Bird Flu Is Bad for Poultry and Dairy Cows. It’s Not a Dire Threat for Most of Us — Yet.

2024/05/03

Headlines are flying after the Department of Agriculture confirmed that the H5N1 bird flu virus has infected dairy cows around the country. Tests have detected the virus among cattle in nine states, mainly in Texas and New Mexico, and most recently in Colorado, said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a May 1 event held by the Council on Foreign Relations.

A menagerie of other animals have been infected by H5N1, and at least one person in Texas. But what scientists fear most is if the virus were to spread efficiently from person to person. That hasn’t happened and might not. Shah said the CDC considers the H5N1 outbreak “a low risk to the general public at this time.”

Viruses evolve and outbreaks can shift quickly. “As with any major outbreak, this is moving at the speed of a bullet train,” Shah said. “What we’ll be talking about is a snapshot of that fast-moving train.” What he means is that what’s known about the H5N1 bird flu today will undoubtedly change.

With that in mind, KFF Health News explains what you need to know now.

Q: Who gets the bird flu?

Mainly birds. Over the past few years, however, the H5N1 bird flu virus has increasingly jumped from birds into mammals around the world. The growing list of more than 50 species includes seals, goats, skunks, cats, and wild bush dogs at a zoo in the United Kingdom. At least 24,000 sea lions died in outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu in South America last year.

What makes the current outbreak in cattle unusual is that it’s spreading rapidly from cow to cow, whereas the other cases — except for the sea lion infections — appear limited. Researchers know this because genetic sequences of the H5N1 viruses drawn from cattle this year were nearly identical to one another.

The cattle outbreak is also concerning because the country has been caught off guard. Researchers examining the virus’s genomes suggest it originally spilled over from birds into cows late last year in Texas, and has since spread among many more cows than have been tested. “Our analyses show this has been circulating in cows for four months or so, under our noses,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Q: Is this the start of the next pandemic?

Not yet. But it’s a thought worth considering because a bird flu pandemic would be a nightmare. More than half of people infected by older strains of H5N1 bird flu viruses from 2003 to 2016 died. Even if death rates turn out to be less severe for the H5N1 strain currently circulating in cattle, repercussions could involve loads of sick people and hospitals too overwhelmed to handle other medical emergencies.

Although at least one person has been infected with H5N1 this year, the virus can’t lead to a pandemic in its current state. To achieve that horrible status, a pathogen needs to sicken many people on multiple continents. And to do that, the H5N1 virus would need to infect a ton of people. That won’t happen through occasional spillovers of the virus from farm animals into people. Rather, the virus must acquire mutations for it to spread from person to person, like the seasonal flu, as a respiratory infection transmitted largely through the air as people cough, sneeze, and breathe. As we learned in the depths of covid-19, airborne viruses are hard to stop.

That hasn’t happened yet. However, H5N1 viruses now have plenty of chances to evolve as they replicate within thousands of cows. Like all viruses, they mutate as they replicate, and mutations that improve the virus’s survival are passed to the next generation. And because cows are mammals, the viruses could be getting better at thriving within cells that are closer to ours than birds’.

The evolution of a pandemic-ready bird flu virus could be aided by a sort of superpower possessed by many viruses. Namely, they sometimes swap their genes with other strains in a process called reassortment. In a study published in 2009, Worobey and other researchers traced the origin of the H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic to events in which different viruses causing the swine flu, bird flu, and human flu mixed and matched their genes within pigs that they were simultaneously infecting. Pigs need not be involved this time around, Worobey warned.

Q: Will a pandemic start if a person drinks virus-contaminated milk?

Not yet. Cow’s milk, as well as powdered milk and infant formula, sold in stores is considered safe because the law requires all milk sold commercially to be pasteurized. That process of heating milk at high temperatures kills bacteria, viruses, and other teeny organisms. Tests have identified fragments of H5N1 viruses in milk from grocery stores but confirm that the virus bits are dead and, therefore, harmless.

Unpasteurized “raw” milk, however, has been shown to contain living H5N1 viruses, which is why the FDA and other health authorities strongly advise people not to drink it. Doing so could cause a person to become seriously ill or worse. But even then, a pandemic is unlikely to be sparked because the virus — in its current form — does not spread efficiently from person to person, as the seasonal flu does.

Q: What should be done?

A lot! Because of a lack of surveillance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies have allowed the H5N1 bird flu to spread under the radar in cattle. To get a handle on the situation, the USDA recently ordered all lactating dairy cattle to be tested before farmers move them to other states, and the outcomes of the tests to be reported.

But just as restricting covid tests to international travelers in early 2020 allowed the coronavirus to spread undetected, testing only cows that move across state lines would miss plenty of cases.

Such limited testing won’t reveal how the virus is spreading among cattle — information desperately needed so farmers can stop it. A leading hypothesis is that viruses are being transferred from one cow to the next through the machines used to milk them.

To boost testing, Fred Gingrich, executive director of a nonprofit organization for farm veterinarians, the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, said the government should offer funds to cattle farmers who report cases so that they have an incentive to test. Barring that, he said, reporting just adds reputational damage atop financial loss.

“These outbreaks have a significant economic impact,” Gingrich said. “Farmers lose about 20% of their milk production in an outbreak because animals quit eating, produce less milk, and some of that milk is abnormal and then can’t be sold.”

The government has made the H5N1 tests free for farmers, Gingrich added, but they haven’t budgeted money for veterinarians who must sample the cows, transport samples, and file paperwork. “Tests are the least expensive part,” he said.

If testing on farms remains elusive, evolutionary virologists can still learn a lot by analyzing genomic sequences from H5N1 viruses sampled from cattle. The differences between sequences tell a story about where and when the current outbreak began, the path it travels, and whether the viruses are acquiring mutations that pose a threat to people. Yet this vital research has been hampered by the USDA’s slow and incomplete posting of genetic data, Worobey said.

The government should also help poultry farmers prevent H5N1 outbreaks since those kill many birds and pose a constant threat of spillover, said Maurice Pitesky, an avian disease specialist at the University of California-Davis.

Waterfowl like ducks and geese are the usual sources of outbreaks on poultry farms, and researchers can detect their proximity using remote sensing and other technologies. By zeroing in on zones of potential spillover, farmers can target their attention. That can mean routine surveillance to detect early signs of infections in poultry, using water cannons to shoo away migrating flocks, relocating farm animals, or temporarily ushering them into barns. “We should be spending on prevention,” Pitesky said.

Q: OK it’s not a pandemic, but what could happen to people who get this year’s H5N1 bird flu?

No one really knows. Only one person in Texas has been diagnosed with the disease this year, in April. This person worked closely with dairy cows, and had a mild case with an eye infection. The CDC found out about them because of its surveillance process. Clinics are supposed to alert state health departments when they diagnose farmworkers with the flu, using tests that detect influenza viruses, broadly. State health departments then confirm the test, and if it’s positive, they send a person’s sample to a CDC laboratory, where it is checked for the H5N1 virus, specifically. “Thus far we have received 23,” Shah said. “All but one of those was negative.”

