Ukraine War discussion - Threat to Public Health

[Pathfinder]

Spokesperson of the Chinese Mission to the EU Speaks on a Question Concerning NATO Leader’s Remarks on China

2022-03-17 03:16

Q: According to reports, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday that any support to Russia, military support or any other type of support, would actually help Russia conduct a brutal war against an independent sovereign nation, Ukraine, and help them to continue to wage war which is causing death, suffering and an enormous amount of destruction. He also claimed that China has an obligation as a member of the UN Security Council to actually support and uphold international law and join the rest of the world condemning Russia’s invasion. What is your comment?

A: We have taken note of relevant remarks. Chinese people can fully relate to the pains and sufferings of other countries because we will never forget who had bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We need no lecture on justice from the abuser of international law. As a Cold War remnant and the world’s largest military alliance, NATO continues to expand its geographical scope and range of operations. What kind of role it has played in world peace and stability? NATO needs to have good reflection.

http://www.chinamission.be/eng/fyrjh/202203/t20220317_10652463.htm

 

[sharon sanders]

Refugees fleeing Ukraine (since 24 February 2022)*JSON
3,169,897
Last updated 16 Mar 2022

https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine

 

[sharon sanders]

bump this

 

[Pathfinder]

Russia claims hypersonic missile strike as Ukraine urges peace deal

Updated 5 sec ago
AFP
March 19, 2022
15:01
...
KYIV: Russia said Saturday that it had unleashed hypersonic missiles against an arms depot in Ukraine, the first use of the next-generation weapons in combat...
...
If confirmed, the use of Russia’s new Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles, which can elude most defense systems, would mark a new escalation in Russia’s campaign to force Ukraine to abandon hopes of closer ties with the West.

Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuri Ignat told AFP that the weapons depot in Deliatyn, a village near the border with Romania, had indeed been hit but “we have no information of the type of missile.”
...
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who unveiled the Kinzhal missile in 2018, has termed it “an ideal weapon” that flies at 10 times the speed of sound — analysts say Russia is leading the hypersonics race, followed by China and the US.
...

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2045756/world

 

[Pathfinder]

France - Ministry of the Armed Forces:


Translation Google

Ukraine: update
Operations

Russia's military aggression against Ukraine is one of the most serious violations of the European security order in decades. With this decision, Russia flouts international law and in particular the Charter of the United Nations. Find here all the elements to better understand the challenges of this crisis.

Situation in Ukraine on March 21 - © Ministry of the Armed Forces

------------------

UKRAINE:
situation as of March 21, 2022

Notable points:
• The strong pressure on urban centers
of the East and South is maintained by
intense bombardments in particular at
Mariupol and Mykolaiv.
• Elsewhere, the tactical situation remains fixed.

On the northern front:

1 - Kyiv:
• the encirclement maneuver from the west
and the east is frozen. The capital has been the target of
several bombardments.

On the eastern front:
'
2 - Kharkov:
• the Russian forces continue their maneuver to encircle the city in parallel with the numerous bombardments.

3 - Dnepro:
• probable point of convergence of the forces
Southern and Eastern Russians.

4 - Mariupol:
• fighting continues in the center
city, the Ukrainian forces lost
access to the Sea of ​​Azov and refuse to
capitulate.
• The health situation of the inhabitants continues to deteriorate.

On the southern front: Slow progress but
continued Russian forces towards the towns of
Zaporiya and Kryvyi Rih.

5 - Mykolaiv:
• bombardments and fighting are
still intense for city control
and its surroundings.



View and download the file Situation in Ukraine as of March 21

https://www.defense.gouv.fr/ukraine-point-situation

 

[Okieman]

edited out a comment about another participant.....continued....

Some folks are the tools of the Russians right now ignorantly. Others are tools knowingly. It is the Russians that invaded Ukraine. It is the Russians that are shelling women and children indiscriminately.....and very possibly purposefully targeting them. How anyone in their right mind could sit and attempt to divert attention away from that to politics is beyond me.

