Wednesday, October 21, 2020

CC News Letter 21 Oct - Large-Scale Permafrost Thawing

 



Dear Friend,


Twenty-five percent (25%) of the Northern Hemisphere is permafrost. By all appearances, it is melting well beyond natural background rates, in fact, substantially!


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Large-Scale Permafrost Thawing
by Robert Hunziker


Twenty-five percent (25%) of the Northern Hemisphere is permafrost. By all appearances, it is melting well beyond natural background rates, in fact, substantially!

Twenty-five percent (25%) of the Northern Hemisphere is permafrost. By all appearances, it is melting well beyond natural background rates, in fact, substantially!

Making matters much, much worse, new research has identified past warming events of large-scale permafrost thaw in the Arctic that may be analogous to today, thus spotting a parallel problem of large-scale thawing accompanied by massively excessive carbon emissions spewing into the atmosphere, like there’s no tomorrow. (Source: Jannik Martens, Remobilization of Dormant Carbon From Siberian-Arctic Permafrost During Three Past Warming Events, Science Advances, vol. 6, no. 42, October 16, 2020)

Permafrost thawing is not, at all times, simply “thawing.” Of course, as a standalone, the word “thawing” implies a rather evenly keeled methodical process without any specific definition of scale. But, there’s thawing, and then, there’s “large-scale thawing,” which is kinda like turning loose a behemoth. The results are never pretty.

As global warming powers up, like it’s doing now, it has a penchant for finding enormous spans of frozen mud and silt filled with iced-species in quasi-permanent frozen states known as permafrost. As it melts, it’s full of surprises, some interesting, as well as some that are horribly dangerous, for example, emitting huge quantities of carbon, thus kicking into high gear some level of runaway global warming that threatens to wipeout agriculture.

As a matter of fact, according to the research, no more than a few degrees of warming, only a few, can trigger abrupt thaws of vast frozen land thereby releasing vast quantities of greenhouse gases as a product of collapsing landscapes, and it feeds upon itself. Indeed, the research effort identified “surges in greenhouse gas emissions… on a massive scale,” Ibid.

The study suggests that massive permafrost ecosystem thawing is subject to indeterminate timing sequences, but it’s armed with a “sensitive trigger” abruptly altering the landscape in massive fashion. In short, an event could arise out of the blue. It’s well known that Arctic permafrost holds considerably more carbon captured in a frozen state than has already been emitted into the atmosphere.

Already, over just the past two years, other field studies have shown instances where thawing permafrost is 70 years ahead of scientists’ models, prompting the thought that thawing may be cranking up even as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fails to anticipate it.

After all, permafrost is not included in the IPCC’s carbon budget, meaning signatories to the Paris accord of 2015 will need to recalculate their quest to save the world from too much carbon emitting too fast for any kind of smooth functionality of the planet’s climate system. In turn, it undoubtedly negatively impacts the support, or lack thereof, for food-growing regions, which could actually collapse, similar to cascading dominos. Poof!

In the Canadian High Arctic: “Observed maximum thaw depths at our sites are already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090.” (Source: Louise M. Farquharson et al, Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic, Geophysical Research Letters, June 10, 2019)

According to Susan Natali of Woods Hole Research Center (Massachusetts) the Arctic has already transformed from a carbon sink to a carbon emitter: “Given that the Arctic has been taking up carbon for tens of thousands of years, this shift to a carbon source is important because it highlights a new dynamic in the functioning of the Earth System.” (Source: Thawing Permafrost Has Turned the Arctic Into a Carbon Emitter, NewScientist, Oct. 21, 2019)

A 14-year study referenced by Dr. Natali shows annualized 1.66 gigatonnes CO2 emitted from the Arctic versus 1.03 gigatonnes absorbed, a major turning point in paleoclimate history, a chilling turn for the worse that threatens 10,000 years of our wonderful Holocene era “not too hot, not too cold.” Alas, that spectacular Goldilocks life of perfection is rapidly becoming a remembrance of the past.

