Hasta La Gadget!

51 Muslim states blocked 11 LGBT groups from attending the UNAIDS Meeting.

This is problematic.

Where is the compassion? Where is the RAHMA (mercy)?

We need to focus on the things that matter. Like getting to zero.

We cannot get to zero if we deny LGBT groups the right to have their voices heard.

I do not stand with blocking these groups and neither should you. This is not a Muslim issue, this is not an LGBT issue, HIV is an OUR issue. We are all in this together. If we do not work together we will NEVER defeat this pandemic.

How many more youth have to become poz? How many more babies have to be born with HIV? How many more people have to die before we open our eyes?

Here are the facts:

In 2013 there were over 230,000 people living with HIV in the Middle East and North African countries. While the prevalence rate is low, the incidence rates are alarming. In that same year, there were roughly 25,000 new HIV infections and 15,000 AIDS-related deaths. HIV infection rates have raised by 35%. AIDS related deaths have increased by 66%. This is mostly due to that fact that only 11% were on treatment .

Do you not see an issue?

Nigeria, included in the 51 states, has over 3.2 million people living with HIV. Approximately 210,000 people have died from AIDS-related deaths, and 220,000 people became newly infected. Lastly only 21% were on treatment.

One of the populations most affected is the LGBT community.

“Given that transgender people are 49 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population, their exclusion from the high-level meeting will only impede global progress in combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” said Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (3).

Yet, we are denying them a place at the table?

Since sodomy is punishable by death and imprisonment in most of the opposing states, many members of the LGBT community are remaining in the closet. Many of them are living with HIV. Many are marrying and passing on the virus to their spouses and children. Many engage in polygamy which even further increases HIV infection rates. Many are having sex with multiple partners which yes, you guessed it, increases incidence rates.

It’s time to wake up.

Are you really going to let people die because they live differently than you?

By denying them access to the table, you are being detrimental to identifying solutions that will get us to zero. You are not eliminating the problem, you are only making it worse. YOU are the problem.

HIV affects everyone. It is not specific to the LGBT community, it is not specific to the White community, it is not specific to the Black community, it is not specific to the Latino community, or any religious community. It is specific to all communities. Once we all realize that, then the real work can begin.

I am a supporter of Human Rights. I am a supporter of Social Justice. I am a supporter of access to Health Care. I am a supporter of Life. Together WE can get to Zero. #KeepTheirSeats

Take to social media and make a statement on why the 11 LGBT groups should have a voice at the table. Use #KeepTheirSeats and make it go viral. Let the power of collective voices be heard. Keep Their Seats!

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It’s back: Each year since 2010, crowds of people flock to the streets in a small Chinese province to celebrate at the Yulin Festival. As part of the festivities, an estimated 10,000 dogs are sent to the city – to be eaten.

The scenes are difficult to read about, let alone watch. These smart and social furry friends are overcrowded in cages and can barely even move. They’re shipped long distances without food or water. Then they’re yanked from their cages to face a gruesome death: their throats are cut and some may even be boiled alive.

As these graphic scenes emerge each year, outrage pours in from the Western world. Yet as important as it is to express horror at such violence that’s taking place on the other side of the world, it’s perhaps more challenging to examine our own customs with regard to animals here at home. While we may be horrified by the consumption of dogs in China, the way in which those are dogs are treated isn’t far off from our own treatment of other animals raised and killed for food in the US – and we’re killing animals in significantly greater numbers.

While 10,000 dogs will meet a gruesome death during the Yulin Festival this month, multiply that number by 100 and that’s how many animals pass through American slaughter plants every hour of every day, experiencing fear and violence each step of the way.

Cows, pigs, and birds raised for food in the US endure misery-filled lives confined in facilities that look much more like factories than farms. And they’re routinely treated in ways that would result in criminal prosecution if these same abuses were inflicted upon dogs or cats.

In our pork industry for example, most mother pigs are locked inside crates so small they can’t even turn around–essentially for years on end. Treated like unfeeling piglet-producing machines, they’re lined up like parked cars and forced to endure an unimaginable existence. Such extreme confinement and virtual immobilization takes an enormous physical and mental toll on these social, intelligent animals. Their muscles atrophy and eventually, many of them go mad, exhibiting behavior that unsurprisingly in humans would be diagnosed as clinical depression and learned helplessness.

