Sunday, December 28, 2014

Farmers fear even greater labor shortage under new Obama policy -- some crops in California could go unharvested in 2015.

Farmers fear even greater labor shortage under new Obama policy

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Sept. 24, 2013: In this file photo taken near Fresno, Calif., farmworkers pick paper trays of dried raisins off the ground and heap them onto a trailer in the final step of raisin harvest. Thousands of farmworkers in California, the nations leading grower of fruits, vegetables and nuts may soon be able to leave the uncertainty of their seasonal jobs for steady, year-around work building homes, cooking in restaurants and cleaning hotel rooms. (AP/File)
Farmers already scrambling to find workers in California — the nation's leading grower of fruits, vegetables and nuts — fear an even greater labor shortage under President Barack Obama's executive action to block some 5 million people from deportation.
Thousands of the state's farmworkers, who make up a significant portion of those who will benefit, may choose to leave the uncertainty of their seasonal jobs for steady, year-around work building homes, cooking in restaurants and cleaning hotel rooms.
"This action isn't going to bring new workers to agriculture," said Jason Resnick, vice president and general counsel of the powerful trade association Western Growers. "It's possible that because of this action, agriculture will lose workers without any mechanism to bring in new workers."
Although details of the president's immigration policy have yet to be worked out, Resnick said the agricultural workforce has been declining for a decade. Today, the association estimates there is a 15 to 20 percent shortage of farmworkers, which is driving the industry to call for substantial immigration reform from Congress, such as a sound guest worker program.
"Hopefully there will be the opportunity for comprehensive immigration reform," said Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. "That's the right thing to do for this country."
California's 330,000 farmworkers account for the largest share of the 2.1 million nationwide, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Texas comes in a distant second with less than half of California's farmworkers.
Once Obama's executive action starts going into effect next year, it will protect the parents of legal U.S. residents from deportation and expand a 2012 program that shields from deportation people brought into the U.S. illegally as children.
Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League, estimates that 85 percent of California's agricultural workers are using false documents to obtain work.
Cunha, who has advised the Obama administration on immigration policy, figures that 50,000 of the state's farmworkers who may benefit from the president's executive action could leave the fields and packing houses in California's $46.4 billion agricultural industry.
"How do I replace that?" he said. "I think we're going to have a problem."
Many farmworkers are paid above minimum wage, earning more hourly than they will in other industries, but he said that workers that leave will gain year-around jobs and regular paychecks, rather than seasonal employment.
While farmers may face a setback, Obama's order is good for workers, who support families and fear that any day they may be pulled over driving to work and deported, said Armando Elenes, national vice president of the United Farm Workers.
With proper documentation, workers will feel empowered and be more valuable, Elenes said. Confronted with abuse at work — such as being paid less than minimum wage or denied overtime — workers will be able to challenge their employer or leave, he said.
In addition, their newfound mobility will create competition for farmworkers and potentially increase wages, Elenes said, adding, "It's going to open up a whole new world for workers. A lot of times, if you're undocumented, you feel like you're stuck."
Ed Kissam, an immigration researcher at the immigrant advocacy group, WKF Giving Fund, said he doubts a significant number of farmworkers will leave the industry. Farmworkers often lack the language, education and technical skills to move up the employment ladder, he said. "Surely some will," Kissam said. "It's not going to be a mass exodus."
Edward Taylor, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, said a shortage of farmworkers could be exacerbated by a dwindling flow of workers from Mexico, the largest supplier of labor to the United States. Taylor said the lower birthrates, more industrial jobs and better schools in rural Mexico are cutting into the supply of farmworkers.
"U.S. and Mexican farmers have to compete for that diminishing supply of farm labor," he said. "Once this change hits, there's no going back."
Central Valley farmer Harold McClarty of HMC Farms, who hires a thousand workers at harvest time, said there is no replacing the human hand for picking the 50 varieties of peaches he grows. His workers pick a single tree five or more times, making sure the fruit they take is ripe.
"We haven't found any machines that can do anything like that," he said. "You can't just pick the whole tree."

