(2021-04-04). Jorge Arreaza: Iván Duque is Not Used to Reading but to Lying. orinocotribune.com On Saturday, April 3, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza Montserrat advised Colombian president Iván Duque to stop lying about the so-called "Cartel of the Suns" (Cartel de los Soles). He recommended that someone read to him about the rigorous investigation which has revealed that the United States and his own government supported and publicized that lie based on an unprecedented media plot. | "It is known that Iván Duque is not used to reading, but he is used to lying," Arreaza wrote on his Twitter account, @jaarreaza. "Perhaps someone can read to him this rigorous work by a Spanish researcher, wh…
(2021-04-04). Three Colombian Navy Platoons Deployed at Border with Venezuela to 'Reinforce Security'. orinocotribune.com Last Thursday, April 1, the government of Colombia deployed three platoons of the Colombian navy in the department of Arauca on the Colombia-Venezuela border, with the alleged mission of "guaranteeing border security and providing protection to the Colombian population." Incidentally, Arauca is the region from where Colombian narco-paramilitary gangs routinely violate Venezuelan sovereignty and security of the Venezuelan people. | According to a note published by Webinfomil last Thursday, this group, comprised of 90 soldiers, has as "main objective the defense of sovereignty, independence, integrity of the nation…
(2021-04-04). Friday 4/2: Virtual Forum: 60-year Blockade on Cuba & Unions Fight for Safe Schools. indybay.org bit.ly/education4thepeople…
(2021-04-04). Modified Injunction is Bad News for the Unhoused; Prepare to Resist Now, or Regret Later. indybay.org Judge Susan van Kuelen's March 30th modifications in the 1-20-21 Preliminary Injunction previously protecting the San Lorenzo Survival Campground was published April 1st. It allows a week or two relief, if that, before the unhoused population faces restored confinement or persecution.
(2021-04-04). Explained: How Intellectual Property Rights are blocking vaccine production. peoplesdispatch.org Estimates suggest that the mass of the population in wealthier countries are likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid of 2022. However, in poorer economies, mass immunization will take until 2024, if it happens at all. These countries will pay the cost of this delay in the form of 2.5 million avoidable deaths. | What is standing in the way of expanding production and carrying out mass vaccination campaigns across the world?
(2021-04-03). Why Myanmar's Massacres Shame The World — OpEd. eurasiareview.com 
By Yossi Mekelberg* | When representatives of all UN member states met in 2005 for the World Summit, billed at the time as the "largest gathering of world leaders in history," and passed a resolution that set out the parameters for the Responsibility to Protect populations (R2P) from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, there was an air of togetherness and optimism that the journey toward eradicating these horrific phenomena had begun. | In the intervening years, this hope has been dented time and time again when such atrocities have been committed by some of the very countries t…
(2021-04-03). Deprivation Is 'Driving' Covid-19 Ethnic Disparities. eurasiareview.com 
Deprivation among society at large is 'driving' Covid-19 disparities among minority ethnic groups – predominantly South Asian and Black African or Caribbean populations – and could be considered the main cause of disproportionate infection rates, hospitalization and deaths experienced by these populations, according to new analysis from the University of Leicester. | The study, supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) comes a day after a government-commissioned review concluded race and racism have become less important factors in explaining soci…
(2021-04-03). Fake News Warfare in Venezuela: Now an Alleged Morgue Collapse Due to COVID-19. orinocotribune.com 
Friday, April 2, social media networks in Venezuela were once again the center of a debate in which users revealed a case of fake news. The action began with photographs that were circulated depicting an alleged "COVID-19 death surge" in the Bello Monte morgue in Caracas. | The issue became a trending topic at a time when the country is going through a second wave of coronavirus infections. On the same day, for example, 1,254 new positive cases, and 13 deaths from the illness were reported. |
(2021-04-03). Violence Escalates on the Border Between Venezuela and Colombia. globalresearch.ca Once again, tensions are rising on the border between Venezuela and …
(2021-04-03). La Victoria and El Ripial Calm and Under Military Protection (Apure State). orinocotribune.com 
The commander of the Strategic Integral Defense Region (REDI) Los Llanos, General Alejandro Guevara Hernández, reported that the people of El Ripial, La Victoria and other areas of the Apure state are "calm and under the protection of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB)." | He also informed that the inhabitants of these communities are receiving food, medicine and other necessary items from the social programs of the Venezuelan government. In addition, electrical services and water supply in the regions have already been restored. | La FANB continua desplegada garantizando la paz, la tranquilidad y en cons…
(2021-04-03). Latest Developments in Apure: Families Displaced in Border Clashes Return to Their Homes in El Ripial. orinocotribune.com Inhabitants of El Ripial town in Apure state, who were displaced due to clashes between the Venezuelan military and Colombian paramilitary gangs over the last few days, are returning home with support from the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) deployment protecting the border zones. El Ripial is one of the localities from which the Venezuelan military has expelled Colombian armed narco-paramilitary gangs. This follows violent actions committed by the said criminal groups, reported from multiple locations close to the Colombia-Venezuela border in Apure. | Last week, facing violence from the Colombian narco-te…