The chickens we raise for meat aren’t locked in cages, but they are prisoners of their own genetics, which have been manipulated by the poultry industry for abnormally rapid growth. Many birds have difficulty walking more than a few steps without collapsing under their obese bodies, causing chronic pain that renders them largely immobile. At just two months old, they’re shipped off to slaughter – babies trapped inside grossly enlarged bodies. Birds killed in American slaughterhouses are denied legal protections, and like dogs in Yulin, have their throats cut while they’re still conscious and are even sometimes boiled alive.

While the thought of violently killing and eating dogs is worthy of our moral outrage, is it not a bit self-serving to condemn other cultures for their actions without reflecting our own society’s treatment of animals, especially the billions of animals we raise and kill for food each year?

So yes, let us criticize the abhorrent abuse of animals on the other side of our planet. The Yulin dog meat festival should end. But let us not forget that in many ways we live in a glass house, and we need to start cleaning up our own affairs at the same time.

Cruelty to animals is wrong, regardless of species or geography. Since most Americans eat far more meat than is good for our own health anyway, a great place to start is our next meal. Each of us, simply by choosing vegetarian foods, can help prevent animal abuse every time we sit down to eat.

Erica Meier is the executive director of Compassion Over Killing. Follower her on twitter: @EricaMeier

Photo credit: Esther the Wonder Pig

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Britain will continue to have access to the European Union’s single market despite voting to leave the bloc, leading Brexit campaigner and favorite to become the country’s next prime minister Boris Johnson said in a newspaper article on Sunday.

Britain’s shock decision to leave the EU has thrust Johnson into the gaze of global financial markets, who are eager to see what his plan for a post-Brexit Britain looks like and how, if he does become leader, it will affect the country’s trade with the rest of the world.

Johnson said Britain could now forge a relationship with the EU based on free trade and partnership rather than a federal system, and that Britain would also be able to do free trade deals with growth economies outside the EU.

“There will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market,” Johnson wrote in a regular column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, adding that there was “no great rush” for Britain to extricate itself from the EU.

He did not set out any details of how the arrangement would work, but suggested Britain would not accept free movement, saying the government would be able to implement an immigration policy which suited the needs of business and industry.

Johnson said the negative consequences of Brexit were being “wildly overdone” and that Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who came under fire from some Brexit campaigners ahead of the referendum for flagging the risks of leaving the bloc, should continue in his job.

“The economy is in good hands,” he said, praising ‘In’ campaigners Prime Minister David Cameron and finance minister George Osborne for the work they have done to reduce public spending.

“Most sensible people can see that Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has done a superb job – and now that the referendum is over, he will be able to continue his work without being in the political firing-line.”

IMMIGRATION

Johnson is seen as the frontrunner to replace his schoolmate and once close friend Cameron, who announced he would resign after the British public voted against him by backing Brexit.

Cameron has said he will stay on until October. No-one has yet put themselves forward to replace him but the new leader is expected to come from the eurosceptic camp.

Several sources believe Johnson, who as London mayor built a broad appeal beyond the ruling Conservative Party, threw his support behind the “Out” campaign in a calculated move to boost his chances of replacing Cameron.

Johnson, who abandoned his support of immigration to win more support for the “Out” campaign, said he did not believe those who voted to leave the bloc were driven mainly by concerns over immigration, saying sovereignty was the biggest reason.

EU citizens in Britain would have their rights protected, as would Britons living in the EU, he said, while British people would still be able to go and work, live and travel in the EU.

Johnson also said he did not detect “any real appetite” for another Scottish independence referendum, despite the country’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying it was highly likely if it is the best option to keep Scotland in the bloc.

Scotland, a nation of five million people, voted to stay in the EU by 62 to 38 percent in Thursday’s referendum, putting it at odds with the United Kingdom as a whole, which voted by 52 to 48 percent in favor of an exit from the bloc, or Brexit.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and William James; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Dixie Chicks are down to Earth honest and talented musicians who are not afraid to speak their minds. They spoke the truth in 2003 about the misguided directive by our former president to enter the never ending war in Iraq for nothing more than a lie and perhaps for some profit that the common Americans will never benefit from.