State health department officials are also monitoring around 150 people, he said, who have spent time around cattle. They’re checking in with these farmworkers via phone calls, text messages, or in-person visits to see if they develop symptoms. And if that happens, they’ll be tested.

Another way to assess farmworkers would be to check their blood for antibodies against the H5N1 bird flu virus; a positive result would indicate they might have been unknowingly infected. But Shah said health officials are not yet doing this work.

“The fact that we’re four months in and haven’t done this isn’t a good sign,” Worobey said. “I’m not super worried about a pandemic at the moment, but we should start acting like we don’t want it to happen.”

© Kaiser Health News

Noem in political freefall as book inaccuracies emerge following dog killing backlash

Seth Tupper, South Dakota Searchlight
May 4, 2024 

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 27, 2022 in Houston, Texas.(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem was in political freefall Friday as embarrassing revelations continued to emerge from the scrutiny of advance copies of her memoir, which doesn’t officially publish until Tuesday.

Noem was already reeling from near-universal backlash against her disclosure in the book that she shot and killed a dog named Cricket and a billy goat years ago — the dog for its failures on a hunting excursion and its attacks on a neighbor’s chickens, and the goat for chasing after Noem’s children and smelling bad.

Thursday and Friday, news emerged from outlets including Politico and The Dakota Scout of inaccuracies in Noem’s book, the title of which — “No Going Back” — is now ripe with irony. The most glaring inaccuracy is Noem’s recounting of a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un during her time in Congress — a meeting that never happened.

“I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un,” Noem wrote. “I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”

The Dakota Scout published a story Thursday casting doubt on the meeting. Noem’s spokesman, Ian Fury, eventually said the anecdote was one of “two small errors” in the book that were the fault of others.

“This has been communicated to the ghostwriter and editor,” Fury said, according to the Scout. “Kim Jong Un was included in a list of world leaders and shouldn’t have been.”

Yet there seems to be no way Noem could’ve been unaware of the errors. She’s been promoting the book for weeks, there is no other writer credited in the book besides her, and she’s already voiced an audio version of the book.

The Scout also questioned Noem’s anecdote in the book about canceling a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron over Noem’s dislike of his comments about the Israeli-Hamas war. The French president’s office released a statement that Macron had never extended a “direct invitation” to Noem for a meeting, the Scout reported, but the office left open the possibility that the two could have been scheduled to attend the same event.

Politico reported on a story Noem related in the book about a 2021 conversation with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Noem wrote that Haley, who would go on to unsuccessfully seek the Republican presidential nomination, “threatened” Noem politically. A spokesperson for Haley told Politico that Haley had called to encourage Noem, and “how she would twist that into a threat is just plain weird.”

Politico also reported that a Colorado county Republican group canceled a Saturday fundraiser Noem was scheduled to headline, after the group received death threats and information about a planned protest related to Noem’s treatment of animals.

Reacting to the cascade of negative news, political science professor Jon Schaff of Northern State University in Aberdeen said Noem’s short-term national ambitions “have been weakened, considerably.” Until recently, Noem had been widely considered to be a potential running mate for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

But Schaff said it’s too early to tell what it all means for Noem long-term. He said she is popular in South Dakota, and it would be naive to count her out in future races, such as a U.S. Senate race in the eventuality of a retirement by Sen. John Thune or Sen. Mike Rounds. Thune is 63 years old, Rounds is 69 and Noem is 52

“Rounds and Thune won’t be there forever,” Schaff said.

Meanwhile, Dan Ahlers, executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party, said the negative news is unlikely to end Noem’s career, given that past scandals have not seemed to hurt her. Those scandals have included published allegations of an affair with former Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, accusations of misusing the state airplane, and allegedly intervening to help her daughter earn a real estate appraiser’s license.

“These things don’t end any of these Republican politicians’ careers anymore,” Ahlers said. “They end up raising more money and smelling like roses.”


Noem went on “Hannity” on Fox News on Wednesday and blamed “fake news” for the fallout from the dog and goat stories. This weekend, she’s scheduled to attend a Trump campaign donor retreat in Florida, according to Politico. Sunday, she’s scheduled to appear on “Face the Nation” on CBS.

“We’ll get into the controversies surrounding her upcoming memoir,” said a Friday tweet from the show.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on Facebook and Twitter.

'Ugly' Noem’s dog killing was bad — but to really understand her, consider her billy goat

Seth Tupper, South Dakota Searchlight
May 3, 2024

(Goat image: USDA photo by Scott Bauer. Noem image: David Bordewyk/South Dakota NewsMedia Association)

Since Gov. Kristi Noem’s disclosure of her farmyard killing spree, everybody’s been focused on Cricket.

That’s understandable. Cricket was a 14-month-old dog. It’s easy to imagine her head jutting out of a pickup window, hair and tongue blowing in the wind. Like many dogs, Cricket probably had a personality and other human-like qualities that we so often attribute to canine companions.

Noem shot and killed Cricket on some undisclosed date years ago for being bad at pheasant hunting and good at chicken hunting. The moral, Noem wrote, is that leaders deal with problems immediately. That makes her a “doer,” she claimed, not an “avoider.”

That’s pure bunk, as millions of people have pointed out in an avalanche of criticism since The Guardian obtained an early copy and revealed some of the contents of Noem’s ironically named memoir, “No Going Back.” The relevant pages have since been shared with South Dakota Searchlight, which requested an advance copy but was ignored; the book’s official publication date is next Tuesday.

Again, the focus on Cricket makes sense, because we can all see that Noem could’ve taken the dog to a shelter and given it another chance at life.

But if you’ll hear me out, I want to tell you why Cricket’s fate is the wrong place to focus your attention.

If you really want to understand Kristi Noem, you need to consider the goat.
‘I spotted our billy goat’

After Noem made the death march to her farm’s gravel pit, where she shot Cricket, she was apparently still in an uncontrollable rage.

“Walking back up to the yard, I spotted our billy goat,” Noem wrote.

The nameless goat’s only sin in that moment was being in Noem’s field of view.

Noem blames ‘fake news’ for backlash against her killing a dog and goat

In the book, Noem tried to justify her snap decision to kill the goat by writing that it “loved to chase” her children and would “knock them down and butt them,” leaving them “terrified.” The animal also had a “wretched smell.”

But apparently none of that had been a big enough problem to do anything about it. Not until Noem got angry enough to kill a dog and decided she needed to kill again.

Noem says she “dragged” the goat to the gravel pit, “tied him to a post,” and shot at him. But the goat jumped when she shot.

“My shot was off and I needed one more shell to finish the job,” she wrote.

She studiously avoided saying she wounded the goat with the first shot, but that’s the implication.

“Not wanting him to suffer,” she added — apparently experiencing her first twinge of feeling, after saying that killing the dog was not “pleasant” — “I hustled back across the pasture to the pickup, grabbed another shell, hurried back to the gravel pit, and put him down.”

The goat story not only reflects a disturbing lack of self-control, but also raises a question of law.

The crime of animal cruelty

Noem has defended her shooting of the dog, citing legal justification for her actions. She’s likely referencing a state law that exempts from the definition of animal cruelty “any reasonable action taken by a person for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property.”