Additionally, according to Vladimir Romanovsky – Permafrost Laboratory, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks  (UAF) there are definitive geophysical signs of permafrost that survived thousands of years now starting to thaw. (Source: New Climate Warnings in Old Permafrost: ‘It’s a Little Scary Because it’s Happening Under Our Feet,’ Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, October 16, 2020)

As stated by Romanovsky: “The new (Jannik Martens, Remobilization) research is yet more evidence that the amplified warming in the Arctic can release carbon at a massive scale.”

Nobody knows how soon such an event will break loose in earnest, but global warming has already penetrated the upper permafrost layers, as cliffs of coastal permafrost are collapsing at an accelerating rate. In short, the current news about thawing/collapsing permafrost is decidedly negative and a threat to life, as we know it.

The Martens’ study conclusively states: “The results from this study on large-scale OC remobilization from permafrost are consistent with a growing set of observational records from the Arctic Ocean and provide support for modeling studies that simulated large injections of CO2 into the atmosphere during deglaciation (1416). This demonstrates that Arctic warming by only a few degrees may suffice to abruptly activate large-scale permafrost thawing, indicating a sensitive trigger for a threshold-like permafrost climate change feedback.” (Jannik Martens, Remobilization)

Thus, as the Holocene era wanes right before humanity’s eyes, the Anthropocene, the age of humans, stands on the world stage all alone with its own shadow and with ever fewer, and fewer, and fewer vertebrates roaming amongst fields of scorched, blackened plant life. What, or who, will it eat?

According to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and world renowned biologist E.O. Wilson: If we choose the path of destruction, the planet will continue to descend irreversibly into the Anthropocene Epoch, the biologically final age in which the planet exists almost exclusively by, for, and of ourselves.

Robert Hunziker, MA, economic history DePaul University, awarded membership in Pi Gamma Mu International Academic Honor Society in Social Sciences is a freelance writer and environmental journalist who has over 200 articles published, including several translated into foreign languages, appearing in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He has been interviewed on numerous FM radio programs, as well as television.


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Campaigning on Planet A
by Rebecca Gordon


After months of pandemic lockdown and almost four years of what has objectively been the worst, most corrupt, most incompetent, and possibly even most destructive presidency in the nation’s history, it’s a relief to be able to do something useful again. And sentimental as it may sound, it’s an honor to be able to do it with this particular group of brave and committed people. Sí, se puede. Yes, we can.



Venezuela: Could rebellion in the ranks spell trouble for Maduro?
by Federico Fuentes 


Unlike before, these protests have by and large not taken place in right-wing opposition strongholds nor necessarily demanded the removal of President Nicolas Maduro. Instead, they have focused on demands around access to basic services — electricity, domestic gas, water — and occurred in areas that traditionally voted for
former socialist president Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor.



US Alliance Covid-19 Gerocide – Intentional Mass Killing Of Elderly By US Alliance Countries
by Dr Gideon Polya


With the exception of decent New Zealand and arguably Australia, the rich, European countries of the US Alliance have been involved in    deliberate, intentional Gerocide in which their sustained, deliberate, Covid-19 pandemic policies resulted in overwhelmingly elderly “Covid-19 deaths per million of population” that were 10-180 times greater than that obtaining in New Zealand. Indict Trump and Johnson for Gerocide before the ICC!

With the exception of decent New Zealand and arguably Australia, the rich, European countries of the US Alliance have been involved in  deliberate, intentional Gerocide in which their sustained, deliberate, Covid-19 pandemic policies resulted in overwhelmingly elderly “Covid-19 deaths per million of population” that were 10-180 times greater than that obtaining in New Zealand. Indict Trump and Johnson for Gerocide before the ICC!

In the Covid-19 pandemic to date about 41 million infections with the coronavirus have been detected, 31 million people have recovered, and over 1.1 million people have died worldwide [1, 2]. Developed  countries have had the resources to deal with the pandemic, and to develop better medical treatment protocols, medicines and, we all hope, vaccines  for protecting Humanity and allowing full economic activity to resume. However there have been huge differences in the Covid-19 death toll in Developed countries.

