The Lancet gives Russian early vaccine trial a pass — but also issues caution: report

Published on September 4, 2020 By Agence France-Presse

Russian Coronavirus Vaccine (Handout Russian Direct Investment Fund/AFP/File)

Patients involved in early tests of a Russian coronavirus vaccine developed antibodies with “no serious adverse events”, according to research published in The Lancet Friday, but experts said the trials were too small to prove safety and effectiveness.

Russia announced last month that its vaccine, named “Sputnik V” after the Soviet-era satellite that was the first launched into space in 1957, had already received approval.

This raised concerns among Western scientists over a lack of safety data, with some warning that moving too quickly on a vaccine could be dangerous.

Russia denounced criticism as an attempt to undermine Moscow’s research.

In the Lancet study, Russian researchers reported on two small trials, each involving 38 healthy adults aged between 18 and 60, who were given a two-part immunisation.

Each participant was given a dose of the first part of the vaccine and then given a booster with the second part 21 days later.

They were monitored over 42 days and all developed antibodies within the first three weeks.

The report said the data showed that the vaccine was “safe, well tolerated, and does not cause serious adverse events in healthy adult volunteers”.

The trials were open label and not randomised, meaning there was no placebo and the participants knew they were receiving the vaccine and were not randomly assigned to different treatment groups.

Researchers underlined that larger and longer trials — including a placebo comparison — would be needed to establish the long-term safety and effectiveness of the vaccine for preventing Covid-19 infection.

“Showing safety will be crucial with Covid-19 vaccines, not only for vaccine acceptance but also for trust in vaccination broadly,” Naor Bar-Zeev of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health wrote in a commentary in the Lancet.

The report said the 76 participants of these trials would be monitored up to 180 days, adding that a more rigorous phase 3 clinical trial was planned with the involvement of 40,000 volunteers “from different age and risk groups”.

© 2020 AFP

HIDE THE DATA

Florida tells health officials not to release coronavirus data about schools 

By STEPHEN HUDAK and RYAN GILLESPIE  ORLANDO SENTINEL | SEP 03, 2020 

'FACE MASKS ARE REQUIRED' sign in the first grade classroom of Michole Michelson, at Lake Como K-8 classroom on, Wednesday, August 19, 2020. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel) (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)

Local health officials are barred from releasing detailed information about new COVID-19 cases in public schools because of privacy rules, a local health official said Thursday.

The number of students and school staff who are infected — or whether infections are being transmitted in classrooms ― will no longer be released by health officials, Dr. Raul Pino, the state’s health officer in Orange County, said at a Thursday briefing.

That’s a departure from earlier this week when Pino released the number of cases associated with schools as well as the number of students and staff under precautionary quarantine and a list of affected schools.

On Monday he noted that the health department was investigating its first potential case of student-to-teacher transmission, critical information for parents as they decide whether to send their children to face-to-face classes in the midst of a global pandemic. But on Thursday, Pino said he couldn’t disclose any more details about that case and whether the health department had drawn a conclusion about how the transmission occurred.

“Because it’s confidential information, I can’t continue to release that data to the public in that format,” said Dr. Raul Pino, the local state health officer.

Orange County Public Schools spokesman Scott Howat said the district will continue to release data to the public on Tuesdays and Fridays through social media and, eventually, a designated section of the district’s web site.

Orange’s plan is similar to one launched by public school officials in Volusia, who said “The Florida Department of Education has requested COVID-19 reporting at the district level,” according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. But it’s not clear if each district will release the same information or how detailed that information will be.

As of Tuesday, Orange County had 59 students and staff with COVID-19. Howat said Thursday the district had 198 students and 22 staffers in quarantine, which means they could have been exposed to an infected person and are being asked to stay home for two weeks as a precaution to help stop the spread.

The Sentinel reported earlier this week that nearly 450 Central Florida public school students and staff are in quarantine after positive COVID-19 tests were reported from their schools. In addition to Orange, that total includes 158 in Seminole County, at least 72 in Osceola County and at least 19 in Lake County. Some students and staff quarantined in Osceola and Lake last week could remain so this week, but they are not included in their county totals reported this week.

The quarantine total doesn’t count another 595 students who were sent home last week when an Osceola middle school closed. Harmony Middle School shut down for two weeks after a group of teachers tested positive or were waiting on test results.

Overall, Pino said masks and other preventative measures such as social distancing appeared to be working in Orange schools.

“I’m actually pleasantly surprised,” he said, though students have only met in face-to-face classes for 10 days.

The clampdown on information about schools came as Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond announced the latest collections of the tourist tax — just $5.2 million for July, a 77% decline over the same month last year, but a marked improvement over June when less than $3 million was collected.

Diamond said the county’s financial well-being is tied to its physical health. The increase from the 6% levy on hotel rooms from June to July reflects the reopening of Walt Disney World, though at a reduced capacity.

