Italy closes schools as death toll hits 107

Yahoo – AFP, Dmitry ZAKS, March 4, 2020

Italy has borne the brunt in Europe of a disease that is now spreading across the 

world faster than it is in the central Chinese region where it was first detected (AFP 

Photo/Miguel MEDINA)

Rome (AFP) - Italy on Wednesday closed all schools and universities until March 15 as the number of deaths from the new coronavirus in the Mediterranean country hit 107.

The measure is the most restrictive response to COVID-19 of any European nation and tougher than the closure of schools -- but not universities -- taken by fellow Group of Seven (G7) member Japan.

Italy reported 28 more deaths on Wednesday -- the highest single day total to date. The nation of 60 million people has now recorded over 3,000 cases and only trails China in terms of total fatalities.

The government's other measures included an unpopular month-long nationwide ban on fan attendance at football matches and other major sporting events.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conti told the nation that Italy was able to handle the current number of cases but needed a firmer response to keep things from spiralling out of control.

"As long as the numbers are low, the health system can assist (people) effectively," Conti said in a video message posted on Facebook.

"But in case of exponential growth, not just Italy but any other country in the world would not be able to manage the situation."

First death in south

Italy has borne the brunt in Europe of a disease that is now spreading across the world faster than it is in the central Chinese region where it was first detected late last year.

The problem for the Italian government is that existing restrictions -- including a quarantine of 11 towns with 50,000 people in the north -- have failed to stop the outbreak.

The overwhelming majority of the fatalities have occurred in Milan's Lombardy region and the neighbouring northern area around the cities of Bologna and Venice.

Most of Italy's deaths have occurred in Milan's Lombardy region and the neighbouring 

northern area around the cities of Bologna and Venice (AFP Photo/Alberto PIZZOLI)

But 21 of the 22 regions have now had cases and infections are slowly reaching Italy's less wealthy and developed south.

The government reported the first death south of Rome on Wednesday. It came in the Puglia region that surrounds the city of Bari in the heel of the Italian boot on the map.

Top government minister spent hours huddling Wednesday to chart a way out of a health crisis that threatens to tip Italy's wheezing economy into recession and overwhelm hospitals.

Most of the steps adopted involve ways to avoid crowds and keep people from coming in contact with each other outdoors.

Crowd control

The new instructions urge people to stay at least a metre (three feet) apart and to avoid crowded places whenever possible.

Traditional greetings of kissing on the cheeks or shaking hands are strongly discouraged.

Exhibits and shows will be rescheduled -- a measure that will be especially painful for Italy's already hard-hit hotel and restaurant industry.

Some of the government's more mundane and common-sense measures include advice to cough and sneeze in a handkerchief to avoid hands coming in contact with "respiratory secretions".

Italians are also being urged to avoid sharing bottles and not to drink from the same cups and glasses.

The crowd-control measures will most directly affect football matches and could cause the most resentment in the sports-mad nation.

Italy's Serie A has already been thrown into disarray by two weeks of postponements that have seen some clubs not play at all and others play multiple matches in a week.

Fans are even being prohibited from attending the training sessions of top teams such as Cristiano Ronaldo's Juventus in Turin.

The government also recommended to those over 75 to stay indoors and to avoid public places. The advice extends to those who are at least 65 and suffer from other ailments.

A top civil protection official told AFP that most of those who have died in the past few days were in their 80s and 90s and were already suffering from other pathologies.

All these measures are meant to stay in place for a month and be reviewed and possibly fine-tuned after two weeks.

China asks recovered patients to donate plasma for virus treatment

Yahoo – AFP, February 17, 2020

Although further testing is required, scientists believe plasma donated by patients who
have recovered from the coronavirus could help those seriously ill from it (AFP
Photo/Jung Yeon-je)

Beijing (AFP) - Chinese health officials Monday urged patients who have recovered from the coronavirus to donate blood so that plasma can be extracted to treat others who are critically ill.

Drugmakers are racing to develop a vaccine and treatment for the epidemic, which has killed 1,770 people and infected over 70,500 people across China.

Plasma from patients who have recovered from a spell of pneumonia triggered by COVID-19 contains antibodies that can help reduce the virus load in critically ill patients, an official from China's National Health Commission told a press briefing Monday.

"I would like to make a call to all cured patients to donate their plasma so that they can bring hope to critically ill patients," said Guo Yanhong, who heads the NHC's medical administration department.

Eleven patients at a hospital in Wuhan -- the epicentre of the disease -- received plasma infusions last week, said Sun Yanrong, of the Biological Center at the Ministry of Science and Technology.

"One patient (among them) has already been discharged, one is able to get off the bed and walk and the others are all recovering," she said.

The call comes days after China's state-owned medical products maker reported successful results from its trial at Wuhan First People's Hospital.

China National Biotec Group Co. said in a post on its official WeChat account that severely ill patients receiving plasma infusions "improved within 24 hours".