Cricket killed a neighbor’s chickens and “whipped around to bite” Noem when she intervened; therefore, by Noem’s logic, her killing of Cricket was legally defensible. She’s probably right, legally speaking.

What Noem’s shot heard around the world says about her approach to problems

But what about the goat?

Sure, it chased children, butted them, and smelled bad. “So, a goat,” Stephen Colbert deadpanned during his Monday monologue on “The Late Show,” speaking for everybody who’s ever been around goats. If those traits meet the legal definition of “dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property,” killing any goat would always be legally justified.

In reality, what Noem did to the goat — dragging it to a gravel pit, tying it to a post, shooting at it once, leaving to get another shell, and shooting it again — sounds an awful lot like the legal definition of animal cruelty. That definition in South Dakota law is “to intentionally, willfully, and maliciously inflict gross physical abuse on an animal that causes prolonged pain, that causes serious physical injury, or that results in the death of the animal.”

Alas, cruelty to animals is a Class 6 felony, and lower-class felonies like that carry a seven-year statute of limitations in South Dakota. We don’t know exactly what year it was when Noem shot her dog and goat. She gave a clue in the book when she wrote that her children came home on the school bus the day of the killings and one of them asked, “Where’s Cricket?” Noem didn’t say how she responded, and all of her children are now grown.

If that was more than seven years ago, the goat killing is probably not prosecutable. But no prosecution could do more damage to Noem’s reputation and career than she’s already done to herself by writing about her animal bloodthirst.

As Noem wrapped up her bloody tale in the book, she wrote that being a leader is often “messy” and “ugly.”

In her case, it certainly is.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on Facebook and Twitter.


Kristi Noem just won’t stop talking about killing her dog

The South Dakota governor recounted the episode to show that she is tough enough to face “difficult, messy and ugly” tasks. But many in both parties are horrified.

Staff writer
May 3, 2024

First, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem wrote about killing her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, in her soon-to-be-released book, “No Going Back.”

Then, over the course of three separate days, the Republican posted on social media about killing her dog — missives that ranged from book promotion to defensive explanation to, finally, blame-the-media spin.

And on Wednesday, Noem appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, where the two devoted five minutes to Noem’s late wirehair pointer, as a befuddled Hannity tried to give Noem — who wrote about dragging her dog out to a gravel pit and shooting her — the benefit of the doubt. “Is there a difference which way you put a dog down?” he asked. “I’m not really sure.”

In short, Noem just can’t stop talking about killing her dog — much to the collective confusion of horrified observers.

“As the saying goes, if you find yourself in a hole, stop murdering your puppy — and stop digging,” said Tommy Vietor, co-host of “Pod Save America” and a former Obama administration official.

The controversy started April 26, when the Guardian published details from her upcoming political memoir — the sort of obligatory hardcover intended to juice her chances of emerging as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick. Ironically, it seems to have done the exact opposite

The Guardian recounted that, in the book, Noem describes her dog, still nearly a puppy, as “a trained assassin” with an “aggressive personality.” Unable to train Cricket, Noem recounts watching as the dog, on the way home from a pheasant hunt, attacks a local family’s chickens, grabbing “one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.”

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes of Cricket, who she says then tried to bite her. “At that moment, I realized I had to put her down.”

Noem also writes of how — perhaps feeling emboldened after killing Cricket — she then decided to kill a “nasty and mean” family goat, dragging it to the same gravel pit where Cricket met her demise. But the goat jumped as Noem shot it, forcing the Republican governor to return to her truck for another shell.

The scene of slaughter ends with Noem’s kids getting off the school bus, and her daughter asking, “Hey, where’s Cricket?”

Noem seems to have recounted the episode as something of a parable, intended to show both that she is tough enough to face “difficult, messy and ugly” tasks and authentic enough to tell the truth about it.

But even before Noem’s recent controversy, people close to Trump privately said she was always a long shot to be his running mate, citing assorted “baggage” — and that was before canicide got added to her vetting files.

Yet Noem persisted, plowing ahead with her tale of the untrainable dog.

On the Friday that the Guardian story came out, Noem wrote a post on X that was part explanation and part book promotion.

“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” she wrote, in a missive that included a link to preorder her book. “Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”

Then on Sunday, when the intervening two days had made clear she had a political crisis on her hands, she weighed in again about killing Cricket — this time with an even lengthier social media post aimed squarely at damage control.

“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20-year-old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch,” wrote Noem, who went on to describe herself as an “authentic” leader who doesn’t “shy away from tough challenges.”

And finally, on Thursday, she returned to the topic again, this time squarely through a “fake news” lens.

“Don’t believe the #fakenews media’s twisted spin,” she wrote, linking to her Hannity interview. “I had a choice between the safety of my children and an animal who had a history of attacking people & killing livestock. I chose my kids.”

But the morbid fascination with the Noah’s ark worth of animals Noem has talked about putting down — three horses, a goat, a dog — transcends the so-called liberal media. On Thursday, for instance, a bipartisan group of lawmakers responded to the news by forming the Congressional Dog Lovers Caucus.

And even would-be allies have been left scratching their heads — not just that Noem killed her dog, but that she continues to talk about it, holding up the gravel pit executions as a character reference for her leadership chops.

“It’s hard to imagine a universe where bragging about shooting your 14-month-old puppy increases your brand value,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) wrote in a text. “I’ve known hunters who accidentally or impulsively shot their hunting dog, but I’ve never known anyone who bragged about it or considered it noble in any way.”

Sourth Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) testifies during a House Agriculture Committee hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 20. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Others, including fellow conservatives, were less generous.

“Why … would you write about this in a book and flex on it?” wondered radio personality Dana Loesch. “That doesn’t look tough. It looks stupid.”

“Not ideal,” Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said to laughter on his video podcast. “I read that and I’m like: ‘Who put that in the book?’ I was like, ‘Your ghost writer must really not like you if they’re going to include that one. That was rough.’”

Even Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), whose past includes a more benign dog incident, weighed in.

“I didn’t eat my dog. I didn’t shoot my dog. I loved my dog, and my dog loved me,” Romney told HuffPost. (Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign was dogged by a story of Romney family lore — the 1983 vacation the clan took with Seamus, their Irish setter, strapped in his carrier to the roof of the station wagon for 12 hours).

In repeatedly returning to the tale, Noem also opened herself up to additional criticism, including charges that her story has changed to portray her in a more flattering light. A community note at the bottom of her Thursday X post, in which readers are allowed to add additional context, reads that “Noem’s description of why she shot Cricket has morphed.”

The note says that in her book, Noem writes that she killed Cricket because the dog was untrainable for pheasant hunting and killed the neighboring chickens. It adds that when criticized, “Noem altered her story” — going from claiming that Cricket snapped at her to claiming that Cricket actually bit her to claiming that Cricket had a biting history and was a “danger to children.”

A person close to Noem rejected the charge of revisionist history, pointing to the line in her book that reads, “Cricket was untrainable and, after trying to bite me, dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.” Cricket regularly came in contact with Noem’s young kids, this person said, arguing the sentence shows that Noem had always considered the safety of her children when she made the decision to kill Cricket.

