IMPERIALIST EXPROPRIATION 

Putin orders seizure of Exxon-led Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project

Japan's SODECO owns a 50% stake in the firm

By Sabrina Valle - Friday

FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows the Yastreb land rig at Sakhalin-1's Chaivo field, some 1,000 km north of Yuzhno Sakhalinsk,© Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

MOSCOW/HOUSTON (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Friday that establishes a new operator for the Exxon Mobil Corp-led Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in Russia's Far East.

Putin's move affecting Exxon's largest investment in Russia mimics a strategy he used to seize control of other energy properties in the country.

The decree gives the Russian government authority to decide whether foreign shareholders can retain stakes in the project.

Exxon holds a 30% operator stake in Sakhalin-1, with Russian company Rosneft, India's ONGC Videsh and Japan's SODECO as partners.

Oil production at the Sakhalin-1 project fell to just 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July from 220,000 bpd before Russia invaded Ukraine.

NAVIGATING AN EXIT

Exxon has been trying to exit its Russia operations and transfer its role in Sakhalin-1 to a partner since March, after international sanctions imposed on Moscow.

Russia's government and Exxon have clashed, with the oil producer threatening to take the case to international arbitration.

Exxon declined to comment on Friday's decree.

Japan's SODECO was not immediately available to comment, but an official of the industry ministry, which owns a 50% stake in the firm, said it was gathering information and talking with partners. Japan has stopped buying crude from Russia since June.

Exxon took an impairment charge of $4.6 billion in April for its Russian activities and said it was working with partners to transfer Sakhalin-1's operation. It also reduced energy production and moved staff out of the country.

In August, Putin issued a decree that Exxon said made a secure and environmentally safe exit from Sakhalin-1 difficult. The U.S. producer then issued a "note of difference," a legal step prior to arbitration.

Friday's decree said the Russian government was establishing a Russian company, managed by Rosneft subsidiary Sakhalinmorneftegaz-shelf, that will own investors' rights in Sakhalin-1.

Foreign partners will have one month after the new company is created to ask the Russian government for shares in the new entity, the decree said.

Putin used a similar strategy in a July decree to seize full control of Sakhalin-2, another gas and oil project in the Russian Far East, with Shell and Japanese companies Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corp as partners.

Russia has approved applications by the two Japanese trading houses seeking to transfer their stakes to a new operator.

(Reporting by Reuters; Additional reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto, Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo, Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Clarence Fernandez)

ITS THE WEEKEND;ZIONISTS GO HUNTING

Deadly clashes in West Bank, shooting attack in Jerusalem

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teens on Saturday in clashes in the occupied West Bank

Reuters
Ali Sawafta
Publishing date: Oct 08, 2022 • 

JENIN — Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teens on Saturday in clashes in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said, and a Palestinian gunman fatally shot an Israeli soldier in Jerusalem, Israeli officials said.

Police said the shooter had opened fire at Israeli security forces at a checkpoint at the entrance to Palestinian refugee camp Shuafat on Jerusalem’s outskirts near the West Bank.

A female soldier was killed, the Israeli military said, and a security guard was badly wounded, police said, while forces were hunting for the assailant.

Earlier, the Israeli military said security forces on an operation to arrest a gunman from the Islamic Jihad militant group in the West Bank city of Jenin returned fire at Palestinians who shot and threw explosives at them.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinians, aged 16 and 18, were killed and 11 were wounded. Palestinian President Mhamoud Abbas condemned the killings.

The latest in near-daily incursions into Jenin, a militant stronghold, underlined the volatile security climate in the West Bank as Israel heads towards elections on Nov. 1.

Israel launched its Operation Breakwater against militants on March 31 in response to a string of fatal Palestinian street attacks in Israel.

The surge in violence in the West Bank, where the Palestinian have limited self-rule, has been one of the worst in years with around 80 Palestinians killed, including militants and civilians.

U.N. Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was alarmed by the violence and called for calm.

U.S.-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of revival.

Israeli security officials have called on Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) to do more to rein in violence.

The PA, increasingly unpopular in the West Bank, says its ability to exert its rule has been systematically undermined by Israel’s incursions.

Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said in a statement that Israel’s government was “delusional” in thinking such actions would promote peace and stability. 

