Fishing and the surrounding commerce net about one billion Canadian dollars per year in the province. Much of that is on Vancouver Island. The commercial salmon industry is one of the biggest money generators as well. Many of the First Nation people also depend on the return of the salmon each year for a food fishery. Also under threat will be future years’ of salmon returns as the salmon are particular about where they breed and lay their eggs.
Salmon are the lynch pin in much of the ecology of BC. Animals depend on the high protein feast of the returning fish. Bears and wolves take dead fish into the woods to consume and discard uneaten meat and offal to fertilize the forest. When we lose a generation of salmon, the whole ecosystem suffers. Climatologists have warned us that we can expect changes in our weather as the globe heats. Whether some areas experience tornados, torrential rains or drought it has been predicted. But it is a far cry to listen to a prediction and to live it. For us on the west coast of Canada, this summer has been a strange one. Around the world, strange and dangerous weather may be the new normal. Sources: CBC News Marine Science
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They point out that advances in health care that have cut mortality rates for cancers and accidents leave more people in the late 40s alive. While it sounds callous, you have to die from something and if disease and accidents aren’t it, then perhaps brain disease will claim you.
Personal experience: In our modern cities and suburbs electro-magnetic radiation is pervasive. Many homes, including mine, have WiFi in them. ‘Hotspots’ where people can make wireless internet connections have our bodies swimming in this low level radiation. Our electrical provider has installed “Smart meters” to read electrical consumption which adds to our miniscule doses of the radiation. This doesn’t seem to affect my health and I wasn’t much concerned until I recently entered a park where nearby microwave towers were situated. When I went to lock my car doors with my ‘smart key’ the key fob wouldn’t work. Being a little obsessive about losing a key, I brought out the spare and it wouldn’t work either. There was enough scattered radiation in the area to interfere with the car’s electronic locking system. It made me wonder how it was affecting the exquisite balancing act of electrical impulses in my own system. Needless to say, I spent little time in that particular park. I also have ceased to think of WiFi protesters with a little more charity these days. Sources: Washington Post The London Times “champion in the fight against neocolonialism and imperialism,”
Those concerns of the human rights organizations and the UN are dismissed as western bias. While many countries outside of that hermit nation worry about its nuclear weapons programme, its treatment of its own citizens has also come under fire. Many of the allegations of mistreatment have been denied, but an execution in May was well publicized by the head of the secret police there. Hyon Yong-Choi, head of the N. Korean military was executed with an anti-aircraft gun. He was charged with treason because he fell asleep during a meeting that Kim Jong-un attended. Sources: Christian Science Monitor Jakarta Globe Freedom of worship is a guaranteed right in the Chinese constitution. The little that is being said to justify this action is that it is a move to enforce the rules and not a move against religious freedom.
Yesterday seven members of one particularly large and influential church built according to all the rules were detained on charges of “embezzlement and disrupting social order”. It has been reported that the online Weibo site is urging people to make small crosses, paint them red and leave them everywhere in a show of peaceful defiance. The top politicos have been accused of persecuting various religious faiths over the years. They periodically rail against the Dalai Lama and impose repressive conditions on the Buddhist monks in Tibet. The persecution of members of the Falun Gong faith has been ongoing since 1999. One of reasons that the PRC was awarded the Summer Olympic Games in 2008 was that they pledged to improve their human rights record. It does not seem that the repressive measures to control personal freedoms have been relaxed. In spite of the ongoing persecution of religious faiths and of human rights activists in China, the country has been awarded the right to hold the Winter Olympic Games 2022. Sources: Christian Solidarity Worldwide BBC News Wikipedia The news corporation Al Jazeera has kept up ongoing publicity about their employees but that has failed to budge the Egyptian power brokers. Australian Peter Greste was released and deported in February of this year. Greste still has the Egyptian court sentence hanging over him.
February saw Fahmy and Mohamed released on bail. Fahmy carried dual Egyptian/Canadian citizenship. He renounced his Egyptian citizenship under the advice that it would facilitate his deportation as well. It was to no avail. The latest postponement will mark the tenth time that their liberty has been denied. There is speculation as to why they are still being held without verdict. One reason may be the visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Egypt. Talks were held concerning security in the Middle East region between Kerry and Sisi. Kerry is known to have lectured the foreign minister on the subject of human rights. In the end the fight against terrorists in the region trumped and pledges of friendship and military aid were made. A second reason that has been floated is that no disruptive news is to be allowed to spoil the party attendant on the opening of the newly expanded Suez Canal. Meanwhile two award winning journalist remain trapped in Egypt as the promise of a new and more democratic Egypt fades as repression grows. Sources: Wikipedia Al Jazeera The Washington Post |
Barbara McPherson
Blogger, gardener, farmer. Working toward food security and a 30 foot
diet. Addicted to reading. Love this planet, especially my little corner
on Vancouver Island, Canada Archives
October 2016
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