Noem does have her defenders. She is slated to headline the annual Brevard County Republicans dinner in Florida this month, and Rick Lacey, the county party chair, said he has already had interest from 200 people and is worried about selling out the space, which can hold about 500.

“This happens all the time,” Lacey said, referring to putting down dogs known for biting people, “but I guess if you’re a Republican governor with national prospects, it becomes a bigger issue.”

Stu Loeser, a longtime Democratic staffer and strategist who specializes in crises, noted he shares “a house on the Hudson with a Havanese and we are both horrified.” But, from a crisis communications perspective, he argued that Noem is never going to be able to change her detractors’ minds — but that she may get some credit for continuing to largely stand by her original story.

For now, the controversy shows no signs of abating, in part because Noem is promoting her book, which comes out Tuesday.

As part of her publicity tour, the South Dakota governor is slated to appear on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

An X post by the “Face the Nation” account said that in addition to other issues, “we’ll get into the controversies surrounding her upcoming memoir.”

Marianne Levine contributed to this report.

By Ashley ParkerAshley Parker is Senior National Political Correspondent for The Washington Post. She has been part of two Post teams that won Pulitzer Prizes — in 2018 for National Reporting, and in 2022 for Public Service on the Jan. 6 attacks. She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at the New York Times. She is also an on-air contributor to NBC News/MSNBC. Twitter

SITH LORD TRUMP

'Didn't watch the movie?' GOP accidentally casts Trump as villain in 'May the Fourth' post

David McAfee
May 4, 2024 

North Carolina Republican Party, X/Twitter

The North Carolina Republican Party on Saturday came under fire for a Star Wars-themed post meant to celebrate the "May the Fourth" internet holiday and promote Donald Trump.

The official account of the North Carolina Republican Party on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted an image showing Trump holding a lightsaber. The text says, "May the Fourth Be With You," which is a play on the Star Wars line, "May the force be with you."

The problem, as social media users were quick to point out, is that the ex-president was shown with a red lightsaber. According to Vox, "Sith usually use red-hued" lightsabers, such as the one Darth Vader wields.

National security attorney Bradley Moss wondered if the state GOP outpost was ignorant.

"You gave him... a red lightsaber? Do you know anything?" he asked Saturday.

Democrat Harry Sisson said, "You know the dudes who have the red lightsabers are the bad guys, right? Didn’t watch the movie I guess?"

@Venti__Poet chimed in in response to the post, "At least you know he is on the dark side."

@cj_bria said, "So, he’s a Sith Lord? Sounds about right!"


User Nick Anderson, @NickAnderson217, had a slightly different take from others.

"People are too hung up on the fact it's red... y'all why did they make his saber so small?" Anderson asked.

One user, @t3hrobzlqx, looked into things a bit.


"Something about this irked me, so I did some research. First of all, the fact that they gave him a Red Lightsaber for this while Red has traditionally been associated with the Sith and the Empire should tell you that either the person who created this meme doesn't know a thing about Star Wars, or that they know exactly what they're doing and somehow think that the Sith/Empire are the good guys," they wrote. "Second, I was curious about whose Saber they gave him because it didn't explicitly remind me of anyone's saber. I had to Reverse Image search it, but I found that this is a design from one of the many Lightsaber Storefronts online, that doesn't belong to any on-screen character from the series. The pictures they use even have the blade color as Blue, so they straight up changed it to Red. I know that 'Republicans are Red (as are Maga hats) and Democrats are Blue,' but they could have taken from literally an entire rainbow of colors to evoke 'Oh, it's a lightsaber,' but they insisted on making his lightsaber Red."

They concluded:

"As a Star Wars fan, I frankly find this cheap attempt to gain my vote more insulting than anything that Star Wars fans have ever taken issue with. This is probably the most embarrassing cash-in I've ever seen, and I've ACTUALLY WATCHED the Star Wars Holiday Special in its entirety, unironically, multiple times."

'Star Wars' legend Mark Hamill gives Biden The Force for elections

Agence France-Presse
May 4, 2024 

Mark Hamill played the powerful Jedi knight Luke Skywalker in 'Star Wars' and is a vocal supporter of President Joe Biden 

© ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

Washington (AFP) – Joe Biden faces a tough reelection battle this November, but for one day at least The Force was with him.

Legendary "Star Wars" actor Mark Hamill made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room on Friday after meeting the US president.

Hamill, 72, who played the powerful Jedi knight Luke Skywalker in the film series and is a vocal Biden supporter, took the podium wearing a pair of the president's trademark aviator sunglasses.

"I called him 'Mr President,' he said 'You can call me Joe.' And I said, 'Can I call you Joe-bi Wan Kenobi?' He liked that," quipped Hamill.

He was referring to "Star Wars" character Obi-Wan Kenobi, portrayed by Alec Guinness in the original 1977 film, who teaches Skywalker to discover his powers as he battles the dark side of The Force and the sinister Darth Vader.

Hamill described Democrat Biden, 81 -- who is set for an almost-as-epic battle with Republican predecessor Donald Trump in November's US election -- as "the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime."

The president had shown him photos during a meeting in the Oval Office, he added.

Taking a couple of questions from reporters -- although "no Star Wars questions please" -- the actor said he'd visited the White House under Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama but "this one was really extra special."

The visit came on the eve of the so-called "May the Fourth" day, when "Star Wars" fans celebrate in a riff on the movie's catchphrase "May the Force be with you."


The White House regularly brings guests into press briefings but they are usually in support of a cause or policy.

South Korean K-pop sensations BTS visited in 2022 to highlight the issue of anti-Asian racism, while US actor Matthew McConaughey took the podium later the same year to urge "gun responsibility" following a massacre at an elementary school in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Hamill was "someone who is... very much invested in the direction of this country."

Do earthquake hazard maps really predict future building damage?

By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
May 2, 2024


The magnitude-7.5 earthquake and its aftershocks devastated parts of Ishikawa prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast - Copyright AFP Toshifumi KITAMURA

The best way to reduce deaths in future earthquakes in vulnerable areas is generally presented as constructing buildings that can withstand them. However, because earthquake-resistant construction is expensive, communities need to balance its costs with other societal needs.

Therefore, tough choices are required and decisions about how to allocate resources are often based on earthquake hazard maps to predict how much shaking to expect over the many years buildings and other structures will be in use.

How accurate are these maps? Such maps are based on assumptions about where and how often earthquakes in the area may happen, how big they will be and how much shaking they will cause.

There is an apparent discrepancy between maps of earthquakes and the actually recorded shaking data. This is according to a new study by Northwestern University, as Phys.org reports. This presents a puzzling problem with maps of future earthquake shaking used to design earthquake-resistant buildings.

Seismologists have been making such maps for over fifty years. Yet they know remarkably little about how well they actually forecast shaking. This is because large damaging earthquakes are infrequent in any area.