Monday, December 22, 2014

African Bushmeat Is Ebola's Back Door to America



African Bushmeat Is Ebola's Back Door to America





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While the focus remains on the passengers of trans-Atlantic flights, there is an additional risk—all but ignored by the popular press and public—lurking in the cargo hold below: bushmeat contaminated with the Ebola virus and smuggled into the U.S. in luggage.
08_22_Bushmeat_01 A bowl containing cooked monkey bushmeat makes its way to the local Nayabissam market on July 27, 2011 in Nayabissam, Cameroon.
That Special-Occasions Meat
Under U.S. Department of Agriculture rules, not a single African country is allowed to import any meat product, raw or processed. And for years now, U.S. health officials and legislators have been expressing concern over the steady flow of bushmeat illegally imported into the country. Internal documents show that from 2009 to 2013, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency confiscated over 69,000 different bushmeat items, with seizures ranging from dried bat to smoked monkey (see sidebar). And that’s likely a mere sliver compared with what actually gets into the U.S. At least one estimate puts the number at 15,000 pounds every month.
“Nobody knows” how much of the stuff gets into America, says Allard Blom of the World Wildlife Fund. “It’s anybody’s guess, really, because there’s very little control on the import of bushmeats. You’re looking here particularly at Fish and Wildlife Service [FWS], and they have very few agents that are working at these airports, and very few pieces of luggage are actually screened.”
Via email, an agency spokeswoman says, “It’s misleading to cite only Fish and Wildlife Service staffing levels.”


Three other agencies are responsible for enforcing import restrictions, according to the FWS: “Bushmeat as meat is also regulated on import by the Food and Drug Administration (from a human health perspective), Centers for Disease Control (from a human health and primate perspective) and USDA (from an agricultural perspective concerned with animal diseases).” Customs, which works under the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for coordinating these four agencies. The inadequate enforcement could be a function of this diffusion of responsibility, or there might be “questions about what exactly is legal and what is not,” says Blom. In other words, customs agents may simply not recognize what they are looking at when encountering bushmeat.
“I’ve seen bushmeat being brought into the U.S. in basically big suitcases of smoked meat or coolers brought on planes,” says Blom.
Back in the Bronx, Appiah confirms that plenty of the stuff gets past the gatekeepers. “Immigration in America is trying to control it…but always they find a way of bringing [bushmeat] in here,” he told Newsweek in his thick accent, adding, “It’s all around.”
New York City, home to nearly 77,000 West Africans (most of them in the Bronx), is the epicenter of the bushmeat trade in the U.S. There are very few direct flights from West Africa to the U.S.; the majority of travelers first pass through Western Europe before connecting to New York. One recent study estimated that 273 tons of bushmeat is imported into Charles de Gaulle Airport on Air France carriers every year. From France, the imported goods often travel on to America.
Smuggling continues to grow because bushmeat is prized, and increasingly valuable. According to a 2002 congressional hearing, the total value of the bushmeat trade had “reached the staggering level of more than $50 million annually and potentially could grow to hundreds of millions of dollars in the next two decades.” Because of the illegal nature of the bushmeat trade, precise data are not available. However, as the number of African-born immigrants in the U.S. has grown in the past decade, it’s likely that the trade has increased.
Bushmeat is also associated with magical and medicinal properties—in 1999, two researchers in Nigeria examined the stalls of dozens of traders in traditional medicine ingredients and found 45 different animals for sale (living or dead), including primates, bats, great cats (lions and leopards) and the aforementioned cane rat. In some parts of Western Africa, large quantities of bushmeat must be served to the participants at circumcision ceremonies.

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Bushmeat is, for many West Africans, a cultural touchstone. Liberian expat Edward Lama Wonkeryor, a professor of African American Studies at Temple University, told The New York Times that back in the 1970s his mother used to sneak cuts of smoked monkey, bush hog or lion into his suitcase before he returned to the U.S. after a visit home. He would save them for special events, like weddings and christenings.
Health workers carry the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus, in the capital city of Monrovia, Liberia, on August 12, 2014.
That Most Dangerous Meat
Though researchers cannot identify with absolute certainty the cause of the current Ebola outbreak, they do know the strain of virus, while being similar to the Zaire strain, is indigenous to Guinea, suggesting bushmeat was the source.
Fruit bats are believed to be the “natural reservoir” of Ebola (meaning the virus can live in the bats for years without harming them), and scientists presume the virus makes its way into primates and other animals when they eat fruits half-eaten by and contaminated with the saliva of these bats. From those infected animals, the virus jumps to humans. 
“Just under 50 percent of Ebola outbreaks have been due to known handling of primate, great ape carcasses,” says Michael Jarvis, a virology and immunology expert at Britain’s Plymouth University.  
The most likely scenario for the jump is when an infected animal is being butchered and blood seeps into a cut on the hunter’s (or butcher’s) hand. “But we don’t know precisely,” says Dr. George Amato, director of the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History. Amato adds that it’s also very possible that eating infected, improperly prepared meat could spread Ebola.
Fruit bats and primates are two common forms of bushmeat consumed every day by people in Africa, and by those Africans living in the U.S. who have managed to find an illegal supplier.