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem Editing by Ros Russell, Mark Potter, Nick Macfie and Cynthia Osterman)

WHEW, THAT WAS CLOSE
Italy Adopts New LGBT Strategy Just Before Right-Wing Takeover

By Reuters
Oct. 7, 2022

Elena Bonetti arrives at Quirinale Presidential Palace, before being sworn in as Italy's equal opportunities and families minister, in Rome, Italy September 5, 2019.
REUTERS/Ciro de Luca/File





Italy's outgoing government has set a three-year strategy to fight anti-LGBTQ discrimination amid fears of a roll-back of rights under the upcoming right-wing rule.

Members of the LGBTQ community have feared a crackdown on their rights under a far-right leader

The outgoing Italian government has adopted a new strategy to fight discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people (LGBTQ), Equal Opportunities Minister Elena Bonetti said in remarks published Friday.

The move comes before a new government, led by far-right leader Giorgia Meloni's post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, takes over power.

Although Meloni had ruled out rolling back LGBTQ rights, she previously spoke out against what she called LGBTQ "lobbies," and her party repeatedly condemned same-sex parenting and gender fluidness.

Those remarks have sparked fears that the LGBTQ community could face threats and hatred, even if their legal rights remained in place.
What is Italy's new LGBTQ plan?

Speaking with the Reuters news agency, Bonetti said the strategy was not "controversial."

"We weren't very ideological, we were very concrete," she said.

The new plan is also in line with the "European strategy" on LGBTQ rights and anti-discrimination laws, she told broadcaster Rai 3.

The 2022-2025 plan proposes providing awareness courses for teachers, doctors, police and corrections officers on LGBTQ rights.

The 30-page document recommends adding specific anti-LGBTQ discrimination clauses in national labor agreements.

"The strategy makes rights concrete with a series of actions against violence and marginalization," Bonetti told the Italian daily la Republica in an interview published Thursday, adding that she hoped the new government would implement it.
How did Brothers of Italy react?

The party's spokesperson for equal opportunities, Isabella Rauti, condemned the move, saying it was wrong for an outgoing, caretaker government to commit its successor to a multi-year plan.

Brothers of Italy politician Eugenia Roccella told la Republica the move is "not only incorrect, but also senseless."

"The government has had two years to do so now... it's just a publicity stunt," she added.

Separately on Friday, Meloni slammed French European Affairs Minister Laurence Boone for commenting that Paris would "pay close attention to the respect for values and the rule of law" under the new government in Rome.

Boone's comments seemed to be "an unacceptable threat of interference against a sovereign member state of the European Union," Meloni said.

"I trust that the French government will immediately deny the words," she added.

fb/sms (Reuters, AFP)

ULTIMATE MANSPLAINING
GOP Senate Nominee: Abortion Decisions 'Belong' to GOP ‘Gentlemen’ State Reps

Jennifer Bendery - Yesterday 

New Hampshire GOP Senate nominee Don Bolduc told supporters this week that he thinks the future of abortion rights “belongs” to Republican “gentlemen” state lawmakers, who he claims know best how to give women a voice on their reproductive rights.

During a Wednesday night town hall in Auburn, New Hampshire, Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general, weighed in on whether he thinks abortion rights should be decided at the state level or the federal level.

“It belongs to the state. It belongs to these gentlemen right here, who are state legislators representing you,” Bolduc said, motioning to at least two Republican state representatives in the room, Jason Osborne and Jess Edwards.

Edwards, for one, voted against sidelining a bill in March that would have banned abortion upon the detection of a so-called fetal “heartbeat,” a misleading reference to cardiac activity in an embryo. That means the bill would have banned abortion after about five weeks, a point at which many people don’t even know that they are pregnant.

Here’s a shot of Bolduc’s campaign event, with Edwards seated nearby (HuffPost circled him with a yellow line). Bolduc tweeted out this image after the event.



New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc talks about abortion rights at a campaign event. (Photo: Don Bolduc's Twitter account)© Provided by HuffPost

Bolduc went on to say that “as a man,” he thinks that women “get the best voice” on their reproductive rights when state legislators decide how to regulate them.

“That is the best way, I think, as a man, that women get the best voice: at the state level, not at the federal level,” he said.