To help to address this knowledge gap, Northwestern researchers compiled shaking data from past earthquakes. These included the CHIMP (California Historical Intensity Mapping Project) which combined data from seismometers with historical data (termed seismic intensity) that measures ground shaking caused by earthquakes from how it affected man-made structures and objects within the quake area.

Intensity information can be assessed from photographs of damage, first-hand or newspaper accounts, and oral history.

This assessment revealed that hazard maps for the U.S. (California), Japan, Italy, Nepal and France seemed to overpredict the historically observed earthquake shaking intensities.

In analysing the possible causes, the researchers discovered the issue was with the conversion equations used in comparing hazard maps predicting future earthquakes with actual shaking data, rather than systemic problems with the hazard modelling itself.

The researchers found that the problem was not with the maps but with the conversion. This will provides the basis for making improvements.

The research appears in the journal Science Advances. The research is titled “Why do seismic hazard maps worldwide appear to overpredict historical intensity observations?”

Gen Z and Millennials find meetings unproductive compared to instant messaging


ByDr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
May 4, 2024


Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, VNG is one of Vietnam's leading game publishers and also runs a digital wallet and the country's most popular messaging platform - — © AFP Nhac NGUYEN

The world of work continues to evolve and the younger generation are less keen to sit in meetings compared with communicating using instant messaging or email. A survey reveals that 59 percent more Gen Z and Millennial workers believe that instant messaging or email instead of calls or meetings is the best way to “get things done.”

The research comes from a study undertaken by global recruitment agency Robert Walters. This suggests modern technology methods have enabled younger professionals to achieve more efficient outcomes. As a consequence, just 11 percent of this cohort believe that calls and meetings are worthwhile.

In contrast, the survey finds that 49 percent of Gen X and Baby Boomers (aged 44-78) believe that less calls and meetings will have a negative impact on business relationships. Such findings exemplify the challenges of a multigenerational workforce.

This is in the context of the different generations, as commonly categorised by marketers:

Generations    Born    Current Ages

Gen Z                   1997 –  2012     12 – 27

Millennials        1981 – 1996      28 – 43

Gen X                 1965 – 1980      44 – 59

Boomers II (a/k/a Generation Jones)

                                1955 – 1964      60 – 69

Boomers I        1946 – 1954    70 – 78

Commenting on these findings, Martin Fox, Managing Director of Robert Walters Canada, says: “Younger professionals are embracing the digital age and the positive impact it can have on productivity and time management.”

Fox continues: “While the efficiency and convenience of digital communication cannot be denied, we must recognize the downsides. Face-to-face interactions allow for meaningful connections and provide an opportunity for non-verbal communication cues, building trust and rapport with clients and colleagues.”

Citing an example, Fox raises: “The subtleties of body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice contribute to a deeper understanding and connection that often cannot be fully conveyed through text or even video chats.”

Workers in a business hub. Image by © Tim Sandle.

The study also highlights the shift in attitudes towards traditional business practices. The old-school concept of a “long lunch” with a prospective client is perceived as outdated by some younger professionals, with almost half (46 percent) saying that they are “hit and miss”.

Here Fox observes: “Younger generations are less inclined to spend hours in a restaurant or cafe when they can have a quick discussion online. This change has the potential to reshape business models, as companies need to adapt to meet the needs and preferences of this tech-savvy demographic. Nevertheless, it’s crucial for employees to recognize the great value in in-person face time; it remains a crucial aspect of professional relationship-building.”

Such findings indicates that organizations should implement various communication methods to accommodate different preferences.

 

Online gaming abuse: Why the majority of gamers suffer

By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
May 4, 2024


Gamers in China are required to use their ID cards to register to play games online.

It has been estimated that 90 percent of children over the age of two, in high income countries like the U.S., play some form of video game. Hence, it has become more important than ever to protect a child while they play games online.

Safety advice for online activities like playing video games includes keeping personal information a secret and never sharing personal information with other players (such as real name, home address, age, gender, or pictures).

Marin Cristian-Ovidiu, the CEO of the Internet-based game offering platform OnlineGames.io has discussed with Digital Journal how to keep a child safe from online bullies.

Hide Your Child’s Personal Details

Cristian-Ovidiu recommends that a child should create a nickname and use an avatar that has no connection to them, rather than displaying their real name and photograph. They should also never have any of their basic details (date of birth, school/college name, mobile number, and address) attached to their account, and they should never discuss them online.

Show Them How To Spot Unsafe Adults

Warn your child that adults can masquerade as children, Cristian-Ovidiu warns, such as to obtain sexual pictures or arrange secret meet-ups.

Cristian-Ovidiu states: “Also warn your child about behaviours known as trolling and ‘griefing’, where people deliberately play badly or do things that make games worse for their teams. Let them know that these people are out to provoke a reaction and the best thing they can do is ignore them.”

Furthermore, he advises that cybercriminals often use in-game chats to perform their scams (e.g. offering fake loot boxes and downloads). Some try to get kids to give up their ‘skins’ (in-game cosmetic items) or in-app purchases by offering money. In some games, you can turn off the chat function to avoid these messages.

Create A Family Agreement

Discuss safety issues openly with your child and encourage them to make an agreement with you about things they will and will not do, advises Cristian-Ovidiu. This should cover points like how much screen time they’re allowed and an agreement to only play age-appropriate games. Encourage your child to tell you if there are issues but monitor their games and conversations.

Block Them From Accessing Inappropriate Content

Cristian-Ovidiu recommends: 2You can adjust each game’s privacy settings so you have more control over your child’s access. You can also update console settings to set age restrictions, manage online interactions, filter content, and control online purchases. This will prevent your child from being able to download games that feature adult content.”

Have A Gameplan For Dealing With Nasty Players

Cristian-Ovidiu also suggests explaining to a child the steps of what they should do if someone becomes abusive or behaves suspiciously.

How to spot a phishing email like a cybersecurity expert?


By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL

May 3, 2024


Computers and offices. — Image by © Tim Sandle.

Phishing is an attempt to steal personal information or break into online accounts using deceptive emails, messages, ads or sites that look similar to sites you already use. It is a growing menace and the use of email remains the most common way to seeking to defraud the unaware.

Through the day scammers are sending a constant barrage of phishing emails to try and steal your money and identity.

Oliver Page, the CEO of CyberNut, tells Digital Journal about five ways to spot phishing emails like a professional IT consultant.

Tip 1: The Language Is Urgent And Fear-Mongering

With this first area, Page picks a scenario where you could be warned something bad will happen (for example, you will be charged or lose access to an important account) or you will miss a bargain or prize if you do not respond immediately.

Page states: “By implying there’s limited time to fix an error or claim a prize, the scammers are hoping you’ll be less likely to think twice about what you’re doing.”

Tip 2: The Message Content Is Poor Or Garbled

Reputable firms would never start an email with a generic or impersonal greeting such as ‘Hi’. Similarly, instances of misspelling or bad grammar should ring alarm bells. If the email is littered with spelling and grammar mistakes, it clearly indicates the sender is not using tools such as Grammarly or Word’s spellcheck; it would be extremely unlikely for genuine companies to not proofread official emails, so repeated or obvious errors should always clue you in to the fact that something is amiss.