The countries with the lowest “Covid-19 deaths per million of population” (Covid-19 deaths/M) are notably those of East Asia, specifically (Covid-19 deaths/M in brackets) Taiwan (0.3),  China (3), Singapore (5), South Korea (9), Japan (13), and Hong Kong (14), countries notable for Confucianism-influenced cultures involving personal and collective discipline, and respect for the elderly. The only substantially European country with a Covid-19 deaths/M outcome similar to that of the East Asian countries is New Zealand with a 5 Covid-19 deaths per million of population.

In contrast, US Alliance North American and Western European countries have vastly greater “Covid-19 deaths per million of population”, to whit (Covid-19 deaths/M in brackets as of 20 October 2020): Norway (46), Germany (118),  Denmark (118), Canada (258), Netherlands (395), France (515), Italy (606), UK (643), US (649), Spain (727), and Belgium (897).

A significant outlier in this tragic  story has been the substantially European and US allied country of Australia with 30 Covid-19 deaths/M as compared to 5 for its culturally similar  neighbour,  New Zealand. Until May 2020  Australia had a similar outcome to New Zealand with only 4  Covid-19 deaths per million of population. However in the Australian state of Victoria a number of Federal and State Government blunders  meant that a “second wave” of Covid-19 occurred with a large proportion of these new Covid-19 deaths occurring among residents of Aged Care homes.

In short, the Australian Federal Government has key responsibility for quarantine (keeping traveller-borne Covid-19 out of island continent Australia) and for Aged Care (notably in Federal Government-funded Aged care nursing homes). Nevertheless, while aware of these responsibilities, the disproportionately high danger to elderly people of Covid-19, and the danger of a “second wave” of infection, the incompetent, anti-science and neoliberal Australian Coalition Government led by PM Scott “Scomo” Morrison, allowed a “second wave” to occur in Victoria. The State Government in a pervasive neoliberal environment  hired private security firms to supervise international travellers in quarantine in luxury hotels in Melbourne, but a judge-lead formal Inquiry has yet to discover who actually made the fatal decision – it seems to have somehow morphed into existence in an environment in which the “private sector” is firmly believed to do things more efficiently than the “public sector”. In the event the disease escaped due to slack security, and rapidly spread, notably into poor and vulnerable communities. Privately-owned, and for-profit but Federally subsidized Aged Care homes were particularly vulnerable, and were responsible for most of the “second wave” of Covid-19 deaths. The “second wave” spread was assisted by poverty, under-payment of casual part-time workers, and poverty-impacted non-compliance with public health instructions.

Crucially, the “second wave” in Victoria , Australia, was finally defeated over a period of about 6 months by severe ”Stage 4 lockdown” supervised by Labor Premier Daniel Andrews. Premier Dan Andrews has indefatigably  presided over daily press conferences, exhorting Victorians to obey the social distancing rules  (compulsory masks,  hand sanitizer user, no inter-person touching, a 1.5 meter inter-person spacing distance, only 1 hour of exercise daily, confinement to home except for exercise, shopping  or medical reasons, a circa 9 pm to 5 am curfew, a 5 kilometer limit to travel), and to get tested for Covid-19 infection with the slightest of symptoms. Massive testing (about 10,000-20,000 PCR-based tests daily), extensive contact tracing, and huge fines for violations finally got daily new cases down to 1 (and indeed possibly zero) in Victoria (population 6.5 million) on 20 October 2020,  as compared to an utterly shocking 23,331 new cases on the same day for the UK (population 68.0 million).

However “lockdown” at varying levels of severity has come at a huge economic cost for Victoria and for Australia as a whole. Indeed the Coalition Opposition has labelled the Premier Daniel Andrews as “Dictator Dan”,  and kept up a litany of carping abuse throughout the “second wave” rather than critically examining State measures and Federal responsibilities (actions that might actually have prevented the “second wave”). There is huge pressure on the Victorian Labor State Government from the neoliberal Right to prematurely lift a ban on “non-essential” business activities [3]. Similar “livelihoods versus lives” pressure has lead to over 1.1million Covid-19 deaths around the world with 95% of the deaths being 50 and over people in the US and Australia.

(1). Genocide (intentional killing in whole or in part) and Gerocide (intentional killing of the elderly).