Before the pandemic, Orange was on track for another record year for tourism. But on Thursday, Diamond applauded a recent decision by Mayor Jerry Demings to halt all work on an expansion of the county’s giant convention center, which is funded by tourist taxes.

The dismal collections forced the county to pull nearly $21.8 million from its reserves to cover its bills.

“It’s important to minimize the drawdown given the uncertainty of when the tourism industry will recover,” Diamond said, noting current collections are “far less than what we need to pay our bills every month, quite honestly.”

Still, officials’ spirits appeared buoyed by the continued decline in new coronavirus infections across the community.

State data shows about 4.88% of tests came back positive Wednesday in Orange County, one of the lowest levels seen this summer.

Demings and Pino cautioned residents to continue wearing masks, washing hands and keeping distance from others as they go about barbecues or other activities during the long Labor Day weekend.

“We can go to the beach, we can have a barbecue, we can have friends over as long as we keep those measures in place,” Pino said. “We know they work because they’ve worked here.”

In addition, to declining case numbers seen after Orange began requiring people to wear masks, Demings’ executive order on face coverings got another boost on Thursday

Circuit Court Judge Lisa Munyon upheld his order in a blow to state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, Orange County GOP Chair Charles Hart and conservative attorney John Stemberger, who argued that masks are a medical device and the “forced use of a medical device violates his Florida right to privacy.”

Munyon rejected that argument.

“Plaintiff’s position would lead to an absurd result,” she wrote in her ruling. “It would prevent any government from addressing new health threats with mandatory regulations until years of clinical study support the decision.”

Demings said the ruling was “common sense.”

“These types of lawsuits waste valuable time and resources for local governments,” he said.



Stephen Hudak 
Stephen Hudak often writes about bears in Central Florida and weird things in the Orlando area, including Orange County government. He likes snow and Ohio State but wound up in the Sunshine State, which has been good to him. He was a Pulitzer finalist for work on the FAMU hazing tragedy.


Ryan Gillespie 
Ryan Gillespie covers the neighborhoods and governments of Orlando and Osceola County. He grew up in Jupiter and graduated from the University of Central Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism.

9,000 Florida children caught COVID-19 within 15 days of school reopenings

Teacher and children wearing protective face masks at school. Image source: visoot/Adobe

By Jacob Siegal @JacobSiegal
August 26th, 2020 

Florida has reported just under 9,000 new COVID-19 cases among children over the last 15 days as schools across the state reopen and resume in-person classes.
In the 15-day period before August 9th, just under 8,600 children below the age of 18 tested positive for COVID-19, which means the infection rate is increasing.
Florida’s Department of Education is currently in a legal battle trying to force schools to be open five days a week regardless of safety concerns for students or teachers.

The United States has been averaging over 40,000 positive COVID-19 tests every day since August began, but that did not stop schools around the country from reopening this month. Daycares and elementary schools all the way up to major universities have been welcoming students back, and reports of viral outbreaks are never far behind. Earlier this week, three Alabama colleges reported 566 cases just days after resuming classes, and now data from Florida shows that thousands of young adults and children have been infected since schools reopened.

In a recent pediatric report concerning coronavirus cases throughout the state, Florida confirmed that 48,730 people below the age of 18 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus as of Monday, August 24th. As The Hill points out, that’s an increase of 8,995 cases since the last report, which was released on August 9th. In the same 15-day period before August 9th, the state of Florida reported 8,585 cases among children, which means that the infection rate has continued to grow throughout the month, even as the infection rate drops nationwide.

With over 605,000 coronavirus cases, Florida has been hit harder than 47 other states since the pandemic began. Even New York, which was once considered the epicenter of the pandemic, has yet to record 500,000 positive cases. Governor Ron DeSantis has repeatedly ignored these warning signs and attempted to force Florida back to a state of normalcy, with the Florida Department of Education going as far as to sign an executive order demanding that brick-and-mortar schools be open five days a week or risk losing funding.

A Florida judge temporarily blocked the Department of Education’s executive order on Monday, saying it “essentially ignored” Florida’s constitutional requirement to have safe and secure public schools.

“The districts have no meaningful alternative,” wrote Judge Charles Dodson of Leon County. “If an individual school district chooses safety, that is, delaying the start of schools until it individually determines it is safe to do so for its county, it risks losing state funding, even though every student is being taught.”

Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and the Department of Education are appealing the decision, as he argues that this battle is “about giving every parent, every teacher and every student a choice, regardless of what educational option they choose.” It’s unclear how forcing teachers to risk their health by going into a school building five days a week is a choice, but that appears to be Corcoran’s argument.