 

[Emily]

edited out a comment about another participant

 

[sharon sanders]

Refugees fleeing Ukraine (since 24 February 2022)*JSON
3,528,346
Last updated 21 Mar 2022
Data is updated daily by 12:00 CET.


https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine

 

[sharon sanders]

The International Criminal Court is going to investigate the entire situation and what led up to where Ukraine is today. We will not be able to provide any added value on this topic since FT can not possibly ascertain all the facts.
There are border conflicts all over the world. Some are centuries old. There is plenty of blame to go around in most of these situations. What is different about the Ukraine war is that a superpower (Russia) announced that it was going to militarily invade a neighbor and then it did. It is overt misuse of power. This action has caused a public health and humanitarian crisis not seen on this scale in Europe in almost 100 years.

 

[alert]

I have seen reports of tens of thousands of Russian civilians fleeing Russia as well, both to escape the sanctions and out of fear that their country is turning into a North Korean-style dictatorship. Youtuber NFKRZ, a Russian man from Chelyabinsk, reports that over 30,000 Russians have fled to Georgia, with similar numbers in Armenia, Serbia, and Azerbaijan. (EU access is difficult for Russians because of visa rules.)

 

[Pathfinder]

Translation Google

NUCLEAR RISK: OLIVIER VÉRAN ENSURES THAT FRANCE HAS ENOUGH IODINE TABLETS

Jeanne Bulant
the 03/21/2022 at 15:27

The Minister of Health ensures, in an interview with Le Parisien , that France is equipped with enough iodine tablets to protect the entire population in the event of an accident or nuclear attack. The Ministry of Health, however, said the opposite to a deputy a few months earlier.

"Eye to eye", the Minister of Health wants to reassure. In an interview with Le Parisien this Sunday, Olivier Véran assures us that France has enough iodine tablets in case it faces a nuclear attack linked to an escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict . These tablets are supposed to protect against thyroid cancer in the event of exposure to radioactivity.

“It is classified data, because it is linked to questions of conflict”, first replies the minister to Le Parisien, before assuring: “But I can tell you eye to eye that we have enough iodine to cover all the needs of the population if necessary".

A shortage of 34.3 million pellets

However, at the end of last year, the Ministry of Health had already answered the question, posed in writing by the ecologist deputy François-Michel Lambert, as the latter did not fail to recall on Twitter . In September 2021, the ministry had thus indicated that France had 95.7 million iodine tablets available, while 130 million would be needed to ensure the protection of populations, even located "outside the geographical areas corresponding to the specific intervention plans defined around nuclear power plants".

"In accordance with the national response plan to a major nuclear or radiological accident, the strategic stocks of the State aim to allow the distribution of stable iodine tablets at any point in the territory in an emergency situation (...), i.e. 60 million people,” the ministry wrote at the time. "So strategic stocks aim to have 130 million potassium iodide tablets."
Gold “as of June 29, 2020”, this stock “stands at around 95.7 million tablets”. So if the French stock is still the same today, 34.3 million pellets would run out in the event of a nuclear incident.

Since the beginning of March, the Europeans have taken the lead in the face of nuclear threats from Moscow. In France, as in other European countries, pharmacies are seeing a strong demand for iodine tablets . Indeed, taking a stable iodine tablet helps prevent the absorption of radioactive iodine which could be released into the environment in the event of a nuclear accident.

Warning against self-medication

The IRSN (Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety), explains: "The thyroid will absorb stable iodine until saturation, and will therefore no longer be able to incorporate the radioactive iodine which may possibly be inhaled or ingested", which reduces the risks of developing cancer.

However, the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety recalls that stable iodine tablets must be administered in an accident situation and only on instructions from the authorities. These include the measures that can be taken by the prefect. In the event of a nuclear risk, "all means (television, radio, vehicles with loudspeakers, etc.) will be used to give instructions for taking iodine, under the responsibility of the prefect".

Importantly, taking iodine "preventively" may present more risks than benefits. Here again, the IRSN recalls that the tablets must be taken "at the earliest one hour before exposure to radioactivity, and at the latest within 6 to 12 hours which follow".

“Earlier, their effectiveness will be considerably reduced. Later, beyond 24 hours, their side effects are more serious than the expected benefits,” warns the Institute.

According to the profiles, self-medication for iodine could be dangerous and cause possible thyroid and cardiac side effects.

https://www.bfmtv.com/sante/risque-n...203210388.html

 

[sharon sanders]

bump this

 

[Emily]

They were just starting to do a bit better before the war.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/23/921f-m23.html
Andrea Peters

...
As measured by GDP per capita, Ukraine, with its 44.13 million inhabitants, is the poorest or second poorest country in Europe. It competes with Moldova, with about 2.6 million people, for these inauspicious titles.