Bolduc said his opponent, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, simply doesn’t understand that the best way to regulate women’s access to abortion care is on a state-by-state basis.

“She needs to get on board with the Supreme Court decision” to end Roe v. Wade, he said.

Here’s an audio clip of Bolduc’s remarks on abortion rights.

Bolduc campaign spokesperson Kate Constantini did not respond to a request for comment on why Bolduc thinks abortion rights are best decided by Republican “gentlemen” state legislators, or why he thinks they know best how to give women “a voice” on abortion matters.

Instead, Constantini accused Hassan of lying about Bolduc’s record.

“Senator Hassan shamelessly continues to lie about General Bolduc’s position, trying to scare voters and distract from her abysmal record,” she said. “The general opposes a federal ban on abortion and believes this decision should be in the hands of the states. Senator Hassan needs to end the lies and face the fact that she can no longer hide behind her deceit.”

Sydney Petersen, a spokesperson for Hassan’s campaign, said it’s clear that Bolduc thinks politicians know better than women what’s good for them.

“Every chance he gets, Bolduc reinforces that he believes politicians ― and more specifically Republican men ― should control a woman’s most personal decision about her future,” said Petersen. “His most recent comment further underscores that if elected, he would dismiss half the population and it’s clear that he would be a yes vote for a nationwide abortion ban.”

Hassan has been leading in the polls against Bolduc for months. She has widened her lead to nearly 8 points in the weeks since Bolduc became the official GOP nominee.

A recent Axios story suggested that internally, though, her campaign manager is sounding the alarms that polling may be inaccurate and Hassan may be in more trouble than it looks.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

LACONIA, NH - SEPTEMBER 10: Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc greets supporters at a town hall event on September 10, 2022 in Laconia, New Hampshire. Bolduc is running against Bruce Fenton and Chuck Morse in the in the upcoming GOP primary. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)© Provided by HuffPost

GEMOLOGY COMMODITY FETISH

This brilliant pink diamond sold for about $60 million

In this undated photo released by Sotheby's, The Williamson Pink Star is seen. The pink diamond was auctioned off at $49.9 million in Hong Kong on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, setting a world record for the highest price per carat for a diamond sold at auction. - Sotheby's/AP

Zoe Sottile - 

A stunning pink diamond has sold for nearly $60 million, more than twice the expected price.

The massive rock sold for 453.2 million Hong Kong dollars, or around $58 million, on Friday, according to auction house Sotheby’s. The stone was expected to sell for around $21 million.

The 11.15 carat pink diamond, referred to as the “Williamson Pink Star,” is one of the purest, pinkest diamonds ever to come to auction, according to a news release from Sotheby’s.

“The discovery of a gem-quality pink diamond of any size is an extremely rare occurrence – something that, with the recent closure of the Argyle mine, seemed until recently – highly improbable,” said Wenhao Yu, chairman of Jewellery and Watches at Sotheby’s Asia, in the release. “Driven by a limited supply and rising demand, prices for top-quality large pink diamonds over 5 carats have increased exponentially over the past decade, serendipitously setting the scene for the appearance now of this one-of-a-kind stone.”

The pastel-hued diamond was named in honor of two other pink diamonds, the CTF Pink Star, which sold for $71.2 million in 2017, and the “Williamson” diamond, a pink diamond gifted to Queen Elizabeth II.

The Williamson Pink Star was cushion-cut from a 32-carat rough diamond mined at the Williamson Mine in Tanzania, says Sotheby’s.

The stone is unique for both its size and its color. Pink diamonds are some of the rarest variants, according to Sotheby’s, and this rock is a particular standout because of its purity and clarity.

Hong Kong was the diamond’s last stop after traveling on a tour that included Dubai, Singapore, and Taipei.

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GEOLOGY PALEONTOLOGY

Fossils aplenty in B.C. town; digging for them encouraged

Doyle Potenteau - 

Looking for a quick getaway that’s close and offers something unique?


Fossils of leaves found near Princeton, B.C.© Submitted

The Town of Princeton in B.C.’s Southern Interior is rich with fossils, and digging for them is encouraged.