Trump DHS head stumbles on MSNBC trying to defend president’s planes full of ‘anarchists and looters’ claim

Published September 4, 2020 By Tom Boggioni

Hallie Jackson, Ken Cuccinelli -- MSNBC screenshot

Appearing on MSNBC on Friday morning, acting deputy Department of Homeland Security head Ken Cuccinelli appeared to want nothing to do with defending Donald Trump’s claim that there have been planeloads of anarchists and looters who have been traveling around the country to incite violent street protests.

Appearing on the network to address the shooting of a man accused of killing a Trump supporter in Portland, MSNBC host Hallie Jackson asked Cuccinelli about Trump’s repeated claim that appears to be a conspiracy theory.

“So President Trump, when he was at Joint Base Andrews, talked about — he was talking about the protests and unrest that happened around this country, talked about a plane that was filled up with what he calls looters, anarchists, rioters, people looking for trouble, citing this sort of very specific incident,” Jackson began. “What evidence do you have of that, where did it happen, and when?”

“Well, I don’t, you know, do DOJ’s job, that’s more in their space. when you look at –,” Cuccinelli hesitantly replied.

“Would Homeland Security not be briefed on such an incident?” Jackson cut in.

“That is a very distinct possibility, yes,” he conceded. “But over half the arrests in Kenosha were from outside the area, where Portland they’re all from the Portland area. We’re seeing different situations where people are traveling to participate in some of this violence, and that’s obviously a major concern for us.”

“It does seem there may be a difference from what the president is talking about, the specific plane filled with rioters and people looking for trouble. You say there is a distinct possibility DHS may have been briefed. Are you aware of such a briefing?” Jackson persisted.


“So I think you asked if DOJ would always share that information with us and that is not the case. So, you know, we’re not aware of that specific information” the acting DHS head demurred. “But we’re not — we don’t have legal authority over domestic terrorism, those sorts of activities. So that’s an FBI authority — they’re the ones who investigate those things.”

Watch below:

Actually, Red States Are the Most Violent

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020 BY LIBBY ANNE

I saw a tweet recently that momentarily surprised me:

Top state for gun mortality is Louisiana. Top 10 are all red except I think NM. Illinois is like 25th. City with highest violent crime rate is Anchorage. Only blue city in top 10 is Detroit.
— Lil Semicolon (@PETEKEELEY) August 31, 2020

Top state for gun mortality is Louisiana? Say what now?

If you listen to the national discourse, you’d probably think blue cities like Chicago have the highest murder rates in the country. Because I’m not absent from the media ecosystem, I assumed that was true for a hot moment. Sure, would also tell you in a heartbeat that these large blue cities’ high murder rates were the result of a variety of factors, and that what these cities needed was better investment in jobs, schools, housing, and community programs, not more policing. But still! For a moment there, I forgot that these cities don’t actually have the highest murder rate.

Chicago only has the highest murder rate in the country if you look solely at the most populous cities and exclude all others. And even then, in a list of the 100 most populous cities in the U.S., Chicago is actually 10th on the list, after cities like Memphis, Tennessee, and Cleveland, Ohio. When you widen the net to look at all cities, the list of cities with higher murder rates than Chicago’s grows. Saginaw, Michigan. Jackson, Mississippi. Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

The effect is even bigger when you look at other categories of crime. Which cities have the highest rates of property crime? Middletown, Ohio. Miami Beach, Florida. Springfield, Missouri. Albuquerque, New Mexico. Burglary? Monroe, Louisiana. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Flint, Michigan. Cleveland, Ohio. Car theft? Irvington, New Jersey. Yakima, Washington. Richmond, California. Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A look at the violent crime rate by state certainly doesn’t suggest that blue states are more violent than red states. To the contrary.



Using 2018 data, the most violent states, in order, are Delaware, Louisiana, Missouri, Alaska, Maryland, New Mexico, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. If there is a pattern, it is that most of these states are in the U.S. South. States in New England, in contrast, are all at the bottom of the list.

Here’s another interesting question: which counties are most or least violent? Looking at cities, after all, excludes rural areas. The counties with the highest murder rate between 2009 and 2015 were:


1. ORLEANS PARISH, LOUISIANA (New Orleans)

2. COAHOMA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI, population 16,000

3. PHILLIPS COUNTY, ARKANSAS, population 22,000

4. ST. LOUIS CITY, MISSOURI (TIE) (St. Louis)

4. BALTIMORE CITY, MARYLAND (TIE) (Baltimore)

6. PETERSBURG CITY, VIRGINIA, population 30,000

7. MACON COUNTY, ALABAMA (TIE), population 21,000

7. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (TIE) (Washington, D.C.)

9. WASHINGTON COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI (TIE), population 50,000

9. DALLAS COUNTY, ALABAMA (TIE), population 40,000

Note that while some of these counties are home to large cities, others are far more rural. Note also that all of these counties are in the U.S. South (yes, I did just put St. Louis in the South, but, as a point of order, Missouri was a slave state and its government seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy).

