and workers wear no protective gear.
"I got bitten by a dog but I did not get vaccinated because when I returned it was late at night," Pring That told AFP in a village in Siem Reap as he cooked dog meat stew with fermented fish paste.
Instead, the 33-year-old cleaned the wound with soap and lemon.
Industrial-scale slaughterhouses in developing countries put some distance between workers and animals.
But the Cambodian dog trade is hands on.
After receiving delivery, shirtless men poke dogs with sticks into holding cages.
They are then hung, strangled with rope, clubbed over the head or drowned in a pit filled with fetid water.
Just after sunrise in a village in Siem Reap, one worker pulled a dog out of a cage and hung it on the branch of a tree near drying laundry.
After gasping for breath for several minutes, it stopped moving.
It was then placed in boiling water to remove fur and chopped into parts.
"On a good day, I kill 10 dogs or 12 dogs," says former soldier Hun Hoy.
"I also feel pity for them, but I have to strangle them," the 59-year-old adds.
- 'Hear their cries' -
Suppliers can earn from $750 to $1,000 in a country where wages in garment factories are under $200.
Productivity is crucial.
"It's faster to hit them," explains Dara, 30, a collector, trader and butcher.
"I know it's a sin," he adds.
Drowning is the preferred method of slaughter a few hours away in Kampong Cham and Kandal provinces.
"By putting them in the cage and drowning them in a pit, we don't have to hear their cries," said one woman.
Meat and parts are sold onto restaurants, where they are a popular with day labourers as a barbecued snack or a $1.25 soup.
The psychological trauma to bring cheap meat to the table is immense and those who find a better job take it.
Next to his dog cage in Takeo, Khieu Chan spoke about meeting Four Paws during their investigation of the trade.
In an unconventional twist, they gave him land for farming if he would close his restaurant.
One recent afternoon he helped the NGO gingerly take the sickly dogs out of the cage placed under a tree.
But before they were removed and sent to Phnom Penh for treatment, he knelt by the bars to say goodbye.
He says: "Now you have freedom. You are spared from death."
November 11, 2013: Damascus, Syria
Children at a Catholic school are targeted by terrorists: 9 Killed
Bangkok Post
Nine children were killed and 27 people wounded when mortar rounds hit a Catholic school and a school bus in the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday, state television reported.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
In other news from the Bangkok Post, this is much more interesting and a bit disgusting.
"A cheap source of protein, dog meat is still consumed in several Asian countries from China and South Korea to Vietnam and non-Muslim communities in Indonesia."
I would not eat a dog. I would rather starve to death. I prefer chicken thighs.
This is much worse than disgusting. "Warning: graphic videos."
SIEM REAP: Cambodia: Cambodian dog meat traders drown, strangle and stab thousands of canines a day in a shadowy but sprawling business that traumatises workers and exposes them to deadly health risks like rabies.
Khieu Chan bursts into tears when describing a job that haunts him as he goes to sleep: he kills up to six dogs a day, slicing their throats.
"Please forgive me. "If I don't kill you, I can't feed my family," the 41-year-old tells the 10 dogs awaiting their fate in a cage.
A cheap source of protein, dog meat is still eaten in several Asian countries from China and South Korea to Vietnam and non-Muslim communities in Indonesia.
Animal welfare activists say consumption has declined as the region's middle class has grown -- more people own pets, and there's greater stigma associated with eating dog.
But the brutal trade has flown under the radar in Cambodia where new research shows a thriving business involving roving dog catchers, unlicensed slaughterhouses and many restaurants in cities selling so-called "special meat".
An estimated two to three million dogs are slaughtered annually in Cambodia, according to the NGO Four Paws, which identified more than 100 dog meats restaurants in the capital Phnom Penh and about 20 in the temple town of Siem Reap.
"It has this massive trade," says Katherine Polak, a Thailand-based veterinarian who works with the NGO, which recently presented findings to the government.
Officials were "shocked" by the magnitude, she claims.
- Rabies crisis -
Motorbike riders criss-cross northern Cambodia trading pots, pans and cookware for unwanted dogs, loading them into a heavy rectangular cage on the back seat and making deliveries to middlemen.
Live specimens fetch $2 to $3 per kilo, incentivizing suppliers to collect as many as possible.
Researchers say the dog meat trade is a public health crisis because it carries potentially infected animals all over the country.
Cambodia has one of the highest incidence rates of rabies in the world and most cases are from dog bites.
The trade also undermines local canine immunization efforts by removing and killing vaccinated dogs.
Unsanitary slaughterhouses have no safety regulations as they aren't overseen by the government, and workers wear no protective gear.
"I got bitten by a dog but I did not get vaccinated because when I returned it was late at night," Pring That told AFP in a village in Siem Reap as he cooked dog meat stew with fermented fish paste.
Instead, the 33-year-old cleaned the wound with soap and lemon.
Industrial-scale slaughterhouses in developing countries put some distance between workers and animals.
But the Cambodian dog trade is hands on.
After receiving delivery, shirtless men poke dogs with sticks into holding cages.
