BBC Claim Climate Change Is Cutting Crop Yields In Africa
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | August 23, 2017
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b091s7zl
More lies from the BBC Today programme.
At about 44 minutes in, a fairly sensible report from Kenya about improving agriculture methods is introduced with this shameless comment:
Climate change is cutting crop yields [in Africa]
The data from the UN FAOSTAT shows the opposite to be true:
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#compare
In Kenya itself, the value of agricultural production has been at record high levels for the last two years:
Of course, these drastic increases in agricultural productivity are due to a number of factors, and trying to unravel a climate signal is well nigh impossible. Not that that will stop grant addicted climate scientists making up their own fake evidence.
One is entitled to wonder why the BBC thought it appropriate to even make the comment they did, instead of giving their listeners the actual facts?
Dirar Abu Sisi once again ordered to six months in isolation

Gazan engineer Dirar Abu Sisi, AFP PHOTO / JACK GUEZ
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – August 26, 2017
Imprisoned Palestinian engineer kidnapped from Ukraine, Dirar Abu Sisi, had his isolation extended for another six months by the Israeli occupation on 26 August. Abu Sisi’s health has recently deteriorated and he is suffering from severe pain in his lower back; he has been held in long-term solitary confinement repeatedly since he was abducted from a train by Israeli intelligence forces.
Abu Sis, 47, i is an engineer from Gaza who was abducted from the Ukraine on 19 February 2011 by the Mossad. He is married (to a Ukrainian citizen), the father of six children, and holds a graduate degree in electrical engineering. He was the deputy engineer of Gaza’s power plant. From Gaza, Veronika Abu Sisi, his wife, has continually advocated for his release and an end to his isolation.
“We won’t give up until Dirar Abu Sisi is released,” Veronika Abu Sisi said in 2013. “They steal our land, they put us in jail, but we have the right to live here. This is our home. I just hope my husband will be back soon with me and our children.” The family has six children. Abu Sisi is now serving a 21-year sentence on charges of participating in the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and continues to be subject repeatedly to solitary confinement and isolation.
Israel has revoked citizenship for hundreds of Israeli Arabs
MEMO | August 26, 2017
The Israeli authorities have revoked the citizenship of hundreds – maybe thousands – of Israeli Arabs in the southern Negev region over the past two years, Israeli daily Haaretz revealed Friday.
According to the newspaper, Israel’s Interior Ministry has changed the status of these Israeli Arabs from “citizens” to “inhabitants”, which has led to the forfeiture of many of their basic rights.
Reacting to the report, Talab Abu Arar, an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), demanded that the ministry reverse the move.
According to Abu Arar, the citizenships were surreptitiously stripped by the ministry’s office in the city of Beersheba (the Negev’s largest city) when Israeli Arab residents applied to renew their national ID cards or passports.
In a statement, Juma Azbarga, an Israeli Arab Knesset member from the Joint Arab List coalition, asserted: “We will not sit idly by in the face of attempts to gradually expel us from our homeland… and delegitimize our existence.”
“The revocation of our citizenship makes us vulnerable to abuse and restricts our freedom of movement,” he added, pointing out that non-citizens lack the right to vote or run in general elections.
Describing the move as “contrary to Israeli law itself”, Azbarga added: “Our citizenship is derived from our presence in our homeland and our history — it does not depend on the whim of a few rogue officials.”
Venezuela Pulls 2 Channels Off Air Over “Resign or Die” Comments
By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim | Venezuelanalysis | August 25, 2017
Venezuelan regulators ordered Thursday two cable networks be taken off air, after they were accused of promoting violence.
The country’s national telecommunications regulator CONATEL said Colombian broadcasters RCN and Caracol Television would be taken off air for “openly calling for [the] assassination [of the president].”
“The measure is within the bounds of the law, given that those stations over several months attacked Venezuela and [its] institutions,” CONATEL said in a statement, quoting former head regulator Andres Mendez.
The move was in response to comments by former Mexican president Vicente Fox aired by RCN and Caracol. Addressing Maduro, Fox warned “this dictator will leave through resignation, or with his feet in front of him, in a box”.
During RCN’s broadcast, the lower third beneath Fox simply read, “Dictator Maduro, resign or die.”
Fox’s comments were quickly condemned by Maduro ally and Bolivian President Evo Morales.
“If anything happens to our brother President Maduro, it will be Mexican ex-president Vicente Fox’s responsibility,” he said.
Fox made his comment during the “Thinking the 21st Century” conference in Baranquilla, Colombia. Last month, the ex-president was declared persona non grata in Venezuela after he participated as an observer in an unofficial opposition plebiscite asking citizens if they would support a “zero hour” campaign of protests aimed at overthrowing the government.
