Majorityrights News > Category: Ecology

Nya Dagbladet, Sumatran Rhino encountered in Indonesian Borneo, 3 April 2016:

Sumatran Rhino encountered in Indonesian Borneo (Photo: Angelskiss31 / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

A very small number Sumatran Rhinos are remaining in the world.

The Sumatran Rhino is one of the world’s most endangered mammals, with possibly fewer than 100 left in the wild. Now, however, a little hope is kindled by a species branch member found in Kalimantan, Borneo for the first time in 30 years.

WWF reports that a female 4-5 years old was captured in a specially designed trap and that this came as a big surprise as most believed that the species is extinct in the Indonesian part of Borneo.

- This is a unique find, something I never thought we would be a part of. Now we have a great opportunity to save an almost extinct species, says Olle Forshed, rainforest expert at WWF.

Already in 2013 footprints were identified in the region and it is estimated that there are at least three families of about 15 rhinos in Kalimantan. In order to secure the survival of the species WWF experts need also to advocate policies for rainforest preservation so that the large animals can live and breed in peace. The female who was discovered and captured will now be moved to a safer rainforest, where her habitat is not threatened by destruction.

Felling of forests for coal mine in Central Kalimantan.

(Photo: Andrew Taylor / WDM / CC BY 2.0)

Poaching, oil palm cultivation and mining are deemed to be the greatest threats to Sumatran Rhino today. On the Malaysian part of Borneo it was declared the species extinct last year.

Carl Svensson

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Reuters, ‘Britain and Bill Gates pledge 3 billion pounds to fight malaria’ 25 Jan 2016:

Britain will spend 500 million pounds ($700 million) per year for the next five years to try and end deaths caused by malaria, the government said on Monday, announcing a partnership with Microsoft founder Bill Gates worth a total of 3 billion pounds.

Finance minister George Osborne announced the spending, to be funded from the country’s overseas aid budget, at an event with billionaire Gates, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will also contribute around $200 million per year to the package.

“Across the globe over a billion people are infected with malaria and it’s a cause of both untold misery and lost economic potential,” Osborne said in a statement.

“That’s why, working with Bill Gates, I’m determined that Britain leads the world in the fight against this disease.”

In December, the World Health Organization’s annual malaria report showed deaths falling to 438,000 in 2015 - down dramatically from 839,000 in 2000 - and found a significant increase in the number of countries moving towards the elimination of malaria.

The U.N. now wants to cut new cases and deaths from malaria, a parasitic mosquito-borne infection, by 90% before 2030.

Osborne said some of the money would be spent in Britain to advance the science being used to combat the disease. The Gates Foundation first annual contribution will support research, development and regional efforts to eliminate the disease.

The Gates Foundation was launched in 2000 by Gates and wife Melinda to fight disease and poverty around the world.

Are you stupid or just evil, Bill? Just where we need big money directed - to compound Africa’s exploding population…

Planetary Resources

Asteroid prospecting technology is in space today.

As we continue to meet asteroid prospecting milestones, we are using this same technology to create new market opportunities along the way.

There are war mongers operating behind the scenes of power whose motives highly resemble those of the Cold War era: Russia, adjacent geopolitical objectives, resource acquisition and control are seen as central problems which require strong military force.

What is insufficient in John Marshall’s investigative critique and whistle blowing article, however, is a failure to make clear the facts that:

1) The particular people, including at NATO, behind these strategies - viz., war with Russia, control in the Middle East and the borders of Russia - do not identify as White; and are not acting with White (i.e., European peoples) interests in mind first and foremost.

2) In normal ethno-nationalist terms, Russia is, in fact, a problematic nation, which is not circumscribed to their, let alone to our common White/European interests; not committed to cooperation in geopolitical ordering; border and demographic defense; and provisioning of The European Ethno-National Region and its necessary alliance with The Asian Region and its Ethno-Nations.

The point is, these are very real, not trumped-up concerns, and White Nationalism must take the helm in cooperation with Asian Nationalisms to handle these concerns.

I will venture an outline of why that is and how it might come about in few days. I will do this in anticipation that Kumiko will contribute her considerable insight to correct oversights, flesh-out a myriad of details and augment points where emphasis is needed.

My perspective on this is that we’ve got the stuff of war at hand all around us already. It is now up to us to wrest the lines from the hands of Jews and others who do not identify with Whites, to shape and craft the battle lines in White Nationalist interests instead. I will argue that that will require European and Asian cooperation and, in terms of their prior imperialist overreaches and capacity to offer cooperation, a significantly chastened U.S. and Russia.

First, a look at how “obscure people’ can start wars” by John Marshall - talking about Victoria Nuland and her fellow Jewish and neocon cohorts, though, of course, he does not name the YKW as such:

Consortiumnews.com, “How ‘Obscure’ Bureaucrats Cause Wars”, 15 Dec. 2015

Exclusive: Official Washington’s anti-Russian “group think” is now so dominant that no one with career aspirations dares challenge it, a victory for “obscure” government bureaucrats, like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, as Jonathan Marshall explains.

History isn’t just made by impersonal forces and “great men” or “great women.” Sometimes relatively obscure men and women acting in key bureaucratic posts make a real difference.