The horrible reality is that about 95% of Covid-19 deaths occur in people over the age of 50. Thus 94.5% of  Covid-19 deaths in the US (May-August 2020) were of 50 and over people [4]. Over 95% of Covid-19 deaths were 50 or older in Australia [5].  Conversely, in Australia 33.7% of detected cases have been in 50 or older people, and  66.3% in younger than 50 people [6] (young people get out and about more than the elderly).

Lockdown stops the spread of the coronavirus and disproportionately  protects the elderly from Covid-19 death. However lockdown comes at an enormous economic cost. Thus the IMF estimates  that the economic cost to the World of Covid-19 over 2 years will be $9 trillion [7-13]. Accordingly, there has been huge pressure against lockdown from the politically dominant One Percenters (notably excepting prosperous medical professionals who are on the dangerous front-line in the fight against Covid-19). This “livelihoods versus lives” campaign has been most blatant in the US as exampled by anti-science President Donald Trump and his fervent Racist Religious Right Republican (R4) supporters. Science-based rational risk management that is crucial for societal security successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses, and (c)  informed systemic change  to minimize harm when mistakes inevitably happen [14]. However Trump’s deadly anti-science record is most succinctly summarized in the carefully researched statistic that he made 20,000 false or misleading claims during his administration [15].

Genocide is defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention thus: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” [16-18].

However Gerocide can be similarly defined as the intentional killing of old people. Thus Italian physicians Adriana Servello and Evaristo Ettorre in a letter to the “Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics” (2020): “[The Covid-19] Outbreak has quickly became the fastest and most subtle “Gerocide” that our history as a highly developed country has ever experienced…. Our hospitals have experienced moments of extreme difficulty, in which care and assistance seemed to be never enough. In those tragic moments, we have suddenly understood that chronological data matter again, even if only in terms of access to treatment in a situation which is a real catastrophe. We have realized that our fathers, mothers, colleagues, teachers, companions and patients are the most exposed and considered the most expendable part of the population, the part that the young population had previously struggled to protect and preserve. A dramatic, unwanted, silent “Gerocide” has taken place, which will surely leave a deep and incurable wound in the ethical conscience of contemporary physicians, who have been taught to heal, operate and treat as long as possible” [18].

Gerocide is not just emergency doctors in overwhelmed hospitals having to make distressing ethical triage choices about applying scarce resources to saving the lives of younger people more likely to benefit from the treatment and survive. Gerocide  is also involved in the clearly intentional political choices (notably in North America and Western Europe) between the economy and the lives of old people in a Covid-19 pandemic.

For these rich, mostly European countries one can assess “avoidable Covid-19  deaths” (95% people of 50 years and older) as a result of political choices by using New Zealand  as a base-line i.e. by pragmatically and conservatively assuming that for a rich,  mostly European country the New Zealand outcome  of 5 Covid-19 deaths per million of population is as “good as it gets”. This analysis is set out below for (A) Anglosphere countries of the “5-Eyes” intelligence-sharing club (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK and US), and (B) Western European allies of the US.

(A). Gerocide in the Anglosphere “5-eyes” Intelligence Club.

New Zealand: population 5.0 million, 25 deaths , and  5 deaths/million of population i.e. as good as it gets for European countries and zero (0) New Zealanders  killed  by the Jacinda Ardern Labor Government.

Australia: population 25.6 million, 905 deaths, 35 deaths/million, and 30 avoidable deaths per million  i.e. 30 x 25.6 = 768 Australians killed through incompetence by the US lackey, pro-nuclear weapons,  and neoliberal Australian Coalition Government.

Canada: population 37.8 million, 9,778 deaths, 258 deaths/million, and 253 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 253 x 37.8 =  9,563  Canadians killed by the US lackey, pro-nuclear weapons, and neoliberal Trudeau Canadian Government.

UK: (population 68.0 million, 43,726 deaths, 643 deaths/million, and 638 avoidable deaths /million i.e. 638 x 68.0 =  43,384 Brits killed by the US lackey, neoliberal, and nuclear terrorist Johnson Tory UK Government.

US: (population 331.6 million, 225,170 deaths, 679 deaths/million, and  674 avoidable deaths/million  i.e.  674 x 331.6 = 223,498 Americans killed by the neoliberal and nuclear terrorist Trump Administration.

