US closely monitoring case of lab worker who ‘possibly’ died of plague in Siberia, says Rubio

The Guardian, Mon 5 Oct 2026, Pjotr Sauer and Luke Harding 

Quarantine measures in place in several hospitals in eastern Russia amid uncertainty over death of Darya Shipilova 

Darya Shipilova died on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in
Shelekhov. Photograph: Social Media

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said the US is closely monitoring the case of a Russian laboratory worker who died last week after a reported accident at a plague research institute in Siberia.

“We’re watching and monitoring it closely,” Rubio said on Monday before leaving for a trip to Europe. “I ⁠don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an ⁠eye on it.”

Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee at the anti-plague institute in the city of Irkutsk, became ill at work. She died two days later on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov.

It remains unclear how she became unwell. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media have suggested Shipilova may have been infected after a mishap at the laboratory. Officials have not publicly confirmed that account.

Local media have reported that the institute has subsequently been locked down, with staff forced to sleep on the floor and on chairs. “They’ve been isolating everybody since Friday – more than 60 people,” one relative, Roman, told the news portal Siberia.Realities.

He said family members were allowed to drop off food at a checkpoint while tests were carried out inside the building. Similar quarantine restrictions have been placed on several other hospitals in and around the city.

Rubio, citing what ‌Russians have released about the death, said it seemed a worker in the lab became ​infected and there was concern the disease may have spread internally.

“There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously,” he said. “But like anything else, something like that gets out, it just quickly spreads.”

Senior Russian officials have added to public disquiet by sending conflicting messages. Alexey Tsydenov, the head of the Buryatia region, which neighbours Irkutsk, initially wrote that Shipilova had died of plague, before editing his post to say she had “possibly” died of the disease.

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, said Shipilova died from “pneumonia of unknown aetiology”. It insisted that tests found no micro-organisms linked to her professional work and described the “sanitary and epidemiological” situation in the area as stable.

Authorities in the nearby city of Baikalsk briefly urged residents to avoid travelling to Shelekhov and surrounding settlements after what they said was unofficial information about a possible plague infection. They later deleted the post from social media.

“There are no obvious changes to daily life on the streets, but people are worried and anxious. Locals are angry that they are not being told anything,” said Elena Trifonova, a journalist with People of Baikal, an exiled Russian media outlet specialising in Siberia.

Despite the lack of a confirmed diagnosis, precautionary measures appear to have been introduced across the region. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Monday that several hospitals in Irkutsk had been placed under quarantine.

The outlet confirmed that staff from Shipilova’s workplace, the Irkutsk Anti-plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, had been kept inside the institute since 2 October.

Patients at Irkutsk city clinical hospital No 1 and the Ivano-Matreninskaya children’s hospital said relatives were not being allowed to visit and people inside were not permitted to leave.

On social media, local residents described some of the precautions being introduced.

Ulyana Gavryunina, who went on Monday to one of Irkutsk’s main maternity hospitals for a routine check-up on Monday, said doctors refused to allow her mother in, citing a quarantine imposed over the suspected plague case. Gavryunina said staff member checked her for flu-like symptoms and asked her to fill out a screening form for infections, on which “plague” was listed. She posted a photograph of the form on Instagram.

Elsewhere, a mask requirement was introduced at the Irkutsk aluminium smelter in Shelekhov. The plant’s director, Artyom Fominykh, called it a preventive measure, saying: “Better safe than sorry.” Over the weekend several public events in Irkutsk were cancelled.

Shipolova’s death has prompted intervention from senior federal health officials. Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor and the country’s chief sanitary doctor, travelled to Irkutsk on Friday.

She attended an emergency meeting of the regional sanitary and anti-epidemic commission over what officials called a suspected case of a “particularly dangerous infection”.

Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, urged residents to remain calm after meeting Popova to coordinate the response. “All identified contacts have been placed under medical observation. As of today, none is showing signs of illness and laboratory tests have returned negative results,” he wrote on Telegram.

Kobzev made no reference to reports that a laboratory worker had died.

US politicians have raised concerns about the incident, which follows longstanding and unfounded allegations by the Kremlin that Ukraine has secretly carried out biological weapons research with the support of Washington.

A Republican representative, Don Bacon, a senior member of the House armed services committee, wrote on social media: “I remember hearing from anti-Ukraine voices about their so-called bio labs. It was Russian disinformation ops at their best. But in reality it is Russia with the bio labs.”

Plague remains endemic in parts of Siberia and the Russian far east, where the bacterium persists naturally among wild rodents and their fleas.
But human cases in Russia are rare. Before the suspected Irkutsk case, the country’s last recorded human infection was in 2016, when a 10-year-old boy in Siberia’s Altai Republic contracted plague after helping butcher a marmot.