In a 2012 study, researchers working with government officials at John F. Kennedy Airport in the borough of Queens, New York (and some smaller airports) tested confiscated bushmeat, including baboon, chimpanzee, mangabey, guenon, green monkey and cane rat. They found that the meat does not arrive alone; it carries with it many unseen microorganisms.
Smoked bushmeat may appear safe, but the flesh inside is still juicy—filled with blood, fresh tissue and more: Simian foamy virus and herpes viruses showed up in the samples of the confiscated meats. The researchers didn’t find Ebola, but they tested only a few samples.
Cooking meat thoroughly will generally kill all pathogens, including viruses and bacteria, but most of the bushmeat arriving in the U.S. has been just barely processed in order to keep it from rotting while being transported. “If you wanted to safely transport meat and not worry about pathogens, you wouldn’t smoke it,” says Amato. “It’s not a very efficient way of killing microorganisms.”
In addition, bushmeat may serve as a potential route for other diseases, “especially some of the livestock diseases, [like] hoof-and-mouth and African swine fever. Those can survive a very long time in a piece of meat,” says Bill Karesh, one of the authors of the 2012 study and a public health policy expert at EcoHealth Alliance. These and other pathogens could present dangers equally—or more—frightening than an Ebola outbreak.
Bushmeat
Viral Chatter Goes Viral
In a 2007 report, the World Health Organization warned that infectious diseases are now emerging at a rapid and previously unseen rate. New viruses and bacteria keep appearing, while familiar pathogens, previously thought to have been suppressed, reemerge. These old viruses and bacteria either change genetically, re-combine with other pathogens or adapt in a way that fools our immune systems, becoming newly empowered to ruin our bodies. Such was the case with the swine and bird flu outbreaks of the past decade.
Nearly 75 percent of these emerging infectious diseases come from animal species, and of those, the majority were in the wild. Better prediction and prevention of these emerging diseases requires closer monitoring of individuals who have a lot of contact with bushmeat to look for what Dr. Amesh Adalja, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Health Security, calls viral chatter.
Viral chatter, he explains, occurs when viruses jump from wild animals into people. Though it may feel as if viruses attack humans en masse in one big offensive, what’s really happening is a series of ongoing, tentative incursions. During these incursions, the viruses can mutate, becoming more easily transmitted, more deadly or both. Not every new virus we see in humans will cause sickness or symptoms, but by monitoring viral chatter, we could potentially uncover trends that might help prevent the spread of future viruses that do cause sickness, or worse.
If scientists had been monitoring viral chatter in the past, one tragic public health story may have developed quite differently. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) almost certainly was transferred from bushmeat. “We have an awful lot of evidence [that] this virus moved from chimpanzees to people,” says Amato. “The most likely way that move happened was because people ate chimpanzees.”
08_22_Bushmeat_04
A bushmeat seller holds a monkey at the bushmeat market of Yopougon in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, May 12, 2006.