Neither RCN or Caracol appeared available in Venezuela at the time of writing, and at least one major cable provider has confirmed cutting one of the signals.
“We inform you that the 772 Caracol International channel is no longer available for Venezuela because we are complying with an order from … CONATEL,” cable provider DirecTV tweeted.
Some viewers have reported they can still access RCN through DirecTV, but not through most other major providers.
Venezuela’s opposition had condemned CONATEL’s decision as censorship.
“One more channel off the airwaves! Has that made crime go down? Is inflation any lower? Is there more food? More medicine? Has any problem been solved?” opposition leader Henrique Capriles stated.
The shutdowns are the second major regulatory action taken against broadcasters accused of promoting unrest in Venezuela. Earlier this year, CONATEL pulled CNN’s Spanish language channel, accusing the broadcaster of seeking to “undermine the image of the national executive branch”.
The decision came in the wake of CNN’s publication of an investigation that alleged to have uncovered evidence Venezuelan diplomatic officials in Iraq had sold Venezuelan passports to non-Venezuelans, including Iraqi and Syrian nationals. Venezuela’s government largely dismissed the report as US propaganda.
In 2014, another major Colombian broadcaster, RTN24, was also wiped from Venezuelan airwaves after CONATEL alleged it had “promoted violence”. Another major case also occurred in 2007, when the Caracas-based RCTV lost its broadcast concession, after regulators determined the station had played a role in a 2002 coup that temporarily overthrew the Chavez government.
‘Smokescreen’ or Reality? Why Macron’s Prediction on EU’s Breakup May Come True
Sputnik – 26.08.2017
Commenting on President Emmanuel Macron’s recent statement about the EU’s possible disintegration without a social dumping reform, a French expert warned in an interview with Sputnik that such a prediction may come true at the end of the day.
Earlier this week, Macron said that the EU may break up if it fails to overhaul a rule allowing companies to send temporary workers from low-wage countries to richer nations without paying their local social charges.
Henri Sterdyniak is one of the authors of a manifesto, which was published back in September 2010 by a group of economists criticizing neo-liberalism. The document was all about the inflexibility of European economic policy during crises.
The authors slammed the “organization of competition among European workers” and warned that there is a real risk that the European countries will “retreat into in themselves.”
So did these predictions come true? Sterdyniak told Sputnik France that the answer to this question is certainly “yes.”
“The main proof of this was Brexit. Another important aspect is the massive influx of workers from Eastern Europe, as well as the growing popularity of [the right-wing] National Front in France and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Germany,” he said.
“There are a number of factors that show that the popular masses in the developed countries of Western Europe believe that their well-being is threatened by globalization and, especially, by the construction of European architecture,” Sterdyniak added.
He pointed to a “rather strange situation” when “on the one hand, Macron criticizes the very practice of sending EU workers to other EU member states, but on the other – he does not say anything about globalization and the delocalization of industries, which are of greater importance.”
“The consequences of such a practice are much less dramatic than the implications of globalization and competition created by imports of goods from low-wage countries,” he pointed out.
Sterdyniak was echoed by Dany Lang, a lecturer at the University of Paris 13 and the University of Saint-Denis in Belgium.
He believes that Macron’s statements about the tightening of European rule are a “smokescreen” on the eve of a reform of the French labor code.
According to Lang, Macron’s goal is to try to boost his approval rating by making such statements now that “he is working out a new labor code which will severely damage social rights.”
“So let’s see whether any actions will follow these statements,” Land said, pointing to the fact that Poland, one of the main countries sending its workers to France, is not involved in the discussion.
“I think that the European ideal has significantly surrendered its positions. The austerity policy is carried out with unprecedented ruthlessness, particularly in Greece. I do not see why and how the reform of sending workers abroad will help improve the situation,” he said.
According to him, “Emmanuel Macron has no right to uphold social rights given his views and beliefs.”
“There is something paradoxical about a desire to trample social rights across France while saying that you want to protect them at the level of Europe,” Lang said.
Prime Ministers of Czech Republic Bohuslav Sobotka, Poland Beata Szydlo, Hungary Viktor Orban, and Slovakia Robert Fico, join hands to cut a cake to celebrate 25th anniversary of the establishment of the
“The [French] government decrees on labor legislation will be made public in a few days. As for Macron’s statements, they add to the creation of a ‘smokescreen,’ which aims to prevent the discussion on the French labor code,” Lang concluded.
In the run-up to his visit to Bulgaria, Macron said Thursday, “Some political or business circles seek to use the EU’s funds while at the same time developing a system of social and fiscal dumping.”
He warned that “this will lead to the dismantling of the European Union” if the upcoming EU summit fails to clinch a reform agreement.