The World Health Organization said exploring the use of plasma as a treatment for the novel coronavirus was "important", but cautioned it needed to be done "with safety".

"It is a very important area of discovery," head of WHO's emergencies programme Michael Ryan told reporters in Geneva, pointing out that plasma had proven effective in saving lives when combatting a range of different diseases.

"It is a very valid way to explore therapeutics, especially when we don't have vaccines and we don't have specific anti-virals," he said.

His colleague Sylvie Briand, who heads WHO's Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness division, meanwhile cautioned that plasma-based treatments could be difficult to scale up to reach large numbers of patients, and stressed the need to carefully follow safety protocols.

"With blood products you can also transmit other diseases, so the protocol ... is very important," she told reporters.

Sun stressed that "clinical studies have shown that infusing plasma (from recovered patients) is safe and effective."

Blood donors will undergo a test to ensure that they are not carrying the virus, said Wang Guiqiang, chief physician at Peking University First Hospital.

"Only plasma is taken, not all the blood," he said.

"Other components of the blood including red blood cells and platelets will be infused back into the donors."

Evolution – Future Scenarios – (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

Kryon.com, April 15, 2018

Lee Carroll

To help the reader, this channelling has been revisited [by Lee and Kryon] to provide even clearer understanding. Sometime information is even added or condensed. Often what happens live has implied energy within it, which carries a kind of communication that the printed page does not. So enjoy this enhanced message given in West Virginia.

Greetings, dear ones, I Am Kryon of Magnetic Service. This will be a different kind of channelling. It is not a standard message, but instead it is the presentations of three future potentials that you may indeed see. This meeting is being put on and hosted by what is called a "futurist". A futurist is one who dedicates his/her time in trying to predict coming systems in government, economics and potential inventions that might change a culture's future. This then allows humanity to prepare for things in a benevolent way when it happens. That is a futurist. So in honor of the futurist, I would like to paint a picture of three things that you might expect in your future.

One of the questions presented earlier today in the seminar was about electronics and machines and about the future of what you call "artificial intelligence". Where is it going? Is there danger to Human Beings because of it? Is humanity to go into a dark hole of its own creation because it made machines that turned against it? Is it going to do the kinds of things your science fiction movies have presented?

Here is the answer: "You don't know what you don't know." What that means is that your future is not predictable from anything you've experienced in the past. The evolution of circuitry, of artificial intelligence, of technology itself for the last 50 years will not apply to the next 50. The logic of the past presses on you to predict the future, but you can't. All of your fear of future artificial intelligence is based on your expectation that you will create machines that will have the same dysfunctional consciousness of fear, greed, hate and war called Human nature. It's really funny to consider that you are actually afraid you won't be able to control yourselves, and you will create a "thinking machine" that will have the very same broken consciousness you have. Systemic consciousness change is coming.

You simply can't predict a future where the only thing to compare it to is a past that you are moving away from. Example: Please give me the evolutionary ideas on the next generational advance for a better ice box. [Silence] Oh, you don't have them anymore? What happened? The answer is electricity. That would be a systemic change. When you have a huge systemic paradigm shift, do you think it would affect a prediction path you might try to predict? The answer is yes. So consciousness change would be a "spoiler", if you wish to say that, for the futurist's ability to predict the future.

Let me give you three future scenarios in a timeline that is not identified by years, but by a numeric order - one, two and three. So what this means is that there is no timeline for these potentials, but they indeed represent an evolutionary growth from one to the next.

Next, I want to tell you that everything I'm presenting has actually happened, but you haven't seen it yet. "Kryon, how is that possible? Are you talking about Earth?"  Indeed, I am not speaking about the earth. Remember, Old soul, you're not just an old soul, you're an extremely old soul. We gave a message some time ago that was titled, "How old are you?" It places your soul on other planets like the earth, going through shifts like the one you have now, only at different times way in the past.

Many of you are awakening to this attribute right now and are remembering what's coming and having feelings that you might have experienced it before. This esoteric remembrance is starting to temper your fear, which is often caused by what you see happening with humanity today. Change is sometimes fearful. But you are becoming more comfortable because at some level you remember where it might go. You have participated in "The Shift" before.

The future is completely dependent upon free choice. That's you, now, here on Earth. How fast the change happens is up to you and how fast consciousness moves is the same. You have free choice to stay in the dark or go into the light. You have free choice for slow or fast change. So if I said it would take 50 years or 100 years, I would be wrong. Faster or slower depends totally upon you and the Humans on this planet. There will be some surprises, and the surprises in technology will be surprises because nobody ever considered them due to what you haven't seen yet. Your expectations are all tempered by your past, and now they can't be.

Scenario Number One

Scenario one is not necessarily in the distant future, but it would be considered the first step of what is to come. The focus for the future of electronics is going to be Human health. Electronics is going to turn more inward into the individual's Human's ability to use technology for healing. Right now, electronic evolvement does not turn inward. It has always evolved outward. It has allowed you to speak to the world all at once and create networks that all can use at once. This is an outward evolution. But now I'm going to speak of electronics that will be turned inward and interface with a person's consciousness - an inward evolution. I give you the first scenario. It involves inventions that have not yet occurred and processes that are not yet understood.