They are then hung, strangled with rope, clubbed over the head or drowned in a pit filled with fetid water.
Just after sunrise in a village in Siem Reap, one worker pulled a dog out of a cage and hung it on the branch of a tree near drying laundry.
After gasping for breath for several minutes, it stopped moving.
It was then placed in boiling water to remove fur and chopped into parts.
"On a good day, I kill 10 dogs or 12 dogs," says former soldier Hun Hoy.
"I also feel pity for them, but I have to strangle them," the 59-year-old adds.
- 'Hear their cries' -
Suppliers can earn from $750 to $1,000 in a country where wages in garment factories are under $200.
Productivity is crucial.
"It's faster to hit them," explains Dara, 30, a collector, trader and butcher.
"I know it's a sin," he adds.
Drowning is the preferred method of slaughter a few hours away in Kampong Cham and Kandal provinces.
"By putting them in the cage and drowning them in a pit, we don't have to hear their cries," said one woman.
Meat and parts are sold onto restaurants, where they are a popular with day labourers as a barbecued snack or a $1.25 soup.
The psychological trauma to bring cheap meat to the table is immense and those who find a better job take it.
Next to his dog cage in Takeo, Khieu Chan spoke about meeting Four Paws during their investigation of the trade.
In an unconventional twist, they gave him land for farming if he would close his restaurant.
One recent afternoon he helped the NGO gingerly take the sickly dogs out of the cage placed under a tree.
But before they were removed and sent to Phnom Penh for treatment, he knelt by the bars to say goodbye.
He says: "Now you have freedom. You are spared from death."
Friday, April 26, 2019
South Korea has Christian fucktard problem.
A nature.com article surprised me. South Korea has an "Idiot South Korea" problem and it's worse than the "Idiot America" problem where I live.
In Idiot America there never ending Christian war against teaching evolution. South Korea's Christian fucktards also want to suppress the teaching of the foundation of biology in biology classrooms. And the anti-science assholes are winning their war.
The nature.com article is 7 years old but it's probably still true today. Here is the whole thing:
South Korea surrenders to creationist demands
Publishers set to remove examples of evolution from high-school textbooks.
Soo Bin Park
05 June 2012
SEOUL
Mention creationism, and many scientists think of the United States, where efforts to limit the teaching of evolution have made headway in a couple of states. But the successes are modest compared with those in South Korea, where the anti-evolution sentiment seems to be winning its battle with mainstream science.
A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. The move has alarmed biologists, who say that they were not consulted. “The ministry just sent the petition out to the publishing companies and let them judge,” says Dayk Jang, an evolutionary scientist at Seoul National University.
The campaign was led by the Society for Textbook Revise (STR), which aims to delete the “error” of evolution from textbooks to “correct” students’ views of the world, according to the society’s website. The society says that its members include professors of biology and high-school science teachers.
The STR is also campaigning to remove content about “the evolution of humans” and “the adaptation of finch beaks based on habitat and mode of sustenance”, a reference to one of the most famous observations in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. To back its campaign, the group highlights recent discoveries that Archaeopteryx is one of many feathered dinosaurs, and not necessarily an ancestor of all birds. Exploiting such debates over the lineage of species “is a typical strategy of creation scientists to attack the teaching of evolution itself”, says Joonghwan Jeon, an evolutionary psychologist at Kyung Hee University in Yongin.
The STR is an independent offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research (KACR), according to KACR spokesman Jungyeol Han. Thanks in part to the KACR’s efforts, creation science — which seeks to provide evidence in support of the creation myth described in the Book of Genesis — has had a growing influence in South Korea, although the STR itself has distanced itself from such doctrines. In early 2008, the KACR scored a hit with a successful exhibition at Seoul Land, one of the country’s leading amusement parks. According to the group, the exhibition attracted more than 116,000 visitors in three months, and the park is now in talks to create a year-long exhibition.
Even the nation’s leading science institute — the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology — has a creation science display on campus. “The exhibition was set up by scientists who believed in creation science back in 1993,” says Gab-duk Jang, a pastor of the campus church. The institute also has a thriving Research Association for Creation Science, run by professors and students, he adds.
Antipathy to evolution
In a 2009 survey conducted for the South Korean documentary The Era of God and Darwin, almost one-third of the respondents didn’t believe in evolution. Of those, 41% said that there was insufficient scientific evidence to support it; 39% said that it contradicted their religious beliefs; and 17% did not understand the theory. The numbers approach those in the United States, where a survey by the research firm Gallup has shown that around 40% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life.
“The ministry just sent the petition out to the publishing companies and let them judge.”
The roots of the South Korean antipathy to evolution are unclear, although Jeon suggests that they are partly “due to strong Christianity in the country”. About half of South Korea’s citizens practice a religion, mostly split between Christianity and Buddhism.
However, a survey of trainee teachers in the country concluded that religious belief was not a strong determinant of their acceptance of evolution. It also found that 40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”.