(B). America’s Western European NATO Allies.

Norway: population 5.4 million, 278 deaths, 51 deaths/million, and 46 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 46 x 5.4  = 248 Norwegians killed by the US-allied Norwegian Government.

Germany: population 83.9 million, 9,896 deaths, 118 deaths/million, and 113 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 113 x 83.9  = 9,481Germans killed by the US-allied Merkel German Government.

Denmark: population 5.8 million, 686 deaths, 118 deaths/million, and 113 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 113 x 5.8  = 655 Danes killed by the US-allied Danish Government.

Netherlands: population 17.1 million, 5,918 deaths, 395 deaths/million, and 390 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 390 x 17.1  = 6,669 Dutch killed by the US-allied Netherlands Government.

France: population 65.3 million, 33,623 deaths, 515 deaths/million, and 510 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 510 x 65.3 = 33,303 French killed by the US-allied, nuclear terrorist Macron French Government.

Italy: population 60.4 million, 36,616 deaths, 606 deaths/million, and 601 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 601 x 60.4 = 36,003 Italians killed by the US-allied Italian Government.

Spain: population 46.8 million, 33,992 deaths, 727 deaths/million, and 722 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 727 x 46.8  = 34,024 Spaniards killed by the US-allied  Spanish Government.

Belgium: population 11.6 million, 10,413 deaths, 897 deaths/million, and 892 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 892 x 11.6 = 10,394  Belgians killed by the US-allied Belgian Government.

(2). Genocide, Gerocide and preparedness to do evil.

(1). Neutral Sweden has had  no lockdown policy with the following outcome – Sweden: population 10.1 million, 5,918 deaths, 585 deaths/million, and 580 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 580 x 10.1  = 5,858 Swedes killed by the neutral Swedish Government. The culturally similar Danes and Norwegians did have  some lockdown measures and had “Covid-19 deaths per million” values of 51 and 118, 11 times and 5 times better, respectively, than that for Sweden (585 deaths/M, similar to the 679 deaths/M  for the US).

(2). Nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel is a covert member of the serial war criminal “5-Eyes Club” (e.g. the US shares raw intelligence on Australians with Apartheid Israel) [20] and had lockdown measures with the following outcome – Apartheid Israel: population 9.2 million, 2,263 deaths, 246 deaths/million, and 241 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 241 x 9.2 = 2,217 Israelis killed by the US-allied, nuclear terrorist, war criminal  Netanyahu Israeli Government. The Occupied Palestinians have been in a form of highly  abusive lockdown in the 53 years since 1967, whether the presently 2 million in the Gaza Concentration Camp or the 3 million in Israeli military-guarded West Bank ghettoes [21-25]. The outcome for the Occupied Palestinians – Occupied Palestine: population 5.1 million, 421 deaths, 83 deaths/million, and 78 avoidable deaths/million i.e. 78 x 5.1 = 398 Occupied Palestinians killed by the US-allied, nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israeli Government. To put this imposed Apartheid Israeli Gerocide in context, in the 21st century Apartheid Israel has violently killed an average of about 550 Occupied Palestinians each year, and a further 4,200 Occupied Palestinians have died avoidably from egregious deprivation each year. The ongoing Palestinian Genocide has involved 2.2 million Palestinian deaths from violence, 0.1 million, or from imposed deprivation, 2.1 million, since the British invasion of the Middle East in WW1 [21-25].

(3). Nation-wide in Australia, 683/904 = 75.6% of Covid-19 deaths were in Aged Care facilities. In Victoria 653/817 = 79.9% of Covid-19 deaths  were in Aged Care facilities [26]. Border Control, quarantine and the private, for-profit Aged Care homes are a responsibility of the Australian Federal Government, but the incompetent, anti-science Australian Federal Coalition Government under PM Scott “Scomo” Morrison failed in all 3 key areas. However, while the Coalition is anti-science in relation to climate change (Australia is among world leaders in 16 areas of climate criminality [27] and indeed ranks worst in the world in 2020 for Climate Policy [28]) it at least took top medical advice over the Covid-19 pandemic [29]. Further, outstanding human rights advocate Professor Gillian Triggs has commented: “[The Coalition Government] is ideologically opposed to human rights” [30], noting that the right to life is the most fundamental of  human rights. Racist Australian Government policies ensure a continuing 10 year life expectancy gap between White Australians and Indigenous Australians. Under the racist and pro-Apartheid Coalition Government Australia is second only to Trump America as a supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of Apartheid (there is a 10 year life expectancy gap between Occupier Israelis and the Occupied Indigenous Palestinians) [25, 30, 31].