The mayor of Princeton, Spencer Coyne, said the town has a huge fossil history, and that it dates back to the late 1800s.

Read more:
Alberta man discovers prehistoric mammoth tusk in yard on Saddle Lake Cree Nation

“We’ve had a couple of really unique finds here,” said Coyne, adding locals have been digging for fossils as long as he can remember. “We have two species now that are only found in Princeton.”

“We’re talking about insects, plants and, if you’re really, really lucky, you’re going to find a fish,” the mayor continued. “You need to look for a shale outcropping. That’s kind of the key, looking for shale.

“You look between the layers of shale and you’ll find fossils.”

Kathy Simpkins, a volunteer at the Princeton and District Museum, said several papers have been written about the types of plant, fish and insect fossils found in and around Princeton.

The fossils range from around 50 million years ago, with Simpkins noting some are now extinct, while others have relatives living elsewhere in the world, but no longer in B.C.

“They’re Eocene fossils, so after the age of dinosaurs, but not long after,” said Simpkins. “The rock around here is 50 to 51 million years old, and the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.”

A satellite rendition can be viewed online of what the Earth looked like 50 million years ago.

At the time, Simpkins says the ocean was slightly closer to B.C., and the Cascade Mountain range had yet to form, resulting in a warmer climate despite being at a higher elevation.

“It gave this interesting mix of birch and pine along with sassafras trees and palm-like trees,” said Simpkins. “It’s not the usual forest you’d see here today.”

If unearthing fossils is for you, the first stop is Princeton’s museum, where examples of what can be found are on display.

“You can get it in your mind’s eye of what the rock will look like, the colours and the shape, whether it’s blocky or rounded. That’s really helpful for finding fossils.”

Prehistoric shark tooth fossil discovered by boy in his Alberta yard

View on Watch  Duration 1:52

Simpkins says easy places to find fossils include gravel bars and sandbars along the Tulameen or Similkameen rivers, as long as it’s safe to do so.


“There’s lots of cobbles of petrified wood, and sometimes cobbles you can break open and find (fossils of) leaves, twig impressions and sometimes even an insect.”

Other places include banded stretches of rock near roads and highways, where sometimes rocks containing fossils tumble into ditches. Again, pending the location, safety is a priority as traffic can be nearby.

Asked what type of tools hopeful explorers should bring, Simpkins said an old butter knife can sometimes work wonders.

“Just that flat edge,” said Simpkins. “It’s flat enough to help split those layered rocks. Some people use a wide, flathead screwdriver. Sometimes people get excited and want to use a rock hammer and an actual cold chisel.”

Video: Meet Dave: Unique ancient shark skeleton on display at Manitoba fossil museum

Eye protection is also highly suggested, with Simpkins noting “sometimes you can get by without any heavy equipment at all. Sometimes they’re just laying there, waiting for you to flip the rock over and have a peek.”

The Princeton and District Museum is located in the downtown core, and is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., every day during summer. And in it are fossils aplenty.

“People will come in and wonder if they have a fossil after finding something,” said Simpkins. “We try to help them out as best we can.”

“It’s a fun thing to do, looking for fossils,” she added. “If you have something interesting, or unusual or weird, bring it to your local museum, whether it’s Princeton or another place in B.C., and try to get it identified.

“Sometimes it does turn out to be a new species and you can get your name written up in a science paper, and it’s kind of cool.”

Video: Fossil species named in honour of Manitoba paleontologist

Coyne says searchers have to be cognizant of private or protected property, but that there are a number of areas to dig for fossils along Highway 5A and around the community. He says the best deposits can be found alongside roads.

“They’re just about everywhere,” said Coyne. “Find a piece of shale, break it in half and you might just be lucky.

“If you’re into rock-hounding and looking for fossils, Princeton is one of the best places to be.”

Video: Perfectly-preserved dinosaur embryo found inside fossilized egg in China

It's 'entirely illegal' for China to open police stations here, says Ottawa
Tristin Hopper - Friday

Aileen Calverley with Hong Kong Watch testifies before a House of Commons committee regarding reports that the People's Republic of China has opened three police stations around Toronto

.© Provided by National Post

Federal officials confirmed this week that it would be “entirely illegal” for Beijing to open police stations on Canadian soil, but that it would nevertheless fit within a pattern of growing Chinese interference in Canadian affairs.

