These 11 Maps Show How Black People Have Been Driven Out Of Neighborhoods In Five Of The Most Gentrified US Cities

The maps distinctly show neighborhoods where black populations have left and where white people have moved in.

Lam Thuy Vo BuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on February 27, 2020

Kate Wolffe / AP
Moms 4 Housing activists stand outside a vacant home on Magnolia Street in West Oakland that they occupied, saying they were unable to find permanent housing in the Bay Area, in December 2019.

We have known for years that gentrification has disproportionately displaced black and Latino people from their homes across the US, “excluding existing residents from the benefits of a revitalizing neighborhood,” as one study put it. The statistics prove it, we make cultural statements about it, and there’s rising activism around it.

To help visualize how minority communities are pushed out by white populations, BuzzFeed News ran an analysis of five of the most gentrified US cities. The results show how the demographics changed between 2000 and 2017 and highlight which census tracts have gentrified in that time.

Here’s how you can read each map: the city is split up into census tracts — a geographic region of a few thousand people. For each major race group in the census, the tracts are shaded according to how that group's representation changed between 2000 and 2017. The more red a tract is, the more that population's shrunk, relative to the tract's total population. Blue-shaded tracts indicate percentage-point increases.

To help you navigate the city’s neighborhoods a bit better, we’ve outlined every tract that has gentrified. There's no universally accepted definition of gentrification, but BuzzFeed News used a methodology developed by Governing magazine and other academic work that relies on census data on income, home prices, and education — but not racial or ethnic demographics. You can read more about how we calculated that here or play around with an interactive map at the end of the article.

Oakland

Gentrification in Oakland has become a focal point as the Bay Area gets increasingly expensive. There have also been viral incidences that made national news, like when a white woman called the police on a black family for having a barbecue.

Below is a map of Oakland that shows just how the historically black city has seen a decrease in its black population, especially in and around gentrifying neighborhoods.

Percentage point change in black population
-30% 30%

Percentage point change in white population
-30% 30%


Washington, DC

Most gentrified tracts in DC are spread throughout the city’s center, with some recording a decrease in the black population by 69 percentage points. The city has also been singled out by a study as one of the few places where gentrification pushes low-income residents out of the city.

Percentage point change in black population
-30% 30%

Percentage point change in white population
-30% 30%

Atlanta

Atlanta, sometimes dubbed the “Black Mecca,” has gentrified throughout the center of the city, based on a lot of real estate speculation, the Guardian has reported. In some of these gentrifying census tracts, the black population has shrunk by more than 45 percentage points — with the white population growing by the same amount.

Percentage point change in black population
-30% 30%

Percentage point change in white population
-30% 30%

New York City

New York City is a place of block-by-block extremes. As such, the city also gentrified in various boroughs, creating what some scholars at UC Berkeley described as “islands of exclusion in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.”

Some of the most startling changes in demographics in gentrified neighborhoods can be found in central Brooklyn and northern Manhattan in and around historically black Harlem.

Percentage point change in black population
-30% 30%

Percentage point change in white population
-30% 30%


Baltimore

Unlike other cities, Baltimore saw a displacement of black and white populations in gentrifying neighborhoods. In East Baltimore, where the Latino population grew, white people were displaced in neighborhoods where home values and education levels also increased, a researcher told the Baltimore Sun.

Percentage point change in black population
-30% 30%

Percentage point change in white population
-30% 30%


Zoom in and out and toggle between different populations (take a look at the boxes on the top left) with this interactive map:

Gentrified< -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 >
Black
White
Asian
Hispanic/Latino
Oakland
Atlanta
NYC
DC
Baltimore
© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap Improve this map © Maxar


Notes: The cities were chosen based on how many census tracts gentrified in those cities, whether people were searching for the term “gentrification” in a particular state, and whether the cities had made headlines related to housing issues in recent years.

BuzzFeed News used a methodology adopted from Governing magazine — similar to a methodology developed by Columbia University's Lance Freeman — to determine whether a census tract had gentrified between 2000 and 2017. While opinions differ on what constitutes gentrification, this methodology examines population size, median income, median home values, and post-secondary educational attainment. More details about the methodology and the data can be found here.

Lo Bénichou from Mapbox contributed reporting and editorial production to the article.


Lam Thuy Vo is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

How China played a part in the birth of globalisation in the 16th century

Globalisation is nothing new, say Peter Gordon and Juan José Morales in a book, The Silver Way, an excerpt from which reveals how a Pacific route to and from Spanish America made China an economic powerhouse 400 years ago

Peter Gordon and Juan José Morales Published:Jan, 2017


Jodocus Hondius’ 17th-century map of China. From the collection of Juan José Morales.

Long before the greenback there was the Spanish “dollar” and long before New York and London, there was Mexico City. The discovery of a route across the Pacific in the 16th century was a catalyst for the integration of the planet. In a new book, The Silver Way: China, Spanish America and the Birth of Globalisation, 1565-1815 (Penguin Random House North Asia), Hong Kong International Literary Festival founder Peter Gordon and Juan José Morales, a former president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in the city, show how the Ruta de la Plata connected China with Spanish America, furthering economic and cultural exchange and building the foundations for the first global currency and the first “world city”.

What follows is an excerpt from the book.

EACH OF THE ELEMENTS THAT characterise globali­sation – global trade networks, shipping lines, integrated financial markets, flows of cultures and peoples – can be found in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. A global currency based on the Spanish “dollar” predated the US dollar’s similar role by two centuries. The attributes of today’s world cities typified Mexico 400 years ago.

How to save globalisation from its demise

Globalisation itself, therefore, evidently predates every­thing that conventional (Anglo-American) wisdom holds neces­sary for it: the Enlightenment, steam, free trade, laissez-faire capitalism, liberal political systems and the more recent, Western-initiated institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Whatever it is that sustains globalisation cannot be linked to this narrative, for the basic structures of globalisa­tion existed at least two centuries before any of these dev­elop­­ments took root.