(4).  The Anglosphere 5-Eyes Club members (with the notable and laudable exception of decent New Zealand) are intimately  involved in nuclear terrorism. Thus the UK and the US have nuclear weapons, the US has actually used them to kill 200,000 mainly women, children and elderly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (a huge Gerocide), and US lackeys Australia and Canada are  intimately involved in US nuclear terrorism.  New Zealand was effectively expelled from the ANZUS Treaty (Australia New Zealand and US Treaty) because  it objected to nuclear weapons-bearing US vessels in its ports. Decent New Zealand also voted for the UN General Assembly Nuclear Weapons ban (opposed by the other 5-Eyes Club members). The upper  estimates of stored  nuclear weapons  are as follows: US (7,315), Russia (8,000), Apartheid Israel (400), France (300), UK (250), China (250), Pakistan (120), India (100), and North Korea (less than 10). India, Pakistan and North Korea have not ratified the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Australia is key to US nuclear terrorism, and was critical in the UK developing nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems [33].

(5). More Genocide and Gerocide – the US, US-allied Western European NATO countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand  have variously been involved in the US-imposed post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust and  Muslim Genocide in which 32 million Muslims have died from violence, 5 million, or from imposed deprivation, 27 million, in  20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people [17, 18, 34-37].

(6). UK Gerocide exposed –  Conor Burke: “According to the data there have been 66,000 deaths of care home residents in England and Wales between 2 March and 12 June this year, compared to just under 37,000 deaths last year – as reported by the BBC. Twenty thousand of those deaths mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate but another 10,000 of the excess deaths were registered to other, non-COVID related causes” [38]. Thus  of  29,000 Aged Care home excess deaths in the Covid-19 pandemic only 20,000 were specifically registered as directly due to Covid-19 but a further 9,000 were indirectly Covid-19-related. Thus UK Covid-19 deaths should be more properly accounted as 44,000 + 9,000 = 53,000 Covid-19 deaths.

Final comments and conclusions

With the exception of decent New Zealand and arguably Australia, the rich, mostly European ethnicity countries of the US Alliance have been involved in  deliberate, intentional Gerocide in which their sustained, deliberate, Covid-19 pandemic policies resulted in “Covid-19 deaths per million of population” that are 10-180 times greater than that obtaining in New Zealand. Through incompetence and failure to properly fund and protect Age Care homes, Australia has ended up with 35 “Covid-19 deaths per million of population”, 7 times greater than for New Zealand (5).

One can speculate about why East Asian countries and New Zealand have had such successful outcomes in the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus the East  Asian countries have a strong Confucian culture of personal and collective discipline and respect for the elderly. Notwithstanding involvements in UK and thence US imperial wars, New Zealand (Aotearoa) is opposed to nuclear terrorism, has found ultimately respectful accommodation with the Indigenous Maori people, and indeed signed a Treaty with the Maori (the Treaty of Waitangi, 1840) [39]. In contrast,  Australia fervently supports nuclear terrorism, and has yet to sign a Treaty with its Indigenous People [31, 32]. Fundamentally, New Zealand has a much greater sense of intra-national and international altruism as exemplified by the conspicuous empathy of its globally-admired PM Jacinda Ardern. To people who say “We want politicians like Jacinda Ardern” , feminist humanitarians reply “Vote for them!”

