sciencedaily.com - June 24, 2016

Brazil's microcephaly epidemic continues to pose a mystery -- if Zika is the culprit, why are there no similar epidemics in other countries also hit hard by the virus? In Brazil, the microcephaly rate soared with more than 1,500 confirmed cases. But in Colombia, a recent study of nearly 12,000 pregnant women infected with Zika found zero microcephaly cases. If Zika is to blame for microcephaly, where are the missing cases?

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CLICK HERE - A Possible Link Between Pyriproxyfen and Microcephaly

necsi.edu - Dan Evans, Fred Nijhout, Raphael Parens, Alfredo J. Morales, Yaneer Bar-Yam, A possible link between pyriproxyfen and microcephaly, New England Complex Systems Institute (2016).

Abstract

Image: Ukip's Suzanne Evans eased 'apocalypse' fears over Brexit as France told UK to hurry up and leave.

express.co.uk - June 26th 2016 - Rob Virtue and Greg Heffer

Ukip's parliamentary spokesperson Suzanne Evans has listed an abundance of reasons why Britain’s post-Brexit future is looking bright after a predicted uncertain first day of independence.

In a Facebook post lauded by Leave voters, Ms Evans noted how both the pound and FTSE 100 both recovered from Friday's early falls, while pro-EU campaigners had now backtracked on pre-referendum 'Project Fear' scare stories. 

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reuters.com - June 24th 2016 - Rodrigo Campos

The S&P 500 turned negative for the year-to-date on Friday as Wall Street suffered its largest selloff in 10 months after Britain's decision to leave the European Union caught traders wrong-footed.

In the busiest trading volume for a single session in nearly five years, financial stocks .SPSY led the decline on the S&P 500 with a 5.4 percent drop -the largest for the sector since November 2011.

The S&P 500 lost all the year's gains and suffered its largest decline since late August last year.

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CLICK HERE - REVISED - Zika - CDC Draft Interim Response Plan - July 2016 (57 page .PDF report)

This version of the CDC Interim Zika Response Plan replaces the previous document posted on June 14, 2016. Notable updates include:

 Revised guidance is included on the risk of Zika virus transmission, including the potential for sexual transmission both from men and women to sex partners.

 When a case of locally acquired Zika virus infection is identified, state and local health departments should initiate interventions and target these interventions appropriately. Based on available epidemiologic, entomologic, and environmental information, states will define geographic areas for targeted Zika virus interventions.

 The described continuum of preparedness to response has been condensed from 5 phases (0 to 4) to 4 phases (0 to 3). Transmission phases have been reorganized and renamed: “Suspect case of local transmission,” “Confirmed local transmission,” and “Confirmed multiperson local transmission.”

Fig.1  Trend of global displacement & proportion displaced | 1996 - 2015 (end-year)

CLICK HERE - UNHCR - Global Trends - Forced Displacement in 2015 (68 page .PDF report)

cnn.com - by Euan McKirdy - June 20, 2016

The U.N.'s refugee agency reports that the number of displaced people is at its highest ever -- surpassing even post-World War II numbers, when the world was struggling to come to terms with the most devastating event in history.

The total at the end of 2015 reached 65.3 million -- or one out of every 113 people on Earth, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The number represents a 5.8 million increase on the year before.

A little under 1% of the earth's population is either "an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee" according to the UNHCR report, which was released Monday.

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CLICK HERE - CDC- Outcomes of Pregnancies with Laboratory Evidence of Possible Zika Virus Infection in the United States, 2016 - Pregnancy Outcomes in the United States and the District of Columbia

washingtonpost.com - by Lena H. Sun - June 16, 2016

Three women in the U.S. mainland infected with the Zika virus have delivered infants with birth defects and three others have lost or terminated pregnancies because their fetuses suffered brain damage from the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The agency said it was not providing details about where the births occurred to protect the privacy of the women and children affected by the mosquito-borne virus. The information released Thursday is the first time the agency has provided a total number of Zika-related birth defects since the start of the U.S. response earlier this year.