The cancer patient reports to the hospital, lies down, and prepares. But the preparation is not for surgery. Instead, there's something else that's going to happen. A very tiny, small injection of something is going into her body - something that today, you wouldn't expect to work. "Oh, I know," thinks a reader. "It's evolved micro-robotics." It isn't. It's going to be biology, with parts no bigger than a cell you can barely discern.

We are speaking now of the evolvement of what you call stem cells. What if you could take a piece of your systemic cellular structure, one that belongs to your own system, which has a consciousness of you and the benevolence of you, and give it instructions to go to a diseased part of you and rejuvenate it? This is a part of your own system that would never hurt you, which is not artificial, but which is "instructable". The electronics involved will be part of the ability to give instructions and will help imbue your consciousness into the injected cell group to tell it what you want it to do. You are guiding this group of cells through the bloodstream on its way to destroying the tumor, but not in the way you are trying to do now within your medicine. Instead, the tumor is about to be "reprogrammed". Did you know that all disease has a program? Well, perhaps that's something you should work on. [Kyron smile] Disease actually has a "disease consciousness" and works with purpose. But it's not smart, and often doesn't understand that it's killing its host, but only sees growth as the end goal.

This cell group we are discussing is not a form of robotics. It's not artificial intelligence. It's you, inserting your own consciousness into your own body in a miraculous way through inventions that are not here yet. It's part biology, part machine, and part electronics. You will be using it all together in a benevolent scenario that gathers a specific energy around the tumor using a process you don't know about yet. The tumor reacts almost instantly, because it gets reprogrammed. Remember, it's alive, and it is not appropriate in your body. It begins to die right away. It is reprogrammed at a systemic, biological level.

What is it that can destroy disease this way? What you are viewing in this experience is the first wave of understanding of how your personal consciousness can be imbued into special cells that have been harvested from you for this purpose and actually given intent-based instructions. The tumor doesn't fight. It has no choice but to start immediately dying because it has been reprogrammed to "know" it is inappropriate. Is this possible? Is this even feasible? Oh yes! I've just given you a reality that will happen. Consciousness is no longer an elusive concept. It will be measured as energy and used appropriately as energy.

Scenario Number Two

What I have just given you is actually archaic compared to the second one. The cancer patient reports to a building and the building may have a sign that says:

The V Group - Complete and Total Healing!

One-stop Shopping for Disease Elimination

There will be competition within this process, since it is far more available to be created without medical procedures at all. For this reason, it improves and improves. The cancer patient goes into the building. This time, there is no injection.

What you are going to experience now is the evolution of what you call virtual reality. However, you can no longer call it virtual, since the seemingly artificial reality of it blurs into your own reality. Today, you have the beginning of it. You put on a pair of goggles and you can look around and experience an extremely realistic program. You can look around your area with 360-degree sight and see beautiful nature and experience places you can never go. Amazing as you might think this is, dear ones, that's a toy compared to what I'm going to show you next.

The cancer patient goes into the building and ends up in a large room with a very special apparatus. I won't describe the apparatus, for it may give away part of the process. Don't worry, it's coming. It will be invented. It's in the minds and the Akash of those who will do it.

As the apparatus is engaged, in a short time the patient is in another place with another reality. It's one that allows her to stand and walk and be normal, yet she is not really doing any of those things. So real is it that she can interface with others in this seeming simulation. She is not interfacing with a program, but with other intelligences that seem to be Human, because they actually are. The other Humans are in another part of the building, also interfacing with her through the apparatus. This event of hers requires almost the entire building and many other people. She is not alone. Nothing is artificial about the exchange, but everything is artificial that she sees and touches. Indeed, she knows this, but soon she won't remember it.

In this "other reality", she walks into a healing center. It's so real that she can feel the breeze in the park where she is and smell the grass. She walks into the building and uses the elevator, just as she would in her home town to visit her family doctor. The receptionist takes her name and interfaces with her and she even discusses her family a bit. No exchange is artificial. No intelligence is artificial, but everything she experiences otherwise is through the evolution of electronics that work with her consciousness.

The patient lies down on a couch and above her head is a large video-type screen. As the nurses move around her with objects having wires, her cancerous tumor comes into view on the screen. She is comfortable and in a position of muscular neutrality, as if she were about to take a nap, but she is wide awake and ultra-ready for a confrontation. There is nothing threatening around her at all, but it's so real she can touch and feel everything she sees. The screen above her continues to show the tumor, but she isn't apprehensive, for she knows what's coming. She is preparing for battle.