Notwithstanding theoretical  free speech (but not effective free speech) in  the One Percenter-dominated ostensible democracies of the US Alliance, a Google Search for the term “Gerocide” yields a mere 1,700 results. Expression of a deliberate intention to cause avoidable death of large numbers of people, and specifically of elderly people (Gerocide), would be unacceptable in politically correct (PC) Western democracies. But, unspoken and publicly unacknowledged, Gerocide is what has been happening  in North America and Western Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic. US President Donald Trump and UK PM Boris Johnson should be arraigned for Gerocide before the International Criminal Court.

References.

[1]. Worldometer, “COVID-10 coronavirus pandemic”: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ .

[2]. Updated WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard: WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard

[3]. “2020 coronavirus pandemic in Australia”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Australia .

[4]. Jeremy A.W. Gold et al, “ Race, ethnicity, and age trends in persons who died from COVID-19 – United States, May-August 2020”, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ,   16 October 2020: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e1.htm .

[5]. Australian Government, “COVID-19 deaths by age group and sex”: https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers#cases-and-deaths-by-age-and-sex .

[6]. Australian Government, National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System , “Number of notifications of COVID-19, Australia, 2020 by age group and sex”, 2020: http://www9.health.gov.au/cda/source/rpt_5.cfm .

[7]. Al Jazeera, “IMF: COVID-19 crisis will cost economy $9 trillion over two years”, Al Jazeera, 14 April 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knoJczU07ic .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Action Cost/Deaths Ratios For Covid-19, Malaria, Infant Health,  Starvation, Poverty & Pollution”, Countercurrents, 17 April 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/04/action-cost-deaths-ratios-for-covid-19-malaria-infant-health-starvation-poverty-pollution.

[9]. Gideon Polya, “Post-Covid-19 needs-based economy, zero emissions, UBI, Green New Deal & free university education”, Countercurrents, 3 May 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/05/post-covid-19-needs-based-economy-zero-emissions-ubi-green-new-deal-free-university-education/ .

[10]. Gideon Polya, “Action Cost/Deaths Ratios For Covid-19, Malaria, Infant Health,  Starvation, Poverty & Pollution”, Countercurrents, 17 April 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/04/action-cost-deaths-ratios-for-covid-19-malaria-infant-health-starvation-poverty-pollution .

[11]. Gideon  Polya, “UK-Australia COVID-19 deaths, deprivation deaths in Developing countries, Indigenous avoidable deaths”, Global Research, 8 April 2020: https://www.globalresearch.ca/uk-australian-covid-19-deaths-versus-developing-country-indigenous-avoidable-deaths-deprivation/5708948 .

[12].  Gideon Polya and Richard Hil , “Covid-19-inspired Western altruism ignores the World’s unpeople”,  Arena, 5 May 2020: https://arena.org.au/covid-19-inspired-western-altruism-ignores-the-worlds-unpeople/ .

[13]. Gideon Polya, “Covid-19 pandemic, climate & Australia: risky ignoring of scientific advice”, Countercurrrents, 28 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/covid-19-pandemic-climate-australia-risky-ignoring-of-science-based-advice/ .

[14]. “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .

[15]. Lauren Aratani, “”Tsunami of untruths”: Trump has made 20,000 false or misleading claims – report””, Guardian, 14 July 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/13/donald-trump-20000-false-or-misleading-claims .

[16]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .

[17]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Mainstream ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide””, Countercurrents, 17 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/racist-mainstream-ignores-us-imposed-post-9-11-muslim-holocaust-muslim-genocide/ .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, 2020:  https://www.amazon.com/US-Imposed-Post-9-Muslim-Holocaust-Genocide/dp/8793987056 .

[19]. Adriana Servello* and Evaristo Ettorre , “COVID-19: The Italian Viral “Gerocide” of the 21 st Century”, Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2020 July-August; 89: 104111, 13 May 2020: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7219387/ .

[20]. Philip Dorling, “US shares raw intelligence on Australians with Israel”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September 2013: https://www.smh.com.au/national/us-shares-raw-intelligence-on-australians-with-israel-20130912-2tllm.html .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “100th anniversary of 1918 Australian and New Zealand Surafend Massacre of Palestinians”, Countercurrents, 10 December 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2018/12/10/100th-anniversary-of-1918-australian-new-zealand-surafend-massacre-of-palestinians/ .