Thus, the international crisis in Syria traces back in part to the decision of President Barack Obama’s first ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, to reject peaceful rapprochement with the Damascus regime in favor of “radically redesign[ing] his mission” to promote anti-government protests that triggered the civil war in 2011.

                                                         

Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 7, 2014. (U.S. State Department photo)

In much the same way, Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland did her best to foment the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch against the democratically elected Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych, “while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for ‘democracy,’” as journalist Robert Parry wrote last July.

Nuland, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and wife of neoconservative luminary Robert Kagan, helped achieve in Ukraine the kind of “regime change” that her husband had long promoted in the Middle East through the Project for a New American Century.

Nuland now has a new counterpart in the Department of Defense who bears close watching for signs of whether the Obama administration will keep escalating military confrontation with Russia over Eastern Europe, or look for opportunities to find common ground and ease tensions.

On Dec. 14, Dr. Michael Carpenter started work at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, with added responsibilities for the Western Balkans and Conventional Arms Control. He replaced Evelyn Farkas, who stepped down in October.

Farkas was a firebrand who accused Russia of “shredding international law and conventions that have held firm for decades.” In a call to arms straight out of the early Cold War, she wrote, “Russia’s challenge is so fundamental to the international system, to democracy and free market capitalism that we cannot allow the Kremlin’s policy to succeed in Syria or elsewhere.”

In a remarkable display of “projection” — ascribing to others one’s own motives and actions — she declared that “Russia has invaded neighboring countries, occupied their territory, and funded NGOs and political parties not only in its periphery but also in NATO countries.” Its goal, she asserted, was nothing less than “breaking NATO, the EU and transatlantic unity.”

Farkas declared that the United States must continue its military buildup to deter Russia; provide “lethal assistance” to countries on Russia’s periphery, including Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova; and step up economic sanctions “to pressure Russia . . . so that U.S. national security interests and objectives prevail.”

With people like that helping to shape official policy over the past three years, it’s no wonder U.S.-Russia relations have hit such a low point. Might her replacement, Michael Carpenter, take a less confrontational approach?

Carpenter moved to the Pentagon from the office of Vice President Joe Biden, where he was special adviser for Europe and Eurasia. Previously he ran the Russia desk at the National Security Council and spent several years in the Foreign Service.

Carpenter has kept a low public profile, with few publications or speeches to his name. One of his few quasi-public appearances was this April at a symposium on “Baltic Defense & Security After Ukraine: New Challenges, New Threats,” sponsored by The Jamestown Foundation.

His prepared remarks were off the record, but they were greeted warmly — “you’ve hit it right on the head” — by discussant Kurt Volker, former NATO ambassador under President George W. Bush and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain. McCain has demanded that the United States arm Ukraine to fight Russia and he helped inflame the Ukraine crisis by meeting with the anti-Semitic leader of the country’s right-wing nationalist party for photo-ops in 2013.

During a short Q&A session at the symposium, captured on video, Carpenter declared that “Russia has completely shredded the NATO-Russian Founding Act,” a choice of words strikingly reminiscent of Farkas’s denunciation of Russia for “shredding international law.” He accused Russia of “pursuing a neo-imperial revanchist policy” in Eastern Europe, inflammatory words that Sen. McCain lifted for an op-ed column in the Washington Post a couple of months later. Carpenter also indicated that he would personally favor permanent NATO bases in the Baltic states if such an escalation would not fragment the alliance.

The fact that Carpenter chose to make one of his few appearances at the The Jamestown Foundation is itself highly telling. According to IPS Right Web, which tracks conservative think tanks, the foundation’s president, Glen Howard, “is the former executive director of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, a largely neoconservative-led campaign aimed at undermining Russia by bolstering U.S. support for militant nationalist and Islamist movements in the North Caucasus.” He has also been consultant to the Pentagon and to “major oil companies operating in Central Asia and the Middle East.”

The foundation was formed in 1984 by “a leading Cold Warrior close to the Reagan administration,” with the blessing of CIA Director William Casey, to provide extra funding for Soviet bloc defectors to supplement meager stipends offered by the CIA. Its board members today include former CIA Director Michael Hayden, and previous board members included Dick Cheney and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, a prominent neoconservative activist.

All this matters hugely for several reasons. Increased confrontation with Russia, particularly along its highly sensitive Western border, will continue to poison relationships with Moscow that are crucial for achieving U.S. interests ranging from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria. Ratcheting up a new Cold War will divert tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into military spending at the expense of domestic priorities.

Most important, the action-reaction cycle between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe is dramatically increasing chances for an unwanted, unneeded and disastrous war involving the world’s great nuclear powers. Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network, noted in a recent commentary for the Arms Control Association:

“Despite protestations by both sides that the exercises are aimed at no particular adversary, it is clear that each side is exercising with the most likely war plans of the other in mind. The Russian military is preparing for a confrontation with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a confrontation with Russia. This does not mean either side has the political intent to start a war, but it does mean that both believe a war is no longer unthinkable. . . .

“Too few appear to recognize that the current cocktail of incidents, mistrust, changed military posture, and nuclear signaling is creating the conditions in which a single event or combination of events could result in a NATO-Russian war, even if neither side intends it.”

In such a way, the actions of relatively minor figures in history – if their provocations are not reined in – can lead the world to cataclysm.