She is handed some kind of portable controller, where she is able to move a certain way and somehow affect the tumor and its surroundings. It would seem as though she is actually touching her own tumor using the controller, and each time she does, it responds and quickly tries to move away. The nurses warn her not to go too fast, and then they help guide her on what to do and how to move, then they cheer when she does it correctly. Also around her in the room she begins to hear some kind of songs or melodies that are familiar, and with the controller in her hands, she begins to interface with what is on the screen. She slowly sees that she is actually erasing the tumor on the screen. It objects and wiggles and slowly begins to shrink before her eyes. The staff is working with her and giving her more advice. "Watch the colors!" they tell her. "Move you controller with the colors! It's telling you what makes it uncomfortable!" The tumor is almost screaming and moving wildly. She continues to manipulate the controller. The songs and melodies continue, and she slowly realizes that she is singing along with them and smiling the whole time.

Dear ones, this woman is healing her own tumor! It is so real. She is in another world, an artificial world, but at the same time she is not really there at all. However, her body is seeing and feeling things so real that her blood pressure is reacting, her consciousness is reacting, she is sweating and her actual chemistry believes she is in this healing building working hard to outwit disease. In this amazing and extremely real virtual world, she start seeing her tumor being destroyed by her own hands, her own desire to be rid of it, and her own intention and hard work.

The tumor and the patient seem to be in heated battle and she is allowed to rest. She eats a virtual meal and feels it go down into her stomach, then she returns to the couch to continue the battle. This time the tumor seems to sense her coming and turns colors and moves without even being "touched". The woman is singing again. There is joy as she slowly, bit by bit, erases the tumor from her body. She feels the fatigue of the battle and the joy of victory as it shrinks and becomes smaller and smaller and disappears. No more motion, no more color changes.

The virtual experience lasts a full day. It is so real that she has several meals during that time and her body is actually nourished. Finally, she gets up to leave, but she is not done. Now she reports to another room for tests. The doctors interface with her and begin the standard tests they always have done. There's a needle prick and the drawing of blood - all as usual, all virtual. Then the staff returns with the results. She sees the chemistry and the charts and even the waste material where the tumor was, as its remains are being washed away by her system. The doctor smiles and tells her, "Congratulations! It's really gone," and there is a feeling of joy, elation and celebration.

When it's time for her to come back to the real world, they bring her back slowly. She didn't put on a pair of goggles, dear ones. I'm not going to tell you what she did, but it was complete, immersive, and it surrounded her. There was nothing like it - a virtual world almost as real as if you had stepped into another dimension. [Kryon smile]

When she is fully returned, nobody gives her a "real" test to find out how it worked, because everyone already knows: Complete healing. Her body and her system and her mind cognized the experience as though it were completely and totally real in every way. With the assistance from virtual patterning, which was actually hooked to her consciousness and "knew her", she walked away without cancer. That's the power of future electronics and technology. That's technology turning "inward". It's a future that recognizes what consciousness can do and how powerful the mind is. That's scenario two.

Scenario Number Three

There are always questions about the multidimensional Human Being. "Kryon, is it possible we can ever discover our own multidimensionality and, without any electronics or machines of any kind, change our chemistry in a process that is known, understood and intuitive?" Yes, dear ones. Yes.

The reason I am so certain of this is because this is your blueprint. This is what the whole design of DNA is for. This is the evolution I have spoken of. I'm not going to be able to tell you how long it may take, since the evolution time clock is controlled by the free-will consciousness of humanity. But let me introduce something in your body that actually is designed to do this kind of thing, but which is dysfunctional at the moment. It's something that you know about and have accepted "as is" in all its dysfunctional state. You don't even realize it's broken. You have never seen it any other way.

What we are speaking of is what you have called your "innate". How does it feel to be the highest evolved creature on the planet, with an intellect where you can examine your own existence, ask why you're here, feel the love of the creator, and even say the words, "I am that I am," yet have a part of your own body that is smarter than you are?

Kinesiology (muscle testing) has been used by practitioners and medicine for decades and decades in order to find answers to very simple questions regarding your body that your consciousness should actually know! Here is a statement of truth, and a difficult one for Humans to hear: Dear Human Being, your mind and consciousness, as amazing as you feel it might be, is currently completely separated from your chemistry, and that was never the design.

Let me ask you, logically, does it make sense to you that your biological blueprint would have created a "stupid", disconnected system? "Stupid" because it is counterintuitive to the entire "survival" instinct of every mammal on the planet! The answer is no. It's not logical and it doesn't help you survive at all. In fact, it's so dysfunctional that disease can attach itself to you and you won't know it for weeks until it really gets going. Then you go to the doctor and get the news.

Right now, this innate "smarter body" has to be accessed completely and totally separately through processes that are archaic. Indeed, it can give you signals if you ask, but it won't tell you anything that's happening in real time since there is no "bridge" of elegant connection to your mind that allows it. That missing bridge is what evolution will begin to build.

Innate, the smart body within the multidimensional Human Being, is going to evolve and begin to use that 24th pair of chromosomes that you think you don't have. We have given you the information in the past that you can only see 23 chromosome pairs with your modern equipment. The 24th is still there, but multidimensional. It is not yet understood, seen or recognized. There are actual hints that can be deciphered that would tell a biologist that "something is unbalanced and should be more complete," but the pair is basically invisible in 3D.