[22]. Gideon Polya, “70th anniversary of Apartheid Israel & commencement of large-scale Palestinian Genocide”, Countercurrents, 11 May 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/05/11/70th-anniversary-of-apartheid-israel-commencement-of-large-scale-palestinian-genocide/ .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East conflict – from oil to climate genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .

[24]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-women’s rights Supreme Court Judge Ruth Ginsburg Utterly ignored Palestinian genocide”, Countercurrents, 20 September 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/09/pro-womens-rights-supreme-court-judge-ruth-ginsburg-utterly-ignored-palestinian-genocide/ .

[25]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[26]. Australian Government, Department of Health, “Coronavirus (COVID-19) current situation and case numbers”: https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers#cases-in-aged-care-services .

[27]. Gideon Polya, “Australian climate criminality, heat stress deaths, & Australian Aboriginal Ethnocide”, Countercurrents, 19 December 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/12/australian-climate-criminality-heat-stress-deaths-australian-aboriginal-ethnocide .

[28]. “Climate Change Performance Index 2020”: https://www.climate-change-performance-index.org/climate-change-performance-index-2020 .

[29]. “COVID-19 pandemic in Australia”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Australia  Australia

[30]. Michael Slezak, “Gillian Triggs: Australian Government “ideologically opposed to human rights””, Guardian, 26 July 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/26/gillian-triggs-australian-government-ideologically-opposed-to-human-rights .

[31]. “Aboriginal Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .

[32]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide & Australia’s Aboriginal  Genocide compared”, Countercurrents, 20 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/20/apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-australias-aboriginal-genocide-compared/ .

[33]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban .

[34]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[35]. “Experts; US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[36]. “List of wars involving New Zealand”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_New_Zealand .

[37]. “Stop state terrorism” : https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/  .

[38]. Conor Burke, “Aged care residents dying at 3 times the normal rate in the UK during pandemic”, Aged care Insite, 6 July 2020: https://www.agedcareinsite.com.au/2020/07/aged-care-residents-dying-at-3-times-the-normal-rate-in-the-uk-during-pandemic/ .

[39]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950,” that includes a succinct history of every country and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript   ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: https://countercurrents.org/polya170612.htm ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine  ;  Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home  ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ). He has recently published Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020 (for details see: https://korsgaardpublishing.com/portfolio/23945/ ).When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/  .


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Opposition Leaders, Civil Society denounce arrest of Stan Swamy  and other activists in Bhima Koregaon case
Press Release


PUCL organised a virtual Press Conference on 21st October, 2020 to condemn the illegal arrest of Fr. Stan Swamy of Jharkhand and 15 other activists in the Bhima Koregaon case. The Press Conference was to create a platform for different civil society groups and political parties to jointly condemn the brazen abuse of UAPA by the Central Government against dissenters and demand repeal of draconian anti-human rights laws like UAPA and anti-sedition law.



Sanitizing agents: While keeping COVID away, are they paving way for AMR?
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Instead of pretending to be Vishwaguru and making the country a laughing stock at the international level, the government of India has to put its act together and engage in governance. As time is running out, it is urgent that the government of India plan and implement pro-citizen and pro-poor policies and programs.



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by Dr M.I.H. Farooqi


Syed Ahmad Khan, born on 17th October, 1817 (the year of the establishment of Hindu College), founded the Muslim School in 1875 with the same ideas and objectives as that of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Although the era they were born and worked was vastly different, Sir Syed helped Muslims in the same way as Raja Ram Mohan Roy did for Hindus, as if he followed in his footsteps.



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A remembrance of a small town puja of the old days



Tamils In The North And East Of Sri Lanka – Justification For Self-Determination
by Kumarathasan Rasingam


The systematic violations of human rights by the Sri Lankan Government over a period of 72 years are well documented and are clearly no accidental happenings. They constitute evidence of the resolute and determined efforts of alien Sinhala governments to subjugate and assimilate the people of Tamil Eelam within the framework of unitary SINHALA BUDDHIST  STATE. The people of Tamil Eelam have suffered long enough and have waited long enough for their human rights. Today, they are a people who can never be denied their right to SELF-DETERMINATION.






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