Tip 3: The Sender Address Or Domain Name Is Suspicious

If the message purports to come from a major organisation (such as Paypal), the email address should match the company’s name (e.g. @paypal.com). Genuine companies will never use a service like Gmail (@gmail.com) to communicate with you.

According to Page: “If the spelling of the domain name is incorrect, this should be immediately concerning. A scammer may have created a copycat address that slightly varies from the genuine company name (e.g. apple1.com) in the hope that you won’t check too closely.”

Tip 4: The Email Makes Personal Information Requests

Page warns that scammers are most often after one of the following:Your social security number
Your bank details
Your card numbers
Your contact information

This list leads Page to state: “If you’re unsure, never supply this data online. If the sender wants to send you money, be suspicious if they ask for your bank details first.”

Tip 5: The Email Contains Unknown Attachments Or Links

Page cautions not to access any attachments if they have strange file names or extensions. Clicking on ‘.zip’ means you’d unzip files onto your computer, and ‘.exe’ would run a software program on your device.

These attachments could release computer viruses or malware, while suspicious links could take you to fraudulent websites. Trustworthy companies would be more likely to use platforms such as Dropbox when supplying extra documents.

This leads Page to conclude: “You should also beware of vague and unexpected messages purporting to be from well-known companies, the authorities or the government, or your bank, as well as any email promising unbelievably good offers like free vacations or big-ticket items.”

Rescuers brave Indonesia volcano eruptions to save pets


AFP
May 5, 2024


A volunteer carries a wounded dog rescued from the foot of Mount Ruang

 - Copyright AFP Ronny Adolof BUOL

Ronny Adolof Buol

An Indonesian volunteer returns from a dangerous rescue mission to a remote island where a volcano recently unleashed huge eruptions, cradling an abandoned, emaciated dog covered in burn blisters.

Mount Ruang in Indonesia’s northernmost region has erupted more than half a dozen times since April 16, stirring a spectacular mix of ash, lava and lightning that forced the island’s residents to be permanently relocated and thousands more evacuated.

But while locals have fled, a team of volunteers travelled to Ruang by boat on daring rescue missions to save abandoned pets from the foot of the volcano that remains at its highest alert level.

“We know that they (the animals) are still living there. How come we let them die while we know they are still alive there?” 31-year-old volunteer Laurent Tan told AFP on Saturday.

Laurent, the owner of two animal shelters in North Sulawesi province capital Manado, is one of eight volunteers who have made the six-hour ferry journey several times to Ruang’s neighbouring Tagulandang island following the eruptions.

On one of their missions to the island’s ash-covered homes, they retrieved an unnamed pup, a white cat, and a bright turquoise-and-white tropical bird.

The dog, a female with burns on her face and body, was brought to a makeshift shelter on Tagulandang, where a veterinarian treated her on a wooden desk while a volunteer held up a mobile phone flashlight.

She appeared to have survived the eruptions by taking shelter in a large gutter. The surrounding village above ground had been destroyed, Laurent said.

The group, made of volunteers from animal welfare organisations, deployed for a second time on Friday after some pet owners made desperate social media appeals for them to evacuate their pets, and has since rescued “a lot” of animals, she added.

An AFP journalist at the scene said more than a dozen animals had been rescued since Friday.

Some owners had learned their pets were still alive after seeing them in pictures of Ruang island in the media.

– ‘Their lives matter’ –

Authorities had told locals to evacuate outside a seven-kilometre (4.3-mile) exclusion zone around the crater, which was lowered to five kilometres on Sunday, with around 11,000 people earmarked for evacuation.

As of Saturday, more than 5,000 people from Tagulandang had been evacuated, the national disaster mitigation agency said Sunday, while all of Ruang’s residents — more than 800 — had been taken for permanent relocation.

Authorities had warned of potential flying rocks, lava flows and tsunamis due to debris sliding into the sea.

But despite the risk, the volunteers were getting to work.

One climbed over the fence of an abandoned house to rescue several dogs left behind by their owner, before handing them over to vet Hendrikus Hermawan.

Hendrikus said the owner had asked the volunteers for help rescuing the dogs, which included a five-month-old puppy.

Many of the rescued animals appeared hungry and stressed after their owners left them, he told AFP.

“The first treatment we do here is give food and additional vitamins to relieve their stress,” he said, adding that the animals could survive as long as they were nourished.

The volunteers aim to rescue all the dogs, cats and birds threatened by the volcano, bring them to Manado and reunite them with any original owners, said Laurent.

While the initial focus of the eruptions was on the human impact, the volunteer said animals should not be forgotten.

“Our main focus is the animals. Many people have already received help, but these animals had no help,” she said.

“For me, their lives matter. We consider them part of our family.”

France probes TotalEnergies over 2021 Mozambique attack


AFP
May 4, 2024


TotalEnergies is accused of involuntary manslaughter and non-assistence to people in danger - Copyright AFP Lillian SUWANRUMPHA

Joseph SOTINEL

French prosecutors said Saturday they were investigating oil giant TotalEnergies for possible involuntary manslaughter in connection with a 2021 jihadist attack in Mozambique that killed hundreds.

The probe follows a legal complaint brought by victims’ families and attack survivors, accusing the French energy company, which was developing a major liquefied gas project in the region, of failing to protect its subcontractors, the prosecutors’ office told AFP.

The survivors and families say TotalEnergies also failed to provide fuel so that helicopters could evacuate civilians after Islamic State-linked militants killed dozens of people in the Mozambican port town of Palma on March 24, 2021.

The entire attack in Cabo Delgado province lasted several days, claiming several hundred lives. Some of the victims were beheaded and thousands fled their homes.

Contacted by AFP Saturday, a TotalEnergies spokesman reiterated a previous statement saying it “firmly rejects the accusations”.

He said the company’s Mozambique teams had supplied emergency aid and made the evacuation of 2,500 people from the plant possible, including civilians, staff, contractors and sub-contractors.

The French investigation also seeks to establish whether TotalEnergies is guilty of non-assistance to people in danger, prosecutors said.

Seven British and South African complainants — three survivors and four relatives of victims — accuse TotalEnergies of failing to take steps to ensure the safety of subcontractors even before the assault.

The Al-Shabab group — unrelated to the Somali group of the same name — which carried out the attack had been active in Cabo Delgado province since 2017 and drawing ever closer to Palma.

“The danger was known,” said the complainants lawyer Henri Thulliez in 2023 at the time of the lawsuit.

Depending on the outcome of the preliminary probe, the case would either be dropped, or the investigation intensified with a view to bringing possible charges, they said.

– ‘Positive step’ –

Families and survivors welcomed the French decision, with Nicholas Alexander, a South African attack survivor, calling it “a positive step”.

TotalEnergies, he said, bore “a share of responsibility” in the tragedy, he told AFP.

Anabela Lemos, an activist at Friends of the Earth Mozambique — known locally as Justica Ambiental — said the “negative effects” of the French oil major’s Mozambique operations went beyond the 2021 attack because of environmental “destruction” and “deaths” as a result of its presence there.