This multidimensional, 24th pair is the one the Pleiadians manipulated when they moved around your old linear set of chromosomes within your DNA to a set of apparently 23. This is what gave you the ability to have knowledge of the creator, God inside, the choice of high and low consciousness, and the ability to create elegant music, art, poetry and painting. It's your Adam and Eve story.

Dear ones, when consciousness starts to increase on this planet and you start to measure and use quantum things, number 24 will reveal itself within the double helix. Then you will have a revelation: "There's more than we thought!" That's when quantum patterning will begin to show itself, and chemistry and physics will be put together and studied in ways they always should have been.

"Kryon, what will be the result of this evolution?" The first thing that you'll start seeing are Human Beings born with a special consciousness where they can "sense" things within their own body and they will become their own healers due to it. They will know all about their blood chemistry without a test. They will know when any disease tries to attach to them, instantly the moment it happens, instead of waiting for something to grow inside them and create pain. They'll be their own medical intuitives. People will see the first stages of this and they'll say, "This is unbelievable. It's not right. It's abnormal. These people are odd and unusual." They will be isolated and tested, because they are evolved. Welcome to Earth, where advanced Humans are often hidden away and feared.

That's what you do, don't you? That's what you've done to the autistics in your culture. It's because you don't see it coming, do you? You don't see the savants in the future, do you? You only see an unusual set of children that have odd communication and who are difficult in an old energy. Since you don't really expect this evolution, you treat these things as sub-standard or difficult. These new autistics just yell, "I'm a nonlinear thinker! Find a way to communicate with me that is not linear!" Yet you are not ready to study what that might mean. These circumstances are actually starting to show themselves in so many ways. Look at what these special Humans can do that you can't, and that will give you a hint of who they are. This evolution is coming. That multidimensional piece of your DNA that you can't even see yet is going to bring your consciousness in line with your innate.

Let me finish with this: What is your innate attached to that is also a mystery that you cannot easily access? I speak again of what is called the Akashic Record of the Human Being. This is the record of all the energy, activity and history of your soul on the earth. Dear one, evolution within the new Human Being is going to connect you to your Akash.

What do you know about the Akash in the old energy? It's something that often bothers you because it only remembers negative attributes about your past lives. Akashic issues are the things that even today you work with to try and suppress. They are subtle and not part of the subconscious mind. They are often revealed by past-life readers or others who can "read" your Akash to the extent they are allowed. But this is all changing.

There will be a meld with the innate and your Akash that gives you full access to the wisdom of the past and full access to dismiss all negative things. This will be one of the most significant evolutionary steps of humanity, this marriage of the Akash, the innate and higher consciousness. That will truly reveal the multidimensional Human Being. When it takes place, you will then look at the facts and the history and realize that you are not from here at all, but that your DNA is from the stars. You'll begin to understand it all because it's all part of a scenario of connection, of a coherence with your brothers and sisters spread all across the skies. That is the future.

"How soon, Kryon?" Not soon enough, but you'll get there. Every single Human, using their free choice, will come back and come back and come back. Each time there will be improvement for a world that has great promise. This is different from before, dear ones, where you never evolved your consciousness and continued the dysfunction of war and other processes that never changed from century to century.

In the far, far distant future, there will come a time, dear ones, when it is your job to seed another civilization in some other far away place. This will give birth to compassionate action in other parts of this galaxy. Someday, you will work together to create another planet that has your stamp, your DNA, and you will introduce them to the creative source, just as it was given to you.

Are you getting this? Are you really understanding how important you are at this juncture of time? There are so many mysteries, you might say. But they will eventually all be revealed, and you'll be here for that. Don't fear these things, because they come from you, by design. That is the message for today.

And so it is.

KRYON

S.Africa miners reach landmark silicosis settlement

Yahoo – AFP, Beatrice Debut and Michelle Gumede, 3 May 2018

The settlement will cover those who worked for the mining giants between March
1965 and the present day and will reportedly benefit up to 100,000 former mine
workers or their dependents

Thousands of miners in South Africa affected by silicosis from exposure to dust reached a breakthrough settlement worth $390 million with several mining companies on Thursday, their lawyers said.

The settlement will cover those who worked for the mining giants between March 1965 and the present day and will reportedly benefit more than 100,000 former mine workers or their dependents.

Many of those affected were poor migrant labourers originally from countries neighbouring South Africa including Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique.

South Africa's mines, which have attracted workers from across the region in the 130 years following the discovery of the world's largest gold deposits, remain some of the world's deepest and most dangerous.

"This is an historic settlement, resulting from years of extensive negotiations," said a statement issued jointly by the miners' representatives and the affected companies.

"The agreement provides meaningful compensation to all eligible workers" who worked for African Rainbow Minerals, Anglo American SA, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony and Sibanye-Stillwater, it added.