It’s almost like violent crime rates are related to a variety of factors including things like poverty rates and cultural norms about violence and the resolution of conflict. It’s almost like crime should be treated fundamentally as a sociological reality and not as a political football. It’s almost like we live in a country with a fascist government that is more interested in using propaganda to scare people than it is in solving problems.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2020/09/actually-red-states-are-the-most-violent.html

Report: 70 Percent Of New COVID-19 Cases Are Coming From Red States

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020 BY MICHAEL STONE

The Red States Are Winning: 70 percent of new coronavirus cases are coming from red states, according to a new report from The Washington Post.

The Hill reports:
Red states in the U.S. are officially at the forefront of COVID-19 outbreaks, with 70 percent of new cases stemming from the nation’s Republican-led areas.

In recent weeks there’s been a rise in coronavirus cases in red states and counties, places that did not see high case numbers until the summer…


The Washington Post notes:
When the pandemic was at its high, about three-quarters of new cases were in red states. Now, about 7 in 10 new cases are in red states.

The fact that the majority of new coronavirus cases are concentrated in states that voted for President Trump in the 2016 election should not be a surprise. Indeed, as early as last May data began to indicate that coronavirus was spiking in counties that voted for Trump.

Indeed, the fact that Trump has often minimized, deflected, and obfuscated issues concerning the pandemic has only exacerbated and politicized the tragedy. Writing for The Washington Post, Philip Bump opines:

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has been saturated with partisan politics. Simple recommendations like wearing a face mask have been recast as acts of devout patriotism or as mandates for fealty to an insidious federal government. It’s a direct and indirect function of the president: Everything President Trump touches becomes partisan, both intentionally and not, and Trump’s got his hands all over the pandemic.

Anecdotal evidence lends credence to the idea that Trump supporters may be more susceptible to the virus. For example, Landon Spradlin, a Virginia pastor who claimed the “mass hysteria” around the coronavirus pandemic was part of a media plot against Trump, died from the virus.

And Karen Kolb Sehlke, a Trump-loving woman from Texas, is dead from COVID-19 after claiming the virus was a “media driven” hoax.

And the pandemic is expected to only get worse. A new model predicts that there will be more than 410,000 coronavirus deaths in the U.S. by January.

Bottom line: 70 percent of new coronavirus cases are coming from red states, and there is no end in sight to the pandemic.

Report: 70 Percent Of New COVID-19 Cases Are Coming From Red States
RED STATE FAIL

"SHIT-HOLE COUNTRIES"

Scientists can’t explain puzzling lack of coronavirus outbreaks in Africa

By Chris Smith, BGR

September 4, 2020 

People wait in line during a food handout on day 160 of the national lockdown as a result of Covid-19 Coronavirus, in Johannesburg, South Africa. EPA

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY: 


The novel coronavirus has infected more than 26.35 million people, with just four countries accounting for over 15 million cases. They are America, Brazil, India, and Russia — the same four that have been at the top for months. The US surprised the world when it rose to the top spot in multiple COVID-19 statistics, both for the total number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths. Since then, no other country has surpassed America.

But scientists who are studying the pandemic have also identified another surprise of the pandemic. Some expected the African continent to be affected most heavily by the virus, but that wasn’t the case. South Africa stands out when it comes to the number of total cases, with nearly 631,000 infections. But fewer than 15,000 people have died of COVID-19. These figures are puzzling scientists looking to understand how the virus behaves and how it can be beaten.

The hypothesis that poverty should have a significant impact on the spread of the virus doesn’t stand when it comes to the entire African continent. Developing countries like Brazil and India showed that the virus couldn’t be contained once it reached densely populated, but poor, neighborhoods.

Experts expected the same thing to happen in Africa, but it didn’t. If anything, Africa is doing better than any other continent, both when it comes to cases and casualties. As BBC News explains, even if those numbers are significantly underreported, Africa still has it much better than other continents right now.

“I thought we were heading towards a disaster, a complete meltdown,” Professor Shabir Madhi told BBC News. The nation’s top virologist echoed what others must have thought about the African coronavirus outbreak. But South Africa’s death rate is almost seven times lower than in the UK.

Salim Abdool Karim, the head of the country’s COVID-19 response team, told BBC that “most African countries don’t have a peak,” which is surprising. “I don’t understand why. I’m completely at sea,” he added.

He explained that factors like population density would be a critical factor that would favor the rapid spread of the illness inside the African continent. Crowding in poverty-stricken areas makes social distancing all but impossible, and that increases the risk of COVID-19 spreading.

One hypothesis that can explain the disparity between Africa and other continents concerns the overall age of the population. In general, the population of Africa is younger than in regions hardest-hit by COVID-19.

Shacks in the impoverished settlement of Freedom Park are shown on a hill, south of Johannesburg, during South Africa's coronavirus lockdown.