“The activity that’s being alleged (the police stations) would be entirely illegal, totally inappropriate and would be the subject of very serious representations,” Weldon Epp, a China lead with Global Affairs Canada, told a Tuesday meeting of the House of Commons committee on relations between Canada and the People’s Republic of China.

The hearing was dominated by recent reports that Chinese law enforcement had opened three “service stations” in the Greater Toronto Area.

Last month, a report by the human rights group Safeguard Defenders detailed the existence of more than 50 “service stations” operated around the world by Chinese security services.

Three of them were in Canada, in Toronto neighbourhoods heavily populated by Chinese-Canadians.

The three addresses, provided to the National Post by Safeguard Defenders, show a private home in Markham, a convenience store in Scarborough and an address also listed as the headquarters of the Canada Toronto Fuqing Business Association.

The official word from China is that the stations are merely places for expats to conveniently renew IDs or drivers’ licences.

When one such station was discovered in Dublin, Ireland, the Chinese embassy’s official explanation to The Irish Times was “the pandemic made international travels not easy and quite a few Chinese nationals found their Chinese ID cards and/or driver licences expired or about to expire, and yet they could not get the ID renewed back in China in time.”

But according to Safeguard Defenders, the stations are clandestine hubs in the Chinese program of “involuntary return” — a system by which China compels its expats to return home for punishment in instances where they’re deemed to have violated Chinese law while abroad.

In just the last year, China itself has boasted that 230,000 of their nationals have been “persuaded to return” on various charges.

Epp told the committee that Canada has not filed a diplomatic complaint with Beijing over the stations pending the results of an RCMP investigation to confirm the allegations within the Safeguard Defenders report.

But he did tell the committee that there is “growing evidence of foreign interference” in Canada by China.

“Evidence suggests that the largest source of foreign interference in Canada by state actors is coming from (People’s Republic of China) sources,” said Epp, citing the latest report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

He also said that the previous two years have brought a distinctive chill to his usual contacts with People’s Republic of China critics or dissident groups based in Canada.

“It’s really only in the last couple of years that the balance of conversation has shifted to them talking about how intimidated they feel within Canada, and the growing risk they feel for raising concerns, even within Canada,” he said.

Questions regarding the alleged police stations dominated the two-hour hearing, with Conservative, Liberal and NDP representatives all pressing Global Affairs on what risk the stations may pose to Chinese-Canadian constituents.

“I don’t think any of us are, to be honest, surprised,” said Heather McPherson, the NDP’s Foreign Affairs Critic. “We’ve heard for a long time about people intimidated and threatened in this country.”

The hearing also heard from Aileen Calverley, head of the group Hong Kong Watch, who dismissed the notion of the locations as “service stations,” since Chinese expats could just as easily seek such services at a consulate or embassy.

“ With the police stations, they can intimidate people like us,” she said. “I’ve been living in Canada for many decades, now I feel frightened .”

It’s not unprecedented that Canada would have the occasional foreign police officer posted within our borders. The New York City Police Department, for one, has operated an intelligence post in Toronto ever since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But these postings are all done with Canada’s official sanction and often under the auspices of bilateral treaties, neither of which apply in the case of the Chinese “service stations.”

“There is space for legitimate police liaison state to state, but the allegations reported in the press would fall well outside of that,” said Epp.

The committee also touched on increasingly aggressive Chinese behaviour with regards to Taiwan, including several recent incidents in which Chinese warplanes buzzed Royal Canadian Navy vessels transiting the Taiwan strait.

Paul Thoppil, the assistant deputy minister for Global Affairs, chalked it up to Beijing’s embrace of “the view that international rules and norms don’t apply to ‘great’ powers in their spheres of influence.”

Why Beijing is allegedly opening police stations on Canadian soil

Canadian distrust of China hits a new low

Canada to allow international students to work more hours due to labour shortage


OTTAWA — Canada will temporarily allow international students to work more than 20 hours a week, in a bid to address ongoing labour shortages.


Canada to allow international students to work more hours due to labour shortage© Provided by The Canadian Press

Speaking at a coffee shop in Ottawa Friday morning, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said the changes will start on Nov. 15 and be in effect until the end of 2023.

