No, the UN Did Not Report China Has ‘Massive Internment Camps’ for Uighur Muslims

Numerous major media outlets, from Reuters to The Intercept, have claimed that the United Nations has reports that the Chinese government is holding as many as 1 million Uighur Muslims in “internment camps.” But a close examination of these news stories, and of the evidence behind them — or the lack thereof — demonstrates that the extraordinary claim is simply not true.

A spokesperson from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) confirmed in a statement to the Grayzone that the allegation of Chinese “camps” was not made by the United Nations, but rather by a member of an independent committee that does not speak for the UN as a whole. That member happened to be the only American on the committee, and one with no background of scholarship or research on China.

No, the UN Did Not Report China Has ‘Massive Internment Camps’ for Uighur Muslims Grayzone Project

Air pollution linked to much greater risk of dementia

Air pollution may increase the chance of developing dementia, a study has suggested, in fresh evidence that the health of people of all ages is at risk from breathing dirty air.

People over 50 in areas with the highest levels of nitrogen oxide in the air showed a 40% greater risk of developing dementia than those with the least NOx pollution, according to the research

Air pollution linked to much greater risk of dementia Guardian

Venezuela to bump China oil exports to one million barrels a day

Venezuela is to increase its oil exports to China to one million barrels a day, President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday, just days after visiting the Asian powerhouse.

Maduro said each country would invest “around five billion dollars” in the project by August 2019.

Speaking to foreign media, Maduro said China National Petroleum Corporation president Zhang Jianhua will visit Venezuela on Thursday to finalize “the investment they’re going to make.”

China eased Venezuela’s debt repayment conditions in 2016 with the South American country gripped by an economic crisis.

Venezuela to bump China oil exports to one million barrels a day France24

Disneyland Hotel Workers Get Raise, Vow to Push for $18 an Hour

Unite Here, the union representing Disneyland hotel workers, won a pay increase that will lift their wages to at least $15 an hour by January.

The deal announced Tuesday is one of several that Walt Disney Co. negotiated with theme-park workers on both coasts. The employees have been pressing for higher wages with marches and other forms of protest.

Disneyland Hotel Workers Get Raise, Vow to Push for $18 an Hour Bloomberg

U.S. Loses Track of Another 1,500 Migrant Children, Investigators Find

The Trump administration is unable to account for the whereabouts of nearly 1,500 migrant children who illegally entered the United States alone this year and were placed with sponsors after leaving federal shelters, according to congressional findings released on Tuesday.

The revelation echoes an admission in April by the Department of Health and Human Services that the government had similarly lost track of an additional 1,475 migrant children it had moved out of shelters last year.

U.S. Loses Track of Another 1,500 Migrant Children, Investigators Find NY Times

Flooding causes a hog lagoon to breach; others are at capacity

RALEIGH
Hurricane Florence’s heavy rains last week, along with ongoing major flooding, has caused one small hog lagoon to breach and flooded four others, according to the N.C. Pork Council.

In a statement Monday night, the Council said another seven are at capacity and appear to have overtopped. Still, the Council said after on-farm assessments and industry surveying, it did not believe there had been widespread impacts to 3,000 lagoons in the state that hold hog waste.

The hog farms and lagoons are just one of several environmental threats to the state from Florence.

Flooding causes a hog lagoon to breach; others are at capacity News & Observer

On Putin’s time-traveling assassins (and other huge holes in the Skripal poisoning “case”)

Let’s start with the fact (noted by George Ades on Facebook) that Petrov and Boshirov arrived in Salisbury at 11:40 a.m. on the day the Skripals were “attacked”—two hours after the Skripals left their house at 9:45, touching their (allegedly) poisoned door handle.

(“Can you see a discrepancy there?” asks Ades. “Of course, the Russians could have perfected time travel; I wouldn’t put anything past them. They have, after all, perfected the invisibility cloak for their submarines.”)

And why did the British authorities announce that Petrov and Boshirov were suspects while the two were back in Russia, rather than wait until the two were back in Europe, where they could have been quickly nabbed, and ultimately tried? The British obviously do not want them tried, because a trial would blow their whole preposterous fantasy to smithereens.

On Putin’s time-traveling assassins (and other huge holes in the Skripal poisoning “case”) Mark Crispin Miller