It is the first class action settlement of its kind in South Africa and follows three years of negotiations.

Many miners caught silicosis, which has no known cure, while drilling through rock and inhaling silica dust that lodged in their lungs and caused permanent scarring.

Symptoms include persistent coughing and shortness of breath, and the disease regularly leads to tuberculosis and death.

The agreement must now be approved by the South Guateng High Court in Johannesburg.

'The best we could achieve'

"The purpose was to hold the gold mining industry accountable for the enormous harm that it has inflicted on workers for years. The second objective was to bring a measure of redress for the families of miners and ex-miners," said lawyer Richard Spoor who headed the class action on behalf of the miners.

Some studies have found silicosis prevalence in South African gold mines at between

22 and 36 percent of all workers -- among the highest rates in the world

"It is the best we could achieve. We have not compromised. We have done the best we could possibly achieve."

Graham Briggs, who represents the Occupational Lung Disease Working Group which acted on behalf of six of the mining companies, said "a settlement is certainly preferable for several parties because it brings payment sooner than any class action".

"A settlement is preferable because it brings certainty," he added.

The joint statement said that six companies last year made financial provisions worth a total of 5 billion rand ($390 million) to cover the claims.

Anglo American has set aside the most for the payments with a provision for $101 million (84 million euros), followed by Sibanye which has earmarked $82 million, according to Bloomberg News.

Spoor said that claimants could expect payments to begin in September or October which he said might be "disappointing for those who have waited so long".

"In the last five years, out of 35,000 clients that my firm has represented, approximately 5,000 have died. It puts tremendous pressure to settle," he said.

In cases where the original claimants have died, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi vowed that "the widows will be paid (but) it is not going to be very easy to find them".

Some studies have found silicosis prevalence in South African gold mines at between 22 and 36 percent of all workers -- among the highest rates in the world.

In 2011, the Constitutional Court paved the way for the class action by ruling that mineworkers who had often accepted paltry compensation for their ill-health could still sue.

Activists warned of the huge challenge of organising the claims and dispensing the compensation.

"This is a good starting point, but they need to include actual miners and ex-miners in the trustees board so we can contribute to the rollout," said Rantso Mantsi, a former miner from Lesotho.

"There are many people who died before being compensated, hopefully their families will now be paid out."

Dutch hospital challenges big pharma by making own version of very pricey drug

DutchNews, April 5, 2018

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Amsterdam’s AMC teaching hospital is to start making its own version of a licenced drug to treat a rare metabolic disorder because the medicine is no longer covered by health insurance after the price shot up. 

The drug, chenodeoxycholic acid or CDCA is produced by Italian pharmaceuticals company Leadiant. On April 1, the company ramped up the price by around 500% so it now costs some €200,000 per patient per year. The hospital can produce the drug for €25,000. 

Hospital pharmacies make their own medicines more often but this case is unusual because of the financial considerations. The hospital is offering ‘a social and economically-responsible alternative to a registered medicine which is so expensive that it is inaccessible to patients,’ the AMC said. 

Just 60 patients in the Netherlands suffer from the disease CTX which the drug is used to treat. 

The drug has been available since the 1970s but Leadiant only registered it as an orphan medicine with the European medicines agency last year. Orphan status, given to drugs which are used to treat very specific and rare illnesses, means a drug cannot be copied for a 10-year period. 

Prescription 

There is a loophole, however:  a pharmacist can make the drug for their own patients. And even though the AMC only has two, ‘anyone can register at our pharmacy with a doctor’s prescription,’ AMC professor Carla Hollak told the NRC. 

The measure is being supported by health insurance companies. Health minister Bruno Bruins told RTL news that he preferred the use of registered medicines because of the tough procedures they have gone through. Nevertheless, he said, it is unacceptable that companies raise the price ‘to make fat profits’. 

Blackmail 

The Dutch healthcare institute Zorginstituut Nederland said in February insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at the price. 

The institute, which assesses the efficacy of new drugs and advises the government on whether they should be included in the basic healthcare policy, says the drugs companies are effectively blackmailing officials by refusing to be transparent about their prices. 

DutchNews.nl has asked Leadiant for comment on the AMC action and the drug price hike.

Related Article:

Drug companies are blackmailing us with expensive drugs: healthcare chief

Vaccination debate rages on, €2m allocated to answer parents’ questions

DutchNews, November 17, 2016

The public health institute RIVM is spending €2m on a campaign to get more parents to have their children vaccinated, amid growing concern that vaccination rates are falling. 

Parents are increasingly questioning the need for vaccinations as diseases disappear from the radar and wrong or outdated information circulates on the internet, spokesman Hans van Vliet told broadcaster NOS. 

Over nine in 10 children take part in the state vaccination programme, which runs from the age of 0 to 19. However, the take-up rate among newborns has fallen 0.5% for the past two years and is declining in fundamentalist Protestant and Free School communities, the RIVM says. 

‘People have become more vocal and are less likely to take the word of experts,’ Van Vliet said. ‘We have to do more to convince worried parents and answer their questions properly.’ 