China’s belt and road can take its cues from the world’s first model of globalisation

Globalisation is a matter of degree, not a binary. But it was during the decidedly Spanish-dominated decades straddling the turn of the 16th century that humanity’s activities first reached a global scale.
This was when the first trade networks united Asia, Europe, the Americas, as well as, it should be added, Africa, with uninterrupted commercial shipping. It was also the period when the world’s financial markets first became linked, through the medium of silver.

An artist’s depiction of the Spanish galleon Samuel. 

A century or so later, but well within the Manila galleon period [when trading ships brought the silver from the Americas, through the Philippines, that underpinned China’s money supply], the world’s first global currency emerged in the form of the milled Spanish silver dollar that in turn begat currencies in countries from the United States to China and Japan.

These networks and interactions were not nearly as sophis­­ticated or integrated as those of today, nor were they as fast. After all, the news that Portugal had succeeded in regain­ing independence from the Spanish crown in December 1640 didn’t reach Macau until May 31, 1642 – much slower than the internet even on a very bad day. But from 1565 on, what happened in China no longer just stayed in China.

China was not just the most economically developed country in the world, it was also the most powerful

Before 1565, the discovery of a mountain of silver affected China only once the metal had travelled through the markets of Europe, the Levant, India and elsewhere. After 1565 [when the Manila galleons began sailing], ingots and coins could be placed in a ship and reach China within months, with mini­mal inter­mediaries and mark-ups. It was not quite a tele­graphic transfer but neither was it a process of slow diffusion via indirect trade.

Nor were these early-modern networks the result, as today’s are, of deliberate government policy. Indeed, many if not most of the Chinese and Spanish traders were operating contrary to laws and regulations promulgated by their respect­ive emperors: globalisation took root in spite of concerted official efforts to prevent it.

How China exemplifies the double edged sword of globalisation

Globalisation, had anyone stopped to think about it, was hardly a foregone conclusion, however inevitable it looks today. Historian Manel Ollé makes the point that Sino-Spanish interactions in the 16th century were an ambivalent process, intensively commercial but socially and institution­ally unstable.

Despite the uncertainty, however, globalisation had the effects one might have expected. In China, overseas demand drove manufacturing and economic growth, which in turn supported the population growth made possible by the inno­vation in new crops. Financial integration created arbitrage opportunities, which led to more efficient allo­cation of finan­cial resources; this integration in turn allowed contagion from one economy to another, such as the economic shocks of ship sinkings – a single sink­ing would knock out a year’s trade.

A battle scene featuring Captain George Anson's ship HMS Centurion fighting a Spanish Manila galleon off the coast of South America, circa 1739-40. Picture: Alamy

The Manila galleons sailed for two-and-a-half centuries, until 1815 and the dawn of a new era of independence for most of Spanish America. The world was during this period a very different place from the one it would later become.

China had the largest, most productive and most dynamic economy in the world. Even a couple of centuries later, Adam Smith would still write in The Wealth of Nations: “China is a much richer country than any part of Europe, and the differ­ence between the price of subsistence in China and in Europe is very great. Rice in China is much cheaper than wheat is anywhere in Europe.”

The 21st cen­tury is not the West’s first encounter with a rising China. Nor is this the first time the West has tried unsuccess­fully to fit the entire world into a single overarching con­ceptual frame­work

China was and still is the factory to the world. During the Manila galleon trade, however, Chinese products were competing not just on price but also on their unsurpassed quality. Consumer-product innovation was mostly an East Asian and largely Chinese monopoly: it was manufacturers in the West – Mexico and then Europe – that copied Asian silks, porcelain, screens, fans and furniture – not the other way around.

The China of the 16th century looked to the West not for development or investment, but rather for the silver needed for the Chinese money supply.

With wounded Russia in retreat, a rising China is riding the waves of globalisation

China was not just the most economically developed country in the world, it was also the most powerful.

Unlike the 1840s, when British ships could force their way up the Pearl River and require China to buy opium, gunboat commerce was not a practical option for the early-modern Europeans in the region. Combining force with commerce was successful only in the Southeast Asian periphery, where, for example, it was Dutch East India Company policy – according to the company’s governor-general in 1614 – that “trade cannot be maintained without war”.

But none of Spain, Portugal or Holland was able to project much force against large, long-standing nations in East Asia. They managed at best only politically insignificant foot­holds on the coasts of China and Japan, from which they were always in danger of being expelled.

China was able to require that trade take place on its terms, restricted to certain ports.

In Japan, after decades of religious conflict, the Tokugawa rulers decided to expel the Portuguese and closed their borders, except to the Dutch, whom they restricted to the small man-made island of Dejima in 1640, a situation that lasted for more than two centuries, until [the American] Commodore Perry appeared with his black ships in 1853.

More than a century into this period, in 1661, the Chinese rebel leader and Ming loyalist Koxinga ejected the Dutch from Formosa, now Taiwan, and even threatened Manila before he died suddenly the next year.

How China has gone from panda diplomacy to New Silk Road smart power

ASIA’S INTEGRATION INTO GLOBAL MARKETS was, of course, not limited to the Manila galleon trade. In yet another manifestation of globalisation in this early period, Europeans – notably the Portuguese and then the Dutch – soon came to play a major role in Asia’s regional and trans­continental trade. European third-parties transported goods within Asia and also acted as intermediaries in the Chinese-Japanese silver trade.