REUTE

Africa now free of wild poliovirus, but disease remains far from gone

Another hypothesis will sound familiar to those who have been following coronavirus developments closely. Some researchers have shown that other human coronaviruses that cause common colds can elicit an immune response that could provide protection against COVID-19. South African researchers went to work on that idea, attempting to analyze five-year-old blood samples that were conserved from a flu vaccine trial in Soweto. The plan was to look for any evidence that would explain why the African continent is faring much better against the illness than others. Those samples were compromised by technical issues that put a stop to the research.

But the idea stands. The same crowded neighborhoods that would lead to the quick spread of other coronaviruses may have protected the population from SARS-CoV-2.

“It’s a hypothesis. Some level of pre-existing cross-protective immunity… might explain why the epidemic didn’t unfold [the way it did in other parts of the world],” Mahdi said. “The protection might be much more intense in highly populated areas, in African settings. It might explain why the majority [on the continent] have asymptomatic or mild infections.”

“I can’t think of anything else that would explain the numbers of completely asymptomatic people we’re seeing. The numbers are completely unbelievable,” he said.

But if that hypothesis is true, why have Brazil and India seen massive COVID-19 surges in the past few months? Karim warned that even considering the evolution of the pandemic on the continent so far, Africa isn’t out of the woods. “I’m not sure whether one day the epidemic is going to spread like crazy here,” he said.

Learners go through the regular morning checks on their arrival at the Melpark Primary School in Johannesburg.

Indus Valley Civilisation was wiped out by climate change

 3,300 years ago as rising temperatures caused less monsoons which were essential for their way of life, study claims

Civilisation needed monsoons to fill a major river with water for farming 

Climate cooled 5,250 years ago and led to a spike in amount of monsoons 

Indus people flourished and expanded, reaching 5 million people at their peak 

But 3,300 years ago the climate did a U-turn which caused a drop in monsoons 

This left Ghaggar–Hakra river system dry and the society crumbled into oblivion

By JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED 4 September 2020

The Indus Valley civilisation was wiped out by climate change, a new study claims.

What caused the demise of the once-great civilisation is a long-standing mystery, but researchers tracking historical monsoon patterns may have found an answer.

It is thought the society, which existed at the same time as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, thrived in a period between two major shifts in monsoon patterns driven by climate change.


Monsoons spiked around 5,250 years ago when the planet cooled, and then a climate U-turn 2,000 years later saw monsoon numbers drop.

The Indus Valley Civilisation lived in a semi-arid region but the storms provided water to the Ghaggar–Hakra river system.

Most indus settlements were located along this river network and relied on it for water, which was essential to their farming practices.

When it dried up, the society crumbled into oblivion.

Scroll down for video

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This diagram shows the amount of Indus Valley settlements throughout its lifespan. By 3,300 years ago, the civilisation was in sharp decline and went extinct shortly afterwards

A mathematical model found that around 5,250 years ago a warm period known as the Holocene Climate Optimum came to an end.

As the weather cooled, the amount of sea ice and glaciers likely increased. This, researcher speculates, would have caused more light from the sun to be reflected back into space and not absorbed.

Monsoons, which are highly dynamic and unpredictable, are known to be sensitive to the level of reflectance.

It would also have dramatically altered the temperature differences between land and sea, which drived monsoon formation.

+3



The largest ever study of ancient human remains has revealed most people in India today are descended from the once vast Indus Valley Civilisation. A woman, buried at Rakhigarhi (blue), the capital of the ancient culture has painted a rich tapestry of the origins of Indian people.Pictured in red, other notable Indus settlements

This shift would have increased the amount of monsoons and, therefore, brought more rain to the dry region of modern-day Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.

'The region where Indus Valley Civilization bloomed is semiarid, bestowed with several glacier-fed rivers, for example, the Indus river and many of its tributaries,' writes Dr Nishant Malik, from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York state, in his study.

'However, most Indus Valley Civilization sites were found along the Ghaggar–Hakra river system—a monsoon-fed river system.

'Hence, the Indus Valley Civilization was critically dependent on monsoon driven rainfall, a highly dynamic phenomenon.'

As the monsoons increased, so did the success of the Indus civilisation, which flourished between 3,300 and 1,300 BC.

All modern-day Indians descended from the Ancient Indus civilisation

The largest ever study of ancient human remains has revealed most people in India today are descended from the once vast Indus Valley Civilisation.

DNA has been analysed, for the first time ever, from a person that lived in this society and found modern Indians are all likely descended from this singular culture.

The woman, buried at Rakhigarhi, the capital of the ancient culture has painted a rich tapestry of the origins of Indian people.

Her DNA also revealed, helped by DNA from 524 other never before-studied ancient individuals, new secrets on the origins of language and farming in the region.

It agreed with previous studies which stated that Indo-European languages — such as Hindi, Bengali, Persian, Russian and English — likely flooded south and central Asia via migrants from the Eurasian Steppe.

