animedad posted:

http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-29Hidden%20Epidemics.htm

you can expect dengue to become an issue as soon as the US needs a pretext to invade the following countries

Edited by Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia (Sept. 18, 2014 05:00:43)

Petrol posted:

e:

animedad posted:

http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-29Hidden%20Epidemics.htm

you can expect dengue to become an issue as soon as the US needs a pretext to invade the following countries

http://online.wsj.com/articles/global-crusade-against-dengue-fever-1410814714

two days ago

aerdil posted:

If running a productive, Western-style economy were simply a matter of culture, it should be possible for African and Middle Eastern countries to import Western institutions and business methods, just as East Asian countries have done. Though it was justifiable at first to blame the evils of colonialism, two generations or more have passed since most foreign powers withdrew from Africa and the Middle East, and the strength of this explanation has to some extent faded.

Populations that live at high altitudes, like Tibetans, represent another adaptation to extreme environments. The adaptation of Jews to capitalism is another such evolutionary process.

lol Jews didnt adapt to Capitalism. they adapted Capitalism to Jews

blinkandwheeze posted:

i'm unsure if anyone here has been following this - the leading party of new zealand since 2008 has, in the past month or so, been revealed to have been providing funding, hacked emails, supporter lists & credit card transactions, alongside confidential intelligence service documents, to right-wing blogs for the purpose of hit pieces against opposition figures

it was further substantiated in the past few weeks, thanks to glenn greenwald, julian assange & edward snowden, that the new zealand government had been conducting mass surveillance on citizens in the interest of providing said information to the n.s.a, despite repeated denial of any such measures

tonight they were reelected with a strong majority lmao

how did Noted fat nerd kim dotcom do

thirdplace posted:

how did Noted fat nerd kim dotcom do

lol ok so here's the other big reason this election was a f*cking disaster

if you aren't familiar with the new zealand electoral system, there are separate general & māori electorates. there are 7 additional seats in parliament representing specific regions respectively, restricted to māori candidates of any party & voted for by those on the māori electoral roll, which is of course restricted to māori voters

obviously this supplies a basis for parties focused on māori concerns to have a size, security and influence they wouldn't otherwise, until 2011 this was a position filled by, naturally, the māori party

the māori party was basically formed as a defense of sovereignty over the foreshore and seabed of the nation, something that māori have held customary ownership over & were granted at least some degree of responsibility for by the treaty signed between the māori & the british colonial regime. this was hugely problematized in 2004 when legislation passed that determined the foreshore & seabed as a vested interest of the crown, a move determined by the u.n. as racially discriminatory for preventing any possible claim of māori ownership

while forming ostensibly as a defense of māori rights in light of such issues, having a prime position of influence determining seven seats in parliament obviously makes you a political asset, and opportunism in the māori party eventually led to congruence with the (neoliberal) national party that has particular interest in undermining māori claims over such territory

this of course led to internal dissension in the party, particularly in 2011 by hone harawira, mp since 2005 of te tai tokerau, a māori electorate in the far north. hone resigned from his position as a māori party mp, forcing a bi-election which he won again as a representative of his new party, mana

more than just being a defender of māori sovereignty, though, hone harawira is a committed anti-imperialist & anti-colonialist, a defender of cuba, venezuela & bolivia, supports the bds movement (he recently publicly defended the burning of israeli flags), advocates for the nationalization of all major industries & the expulsion of international monopolies etc. etc.

i mean this would otherwise make him & his party too minor to place in the general election, however his grassroots local activism & principled defense of māori rights has given him a practically guaranteed seat for the mana party in parliament for his electorate. consequentially mana doubled as a broad socialist electoral front, absorbing the electoral campaigns of basically every socialist party, notably the (trotskyite) socialist party of aotearoa and the workers party of new zealand (which had formed as an electoral alliance of trotskyites and maoists, lmao)

which meant that the (relatively) radical left had a basically guaranteed seat in parliament

anyway in this past year kim dotcom, who has been residing here since 2008 or so, formed the "internet party" (as he isn't a new zealand citizen he can't run for parliament but he has been responsible for pouring cash into it), largely directed towards curbing the illegal surveillance & collusion with international security organisations conducted by the new zealand govt, something dotcom has been a notable victim of

for some f*cking reason - well i mean i guess largely to secure german millionare expat money - mana decided pursue an electoral alliance with dotcom, forming the internet-mana party to run in this election

this was, i mean, a completely delusional move. like, no matter how much more funding they could secure, a haphazard left-libertarian (with the socialist tendencies of the party definitely jumping ship) alliance obviously had no chance of clearing the 5% threshold necessary to secure a seat in parliament

it was a move obviously done to bolster the campaign in the general electorate but that wasn't the electorate that mattered, they only managed to pull 1.3%. by pursuing that instead of focusing on the māori electorate & orienting away from māori concerns (and towards ones harawira even objected personally to, like legalization of marijuana), harawira & mana lost the damn seat he had secured for the past 9 years & would have been absolutely guaranteed if mana stood alone. Ffs

For more than a year, the leader of one of the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.

As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, an organization publicly backed by Al Qaeda, Baghdadi issued a steady stream of incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by Iraqi officials that he had been killed in May, Baghdadi appeared to have persevered unscathed.

On Wednesday, a senior American military spokesman provided a new explanation for Baghdadi's ability to escape attack: He never existed.

He goes on:

The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him.

Petrol posted:

Public Service Announcement.

I've just done what I've been meaning to do as soon as I got the time - make a new thread for my Library posts http://www.rhizzone.net/forum/topic/12402/ There's two new books there plus all the stuff I've already posted, collected in one easy to find place. I thank you.

ty

Petrol posted:

dengue chart

I am a dengue survivor and it was awful. I can safely say we should bomb all of those places.

c_man posted:

so does serbia have an extraordinarily large arms industry or something? whats going on there?

yes

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/arms-training-or-political-inspiration-why-are-syrian-rebels-in-kosovo/article4354139/ posted:

Kosovo has become something of an inspirational touchstone for anti-tyranny movements (Libya’s anti-Gadhafi fighters also spent time in Pristina last year):

“Russia’s accusations aside, an important question remains: Why, exactly, would Kosovo want to play host to the Syrian opposition? According to several sources, the goal of the recent visit was straightforward: to discuss what Syria’s movement could learn from Kosovo – that is, from a place that, in the span of only a few years, went from fighting against an oppressive government to spurring a NATO intervention in 1999 to governing itself. And this learning process, it seems, is meant to be ongoing, with Kosovo’s door remaining open to the Syrian opposition as it continues its struggle.”

What worries most international observers outside Russia, though, is not that Syria’s fighters are being trained by the ex-KLA, but that they might be taking political inspiration from Kosovo’s creation.

European diplomats say they are worried that the Syrian opposition, who are largely Sunni Muslims opposing Mr. Assad’s Shiite-minority regime, will seek a Balkan-style solution to their country’s crisis, possibly dividing the country into semi-autonomous ethnic enclaves.

While Kosovo has been a reasonably stable and bloodless place during the past few years, it remains under UN supervision and its creation and oversight have been a nightmare for the UN, the European Union and NATO, all of whom have devoted substantial resources to the tiny, landlocked state.

And while it may inspire other rebel movements, few leaders find much in Kosovo that they’d want to see used as a model. Michael Ignatieff, the political scientist and former Canadian Liberal leader, faced criticism this week for referring to Kosovo in passing as a “corrupt ethnic tyranny,” but most observers believe that one or two of those adjectives are accurate.