How many young soldiers had to perish in this faraway land while we keep losing the battle for love and honesty on the home ground? Regardless of the backlash they faces then, Dixie Chicks are more grounded than ever and they still speak of love and courage and they make beautiful emotional music that still moves me.

They sing about everyday men and women in America; contributors to the economical turn-wheel, to the creators of the great vastness of the kind behavior and acceptance, creators of the self-reliance and hard work and about the owners of their own destiny. They sing about the open spaces of the beautiful American lands and those who love to explore it and cherish it, not use it for greed and power. They sing about lonely soldiers who go away never to return, fighting for someone’s ideals which are masked as fights for freedom; these young eighteen-year-old boys who’ve barely lived to end up perishing without being properly kissed or loved.

Their music and their presence is a reminder for the immigrant in me why I loved America in the first place. They paint a picture of America that I knew before coming here in 1998. They describe my friends who I met in Bosnia, Americans volunteering at the Youth House, teaching young children who were growing up in the Bosnian war about chess and computers, about love and hope. Ted (I do not remember his last name) was a guitar playing hippie student who I had a crush on. He was an embodiment of the romantic free spirited American love stories that I dreamed about. Even though I don’t know where he is now, I bet he is still kind, loving, forgiving and free spirited.

These chicks stick to their views and do not apologize for their beliefs. This is the most important trait of America to me. Speak your mind even if your belief is not a popular one. It’s very brave and very dangerous of Dixie Chicks to trudge through the sticky mud of “patriotic bashing” they received and are still receiving. However, their actions will be beneficial to the generations down the road who will recognize the contributions they are making to the American music.

After ten years of departure of the band from the public eye (at least in the trio form that they are known for) they were back on the stage to perform for their loyal fans in Hartford’s XFinity theater on June 18th, 2016 as a part of their worldwide tour. Their loyal fans were tailgating, wearing cowboy hats and boots as symbols of what Dixie Chicks once were (and still are to a degree). And then there was a crowd of older and younger fans that looked pretty conventional to me, and the two immigrants to the left of the stage.

We sang the songs, visual stage and the screen were top notch. And there were the chicks, unapologetic, making fun of the current presidential race, giving props to the loss of Prince and then inviting us to love in the wake of the Orlando attacks. These girls have come long way from the bluegrass band from Texas. They are a true all American band now and proud of it.

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We’ve been covering the Zika virus and monitoring any progress that’s been being made so far, and we’re pleased to report some good news for a change. It appears that an experimental Zika vaccine is in the works and is slated for human test trials after being approved by health officials in the US.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals was granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration to begin early-stage tests of its vaccination, which is a DNA-based vaccine. The company has said that it hopes to begin human testing some time during the fall of this year.

The vaccine that is being designed is geared towards charging up the immune system so it can fight the Zika virus by using genetically engineered components that help the immune system tackle the virus. According to Inovio, the vaccine was very responsive in animal testing.

A 40-person study is slated to begin this fall, and the company has stated that they hope to show positive results by the end of the year. At the present, there are no drugs that can treat the virus currently. And it’s unknown how far or fast the virus could spread over the next year.

People contract the Zika virus after being bitten by mosquitoes that are carrying the infection. It only causes a temporarily and often unnoticeable illness, but has been linked to dangerous birth defects and birth fatalities.

Over the past year, it’s spread like wildfire in Latin America, creating one of the biggest worldwide health scares since the SARS virus.

We’ll keep on following any updates of this virus and will be reporting back to you to keep you informed.

According to the CDC, only 755 travel cases have been reported so far in the US. But 1,455 cases have been reported in US territories. 141 of the domestic reported cases were reported in Florida, with California coming in second with 48 reported cases.

Zika can be transmitted sexually from infected partners, prompting health officials to warn people to have protected sex or to refrain from sexual activity if they have become infected until cleared by a doctor.

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