Until now, says Dayk Jang, the scientific community has done little to combat the anti-evolution sentiment. “The biggest problem is that there are only 5–10 evolutionary scientists in the country who teach the theory of evolution in undergraduate and graduate schools,” he says. Having seen the fierce debates over evolution in the United States, he adds, some scientists also worry that engaging with creationists might give creationist views more credibility among the public.
Silence is not the answer, says Dayk Jang. He is now organizing a group of experts, including evolutionary scientists and theologians who believe in evolution, to counter the STR’s campaign by working to improve the teaching of evolution in the classroom, and in broader public life.
Related stories and links
From nature.com
Tennessee ‘monkey bill’ becomes law
11 April 2012
If you want to win the game, you must join in
07 December 2011
Science and society: A Pacific divide
22 September 2010
Back to basics by way of evolution
12 May 2010
What a shoddy piece of work is man
03 May 2010
Nature special: Darwin 200
In Idiot America there never ending Christian war against teaching evolution. South Korea's Christian fucktards also want to suppress the teaching of the foundation of biology in biology classrooms. And the anti-science assholes are winning their war.
The nature.com article is 7 years old but it's probably still true today. Here is the whole thing:
South Korea surrenders to creationist demands
Publishers set to remove examples of evolution from high-school textbooks.
Soo Bin Park
05 June 2012
SEOUL
Mention creationism, and many scientists think of the United States, where efforts to limit the teaching of evolution have made headway in a couple of states. But the successes are modest compared with those in South Korea, where the anti-evolution sentiment seems to be winning its battle with mainstream science.
A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. The move has alarmed biologists, who say that they were not consulted. “The ministry just sent the petition out to the publishing companies and let them judge,” says Dayk Jang, an evolutionary scientist at Seoul National University.
The campaign was led by the Society for Textbook Revise (STR), which aims to delete the “error” of evolution from textbooks to “correct” students’ views of the world, according to the society’s website. The society says that its members include professors of biology and high-school science teachers.
The STR is also campaigning to remove content about “the evolution of humans” and “the adaptation of finch beaks based on habitat and mode of sustenance”, a reference to one of the most famous observations in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. To back its campaign, the group highlights recent discoveries that Archaeopteryx is one of many feathered dinosaurs, and not necessarily an ancestor of all birds. Exploiting such debates over the lineage of species “is a typical strategy of creation scientists to attack the teaching of evolution itself”, says Joonghwan Jeon, an evolutionary psychologist at Kyung Hee University in Yongin.
The STR is an independent offshoot of the Korea Association for Creation Research (KACR), according to KACR spokesman Jungyeol Han. Thanks in part to the KACR’s efforts, creation science — which seeks to provide evidence in support of the creation myth described in the Book of Genesis — has had a growing influence in South Korea, although the STR itself has distanced itself from such doctrines. In early 2008, the KACR scored a hit with a successful exhibition at Seoul Land, one of the country’s leading amusement parks. According to the group, the exhibition attracted more than 116,000 visitors in three months, and the park is now in talks to create a year-long exhibition.
Even the nation’s leading science institute — the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology — has a creation science display on campus. “The exhibition was set up by scientists who believed in creation science back in 1993,” says Gab-duk Jang, a pastor of the campus church. The institute also has a thriving Research Association for Creation Science, run by professors and students, he adds.
Antipathy to evolution
In a 2009 survey conducted for the South Korean documentary The Era of God and Darwin, almost one-third of the respondents didn’t believe in evolution. Of those, 41% said that there was insufficient scientific evidence to support it; 39% said that it contradicted their religious beliefs; and 17% did not understand the theory. The numbers approach those in the United States, where a survey by the research firm Gallup has shown that around 40% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved from less advanced forms of life.
“The ministry just sent the petition out to the publishing companies and let them judge.”
The roots of the South Korean antipathy to evolution are unclear, although Jeon suggests that they are partly “due to strong Christianity in the country”. About half of South Korea’s citizens practice a religion, mostly split between Christianity and Buddhism.
However, a survey of trainee teachers in the country concluded that religious belief was not a strong determinant of their acceptance of evolution. It also found that 40% of biology teachers agreed with the statement that “much of the scientific community doubts if evolution occurs”; and half disagreed that “modern humans are the product of evolutionary processes”.
Until now, says Dayk Jang, the scientific community has done little to combat the anti-evolution sentiment. “The biggest problem is that there are only 5–10 evolutionary scientists in the country who teach the theory of evolution in undergraduate and graduate schools,” he says. Having seen the fierce debates over evolution in the United States, he adds, some scientists also worry that engaging with creationists might give creationist views more credibility among the public.
Silence is not the answer, says Dayk Jang. He is now organizing a group of experts, including evolutionary scientists and theologians who believe in evolution, to counter the STR’s campaign by working to improve the teaching of evolution in the classroom, and in broader public life.
Related stories and links
From nature.com
Tennessee ‘monkey bill’ becomes law
11 April 2012
If you want to win the game, you must join in
07 December 2011
Science and society: A Pacific divide
22 September 2010
Back to basics by way of evolution
12 May 2010
What a shoddy piece of work is man
03 May 2010
Nature special: Darwin 200
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