The bottom 50 percent of Ukraine’s population gets just 22.6 percent of all the country’s income and 5.7 percent of its wealth. The top 10 percent own nearly 60 percent of Ukraine’s net personal assets, according to the World Inequality Database, a publication put out under the directorship of three of the globe’s leading specialists in inequality—Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman. In 2018, Ukrainian households’ average net savings stood at minus $245.

The median household income in Ukraine is around $4400 a year, about on par with that of Iran, whose economy has been operating under crushing sanctions for years. The average wage in Ukraine is estimated to be just 330 euros a month, and the state-mandated minimum a worker can be paid is 144 euros. According to the Ukrainian government, an individual ought to be able to survive on less than half that amount, as the subsistence minimum is 64 euros. Retirees who are at the bottom rung of the pension scale take home 50 euros a month.

The country’s Institute of Sociology reports that the typical Ukrainian family spends 47 percent of its total income on food and another 32 percent on utility bills. In 2016, nearly 60 percent of people were poor according to government standards, including 60 percent of kids. That poverty rate dropped to “only” 37.8 percent in 2019. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization found that in 2020 15.9 percent of Ukrainian children under 5 were malnourished, and in 2019 17.7 percent of women of reproductive age were anemic, a condition caused by lack of iron in the diet. That number has been steadily rising since 2004. Twenty-four percent of the population is obese.

Between 2014 and 2019, the birthrate fell by 19.4 percent. Ukraine’s mortality rate is extremely high—14.7 per 1,000 people. It is well above that of many countries in Africa, the poorest continent on the globe. Its suicide rate, according to the World Bank, ranks 11th in the world. With deaths outstripping births by more than two to one and hundreds of thousands emigrating annually in search of anything better, the country’s population has shrunk every year since 1993. There are 8 million fewer Ukrainian citizens today than there were 30 years ago....

 

[Emily]

That's a very narrow time window for effectiveness. I'm sure the very 'important' people have their supplies squirreled away.

 

[sharon sanders]

bump this

 

[Mary Wilson]

Thousands of Mariupol residents ‘forcibly’ taken to Russian camps: reports

March 19, 2022 5:18pm

By Isabel Vincent

Thousands of Ukrainian residents of the besieged city of Mariupol have reportedly been “forcibly” moved to cities in the Russian interior over the past week.

The civilians were allegedly taken to “filtration” camps that the city’s mayor likened to World War II-era concentration camps, where Russian forces allegedly seized their phones and documents before transporting them to other “remote cities in Russia, according to reportsSaturday in the Kyiv Independent newspaper and the news site Ukrinform.

The news came from Mariupol City Council in a statement released on the messaging app Telegram, according to Ukrinform.

“Over the past week, several thousand residents of Mariupol have been taken to Russian territory,” the press release says. “The occupiers illegally drove away people from the Levoberezhny district and a bomb shelter in a sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from constant bombing.” ...

https://nypost.com/2022/03/19/thousands-of-ukrainians-forcibly-taken-to-russian-camps-reports/

 

[Mary Wilson]

I agree 100% with you, Okieman. Thanks for posting!
___________________


edited out a comment about another participant

 

[Emily]

There is some discussion and I updated our Nuclear Radiation Emergencies forum on February 24 with the latest CDC guidances:
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...on-response/cdc/nuclear-radiation-emergencies

The problem that I am having is that almost nothing is credible. IMHO the US media is AGAIN steering the news to their point of view. Any objective reporting died a long time ago.

As far as the Russian media goes - forget it. It is all a government outlet. I am reading those sites everyday and their claims are ridiculous. Completely untrustworthy. I am posting some of the measures they are taking economically which gives a small insight into the conditions there.

So - basically look at your own situation and weight your options. It is always good to be prepared.

Someone who lives in Western Europe asked me what I thought about leaving. Well, I am not there so I can not really assess that situation. I think people should have "markers". This is saying to yourself, "If this event XYZ happens we pack, and if a further event XYZ2 happens we leave." I do this for approaching hurricanes, weighing the path and wind speed.

I really hope that sane minds prevail and stop any further escalation.