"This change is going to help sustain Canada's post-pandemic growth," Fraser said. "It's also going to give many post-secondary students a greater opportunity to support themselves."

The labour market remains exceptionally tight, with nearly one million job vacancies reported in the second quarter of 2022.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations welcomed the announcement, saying it was a step toward improving international students' educational experience.

“Allowing international students to work more off-campus hours will help students afford their education and increase educational experiences," said Christian Fotang, the alliance's chair.

"This is not only a win for international students, but also for Canada.”

Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo, said it's understandable that students would be supportive of the change, but warned it comes with trade-offs.

Skuterud said international students are often filling low-skilled jobs and the new policy will incentivize more employment in low-paying parts of the economy.

"The whole framing of the issue around labour shortage is problematic. Why are labour shortages a problem?" Skuterud said.

Shortages incentivize competition among employers, he added, which drives up wages and improves working conditions.

If Canada wants to help international students cope with expenses, then it should take a look at the exorbitant tuition fees they pay, Skuterud said.

Fraser also announced a pilot program to help automate the application process for students to extend their study permits.

That will allow for some applications to be automatically approved, but the new process will not automatically reject claims.

Fraser said the pilot is aimed at reducing immigration backlogs and freeing up officers to work on more complex applications.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2022.

Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

Planned condo development on Juno Beach site cancelled after government deal

Yesterday 

OTTAWA — A proposed condominium development on Juno Beach in France has been cancelled after public outcry and a three-year legal fight.


Planned condo development on Juno Beach site cancelled after government deal

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Canadian and French governments are helping the town of Courseulles-sur-Mer buy a parcel of land where a developer planned to build a 70-unit building.

Veterans Affairs Canada says the construction "posed a threat to both the integrity of Juno Beach itself, and Juno Beach Centre operations."

Developers planned to use a private road next to the centre for nearly two years during construction, which the centre says would cause "chaos" and safety concerns for visitors.

Federal and local governments are also negotiating a 99-year lease to protect a parcel of land where Canadian soldiers landed on D-Day in June 1944, including a portion of Juno Park where visitors to the centre tour old bunkers.

The plans sparked a campaign called Save Juno Beach, which encouraged people to write letters to members of Parliament and French officials calling for a halt to the development plans.

"Canadians make a promise every Remembrance Day to never forget the sacrifices made for future generations. And this year, we forced our government to step up and protect the legacy and reputation of our country as an ally and force for good in a war-torn world," the group's founder, Cindy Clegg, said in a statement.

The Juno Beach Centre, a privately run museum that was built in 2003, has run into financial difficulty due to the pandemic and a legal fight with the building's developer.

"The settlement will ensure that the Juno Beach Centre and the Canadian memorial presence in Normandy are preserved for generations to come," the centre said in a statement Friday.

Veterans Affairs agreed in January to provide up to $500,000 over the next two years to cover some of the Juno Beach Centre's expenses and help it weather the pandemic, on top of the $500,000 Ottawa gives the museum each year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2022.

The Canadian Press

U.S. reports highly lethal bird flu in Arkansas chickens

Publishing date: Oct 07, 2022 • 

CHICAGO — A highly lethal form of avian flu infected a commercial flock of breeding chickens in Arkansas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday, widening an outbreak of the disease in the key southern producing region.

Nationwide, more than 47 million birds have been killed by avian flu or culled to control its spread this year in the nation’s worst outbreak since a record 50 million birds were wiped out in 2015.

Top states for raising broiler chickens for meat, such as Georgia and Alabama, had largely escaped infections in commercial flocks before the case in Arkansas.

Arkansas produced more than 1 billion broiler chickens last year, making it the third biggest producing state, U.S. government data show.

The disease hit a commercial broiler breeder chicken flock in Madison County, Arkansas, in the northwest corner of the state, the USDA said. State officials quarantined the premises, and birds there will be culled, the agency said.

Europe has experienced its worst bird flu crisis ever this year, with nearly 50 million poultry culled. The persistence of the virus over the summer has raised the risk of widespread infections next season, the EU’s Food Safety Agency said. (Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by David Gregorio)