TotalEnergies’s $20-billion project to develop a large gas field on the Afungi peninsula was halted following the 2021 attack, but chairman Patrick Pouyanne has since said he hoped to revive it.

In November 2023, a group of 124 NGOs posted an open letter to dozens of financial institutions, including European, Japanese and South African banks, urging them to withdraw from the project.

The NGOs — which included the Human Rights League, Oil Change International and Greenpeace France — told the 28 financial institutions that they would otherwise bear “direct and significant responsibility” for its impact.

“The humanitarian and security risks, as well as the complexity of operations in a conflict zone” were underestimated, the NGOs said in the letter, calling any continuation “reckless”.

The project threatened local ecosystems and the global climate, while failing to benefit local communities, they said.

Mozambique has set high hopes on vast natural gas deposits — the largest found south of the Sahara — that were discovered in the Muslim-majority northern province in 2010.

The former Portuguese colony of 30 million people in southeast Africa is one of the world’s poorest countries despite having large natural resources, especially gas.

It has faced insurgencies from Islamist groups for much of the past decade.

Mexico tourist train an environmental ‘nightmare,’ activists say


AFP
May 4, 2024

Environmental activist Roberto Rojo stands next to metal columns inside a cave supporting Mexico's controversial Maya Train - Copyright AFP CARL DE SOUZA
Jean Arce

In a cave in Mexico’s Riviera Maya, where nature has sculpted a subterranean landscape of stunning beauty, thick steel columns supporting a controversial new tourist railway intrude into a delicate ecosystem.

The Yucatan Peninsula boasts an estimated 2,400 of these caverns and sinkholes, which are known as cenotes and are a major attraction for tourists who swim and snorkel in the crystal clear waters that fill some of them.

Campaigners warn that the unique geological system is under threat from the Maya Train, one of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s flagship infrastructure projects.

“It’s our worst nightmare. We’ve seen a large drill entering and breaking the ceiling of the cave” as well as its ancient stalactites, biologist and speleologist Roberto Rojo told AFP, surveying the damage.

In March, Rojo’s group Selvame del Tren (Save Me From the Train) filmed a huge drill piercing a hole into a cavern for one of the pillars supporting a railway viaduct.

Rojo calculates that the Maya Train, which partially opened in December, will need up to 17,000 columns along its 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) loop around southeastern Mexico.

Work on the project has continued despite a court-ordered suspension pending environmental studies.

The original plan was to build part of the railway — which the government says will bring prosperity to one of the country’s poorest regions — next to a major highway.

But according to environmentalists, the government moved the section into the jungle to avoid a conflict with hoteliers who feared traffic delays during construction.

They accuse Lopez Obrador of rushing to finish the railway before he leaves office in October.



– ‘Ecocide’ –



Activists have branded the construction work “ecocide.”

They say the project lacks the proper environmental impact studies, has razed 8.7 million trees and has irreversibly damaged the underground ecosystem.

Lopez Obrador calls the members of Salvame del Tren “pseudo-environmentalists” and accuses them of profiting from the “alleged defense of nature.”

The construction work, deemed of “national security” importance, is protected by the National Guard.

Reaching one of the affected cenotes is no easy task. It involves driving several kilometers from the resort city of Playa del Carmen, then continuing the journey — almost impossible without a guide — on foot, using a machete to cut through the undergrowth.

Once inside the cave, a helmet with a flashlight is essential.

The cavern is adorned by thousands of stalactites and stalagmites, some ancient and several meters high, others newly formed and measuring just a few centimeters.



– Clean-up promised –



Despite Lopez Obrador’s assurances, concrete has leaked out of the steel columns and contaminated the cenote water, according to environmentalists.

Worryingly, the well is a source of water for human consumption and eventually reaches the offshore Mesoamerican Reef — the second largest in the world, Rojo said.

“Plants, animals and ourselves depend on this, which is one of the last healthy aquifers we have in Mexico,” he said.

Lopez Obrador said three weeks ago that there has only been one accidental concrete spillage and that it was being remedied.

But inside the affected cenote, a clean-up has not yet happened.

Other columns show signs of leaks and rust. Drills continue to bore holes into the fragile ground.

The newspaper El Universal reported Friday that the environmental protection agency PROFEPA had documented five spillages linked to the railway construction.



– ‘A balance’ –



The government says that for the five completed sections of the train, nine protected natural areas have been created, totaling 1.34 million hectares (3.3 million acres).

Most of it corresponds to the Bajos del Norte National Park, an underwater reserve in the Gulf of Mexico.

The government also created a protected area in the southeastern state of Campeche that it says will be the second-largest rainforest reserve in the world, after the Brazilian Amazon.

In Playa del Carmen, tourists blissfully unaware of the environmental fears arrived recently at a modern Maya Train station that had been inaugurated two months ago.

About a hundred people were waiting for the train, which has a capacity of 2,210 passengers, according to the defense ministry, which manages the project.

Environmental damage is part of the project’s “yin and yang,” said Jaime Vazquez, a tour operator arriving at the station.

“On the one hand there is an effect, of course, but on the other hand you benefit humans. So it’s a balance,” the 40-year-old said.

So empire and the slave trade contributed little to Britain’s wealth? Pull the other one, Kemi Badenoch

The business and trade secretary played into the ideological tosh that the wonders of the Industrial Revolution were funded by beer brewers and sheep farmers

Will Hutton
Sun 5 May 2024 

THE OBSERVER

Britain ran an empire for centuries that at its peak 100 years ago occupied just under a quarter of the world’s land area. Yet if you believe “Imperial Measurement”, a report released last week from the rightwing Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the net economic impact of this vast empire on Britain was negligible, even negative.

If you thought the empire profoundly shaped our industry, trade and financial institutions, with slavery an inherent part of the equation, helped turbocharge the Industrial Revolution and underwrote what was the world’s greatest navy for 150 years, think again. The contribution of the transatlantic trade in enslaved people to our economy was trumped by domestic brewing and sheep farming, opines the IEA. The tax “burden” of defending this barely profitable empire was not worth the candle. Instead, it was free-market economics that unleashed British economic growth – a truth that must be restated before Marxists and reparation-seeking ex-colonies start controlling the narrative.

It is a risible recasting of history that should have been ignored as self-serving ideological tosh. But enter the business and trade secretary and aspiring Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, who took it upon herself to endorse this IEA “research”. She told an audience of financial services bosses at a conference in London: “It worries me when I hear people talk about wealth and success in the UK as being down to colonialism or imperialism or white privilege or whatever.” If you believe any of this story about oppression and exploitation as the cause of British wealth, then the solutions to “our growth and productivity problem” will be even worse. It was “free markets and liberal institutions” that drove the Industrial Revolution and economic growth thereafter.

Except that, while they were certainly part of a cocktail of reasons for Britain’s rise to economic pre-eminence, they were only part. Recent historical research, blithely dismissed by author Kristian Niemietz, the IEA’s head of political economy, has increasingly uncovered a mountain of evidence that places ever more importance on empire, and slavery in particular, as important drivers of the Industrial Revolution and evolution of our economy.