(2021-04-03). US Values Vs Chinese Values: Empire Vs Bandung As Seen From Cape Verde — OpEd. eurasiareview.com 
In February the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinkin, made it a priority to phone Rui Figueiredo, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister of Cape Verde. They spoke about commerce and "security" (1). | Why? Why is the tiny African nation of Cape Verde (population 550,000) a US priority? In short: because the US is behind China in the latest "scramble for Africa". | To rectify its position, vis-à -vis China, in Africa (and elsewhere): "U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to put values at the heart of his administration's China policy. Since entering office, he has called on the world's democracies to gird for a n…
(2021-04-03). African Elephants Only Occupy A Fraction Of Their Potential Range. eurasiareview.com 
Many wildlife species are threatened by shrinking habitat. But according to new research, the potential range of African elephants could be more than five times larger than its current extent. | Due to 2,000 years of human pressure, African elephants have suffered dramatic population declines, and their range has shrunk to just 17% of what it could be, say researchers who led the new study, in Current Biology. | The dramatic reduction in range is due to the killing of elephants for their ivory and the encroachment of humans into elephant habitat. Evidence for elephants being drastically reduced in certain regi…
(2021-04-03). Adjusting Interactions Help Some California's Wild Bee Populations Survive. eurasiareview.com 
Across California's Central Valley, under stress from large-scale agriculture and climate change, native bee species that are flexible in their pollination behavior when around other wild bee populations appear best suited for survival in shrinking habitats. | That's the primary finding of a study published online in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. | A research team led by University of Oregon biologist Lauren C. Ponisio identified 1,150 network interactions involving 157 wild bee species and 152 plant species at 63 sites spread across three counties. The findings emerged from observations of adult bee…
(2021-04-03). The World Of Salamanca — OpEd. eurasiareview.com 
By Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.* | The subject of the medieval period highlights the vast gulf that separates scholarly opinion from popular opinion. This is a grave frustration for scholars who have been working to change popular opinion for a hundred years. For most people, the medieval period brings to mind populations living by myths and crazy superstitions such as we might see in a Monty Python skit. Scholarly opinion, however, knows otherwise. The age between the 8th and 16th centuries was a time of amazing advance in every area of knowledge, such as architecture, music, biology, mathematics, astronomy, ind…
(2021-04-03). Venezuelan Minister for Defense: Colombia is Using PsyOps and Media Warfare to Undermine Venezuelan Army. orinocotribune.com This Friday, April 2, Venezuelan Minister for Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, denounced the use of psyops and media manipulation on the part of the Colombian government to defend its economic interests, create unrest among the Venezuelan population, manipulate public opinion at the international level and thus destabilize Venezuela. | On his Twitter account @vladimirpadrino, he wrote that "this conflict, in which the Republic makes legitimate use of its weapons to expel the groups that want to use our territory for bastard purposes, is accompanied by other weapons that seek various objectives: | 1 Defend the eco…
(2021-04-03). [Comment] ART in pregnant women living with HIV. thelancet.com More than half (51%) of the world's population of people living with HIV-1 are women.1 Each year, the incidence of new HIV-1 infections in women of reproductive age is high, with 5 ∑2 million women of reproductive age newly diagnosed between 2010 and 2015,2 and 1 ∑3 million pregnant women receiving HIV-1 treatment in 2018.3 Perinatal transmission of HIV-1 has fallen most substantially through increased access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in pregnancy and during breastfeeding. UNAIDS has reported that new HIV-1 infections among children have halved from 310‚Äà000 in 2010 to 150‚&…
(2021-04-03). [Comment] Migration and health in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. thelancet.com COVID-19 has created a syndemic scenario that is deepening pre-existing structural inequalities for migrants in Latin American countries (LACs).1,2 LACs have been severely affected by COVID-19, and migrants are among the populations most impacted by the heightened humanitarian crisis across the region. Socioeconomic inequalities between migrants and local people have widened, and there are fears that progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be reversed.
(2021-04-03). Ukraine To Regain 'Occupied Territory' in Crimea and Sevastopol. orinocotribune.com In 2014, the Russian-speaking population living in the Donbas region set the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. Ukraine does not recognize that decision to date. | Over the last week, Ukraine has been moving military vehicles and troops to the front lines, a measure that increases its military tensions with Russia. | On March 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the Decree 117/2021 approving the "strategy of disoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Sevastopol city." | In practical terms, Ukraine's decision could trigger actions lea…