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Spatial distribution of simulated LAS spill-over events across its endemic region in western Africa for (a) present day, and (b) projected for 2070 under a medium climate and full land cover change scenario. Values represent the expected number of spill-over events per grid cell per year, and are represented on a linear color scale where green is all simulations and grey zero. Axis labels indicate degrees, in a World Geodetic System 84 projection. Filled black circles represent locations of historic LAS outbreaks.  Credit: Redding et al. UCL

CLICK HERE - Predicting disease outbreaks using environmental changes

sciencedaily.com - June 13, 2016

A model that predicts outbreaks of zoonotic diseases -- those originating in livestock or wildlife such as Ebola and Zika -- based on changes in climate, population growth and land use has been developed by a team of researchers.

CLICK HERE -UCL - Predicting disease outbreaks using environmental changes

The economic impact of climate change could play havoc with the world economy, according to an LSE study. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

CLICK HERE - STUDY - ‘Climate value at risk’ of global financial assets

Losses could soar to $24tn and wreck the global economy in worst case scenario, first economic modelling estimate suggests

theguardian.com - by Damian Carrington - April 4, 2016

Climate change could cut the value of the world’s financial assets by $2.5tn (£1.7tn), according to the first estimate from economic modelling.

In the worst case scenarios, often used by regulators to check the financial health of companies and economies, the losses could soar to $24tn, or 17% of the world’s assets, and wreck the global economy.

The research also showed the financial sense in taking action to keep climate change under the 2C danger limit agreed by the world’s nations. In this scenario, the value of financial assets would fall by $315bn less, even when the costs of cutting emissions are included.

who.int

A yellow fever outbreak was detected in Luanda, Angola late in December 2015. The first cases were confirmed by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa on 19 January 2016 and by the Institut Pasteur Dakar (IP-D) on 20 January. Subsequently, a rapid increase in the number of cases has been observed.

CLICK HERE - FULL SITUATION REPORT AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

CLICK HERE - WHO - Yellow Fever

CLICK HERE - reliefweb - Angola

CLICK HERE - ECDC - Epidemiological update: Outbreak of yellow fever in Angola

At least 50 people were killed and more than 50 others were wounded when a gunman opened fire and took hostages at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday morning.

The shooter, identified by several law enforcement sources as Omar Mateen, 29, was killed in a shootout with law enforcement after a three-hour siege.

The massacre — the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States — began when the gunman stormed the Pulse Nightclub about 2 a.m. ET with an AR-15 type rifle and a handgun, officials said.

CLICK HERE - Tampa Bay Times - LIVE - BREAKING COVERAGE OF THE PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING IN ORLANDO, FLORIDA

CLICK HERE - NBC News

CLICK HERE - CNN - LIVE Blog

CLICK HERE - CNN - Timeline of Orlando nightclub shooting

CLICK HERE - The New York Times - Mass Shooting at Pulse Florida Nightclub: Live Updates

A mosquito is seen under a microscope at the Los Angeles County Vector Control District. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

washingtonpost.com - by Lena H. Sun - June 10, 2016

U.S. health officials plan to send a rapid-response team to any community on the mainland and in Hawaii where the mosquito-borne Zika virus begins to be transmitted locally — even if only a single case of infection is confirmed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is prepared to deploy experts to help state and local authorities in monitoring cases, performing laboratory tests and increasing mosquito control as part of a multilevel response plan. The teams of 10-15 people will go only if invited by the state.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Officials Preparing for Zika Virus to Spread in the U.S.

Image: Tek Mishra.

fusion.net - June 16th 2016 - Casey Tolan

When Tek Mishra visits the homes of the community’s older Bhutanese refugees, he gets a firsthand look at mental health issues usually hidden behind closed doors.

Sometimes it’s pain that runs through their body like a current. Or they’re paralyzed with fear of a new culture they don’t understand.

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An older nearshore wellhead is shown off the coast of California in this undated photo. In state waters, California has resealed scores of its abandoned wells since the 1980s, but in federal waters, the official policy is out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Neither industry nor government checks for leaks at the more than 27,000 oil and gas wells abandoned in the Gulf of Mexico since the late 1940s. Abandoned wells are known sometimes to fail both on land and offshore. It happens so often that a technical term has been coined for the repair job: "re-abandonment."  Photo: California State Lands Commission / The Associated Press

nola.com - Associated Press - July 7, 2010

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one -- not industry, not government -- is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.