While this commercial footprint was not itself an indi­ca­tion of military or political power, it probably comes as no surprise that some on the ground harboured such delu­sions. In 1576, the governor of the Philippines, Francisco de Sande, wrote to Philip II of Spain proposing an inva­sion of China, which he said “would be very easy”, requiring just a few thousand men:

“The equipments necessary for this expe­di­­tion are four or six thousand men, armed with lances and arquebuses, and the ships, artillery, and necessary muni­tions. With two or three thousand men one can take whatever province he pleases, and through its ports and fleet render himself the most powerful on the sea. This will be very easy. In con­quer­ing one province, the con­quest of all is made. The people would revolt immediately [...] In all the islands a great many corsairs live, from whom also we could obtain help for this expedition, as also from the Japanese, who are the mortal enemies of the Chinese. All would gladly take part in it.”

Portrait of Philip II of Spain by Sofonisba Anguissola.

Philip was having none of it. There is a note in the margin of the report: “Reply as to the receipt of this; and that, in what relates to the conquest of China, it is not fitting at the present time to discuss that matter. On the contrary, he must strive for the maintenance of friendship with the Chinese, and must not make any alliance with the pirates hostile to the Chinese, nor give that nation any just cause for indignation against us.”

De Sande tried again in another letter, in 1579, as did his successor, Diego Ronquillo, a few years later. But the suggestions seem to have fallen on entirely deaf ears. And once the Manila galleons got going, these proposals seem never to have come up again.

Under Donald Trump, the US will accept China’s rise – as long as it doesn’t challenge the status quo

Globalisation was considerably more balanced – eco­nomic­ally and politically – between East and West in this first chapter than it was to be in the story’s second. That is not to say, Philip II’s stated intentions notwith­stand­ing, that relations were friendly, or that there was not any protracted shoving. The oppor­tunities for trade and access to raw materials did indeed occasion mili­tary action and territorial expansion, but it was the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia, rather than the much more powerful China and Japan, that bore the brunt of this.

China was larger in terri­tory, economy and population at the end of this period than at the beginning. The 21st cen­tury is not the West’s first encounter with a rising China. Nor is this the first time the West has tried unsuccess­fully to fit the entire world into a single overarching con­ceptual frame­work. Just as the advance of Western-led globalisation pro­vides the vali­dation for demo­cracy and freedom, these values also become the philosophical justification for globalisation.

Idol worship: why pirate Koxinga is Taiwan's undisputed hero


Sixteenth- and 17th-century global­isa­tion was a conse­quence rather than an explicit objective of Spanish policy and commerce. But Spanish policy nevertheless had a con­ceptual framework of its own: Catholicism. To the modern eye, attempts at reli­gious conversion can seem tangential and even detrimental to geopolitical advance and commer­cial gain. But without questioning the sincere beliefs of the adherents, there was a good deal of realpolitik in advancing Catholicism. Actions, however one-sided, could be present­ed as being in the interests of the other party. There was a feeling that shared beliefs made it easier to do business.

Globalisation spells the death of minority cultures

Converts also undermined existing hierarchies, loyalties and structures in both occu­pied territories and other coun­tries. The resulting activities were often considered less than innocent by the governments of China and Japan. Com­plaints about “interference in internal affairs” are not a uniquely modern pheno­menon. The linking of ideology and policy could be a two-edged sword: just as demo­crats today question realpolitik alliances, Spanish clerics were among the most vociferous opponents of forced labour in colonial mines and agricultural estates.

How the China-US relationship evolved, and why it still matters

Manila galleon-era Spain had a histor­ical narrative of its own: it had been pro­gres­sively expanding and unifying for cen­turies – first the reconquista of the Iberian peninsula and then the conquest of an entire new world. Catholicism went hand-in-glove with this terri­torial and – once the wealth of the Americas came on stream – financial expansion, a success which both validated Catholicism and was in turn justified by it.

Ultimately, the Spanish narrative, not unlike today’s Anglo-American narrative, ran up against the reality that is China. The Sino-Spanish story, and the Silver Way, went into abeyance for 200 years. It is only in the past decade that the stirrings of a possible rebirth can be witnessed.

The Silver Way (Penguin Random House North Asia) is now available now in the Asia-Pacific region and will be in global Amazon stores from June.

COMMENTS

Peter Gordon
Peter Gordon is editor of the Asian Review of Books. A publisher and entrepreneur, he has been active in technology, culture and international trade and investment. He is the co-author of “The Silver Way: China, Spanish America and the Birth of Globalisation, 1565–1815”. He has been a resident of Hong Kong since 1985.

SUPERMOON 2020: WHEN IS THE NEXT RARE FULL MOON SPECTACLE?

An airplane silhouettes against the supermoon on 
19 February, 2019 in Nuremberg, southern Germany( AFP/Getty )

A trio of full moons will appear bigger and brighter this Spring

Anthony Cuthbertson Friday 21 February 2020 

Three successive supermoons this Spring will give sky gazers the opportunity to witness the rare spectacle for an entire season in 2020.

Each month between March and May, the full moon will be near to its closest point to Earth in its orbit, making it appear bigger and brighter than usual.

The first of these supermoons takes place on 9 March, when the full moon passes at 357,404km (222,081 miles) from Earth.

On 8 April, the full moon passes even closer at just 357,035km, making it the closest a full moon has been to Earth since February last year.

Weather permitting, this will be the most impressive supermoon of 2020, with the final supermoon on 7 May passing at 361,184km from Earth.

Super blood wolf moon totally eclipses the sun: in pictures





An effect called the "Moon illusion" means that the moon will appear even bigger when it is rising or setting over the horizon and there are objects like trees or buildings within the line of sight.

"Because these relatively close objects are in front of the moon, our brain is tricked into thinking the moon is much closer to the objects that are in our line of sight," explained Mitzi Adams, a solar scientist at Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center.

"At moon rise or set, it only appears larger than when it is directly overhead because there are no nearby objects with which to compare it."

A full moon passes behind The Shard skyscraper on 
9 September, 2014 in London, England (Getty Images)

A supermoon earlier this month conincided with Storm Ciara in the UK, meaning viewing conditions were severely affected for people in the UK.