Not, as some experts claimed, from farmers migrating out of present-day Turkey.

The other breakthrough comes from the long-standing debate of how farming originated in India.

It found it was not brought by large-scale movement of people from the Fertile Crescent where farming first arose.

Instead, farming started in South Asia through local hunter-gatherers adopting the practice.

At its zenith it is though to have been home to around five million people dotted around the area. It had two main hubs, the cities of Mohenjodaro and Harappa.

'This civilization is known for advanced urban infrastructure and technologies, such as systems for measuring length and mass,' Dr Malik writes.

It was remarkably advanced for its time and had the world's first known sanitation systems.

Bronze Age engineers created a hydraulic system and underground drains carried sewage away from houses. This development did not reach London until the 19th century.

However, its enormous success relied fundamentally on monsoons for water and farming, and another bout of global warming, this time around 3,300 years ago, changed the weather patterns again.

Monsoon formation underwent a dramatic U-turn as a result, reverting back to the less frequent trend which was prevalent two millennia beforehand.

The explanation to this change in fortune, according to Dr Malik's theory, is 'glacier fluctuation', brought about by a phenomenon called orbital forcing, where slight changes in how the Earth orbits the sun influences how much light and heat reaches a specific area.

It is possible this led to a warmer period of time which then made monsoons less frequent.

Around 1,300 BC the civilisation entered a period of decline and went extinct shortly afterwards.

'These data cover the historical period when one of the most extensive bronze age civilizations, the Indus Valley Civilization, matured and declined,' the study says.

'We here showed that this civilization not only matured but also declined due to transitions in the hydroclimate of this region.'

The study used a mathematical model which applied dynamical systems theory to paleoclimate data.

The computer model churned through vast amounts of data to determine any climate patterns and changes over the last 5,700 years.

Climate change is emerging as the most likely explanation for the disappearance of the Indus Valley civilisation, but other theories have also been suggested.

These include the invasion of warmongering nomadic Indo-Aryans who wiped out the peaceful natives, although there is little archaeological evidence to support this.

Another theory, which is supported by archaeological evidence, is that the major trigger for the decline was earthquakes.

The full findings are published in the journal Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION?


The Indus Civilisation, also known as the Harappan Civilisation, was an advanced Bronze Age society.

It developed mainly in the northwestern regions of South Asia from 5,300 to 3,300 years ago.

The Indus cities were at their richest between and 2600 and 1900 BC.

Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Old World.

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The Indus occupied the Indus River Valley area in modern Pakistan and India

The Empire stretched from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

At its peak, the civilisation may have had a population of more than 5 million, making up 10 per cent of the world's population.

Among their settlements, researchers have uncovered the world's first known toilets, along with complex stone weights, drilled gemstone necklaces and exquisitely carved seal stone.

Etched in of these artefacts is an unusual and complex script, which researchers are racing to decipher.

Why the Civilisation disappeared around 3,000 years ago remains a msytery, but experts have suggested war, famine or even climate change could have been responsible.

Read more:
dx.doi.org/10.10...
Indus Valley Civilisation was wiped out by climate change 3,300 years ago

Trump goes nuclear against ICC


Maureen Clare Murphy ELECTRONIC INTIFADA 

 Rights and Accountability 4 September 2020  

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo holds a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on 24 August. Debbie HillUPI

The Trump administration in Washington has placed economic sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and another senior official at the Hague.

The move was announced on Wednesday by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said the US would “not tolerate [the court’s] illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction.”

Pompeo’s announcement came shortly after returning from a trip to Israel, during which he boarded the first direct commercial flight between Tel Aviv and Sudan.

The timing of the sanctions-on the heels of Pompeo's trip to #Israel, w/no new developments in on-hold #Afghanistan situation (note, deferral request followed his trip to Kabul)- suggests as much about #Palestine case as US #torture. Pleasing one ally comes at cost of a continent— Katherine Gallagher (@katherga1) September 3, 2020

The US and Israel face investigations by the court for suspected war crimes in Afghanistan and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, respectively. The ICC’s probes, still in a preliminary stage, represent a challenge to the impunity of both states as well as a test of the credibility of the tribunal, which has so far only tried African nationals.

The US and Israel reject the application of court jurisdiction that could see the indictment of their nationals and have teamed up to thwart the ICC’s scrutiny.

The sanctions announced by Pompeo are by far the most severe measures taken thus far.

The US Treasury now lists prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko, director of the court’s prosecution jurisdiction division, among its “specially designated nationals.”

By doing so, the Trump administration has put the court officials in the company of “terrorists and narcotics traffickers” or individuals and groups working on behalf of countries sanctioned by the US.