 Epidemiologists believe that HIV is a descendent of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which is found in primates like the sooty mangabey, which is indigenous—and hunted—in Western Africa. The virus likely began to infect humans first as SIV, then slowly gained the mutations that led, ultimately, to the shift to HIV.
“If people were monitoring these bushmeat hunters in Cameroon in the early 1900s, you might have seen SIV jumping into them before it became HIV,” Adalja says.
Such global viral forecasting is even more important today. With people traveling far and wide—and bushmeat reaching certain regions of the globe for the first time—more opportunities exist for the spread of viral diseases. “The perfect example is China, where they’re harvesting lots of wildlife of all kinds, they’re storing it all on top of each other in warehouses and markets,” says Amato. “You’re sort of creating this very strange evolutionary environment where pathogens and other microorganisms that never would come into contact with each other are coming into contact with each other.”
These environments can encourage what’s called horizontal gene transfer, where genes from one virus move into another virus when they are infecting the same organism. In the most frightening type of horizontal gene transfer, a robust but harmless virus could transfer its genetic propensity for resilience to a deadly but fragile virus, creating some new supervirus that might lead to a SARS-like epidemic. It’s no coincidence that the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak was born in the live animal markets of southern China; the virus originated in bats, where it would have stayed permanently, except for the fact that in the markets infected bats were kept in cages near civets (a small cat-like mammal). Humans didn’t eat the bats, but they did eat the civets. And at some point the disease moved from bat to civet to human, acquiring mutations along the way that enabled it to infect over 8,000 people in 37 different countries.
Cutting the Roots
Last month, when news of the Ebola outbreak began to pick up steam, Appiah returned to his native Ghana to gather up his three children (including Princess, who was with him when we spoke) who were still living there and then hurried back to the Bronx.
“I just brought all my kids here…because it’s dangerous,” he tells Newsweek. “You can’t put trust in West African government to combat diseases.” Although no cases of Ebola have been confirmed in Ghana, Appiah isn’t taking any chances, with Liberia (which has 166 confirmed cases as of this writing) and Guinea (369) just a few hundred miles away.
Meanwhile, demand for bushmeat in Appiah’s neighborhood has “drastically dropped,” he says because of the growing fears surrounding the Ebola outbreak. “Now when you go to the African market and you ask, they don’t have it,” he says. He recently decided to cut out his favorite ethnic dish from his diet.
In the Bronx and other parts of the city with large enclaves of West African immigrants, Newsweek could not find bushmeat for sale. Targeting small merchants, however, will not stem the illegal bushmeat trade or the potential spread of diseases like Ebola. Instead, the commercial trade in Africa must be curbed, which will require greater action and cooperation from African governments and increased international efforts—a daunting task, considering how popular bushmeat is on the continent.
Appiah tells Newsweek that when he was last in Ghana, he tried to warn people of the dangers of bushmeat. But he found that the locals, even when they understood the grave risk, ignored his advice.
“They don’t have an alternative,” he says. “They have to eat.”









Sunday, December 21, 2014

Federal Hackers Bug CBS Reporter's Computer; NC Conservative Blogger Suspects Same Intrusions.

FEDERAL HACKING OF CONSERVATIVE NEWS IS A FACT

Verne Strickland: Wilmington NC Dec. 21, 2014
This story is personal to me because I know that the posts on my conservative Christian blog are altered -- text and photos -- censored (cut short) and removed from availability on the net. I hasten to say that, while an allegation is made by national CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson, my own posts are not as broadly circulated, although they do reach a wide and loyal audience. Still, I am vexed at the abuse of my rights, and being singled out for this treatment. I will not go quietly. 

 


CBS News:
"Sharyl Attkisson has just published a book, Stonewalled, detailing her difficulties covering the Obama White House when she was at CBS. The network confirmed in 2013 that her computer had been bugged. At the time, she was covering both the Benghazi and Fast and Furious scandals. 

 CBS said at the time:
"A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012.
" …an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.
"This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.
"Attkisson suspects her computer was hacked by a government agency. She says:
"(The hacking was done by) a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency."
Ex-CBS Reporter Attkisson: ‘Government-Related Entity’ Bugged Computer, Planted Secret Docs

Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson alleges that a “government-related entity” hacked into her computer, monitoring her activity and planting classified government documents deep in her operating system in what she fears was a plan to lay the groundwork for future charges against her or her sources.
In February 2012, just a few months after her first story on the Department of Justice’s “Fast and Furious” scandal, Attkisson received what she describes as an ”otherwise innocuous email.” In the New York Post’s preview of her new book, Stonewalled, the ex-reporter explains how that e-mail allowed a “government-related entity” to track her every keystroke and access her e-mails and private passwords.
Attkisson discovered the breach through a source “connected to government three-letter agencies.” That source found something even more sinister hidden deep inside her computer’s operating system — confidential government documents that she fears were placed there to give the government a case against her or sources that could have “leaked” the documents.
“This is outrageous,” Attkisson quotes her source as saying. “Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America.”
The source explained that the hacking was undoubtedly accomplished by “a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.”