Long range forecasts from the Met Office suggest March's supermoon will be accompanied by more favourable weather, especially in the south of the country.

"A continuation of the unsettled weather is expected at first, with spells of rain and strong winds broken by brighter but showery conditions," the weather service states on its website.

"The heaviest rain and strongest winds are expected in the northwest, with drier conditions expected in southern and eastern parts. It will perhaps become more generally settled by the middle of March, with more prolonged dry spells possible, especially in the south."

'I won't stay silent': Whistleblower reveals how TONNES of facemasks, hand sanitisers and other coronavirus supplies were shipped from Australia to China as the deadly bug took hold

Whistleblower tells of how he saw medical supplies repacked and sent to China
'If essential medical items leave the country, what's left for us?' he said

Global shortage hits leaving Australian doctors without facemasks, protection
WHO flagged global shortage on February 7. Government banned export April 1

CHINA NEEDED SUPPLIES HOW IT GOT THEM WAS UNDER THE TABLE IN MANY COUNTRIES, GOING AROUND RED TAPE TO GET THE GOODS, NOW THEY SELL THEM BACK TO THOSE SAME COUNTRIES 

By ALISON BEVEGE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA PUBLISHED: 5 April 2020

A whistleblower has revealed how he watched essential medical equipment being purchased from Australian pharmacies then shipped to China during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

Greenland Group, which manages property developments across the globe with the support of the Chinese government, told employees at its Sydney office in January to stop their normal work.

Instead, they were tasked with sourcing face masks, hand sanitisers, thermometers and other medical items, storing them at their office and shipping them to China.

One of the company's workers told 60 Minutes he felt uncomfortable and suspicious watching board rooms fill up with emergency equipment being repackaged for export.

Man reveals he saw tonnes on facemasks being shipped to China

'I think in a time of crisis, we all have a responsibility to do something, and I felt that I had to do something,' he said.

'It just didn't sit with me that this type of thing could happen. I couldn't just watch it and just stay silent.'

Medical experts are desperately worried about a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) that is already leaving frontline medical staff exposed to coronavirus infection.

Australia's supply of face masks had already been depleted by the bushfire crisis when the coronavirus pandemic took off in Wuhan, China.

Pallets of medical equipment being shipped to China by property developers Risland Australia, another Beijing-backed firm that repurposed staff to buy up supplies for China


Risland sent 90 tonnes of medical supplies bought in Australia back to China in February

As the pandemic began to take hold in Australia, bulk supplies of vital medical items were shipped from Sydney to China at the request of Beijing-backed Greenland Group.

'It definitely rose my suspicion think the main concern was if all of these essential medical items leave the country, what's left for us?' the Greenland whistleblower said.

'It is very unsettling that essential equipment can just leave our borders in massive commercial quantities

Greenland Group was not the only Chinese-backed company to buy up Australian supplies.

Chinese real estate developer Poly Developments and Holdings told staff at the Sydney office in Australia Square to check local pharmacies for N95 surgical face masks or 8210 masks.

The heavy-duty waterproof protective equipment that medical workers are using overseas to deal with coronavirus, that Australian health care workers can only dream about

The staff replied they were searching the city from Eastwood to Hornsby, Penrith and Mona Vale.

In February, another Chinese property developer, Risland Australia, shipped 90 tonnes of medical protection equipment to China.

Risland made an online post last month saying '90 tonnes of selective medical supplies' were sent 'air transport direct from Sydney to Wuhan via corporate jet'.

Video footage also emerged showed boxes of surgical masks being stacked up at a Perth airport before being sent to Wuhan on February 8 - when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in Australia.

China makes most of the world's protective equipment after globalisation shifted manufacturing to the low-cost producer. Workers at a face mask production line on March 30 in Longyan, Fujian Province (pictured). China has seized production at a number of factories

China did not just tell its companies in Australia to buy up medical supplies - the Chinese Communist Party's affiliates were buying up supplies around the world.

In two months, China amassed an estimated 2.4 billion pieces of protective equipment including more than 2 billion masks, 60 Minutes reported.

At the same time it seized production at factories producing protective equipment for export to countries around the world.

Chinese property developers Greenland sent staff out to buy the medical supplies (pictured). A whistleblower has revealed how he felt so uncomfortable he just had to take action

The whistleblower told 60 Minutes how suspicious he felt watching the boxes of medical supplies being unpacked and repacked in the staff room, board room and lunch room

Face mask manufacturer Medicom Group's president of North American operations Guillaume Laverdure said the Chinese Government had requisitioned three factories in China and one in Shanghai.

'So the government sent people to take control of the inventory and the products in our factory,' Mr Laverdure told 60 Minutes.

CORONAVIRUS CASES IN AUSTRALIA: 5,688

New South Wales: 2,580

Victoria: 1,135

Queensland: 907

Western Australia: 453

South Australia: 409

Australian Capital Territory: 96

Tasmania: 82

Northern Territory: 26

TOTAL CASES: 5,688

DEAD: 35

The coronavirus crisis has revealed the weakness of a globalised supply chain which has left Australia reliant on imports, stripped of its capacity to make lifesaving equipment in the face of a deadly pandemic.

By allowing importers to undercut domestic manufacturers, Australia lost the ability to make its own masks and all the manufacturing capacity moved to low-cost China.

World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had sounded the alarm on the global shortage of protective equipment on February 7, even as Chinese companies were stripping Australian pharmacies of masks.

'The world is facing severe disruption in the market for personal protective equipment,' Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus told a televised press conference from Geneva.

'Global stocks of masks and respirators are now insufficient to meet the needs of WHO and our partners.'

Dr Tedros's announcement came just two weeks after Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt toured the national medical stockpile, posting pictures on Twitter to reassure the Australian public that with 20 million single-use masks, Australia did not have a shortage.