Take innovation, and the correctly celebrated inventions – James Hargreaves’ spinning jenny of 1764/5, Richard Arkwright’s water frame, patented in 1769, and Samuel Crompton’s mule, introduced in 1778/9 – that together made it possible to harness the delicate but tough Barbadense cotton and manufacture it at scale. By the turn of the 18th century, Lancashire had emerged as Europe’s pre-eminent manufacturing centre of high-quality cotton, usable with other weaves and whose dyes and prints would hold. It was a position of global dominance that Lancashire cotton manufacture, soon joined by West Yorkshire, would reinforce over the century ahead.

But as Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson write in their brilliant Slavery, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, it was no accident that this all began a few miles from Europe’s largest slave port, Liverpool. Or that fine Barbadense cotton flourished in Britain’s slave plantations in Barbados and elsewhere in the West Indies. Or that much of the finance for investing in these expensive, but highly profitable, innovative machines came from Liverpool merchants whose own fortunes originated in transatlantic trade.
By the last decades of the 18th century, the West Indies was co-equal with Europe as Britain’s biggest trading partner

In painstaking research, they place slavery at the heart, not only of early industrialisation, but the growth of services such as banking and insurance. By the last decades of the 18th century, they demonstrate that the West Indies was co-equal with Europe as Britain’s biggest trading partner. Cotton’s importance was preceded by slave-grown sugar, which became a national staple. All this spawned a vast boom in British shipping, from 1m tons and 50,000 seamen in the 1780s to 2.5m tons and 130,000 seamen in the 1830s, with the growth propelled by the Atlantic plantation trade.

The ships and their cargoes, whether of enslaved people, sugar or cotton, needed insuring, generating a large marine insurance industry. Sugar refineries were prone to burning down easily – there were over 100 in London alone in the 1780s – causing the need for specialist fire insurance companies. No account of the boom in the textile industry either side of the Pennines or the City of London is complete without empire and the slave trade, which even after abolition in 1833 would continue as trade in indentured labour.

The trade needed protecting and policing. A strong navy was an imperative – the West Indies became the second most important theatre for the navy outside British home waters, and where the custom of giving sailors a daily tot of West Indian rum originated. A 74-gun ship of the line from 1805 might cost the equivalent of 16 cotton mills, but the money was easily found from burgeoning tariffs. The navy was also a richly profitable and important market for British farmers and gun makers.

No one argues that slavery caused the Industrial Revolution, least of all Berg and Hudson. But to minimise and abstract, as Niemietz attempts, the economic impact of first the sugar and then cotton slave plantations, and also the industries that radiated from them, as not part of the story is plainly inadmissible. It is also true that liberal institutions, such as judicial independence and rule of law, helped early capitalism and was additionally fostered by the creation of a unified internal market.

Britain’s liberal approach to immigration, in welcoming inventors, scientists and engineers from all over Europe, fanned the fires of invention and manufacture, as economic historian Joel Mokyr argues in The Enlightened Economy. Badenoch would be more persuasive if, while exalting such liberal factors, she conceded the critical role of slavery, but also that her own government is hardly a friend of judicial independence, celebrates leaving the largest single market on earth and could scarcely be more hostile to immigration – very different illiberal principles to those she thinks drove the Industrial Revolution.

Empire, without doubt, profoundly affected the British economy. Not least, it was a source of lush, easy profits and rents which have become a benchmark that most British companies target even now, so limiting the projects in which they invest. British industry was still sheltering behind preferential imperial tariffs in 1970.

Empire absolved us of thinking how to develop our national economy; the market seemed to achieve that magically by itself. This magical thinking is now integral to our headlong decline, and the IEA is one of its leading advocates, betraying a wilful ignorance that goes beyond history. Its advice wrecked Liz Truss’s career. Badenoch should beware it does not do the same for her.

SEE

Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch says historians 'exaggerate' the importance of slavery and colonialism to Britain's growth as a world power saying it was really down to 'ingenuity and industry'

CENSORED

Israel: Al Jazeera goes off air after government order

The Qatari TV network is no longer available in Israel after the Cabinet voted to suspend it. Israel has had a tense relationship with the broadcaster, accusing it of bias and incitement.

The Al Jazeera TV network was taken off the air in Israel on Sunday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet voted to suspend the broadcaster's operations.

The decision follows a law — commonly referred to as the "Al Jazeera law" — passed by the Israeli Knesset that allows the closure of foreign broadcasters considered to pose a security threat amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

"My government decided unanimously: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will close in Israel," Netanyahu posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Al Jazeera on Sunday again rejected accusations from Israel that its reporting from Gaza was biased.

"The Netanyahu government has decided in a highly misleading and calumnious step to endorse the order to shut down Al Jazeera offices in Israel," the network said.

It called the move a "criminal act" that violates the human right of access to information.

"We confirm that we will pursue all avenues at international and legal organizations to protect our rights and crews," it added without elaborating.
What we know about the ban

Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said on X that the order would take immediate effect.

According to Israeli media, the order can suspend broadcasting in the country for 45 days.

Al Jazeera's senior English correspondent in Israel, Imran Khan, said that alongside the TV channel, the website was also being blocked.

He said devices used for providing content to Al Jazeera were also banned, meaning his phone could be confiscated if he uses it for news gathering.

"It’s a wide-ranging ban and we do not know how long it will be in place for," he added, according to his statement on Al Jazeera's website.

"The background of this decision is not professional or journalistic ... it's political," said Waleed Omari, bureau chief of Al Jazeera in Israel and the Palestinian territories, adding that the network was preparing a legal response.
Israel's relationship with the Qatari broadcaster

Israel has had a tense relationship with the Qatar-based news organization, which has intensely covered the ongoing war in Gaza with a particular focus on the Palestinian side.

One of the few media organizations that has continued to function in Gaza since October 7, Al Jazeera has broadcast images and videos of deadly airstrikes and crowded hospitals under Israeli fire.

Israel has accused the network of working with Hamas.

Qatar, which owns the network, has been involved in mediating a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas — a Palestinian militant group considered a terror organization by Israel, the US, Germany and other countries.

VIDEO Netanyahu pushes to shut Israeli office of Al Jazeera TV  01:31

Numerous journalists have been killed in Gaza during Israel's military offensive, including several who worked for Al Jazeera.

The death of the Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022 sparked global outrage. She had been reporting for the network during an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank when she was shot dead.

Al Jazeera blamed the Israeli military for the death and took the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Israel has rejected the accusation.

ab/sms (Reuters, AP, AFP)

Israel shuts down Al Jazeera offices: A 'message' being sent to Qatar, expert says

Issued on: 05/05/2024 

Video by:FRANCE 24

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his government has voted unanimously to shut down the local offices of Qatar-owned broadcaster Al Jazeera, escalating Israel’s long-running feud with the channel at a time when ceasefire negotiations with Hamas — mediated by Qatar — are gaining steam. Qatar is currently hosting Hamas's leadership. “This has probably got a lot more to do with these negotiations, pressure, or some sort of message being sent to Qatar than it has to do with Al Jazeera as a television network,” said John Lyndon, executive director at the Alliance for Middle East Peace.