Friday, December 19, 2014

ECU trustees postpone renaming Aycock building -- Democrat governor had "white supremacist views

ECU trustees postpone renaming Aycock Dorm: Black trustee Scott cites "Racist Views"

 

  

  

By Jane Stancill

jstancill@newsobserver.comDecember 18, 2014 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/12/18/4414390_ecu-trustees-postpone-building.html?sp=/99/100/&rh=1#storylink=cpy

After lengthy debate, East Carolina University trustees postponed a decision Thursday on whether to rename a dormitory that now bears the name of Charles B. Aycock, a former governor who espoused white supremacist views.
The university has been examining the issue for months, and a vote had been planned for Thursday. A campus committee and Chancellor Steve Ballard both recommended removal of the Aycock name, saying it was detrimental to the university’s mission to serve a diverse population.
The debate, at times contentious, went on for more than 2-1/2 hours. Despite a motion from the board’s only African-American member, Danny Scott, who wanted to strip the Aycock name, most board members agreed they wanted more time to consider the issue.
“I believe we’re trying to figure out how to not celebrate his name anymore,” said trustee Deborah Davis. “But how do we not lose the history and learn from these lessons of the past, to be able to fulfill the mission of East Carolina University?”
A campus committee that studied the issue for a couple of weeks concluded that Aycock’s reputation had changed and that continued use of his name “dishonors the University’s standards and is contrary to the best interest of the University,” according to the recommendation.
Ballard echoed those sentiments, saying values have changed since 1961, when former leaders, including revered former Chancellor Leo Jenkins, chose to name the dorm for Aycock. “My view is what he represented does not represent ECU in 2014 or moving forward,” Ballard said. “I can’t say it any other way than that.”
He pointed out that naming of the building for Aycock occurred before the Civil Rights Act and before the arrival of the first African-American students. Today, students of color make up 22 percent of ECU’s student body.
Scott said African-American alumni and prospective students are watching the board’s deliberation. “We will be held accountable for the decisions we make here,” Scott said.
The Aycock name has been troubling to others. The state Democratic party in 2011 ditched the name Vance-Aycock for its fall dinner, now calling it the Western Gala. In June, Duke University removed the former governor’s name from a dormitory following pressure from student government. Two other public campuses – UNC Greensboro and UNC-Chapel Hill – also have Aycock buildings and may reconsider. The name is also attached to public schools around North Carolina.
‘Education’ governor
Aycock, who was governor from 1901 to 1905, had a complex and contradictory legacy. Known as the first “education governor,” he established 1,100 schools and nearly 900 libraries around the state. He also worked with the legislature to pass laws that disenfranchised black voters. He was prominent in the Democratic Party’s white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900.
His speeches portray a man who viewed blacks as inferior. The committee’s report quotes an Aycock speech in 1904, promoting more funds for white schools over black schools: “Let us cast away all fear of rivalry with the negro, all apprehension that he shall ever overtake us in the race of life. We are the thoroughbreds and should have no fear of winning the race against a commoner stock.”
Andrew Morehead, a chemistry professor and chairman of the committee, said members learned about Aycock through his own words.
“Most of us thought of him as the education governor,” Morehead said. “I think reading those documents is fairly eye-opening.”
Some trustees weren’t confident in the results of the committee’s review, however.
Kieran Shanahan said he was disturbed by the process. The committee conducted an online survey that was unscientific, he said, and appears to have broken the state’s open meeting laws by not providing notice to the public. There were no minutes of the meetings provided, Shanahan said, and the panel only met for about seven days.
“I’m just very troubled that there’s this emotional rush to do something to make some constituency feel better,” Shanahan said.
Scott said it has taken generations for the African-American community to recover from Jim Crow laws. There is no reason not to remove Aycock’s name.
“The evil that this guy perpetrated is unbelievable,” Scott said. “I can’t imagine a standard that could be higher.”
Aycock’s words
Alumnus Neal Crawford, who served on the review committee, said he grew up a mile from Aycock’s birthplace and attended a high school named for him.
“When I read the man’s own words – we cannot have that dorm named that anymore,” Crawford said. “If I were a young African-American student coming to East Carolina, I would not want to stay in a dorm with a man who believed that and said those things. I think we need to change it. I know it’s hard.”
But some were worried about the slippery slope of renaming a building because of a namesake’s attitudes.
Chairman Robert Brinkley said perception is very important. But he wanted to explore other options for exposing Aycock’s legacy, such as a adding a plaque or a film. The board is expected to vote in February.
“I can’t imagine that anybody, regardless of how he or she votes, is voting in favor of white supremacy and those ‘values’ that are reflected in those speeches,” Brinkley said.
Stancill: 919-829-4559

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/12/18/4414390_ecu-trustees-postpone-building.html?sp=/99/100/&rh=1#storylink=cpy