I'm off Twitter for a few.
But I'm tweeting today to say I'm horrified.
These sanctions are reserved for those who commit the worst atrocities - torture, crimes against humanity. They shouldn't be placed on those who work to end impunity for those crimes.
Absolutely wrong. https://t.co/ew3aB99kUt- Gissou Nia / گیسو نیا (@GissouNia) September 2, 2020 

Attack on the rule of law

The ICC condemned the “coercive acts” targeting its personnel as an attack on the court and “the rule of law more generally.”

Human Rights Watch accused the Trump administration of attempting to “block justice for the world’s worst crimes.”

The sanctions will “seriously affect” Bensouda and Mochochoko, the New York-based group stated. They will lose access to assets in the US and be “cut off from commercial and financial dealings with ‘US persons,’ including banks and other companies.”

Human Rights Watch added that the sanctions will “also have a chilling effect” on banks and companies outside the US “who fear losing access themselves to the US banking system if they do not help the US to effectively export the sanctions measures.”

Amnesty International said that the move “penalizes not only the ICC, but civil society actors working for justice alongside the court worldwide.”

The sanctions on Bensouda and Mochochoko are extreme and unprecedented but not surprising.

In June, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that threatened to impose such measures against parties that cooperated with the court’s probes into the situation in Afghanistan.

The sweeping order declares that “any attempt by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute” would constitute an “extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US.”

The order includes in its declaration of “a national emergency” any investigation of “personnel of countries that are US allies and who are not parties to the [ICC’s] Rome Statute,” an oblique reference to Israel.

Amnesty International USA warned that the vague and broad language used in Trump’s executive order means that anyone cooperating with the court may find themselves “implicated.”

Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy were among only a handful of members of Congress who spoke out against the sanctions against court officials:

Sanctioning the International Criminal Court shows once again that Trump is on the side of authoritarians around the world. The United States should be working to strengthen international human rights standards, not targeting officials who uphold them. https://t.co/CwO3TrKc1x— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 2, 2020


The Trump Administration’s announcement of sanctions against the ICC prosecutor exposes the fallacy of the White House’s professed commitment to the rule of law, and will further undermine U.S. leadership on international justice. https://t.co/jhU7SjFZU5— Sen. Patrick Leahy (@SenatorLeahy) September 2, 2020

These completely absurd sanctions are nothing more than an attempt to bully and intimidate. Trump continues to undermine U.S. leadership and stand with authoritarians instead of those working to promote and protect human rights.https://t.co/gcGfDofEOG— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) September 2, 2020

Sanctions on International Criminal Court officials are appalling. Yet another example of President Trump and @SecPompeo's failed foreign policy.

The United States should be a world leader on human rights, not punish those who uphold the rule of law.https://t.co/jNxtDDZuQk— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) September 2, 2020

Silence among the Trump administration’s usual critics in Congress is also not surprising. In May, a bipartisan grouping of members of Congress in both houses encouraged Pompeo in his efforts to thwart justice at the court by signing letters authored by the Israel lobby group AIPAC.

The European Union, whose cooperation or lack thereof will determine the success of the Trump administration’s sanctions, said it was “unwavering in its support” of the ICC.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who welcomed the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last month, was more guarded. A spokesperson for Guterres’ office said they would “continue to closely follow developments on this matter.”
African nationals targeted

Others who closely observe developments concerning the court noted that the sanctions target the two African nationals among the five top figures in the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor. The three non-Africans with top-level posts in that office were not designated by the US order.

Writing for the Just Security website, Haley S. Anderson states that the “relatively unknown Mochochoko” may have been designated because he has “allegedly supported the inquiry into potential US wrongdoing in Afghanistan.”

She adds that Mochochoko’s remit of jurisdiction, which the court exercises in Afghanistan, and which a panel of judges is currently considering in the case of Palestine, is the US’s “core objection to the Afghanistan investigation.”

The legal scholar Kevin Jon Heller told Al Jazeera that the US is hardly the first to object to its treatment by the ICC.

“The only real difference is that the US has the power to do this kind of overt action against the court in a way that most African states that feel unfairly targeted don’t,” he said.

He stated that there are diplomatic and court mechanisms that the US could pursue if it “took these allegations of torture by the CIA [in Afghanistan] seriously.”

In the case of both Israel and the US, credible investigations and prosecutions of alleged abuses by its forces would prevent any formal investigation at the ICC.

As a court of last resort, the ICC only exercises jurisdiction “where national legal systems fail to do so.”

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, declined to prosecute the authors and executors of the Bush administration’s torture regimes in Afghanistan and beyond.

The US has chosen instead to “use the dominance of US financial markets,” as Anderson puts it, to undermine the court and consolidate its impunity – and that of Israel.