How bulk supplies of Australia's face masks, hand sanitisers and other vital medical items were shipped to CHINA as the coronavirus pandemic took hold

Bulk supplies of vital medical items were shipped from Sydney to China at the request of a Beijing-backed property giant as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Australia.

Greenland Group, which manages property developments across the globe with the support of the Chinese government, told employees at its Sydney office to stop their normal work in January.

Instead, they were tasked with sourcing face masks, hand sanitisers, thermometers and other medical items, storing them at their office and shipping them to China.

A whistleblower told The Sydney Morning Herald the exercise was a worldwide effort and continued until the end of February.

'Basically all employees, the majority of whom are Chinese, were asked to source whatever medical supplies they could,' the insider said.

'There were numerous requests from the HR manager and even our direct reporting line [which] prioritised the assisting of the company in gathering these supplies over other work activities.'

Greenland Group told Chinese language media in Australia the company collected three million protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of medical gloves during the global effort.

It is unclear how many of those were sourced in Australia.


Greenland Group confirmed the shipments from Sydney to China in a statement to Daily Mail Australia, saying it 'felt compelled' to assist 'in efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus, which had caused a shortage of critical medical supplies in China'.

The supplies were 'dispatched to China, which at that time was the epicentre of the outbreak', the statement read.

'As such, Greenland Group initiated a drive for medical supplies, and provided accommodation services for front-line medical staff in China via the company's hotel group.

'Greenland Australia supported Greenland Group's initiative by arranging for medical supplies to be dispatched to China. Again, it should be noted that this proactive response occurred in late January and early February, at a time when the worldwide spread of the virus, and all response efforts, were focused on China.'

Photos show pallet-loads of medical items stored in company-stamped boxes at Greenland's Sydney offices and at various airports.

Sherwood Lou, Greenland Australia's managing director, shared photos of the supplies on February 13.

He wrote at the time: 'The second batch of non-contact forehead thermometers will soon take off to China! Coronavirus situation is serious, Chinese people, local and overseas, are trying their best, fighting together to combat the virus.'

Greenland Group told Chinese language media in Australia the company collected three million protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of medical gloves during the global effort

Everything you need to know about coronavirus explained

The company has sold a billion dollars worth of property in Sydney and Melbourne since its 2013 arrival to Australia.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government is scrambling to produce enough medical supplies as confirmed local coronavirus cases surge to more than 2,400 - and doubling about every three days.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said a 'war production unit' had been convened at the weekend to prepare Australia.

The Federal Government is scrambling to produce enough medical supplies as confirmed local coronavirus cases surge to more than 2,400. Pictured: Two young women in face masks walk along Circular Quay in Sydney on Wednesday

'We have four companies that have indicated that they are willing to make ventilators and will be seeking approvals which have been given at light speed,' he told Nine News on Monday.

'At the same time, we are working on imports and procurements, large volumes of masks have arrived over the course of the weekend, additional volumes of testing kits.'

Australia has only one face mask factory in operation, The Med-Con in Shepparton, a regional area of northern Victoria.

It is facing an unprecedented demand to make face masks and hospital gowns during the crisis.

Health Minister Greg Hunt toured a national medical supply warehouse on January 24, saying Australia had 20 million single-use face masks. The WHO announced a global shortage of personal protective equipment on February 7

Pictured: Australian-based Chinese property company Risland
shipped 90 tonnes worth of vital medical supplies to Wuhan

Risland made an online post last month that declared their support for Wuhan and showed workers inside a warehouse packed with thousands of boxes of protective clothing (pictured)

Sydney anaesthetist Robert Hackett risked his job to speak out about the protective equipment shortage now facing frontline medical staff in major Australian hospitals.

As 60 Minutes reporter Liz Hayes demonstrated how all the wall-mounted dispensers were empty of hand sanitiser, Dr Hackett told of how staff were having to reuse single-use masks while others had no masks at all.

'The equipment we do have is pretty much not much more than a plastic flimsy gown at times ... we're desperate to get these things on the frontline as soon as possible,' he said.

'Many of my colleagues have purchased hooded gowns and other bits of equipment from Bunnings and have even pleaded for other people to go to Bunnings and buy these bits of equipment - I mean we are desperate, none of us ever signed up for this.'

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said on Wednesday April 1 that the government had banned the export of essential medical supplies such as masks, gloves, gowns, goggles, visors or alcohol wipes, as well as hand sanitiser.

Anyone caught exporting the goods may face up to five years' jail under the new amendment to the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations 1958 Act called 'COVID-19 Human Biosecurity Emergency'.

GREENLAND AUSTRALIA STATEMENT IN FULL

Greenland Australia can confirm that in late January and early February 2020, the company organised shipments of medical supplies to Greenland Group's global head office in Shanghai, to help contain the rapidly-developing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China.

At this time, China was the epicentre of the outbreak, and Greenland Australia's efforts corresponded with those of many other companies and individuals around the world organising similar donations.

Greenland Australia's parent company, Greenland Group, felt compelled, as a major international company, to assist in efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus, which had caused a shortage of crucial medical supplies in China.

As such, Greenland Group initiated a drive for medical supplies, and provided accommodation services for front-line medical staff in China via the company's hotel group.

Greenland Australia supported Greenland Group's initiative by arranging for medical supplies to be dispatched to China.

Again, it should be noted that this proactive response occurred in late January and early February, at a time when the worldwide spread of the virus, and all response efforts, were focussed on China.

However, Greenland Australia also recognises that Australian people are currently at risk, and with the more recent and ongoing domestic spread of COVID-19, the company is focussed on helping people in this country, just as Australia's many friends around the world are doing.

Greenland Australia continues to take this pandemic very seriously, and in conjunction with Greenland Group, we will continue to do everything we can to assist.

Read more:
Coronavirus: 'Vital medical supplies sent to China' as export ban comes 'too late', Aussie hospitals grapple with shortages

Ukraine Says Fire Extinguished Near Contaminated Site Of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

April 05, 2020 By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service

Firefighters reportedly said they hadn't seen any flames since the morning of April 4.