During the intense releases from Fukushima, I read up on fallout distribution patterns. I believe that that fallout from an event in the Northern Hemisphere would circulate in the NH primarily. So if I could afford it and physically do it, I'd move to the Southern Hemisphere after verifying that. It's reported that Putin's ex-wife and daughters are in a luxury underground bunker in Siberia that is set up to withstand nuclear war. His girlfriend is reported to be with her children in Switzerland. I don't know if any of that is true, but I wouldn't be anywhere in Europe if I could help it, or several places in the US.

Mid-April is when some people who think they know what they are talking about think this war will resolve. We'll see. It has gone past when McGregor estimated it would be over. I also hope it will be resolved peacefully.

 

[sharon sanders]

I moved one post from this thread to the archives. It was too political. We are not able to add anything of value regarding any past events on the Russia/Ukraine border situation. The International Criminal Court is investigating going back to 2013.

I also edited out some personal comments made about other participants. We have long standing rules against this.

If we can not have a respectful and non-political discussion then I will close this thread.

Honestly, the facts about the current health and human rights debacle in Ukraine are so immense that we have plenty to discuss without resorting to politics:

Refugees fleeing Ukraine (since 24 February 2022)*JSON
3,674,952
Last updated 23 Mar 2022
Data is updated daily by 12:00 CET.

*Arrival statistics are compiled from a variety of sources, mainly data provided by authorities from official border crossing points. While every effort has been made to ensure that all statistical information is verified, figures on some arrivals represent an estimate. Triangulation of information and sources is performed on a continuous basis. Therefore, amendments in figures may occur, including retroactively. Notably, the right to move freely within the Schengen area means there are very few border controls within the European Union. The data of arrivals in Schengen countries (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) bordering Ukraine therefore only represents border crossings into that country, but we estimate that a large number of people have moved onwards to other countries. In addition, UNHCR does not count individuals from bordering countries leaving Ukraine to return home.

An additional 113,000 people moved to the Russian Federation from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions between 21 and 23 February.

https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine

 

[sharon sanders]

SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
My phone rang and woke me up around 0:30. „you volunteered to host refugees, here is a mother with two kids and a cat. Cn you host?“ … „ok, when?“ … „now.“ 15 min later, they arrived with a volunteer. 1/n
7:17 PM · Mar 23, 2022·Twitter for iPhone
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark

12h
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@DecisionPark
2/n I went down to welcome. We could communicate with google translate. The driver said he would like to help them carry up the luggage into the flat, the single bag they had was smaller than my laptop bag and the cat cage. I sensed he wanted to check inside.
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@DecisionPark
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3/n I showed him sleeping kids and id to ensure him. He smiled, gave me a phone number and left. The family have been on the road for 4 days. „How long can we stay?“ „let’s sleep and talk tomorrow“ a conversation in silence. The three and 15 y/o were nervous.
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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4/n I could not sleep. Now the war came home, I thought. Can we handle? The next morning, they woke up early and asked again „how long can we stay? I need health insurance for my son. He is sick. We need to be registered.” I sensed a mom in max. functioning mode.
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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5/n before my work started we rushed to get some urgent shopping to supply cat and kids. Then We gave her internet access and room to calm down after this journey. Once they realized being in security, they all slept, all day and all night.
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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6/n kids started to play, without being able to verbally communicate. The cat would sleep on husbands desk. Sometimes people asked: isn’t it difficult? No. At least I can give them something. A sense of comfort to people who were chased away from their home.
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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7/n “my friends also need a place to stay.” When I started the call to #berliners on tweeter, the response was overwhelming and all families were distributed (thank you all!). Whenever she sensed such generosity and empathy, she would break down and cry, without kids noticing.
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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8/n unintended, I started to build up a little network of helpers across entire Germany, who were taking them over, once I forwarded. “Can you host?” “Yes. When shall I pick up?” Sometimes we did not know what their names were. We would just bring them to the station and tickets
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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9/n The band of trust we all had was so strong. The people in need would travel across country with my phone number only, with a certainty, they are being helped. We were all very moved. And when the little girl, shadowing her mom every second, held my hand, I cried.
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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10/n yes, we were 8+cat in our flat. We both have busy jobs and three little kids. Wasn’t this overwhelming? No. I could do something in my own way. I cannot solve big problems. But giving them comfort, helped me to focus. To focus on what actually is happening and how we live.
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SoyoungQPark
@DecisionPark
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11/n when the war started to destroy, on the other side, the band of empathy restored the faith. I am very grateful for all the silent helpers who acted unconditionally. I sense so much love for them. They demonstrated the true value.