Daycare

The Boink foundation, which represents parents whose children use organised daycare, wants to know if it is legally possible for crèches to refuse to accept children who have not been vaccinated. 

That discussion started two years ago after an eight-month old baby became seriously ill with measles. The baby reportedly contracted the disease from a child who had deliberately not been vaccinated. 

The baby’s mother Nicole Gommers believes daycare facilities should be allowed to refuse children who have not been vaccinated. ‘You should not be taking risks with extremely young children,’ she told the broadcaster. 

During the Bible belt measles epidemic in 2013-14, one child died and 182 were hospitalised.

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“To vaccinate or not to vaccinate, that is the question”

Kryon Q&A

Question (2003): Dear Kryon, I have a new grandson. He's going for his first vaccination in the next few weeks. If we're beginning to transmute toxins with reconnections to our endocrine system through our DNA, then what happens to our babies, who by law have to be vaccinated? What are your thoughts on this subject?

Answer: First, know that vaccinations are a God-given science that humanity earned. They're a tried and proven homeopathic method that have been with you for years. You were probably vaccinated yourself, and it worked.

We have three answers: (1) God is not in a vacuum. Even the vaccinated Human Being who's older can modify and rework their DNA. So there's no time limit, and there are no rules that say "Once vaccinated, you're ruined." (2) The Human who is of the age of awareness can say, even as they are vaccinated, "Let nothing inappropriate enter my chemistry." This is a conscious instruction given to your "intelligent cellular structure" (the same one responsible for kinesiology and homeopathic results). This will result in your cells only using what they need and casting away everything else. (3) Finally, about babies: There has been a push by your science lately to vaccinate against many things at the same time. You'd be advised to seek out a doctor who will only vaccinate your child for only the basic diseases that have been known in the last 40 years. Eliminate the vaccinations for the new ones. This leaves you with approximately seven or eight - the very ones that have been used for years. What your science is not appreciating yet is the results of combining all the vaccination substances together. There's a problem that will show itself in time. Stick with the basic ones.

Africa's progress in the fight against HIV/Aids

The South African city of Durban is the venue for the 2016 World Aids Conference. Sub-Saharan Africa will feature prominently on the agenda, a region where the infection rate has decreased by over 40 percent since 2000.

Deutsche Welle, 15 July 2016

Which strategies are most effective in the battle against HIV/Aids? DW looks at how four African countries are responding to the challenge.

Ethiopia: Free medicines

Ethiopia is regarded as a model in the fight against the virus HIV and the disease Aids. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of new infections in the East African nation dropped by 90 percent, more than in any other African state. During the same period, the number of people who died of Aids also declined by more than half.

The decreasing infection and mortality rates are mainly due to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. ARVs prevent the HIV virus from spreading and damaging the body's immune system and also allow people to live a largely normal life with the disease. Since 2005, the drug has been distributed across Ethiopia free of charge.

In remote villages, trained medical staff ensure every HIV patient takes his or her medication. Nearly 2,500 health clinics offer care and support to pregnant women to prevent mother-to-children transmission. In addition, between 2013 and 2014 some 9.6 million people - one in ten Ethiopians - were tested forr Aids.

Kenya: compulsory HIV/Aids education

Fewer than six percent of Kenyans live with HIV/Aids. That's about 1.5 million people. The number of new infections also fell significantly in recent years. In 2005, 28.3 percent of infected mothers transmitted the virus to their children. Five years later, that figure had gone down to 8.5 percent.

Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of all pregnant Kenyan women go for Aids tests. In 2000, there were only three health facilities where Kenyans could consult medical practitioners and get tested for HIV. In 2010, the number of health facilities offering HIV consultations had increased to more than 4,000.

The main reason for the reduction in the HIV/Aids prevalence in Kenya is the supply of ARVs. In 2003, only 6,000 people had access to the medication. Ten years later, that figure increased to more than 600,000.

The Kenyan government also regards voluntary male circumcision as a weapon in the fight against AIDS. This reduces the risk of infection among men by about 40 percent, according to studies. Since 2003, HIV/Aids education has been a compulsory element in school curriculums. About 70 percent of the cost in fighting HIV/Aids in Kenya is footed by external donors.

Burkina Faso: support fund for the sick and orphans

In most of western Africa, the percentage of HIV infection was far less than in eastern and southern Africa. In 2000, Burkina Faso had a prevalence rate of around six percent, one of the highest in the region.

Today, according to estimates by UNAIDS, only 0.8 percent of the population is infected with the virus. The government responded early and showed its determination to fight the epidemic.

In 1987, the Burkinabe government implemented its first action plans. Together with international donors, the private sector and local communities, it invested large sums in ARVs, opened a support fund for HIV/Aids infected people, and started training thousands of health workers. In addition, the government began a massive behavioral change campaigns and distributed condoms.