Emergency authorities in Ukraine say there are no signs of any fire still burning in the uninhabited exclusion zone around the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant after firefighters mobilized to put out a blaze.

The country's State Emergency Service said early on April 5 that background radiation levels were "within normal limits."

More than 130 firefighters, three aircraft, and 21 vehicles were deployed on April 4 to battle the fire, which was said to have burned around 20 hectares (50 acres) in the long-vacated area near where an explosion at a Soviet nuclear plant in 1986 sent a plume of radioactive fallout high into the air and across swaths of Europe.

Fire and safety crews were said to be inspecting the area overnight on April 4-5 to eliminate any threat from sites where there was still smoldering

The blaze required seven airdrops of water, officials said.

The Ukrainian State Emergency Service said that "as of April 5, 7:00 a.m., there was no open fire, only some isolated cells smoldering."

It said firefighters hadn't seen any flames since around 8:00 p.m. on April 4.

Officials had earlier shared images taken from an aircraft of white smoke blanketing the area, where it said firefighting was complicated by "an increased radiation background in individual areas of combustion."

There was no threat to settlements, the State Emergency Service said.

A number of regions of Ukraine this week have reported brushfires amid unseasonably dry conditions.

VIDEO
The Chernobyl Disaster: How It Happened

Fires are a routine threat in the forested region around the exclusion zone where an explosion 33 years ago ripped a roof off the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the now-abandoned town of Pripyat.

The 1986 explosion sent a cloud of radioactive material high into the air above then-Soviet Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, as well as across Europe as Soviet officials denied there had been any accidents.

Dozens of people in Ukraine died in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, and thousands more have since died from its effects, mainly exposure to radiation.

A second massive protective shelter over the contaminated reactor was completed in 2016 in hopes of preventing further radiation leaks and setting the stage for the eventual dismantling of the structure.

With additional reporting by Interfax

Living Scared: In Kabul’s Shi’ite Enclave, Hazara Fear A Taliban Return

April 05, 2020 By Frud Bezhan

Amir Hamza was sitting in the same row as the suicide bomber

 who attacked his mosque in October 2017.

KABUL -- Ahmad Zia was sitting behind his wooden registration table when a suicide bombing ripped through Kabul’s Maiwand Wrestling Club, where scores of athletes were in the middle of a training session.

The blast flung Zia, the club administrator, off his chair and into a wall.

Covered in dust, the 28-year-old stumbled through the debris to help pull the bodies of the dead and wounded out of the burning sports club. The floor was covered with blood and the wrestling hall was strewn with dismembered bodies.

Less than an hour after the blast at Maiwand, a car laden with explosives detonated outside the same club in the western part of the Afghan capital, targeting journalists and emergency responders.

The twin bombings killed 30 people and wounded more than 90.

“There was fire, dust, and body parts everywhere,” said Zia, who added that there were around 150 people inside the club when an Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber struck that September day in 2018. Many were wrestlers aspiring to make Afghanistan’s Olympic team. “I’m haunted by what happened.”

The attacks occurred in Dasht-e Barchi -- a predominately Shi’ite enclave in Kabul that is home to the Hazara minority.

IS and Taliban militants -- Sunni extremist groups that consider Shi’a apostates -- have been blamed for devastating attacks that have killed hundreds of Hazara in the area in recent years.

Fears of more mass killings of Hazara have amplified after the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement aimed at ending America’s 18-year war in Afghanistan.

Signed on February 29, the deal envisages a power-sharing arrangement that is likely to bring the militants back into government.

But many Hazara fear that a deal with the Taliban will bring persecution rather than peace.

“Peace with the Taliban will not be a peace at all,” said Zia, wearing a black jacket over a sky blue pirhan tumban, the traditional baggy shirt and pants common in Afghanistan. “How could I ever accept them? When they have killed our children and torn apart our families, how can we?”

Zia lost two cousins in the bombings -- one a guard and the other a young wrestler.

Dasht-e Barchi has been the scene of a string of gruesome attacks by IS militants, including bombings targeting Shi’ite mosques and holy sites, public gatherings, schools, and sports clubs.

Outside of the capital, Taliban militants have kidnapped and executed Hazara civilians and stormed Hazara areas that have forced thousands to flee their homes.

Inside the Maiwand Wrestling Club in Kabul.

Many here do not distinguish between the Taliban and IS, which experts said is comprised of disgruntled former members of the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, and other Islamic militant groups in the region.

“The Taliban and Daesh are both terrorist groups that kill poor and innocent people,” said Zia, as he walked on the mats of the empty wrestling hall, referring to the Arabic acronym for the IS group. “They are both the enemies of the people, not just the enemies of one ethnicity or religion.”

History Of Violence

Militant violence has transformed Dasht-e Barchi, a thriving urban enclave, into a war zone.

The Maiwand Wrestling Club is barricaded behind high concrete blast walls and razor wire. The wrestling hall, even after extensive renovations, is still pockmarked with shrapnel from the 2018 bomb blast. Yet the club has more wrestlers than ever, with around 400 people training each day in four sessions.

The Taliban strictly prohibited most forms of sport during their 1996-2001 reign, deeming them un-Islamic, and used sports venues for public executions

Soldiers, police officers, and even armed plainclothes civilians -- paid and trained by the government -- guard the entrances and the rooftops of mosques, schools, and sports clubs. There have been growing calls for the community, where suspicion of the government is rife and anger is widespread, to take its security into its own hands.

The civilian forces are controversial in Afghanistan, where ethnic militias fought over control of Kabul during the country's devastating civil war from 1992-96 that killed some 100,000 people and left most of the capital in ruins.

The beleaguered Hazara minority has long been persecuted.