Maureen Clare Murphy's blog

Trump Targets ‘White Privilege’ Training as ‘Anti-American’   

TRUMP SAYS BLACK LIVES DON'T MATTER

By Associated Press

September 05, 2020 03:37 AM

WASHINGTON -

President Donald Trump has directed the Office of Management and Budget to crack down on federal agencies’ anti-racism training sessions, calling them “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”

OMB director Russell Vought, in a letter Friday to executive branch agencies, directed them to identify spending related to any training on “critical race theory,” “white privilege” or any other material that teaches or suggests that the United States or any race or ethnicity is “inherently racist or evil.”

The memo comes as the nation has faced a reckoning this summer over racial injustice in policing and other spheres of American life. Trump has spent much of the summer defending the display of the Confederate battle flag and monuments of Civil War rebels from protesters seeking their removal, in what he has called a “culture war” ahead of the November 3 election.

Meanwhile, he has rejected comments from Democratic nominee Joe Biden and others that there is “systemic racism” in policing and American culture that must be addressed.

Vought’s memo cites “press reports” as contributing to Trump’s decision, apparently referring to segments on Fox News and other outlets that have stoked conservative outrage about the federal training.

Vought’s memo says additional federal guidance on training sessions is forthcoming, maintaining that “The President, and his Administration, are fully committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals in the United States.”

“The President has a proven track record of standing for those whose voice has long been ignored and who have failed to benefit from all our country has to offer, and he intends to continue to support all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed,” he added. “The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.”

Police Unions Are Showing How They Really Feel About Racism and Brutality by Endorsing Trump

By BEN MATHIS-LILLEY SEPT 04, 2020

New York City Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch speaks at a presidential event at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Aug. 14. Sarah Silbiger/Reuters

When an incident of police brutality against a Black person in the United States is captured on video, the aftermath follows a pattern. Activists, members of the community, and certain writers say that American policing and police discipline are fundamentally flawed. They say that the way drug possession charges and civil-infraction tickets are pursued in low-income neighborhoods constitutes discrimination against people of color. Sometimes they discover evidence of explicit racism on the part of officers who’ve been accused of brutality, which they say is evidence of a rotten system. (The Google search for “police officer posted picture of Obama monkey” returns news stories from multiple states.)

In response, elected officials, police chiefs, and certain other writers say that most police officers are decent people doing a tough job to the best of their ability. They say that while acts of brutality should be condemned and punished, existing mechanisms are an adequate means of doing so. They say that the American system of policing is basically just and effective, not intrinsically discriminatory, and that the country’s police departments are not run by officers who hold personally racist views and are predisposed to violence.

This year’s presidential election makes for an interesting natural experiment to test which group’s viewpoint is correct. One of the candidates, Joe Biden, is critical of officers who perpetrate unjustified shootings and beatings, and supportive of peaceful protests against overpolicing. But he says that “most cops are good, decent people.” He believes that the existing levels of police funding should be maintained. He does not believe that “qualified immunity” laws should be changed to allow for easier prosecution of police brutality. One of his most significant achievements as a senator was the 1994 crime bill, which provided federal funding for hiring new officers. He served in a presidential administration that, by the standards of presidential administrations, was exceptionally clean and law-abiding.

The other candidate, Donald Trump, has a history of making racist comments about nonwhite people. (A new one was uncovered in a book published last month.) A number of those comments indicate a belief that predominately Black and Latino countries and communities are intrinsically undesirable places to live. He was accused—by the Nixon administration!—of systematically discriminating against Black tenants as a landlord. As a private citizen he fraternized with Mafia figures, worked closely with a convicted drug trafficker and a convicted racketeer, and sold apartments to an impressive number of organized crime leaders. He’s made supportive comments about a white supremacist rally, hired white nationalists in his administration, and defended a white member of a “militia” who recently shot three protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two. Two of the most notable chapters of his pre-presidential public life involved him making false accusations against Black people. He’s encouraged police officers to smash suspects’ heads against the sides of their cars, which is illegal. A number of his political advisers and associates have been convicted of crimes. A majority of voters believes that he, himself, has committed crimes in the past.

Which side are the police on? Do they favor the candidate who believes law enforcement basically means well, as long as it keeps working to “root out the bad apples” in police departments? Or the candidate with a record of supporting criminal behavior, extrajudicial violence, and racism—and of celebrating the bad apples?

The country’s largest municipal police union (the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York) picked the latter candidate; its leader, Patrick Lynch, spoke at the Republican convention. On Friday, the largest national police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, announced that it was endorsing Trump on behalf of its 355,000 members as well.

The police say that they want members of minority communities to believe the officers patrolling their neighborhoods are motivated by the principle of upholding the law and that they do not, as a general rule, hold or condone racist beliefs. Those officers also keep choosing to endorse Donald Trump.

In his convention remarks, which were broadcast on a night during which Trump gave a campaign speech on the lawn of the White House, which is illegal, Lynch said that he and other officers “cannot afford” to have someone like Biden in office. What does it say about American policing if that’s actually true?