Uganda: 'Abstinence, faithfulness and condoms'

In Uganda, the Aids epidemic reached its peak in the 1990s. Approximately 18 percent of the population was infected with the virus. The Ugandan government and international aid agencies launched ambitious and expensive educational programs with the slogan "Abstinence, faithfulness and condoms."

The campaign was a success. In 2000, only five percent of the population was HIV-positive. But, in the meantime, a contrary trend is emerging. The number of new infections in Uganda is rising again for the first time in ten years. The HIV prevalence rate in the country is now about seven percent of the population.

Surprisingly, a major reason for this is the widespread usage of ARVs and the circumcision of men. Many Ugandans believe that the ARV therapy can cure the disease completely and that male circumcision rules out any risk of infection - as a result, more people are abandoning the use of condoms.

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"The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) - (Text-Version)

" .... Africa

Let me tell you where else it's happening that you are unaware - that which is the beginning of the unity of the African states. Soon the continent will have what they never had before, and when that continent is healed and there is no AIDS and no major disease, they're going to want what you have. They're going to want houses and schools and an economy that works without corruption. They will be done with small-minded leaders who kill their populations for power in what has been called for generations "The History of Africa." Soon it will be the end of history in Africa, and a new continent will emerge.

Be aware that the strength may not come from the expected areas, for new leadership is brewing. There is so much land there and the population is so ready there, it will be one of the strongest economies on the planet within two generations plus 20 years. And it's going to happen because of a unifying idea put together by a few. These are the potentials of the planet, and the end of history as you know it.

In approximately 70 years, there will be a black man who leads this African continent into affluence and peace. He won't be a president, but rather a planner and a revolutionary economic thinker. He, and a strong woman with him, will implement the plan continent-wide. They will unite. This is the potential and this is the plan. Africa will arise out the ashes of centuries of disease and despair and create a viable economic force with workers who can create good products for the day. You think China is economically strong? China must do what it does, hobbled by the secrecy and bias of the old ways of its own history. As large as it is, it will have to eventually compete with Africa, a land of free thinkers and fast change. China will have a major competitor, one that doesn't have any cultural barriers to the advancement of the free Human spirit.. ...."


Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon, as the Universe transforms in this period of ascension/transition, why does it appear that little spiritual attention is focused on the African continent? While there has certainly been a religious awakening largely due to the circumstances that souls choose (for example, poverty, HIV/AIDS, etc.), this is being translated quite slowly into spirituality (my perception).

What is your information on the state of spiritual awakening on the African continent?

Answer: Dear one, this question is perhaps the best one you could have asked for your time. Indeed, it appears that the African situation is dichotomous to an awakening Earth. For a full explanation, you have to go back to information we presented 12 years ago [Kryon Book One, 1989]. We told you back then that there was a potential that showed that in order for your planet to move forward at the rate it was appearing to, up to one percent of the population might have to leave. This was startling information to most of you, and some wondered how and where this might begin. A disaster, perhaps? A comet strike? Now, as you know, the Humans on the African continent are currently losing their lives by the tens of millions. In addition, the life expectancy is bleak for at least the next decade . . . perhaps the next full generation! Your disease called AIDS is seemingly fulfilling this prophecy.

What this might mean to you is that the prediction given to you about your transition is now upon you, and all you can do is sit back and watch it occur in horror. What we have channelled to you recently, however, is that nothing could be further from your reality, or your 2001 potential. Instead, we have reported to you that since the 1989 potentials, you have far exceeded the energy for the year 2001 beyond that which was expected. What this means is that now the prophecy does not have to occur at all! What you are seeing, however, is the setup for the old potential still in progress, without knowledge that it is not needed.

Remember that death of any kind is abhorrent to you. We don’t expect you to understand how such a thing could have helped Spirit or Earth, but on a grander scale, it would have. An entire generation of Humanity came in with this expectation and knowledge, and they had agreements to leave early. It is this African family that you may now turn your attention to, for they have the opportunity to void this entire contract and remain in health.

This African continent is not in a state of spiritual awakening. They are instead in survival mode, plowing through an outdated spiritual potential. What can you do? Visualize the change in this scenario! You just changed the very time frame of Earth itself, so changing the energy of this one place is well within your ability! Visualize them happy, with families intact, fed, healthy, with the potential for life and joy. The energy you can develop in these visualizations can nullify the scenario that is there . . . totally! You can change the leaders’ minds, quicken the ability for science to reach those it needs to, and even change the reality of the disease itself. All these things we tell you, lightworker, since this is the work that you have asked to do. Your visualizations create a light that shines into the dark places of consciousness, or science, and of hope itself. You still don’t understand the potential of your energy! Is it worth two minutes a day? Perhaps three? Each day, consider this.

Blessed indeed is the awakening lightworker who is free from worry about death and who is not constantly hungry. For this Human has the ability to use his energy to help those who are ready to blossom into their own spiritual awakening, but who are currently consumed with an old contract of death and disease. The few may help the many, and the many may remain to help the earth in other ways. This is what family does for family. Believe it!