During the 19th century, Afghan monarchs attempted to forcibly convert the Hazara, seize their lands, and bring Hazara regions in the country’s highlands under the control of the central government. They were campaigns that killed thousands and forced even more to flee their homes, including many to British India. Hazaras who resettled to Kabul and other cities suffered discrimination and were often employed only in low-paying jobs.
During their oppressive rule, the Taliban terrorized the Hazara, wrestling control of Hazara regions in Afghanistan through a campaign of targeted killings and what rights groups have suggested amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Historically the poorest and most marginalized ethnic group in Afghanistan, the community has made major inroads since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban regime, becoming powerful figures in politics and the media.

Although there is no census, Shi'a are believed to make up around 15 percent of Afghanistan's 30 million people, which is largely Sunni. Hazara account for the overwhelming majority of Shi'a in the country.

Aside from past Taliban atrocities against the Hazara, the extremist group’s strict interpretation of Shari’a law and its policies on women and education could threaten advancements made by the Hazara in recent years. Socially and culturally more progressive than other ethnic groups, the Hazara fear their rights to education and to practice their religion will be threatened under a peace deal.


'Ball Of Fire'
Amir Hamza was among the more than 400 people packed inside the Imam Zaman mosque in Dasht-e Barchi in October 2017.

As the worshippers knelt in rows to pray, a suicide bomber at the front detonated his explosives.

Blood spattered the walls inside the mosque as bits of flesh sprayed the ceiling. Broken glass and concrete littered the praying mats.

That bombing -- claimed by IS militants -- killed 58 worshippers and wounded more than 100.

“I was sitting in the same row as the suicide bomber,” said the 72-year-old Hamza, a caretaker at the mosque, whose hearing was impaired after the attack.

“There was a ball of fire that burnt my beard, the left side of my face, my left leg, and even the money I had in my top shirt pocket.”

Hamza, a father of eight, was rushed to the hospital where he spent several days in intensive care.

“This was the work of the Taliban or Daesh,” said Hamza, who trudged inside the renovated prayer hall with a limp. “They are the same. They claim they defend Islam but they bombed God’s house and destroyed the holy books inside.”

“Peace with the Taliban will not be a peace at all,” says Ahmad Zia at the wrestling club.

Guards brandishing AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles guarded the entrance to the mosque, which can fit around 2,000 worshippers. Worshippers are searched and vehicles are prohibited from parking near the mosque for fear of car bombings.

But the security measures did not prevent the horrific attack from taking place.

Hamza’s family was among the first to move to Dasht-e Barchi in the late 1990s.

Once a largely barren area with just several settlements, the crowded enclave is now home to hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Hazara who have fled war and poverty in neighboring provinces. Many residents here are poor, although some affluent neighborhoods have also sprung up.

Hamza came to Dasht-e Barchi during Taliban rule from the southeastern province of Ghazni, where he said the Hazara population was persecuted, arbitrarily jailed, and their land confiscated.

“If the Taliban came back to power as part of a political deal, then we won’t be able to live as we do now,” said Hamza. “Would this mosque be open? Would all the schools be open?”

'We Cannot Accept The Taliban'

In August 2018, dozens of high school graduates were hunched over their wooden desks inside a crowded classroom at the Mawoud Academy in Dasht-e Barchi.

In the middle of a lesson, a suicide bomber stormed into the classroom and detonated his explosives.

Forty students were killed and nearly 70 wounded inside the destroyed classroom, which was full of broken bodies strewn over smashed desks and chairs.

All the dead were students under the age of 20. They were attending extra lessons to prepare for university entrance exams that were just weeks away.

Sabara Ahmadi, an 18-year-old student, had been taking lessons at the academy. Although she was not there that day, she lost two close friends in the attack.

“I’m very scared,” said Ahmadi, sitting on a bench in her school garden, chatting with classmates between lessons. “But the attack also made me even more determined. I want to carry on for my classmates who were killed.”

Ahmadi’s parents moved to Kabul from the neighboring province of Maidan Wardak after 2001.

Life for the family was difficult in Kabul, an overcrowded city of 5 million people at risk of near-constant militant attacks and plagued by mass unemployment. The family rented a room in a neighborhood where running water and electricity worked only sporadically.

But for Ahmadi’s uneducated parents, the sacrifice would almost certainly be worth it -- their eight children would have a better life.

Ahmadi’s three older brothers, who grew up during Taliban rule, were denied an education. But she has been able to attend school and hopes to study for a computer science degree.


It's Like 'Living In A Cage,' Say Pakistan's Besieged Hazara

The Taliban was notorious for its poor treatment of women, banning them from working or going to school.

Since 2001, millions of Afghan girls have gone back to school, women have joined the workforce, and dozens of them are members of parliament.

The militant group has suggested it is committed to guaranteeing women their rights, although only in accordance with their strict interpretation of Islam.

Ahmadi, donning jeans and a pink head scarf, fears the return of the Taliban as part of a peace deal could jeopardize the future of young Afghans, especially girls.

“We cannot accept the Taliban,” she said. “Everything will get worse. Even though I’m scared, I can still go to study. But the Taliban will probably take that away from me, too.”

---30---

Has coronavirus been in humans for years? Experts claim the disease was circulating 'for some time' before lethally mutating 

Experts have cast doubt on the theory the virus was first transmitted from a bat to a human at a live animal market in Wuhan a few months ago 

Several scientists have said the killer disease could have been in humans for years before adapting and becoming more lethal 

'I think it probably circulated in humans for some time,' Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, told CNN 

Professor Robert Gary of the Tulane University School of Medicine said several other strains of coronavirus were undetected for decades before discovery 

Lipkin also warned that the outbreak will reoccur and won't be a one-off By RACHEL SHARP FOR DAILYMAIL.COM PUBLISHED: 5 April 2020

Coronavirus could have been in humans for years before becoming increasingly lethal and sparking a global pandemic, according to experts.

As the world continues to grapple to bring the outbreak under control, the global death toll skyrocketed to more than 64,000 and infections topped 1.2million Friday.

The widespread theory is that the deadly virus was first transmitted from a bat to a human at a live animal market in Wuhan at the end of 2019.

Leading scientists are now casting doubt on that theory, warning that the virus could have made the leap to humans many months and even years before it adapted and became more deadly.


Leading scientists are now casting doubt on the theory that the deadly virus was first transmitted from a bat to a human at a live animal market in Wuhan at the end of 2019

Pictured: what appears to be skinned chicks on the floor inside the South China Seafood Market in Wuhan Huanan

'I think it probably circulated in humans for some time,' Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, told CNN.

'How long? We may never fully reconstruct that... It could have circulated for months even years.'

A recent study in Nature Medicine Magazine voiced a similar theory that humans could have been infected with the virus for years without knowing.

Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, said Coronavirus could have been in humans for years before becoming increasingly lethal and sparking a global pandemic

The theory is that the virus has adapted and become more infectious and deadly to humans over time.

'The spark that ignited this surely only took place a few months ago, there could have been other sparks that set it off and made smaller fires that we just didn't detect it,' Professor Robert Gary, author of the study and professor of the Tulane University School of Medicine.

'It's a wide range of time that we can select.'

Gary said several other strains of coronavirus have been undetected for decades before medical experts have discovered them.

Professor Robert Gary of the Tulane University School of Medicine said the virus could have made the leap to humans many months and even years before it adapted

'There's some coronaviruses that we know about - some of the milder ones - that circulated for decades before we actually first discovered the first one,' he said.

It's 'what viruses do', Andrew Cunningham, veterinary epidemiologist at ZSL, told CNN.

'It probably had some adaptations to humans before it jumped into humans but it probably adapted further and proved its ability to infect and transmit between people once it got into people.'

Fears are also mounting that the pandemic the world is facing now won't be a one-off.

'Ultimately we have to have a vaccine because this virus is going to be endemic in the human population, it's going to reoccur,' warned Lipkin.

Lipkin tested positive for the virus mid-March, after returning from China in early February.

'The first couple of days you feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest,' he said.

'I was in China the second half of January returning early February, no illness whatsoever although I was placed in isolation and then I became ill on the streets of New York,' he recalled.

The growing school of thought from the experts continues to raise questions over the origin of the outbreak which has now infected more than 311,000 Americans and killed 8,503.

CORONAVIRUS: THEORIES OF ORIGIN


A WILDLIFE MARKET IN WUHAN

The most common theory is that the virus leaped to humans from animals - specifically bats - in a live animal market in Wuhan. 

A menagerie of live animals including koalas, rats and wolf pups were available at the Huanan Seafood Market in central Wuhan - the outbreak's epicentre.

The Huanan market was a hotspot with locals, who could choose to buy their meat 'warm' meaning it had been slaughtered just moment prior.



The market was shut on January 1 after dozens of workers there had contracted the disease

Most research has pointed to the virus coming from bats at the market, with scientists saying the COVID-19 genome is 96 per cent similar to one commonly found in bats.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the People's Liberation Army and Institut Pasteur of Shanghai came to the conclusion that the coronavirus may have come from bats.

In a statement, the team said: 'The Wuhan coronavirus' natural host could be bats… but between bats and humans there may be an unknown intermediate.

Research published in the Lancet also determined bats as the most probable original host of the virus after samples were taken from the lungs of nine patients in Wuhan.

The team suggested that bats passed the disease on to an 'intermediate' host which was at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan before being passed on to the 'terminal host' — humans.

A LAB IN WUHAN

UK ministers fear the coronavirus pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The UK's emergency Cobra committee led by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said it will not rule out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.

The member of Cobra, which receives detailed classified briefings from the security services, said: 'There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted.'

Wuhan is home to the Institute of Virology, the most advanced laboratory of its type on the Chinese mainland.


Lab fears: A laboratory leak in Wuhan is believed to have caused the coronavirus pandemic

The £30million institute, based ten miles from the infamous wildlife market, is supposed to be one of the most secure virology units in the world.

Scientists at the institute were the first to suggest that the virus's genome was 96 per cent similar to one commonly found in bats.

There have been unverified local reports that workers at the institute became infected after being sprayed by blood, and then carried the infection into the local population.

When the wildlife market was closed in January, a report appeared in the Beijing News identifying Huang Yanling, a researcher at the Institute of Virology, as 'patient zero' – the first person to be infected.

The claim was described as 'fake information' by the institute, which said Huang left in 2015, was in good health and had not been diagnosed with Covid-19.

A second institute in the city, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control – which is barely three miles from the market – is also believed to have carried out experiments on animals such as bats to examine the transmission of corona viruses.

IN US TROOPS

Despite early admissions that the virus began in the city of Wuhan, China later back-tracked - even going so far as to suggest American troops had brought the infection over after visiting the province.

Lijian Zhao, a prominent official within the Chinese Foreign Ministry, tweeted out the claim on March 12 while providing no evidence to substantiate it.

'When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals,' he wrote.


Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused American military members of bringing the coronavirus to Wuhan

Referencing a military athletics tournament in Wuhan in October, which US troops attended, he wrote: 'It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.

'Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!'

In fact, America's 'patient zero' was a man who travelled from China to Washington State on January 15. The case was confirmed by the CDC six days later.

Chinese has also tried to push the theory that the virus originated in Italy, the country with the most deaths, by distorting a quote from an Italian doctor who suggested the country's first cases could have occurred much earlier than thought.

Giuseppe Remuzzi said he is investigating strange cases of pneumonia as far back as December and November, months before the virus was known to have spread.

Chinese state media widely reported his comments while also suggesting that the virus could have originated in Italy.

In fact, Remuzzi says, there can be no doubt it started in Wuhan - but may have spread out of the province and across the world earlier than thought.