“This case here seems like a rare lab accident and is unlikely to go much further,” Prof Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, in the UK, said. “Although it is true that pneumonic plague is directly transmissible, the contacts of the primary case are known and can be treated if they show any sign of infection.”

He added: “Plague carries a huge history and is still present in many parts of the world, including Russia, but the living conditions associated with previously spread plague are no longer generally true, antibiotics are available and its potential is therefore limited.”

The victim was working at the anti-plague institute in 

the Siberia city of Irkutsk. AFP via Getty Images.

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Russian alcohol consumption down 40%: WHO

Yahoo – AFP, 1 October 2019

The World Health Organization put the decrease down to measures brought in
under sport-loving President Vladimir Putin, including restrictions on alcohol sales
and the promotion of healthy lifestyles

Russia might still have a reputation as a nation of hard drinkers, but a report by the World Health Organization published Tuesday showed alcohol consumption has dropped by 43 percent since 2003.

The WHO put the decrease down to a raft of measures brought in under sport-loving President Vladimir Putin, including restrictions on alcohol sales and the promotion of healthy lifestyles.

"The Russian Federation has long been considered one of the heaviest-drinking countries in the world," the report said, adding that alcohol was a major contributor to a spike in deaths in the 1990s.

"However, in recent years these trends have been reversed."

The study showed a 43 percent drop in alcohol consumption per capita from 2003 to 2016, driven by a steep decline in the consumption of bootleg booze.

The authors said this trend was a factor in increased life expectancies, which reached a historic peak in 2018, at 78 years for women and 68 years for men.

In the early 1990s, male life expectancy was just 57 years.

Last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev led an anti-alcohol campaign with partial prohibition, which brought down consumption from the mid-1980s until 1990.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, alcohol consumption exploded, continuing to rise until the start of the 2000s.

Under Putin, Russia has introduced measures including a ban on shops selling any alcohol after 11 pm, increases in the minimum retail price of spirits and an advertising blackout.

Earlier WHO figures showed Russian adults now drink less alcohol on average than their French and German counterparts.

Moscow has also launched a drive against smoking, last week announcing a ban on lighting up even on private balconies.

Tobacco use plummeted by more than a fifth between 2009 and 2016, down to 30 percent of Russians smoking according to the most recent Global Adult Tobacco Survey.

The World Health Organization put the decrease down to measures brought in under sport-loving President Vladimir Putin, including restrictions on alcohol sales and the promotion of healthy lifestyles.

Russian TV host reveals HIV-positive status live on air

Yahoo – AFP, 2 Dec 2015

Russia accounted for 60% of all diagnoses of HIV across Europe in 2014,
according to the World Health Organisation (AFP Photo/Florian Schuh)

Moscow (AFP) - A well-known Russian television host announced live on air that he is HIV-positive, an unprecedented revelation in a country with rising infection rates but where HIV/AIDS remains a largely taboo subject.

Pavel Lobkov, a presenter on the independent TV station Dozhd and a former news anchor on state television, made the announcement during a show on Tuesday evening, on World Aids Day.

He is the first Russian public figure to openly declare himself HIV-positive.

Russia has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, with around 1,000 new cases diagnosed each month and a total of almost a million people known to be infected, with the real total likely to be much higher.

Lobkov, 48, said that he learnt of his condition more than a decade ago, in 2003, after asking to be tested at a private clinic.

Describing the brutal way in which he was informed of his status, Lobkov said he saw "HIV+" written in red on his file and that the doctor told him he could no longer receive treatment at the clinic because "you are HIV positive."

The room "had an open window, very low down," he said, hinting that he had contemplated suicide.

"Today I accomplished a serious feat in my life," he said of his revelation.

Lobkov is known for being outspoken. He was fired from the state NTV channel in 2012 -- a move he said was prompted by his attendance of opposition demonstrations against Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency.

His disclosure of the fact that he is living with HIV won praise from many Russians.

"Such a step has a huge meaning for everyone with the status," human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov wrote on Twitter.

But the journalist also sustained a stream of online abuse, mostly maligning gays.

In a Facebook message on Wednesday, he thanked those who had voiced support for his "battle with medieval attitudes" and "total everyday lying".

"I started perestroika with myself, as Mikhail Gorbachev told us," he added, referring to the economic reforms of the late Soviet era.

The World Health Organisation last month said that Russia accounted for 60 percent of all diagnoses of HIV in Europe in 2014, with heterosexual sex the main route of transmission of the virus which is spread through contact with contaminated body fluids.

A public health campaign in Moscow urges people to be faithful to their partners, rather than promoting condom use.

Russia also does not approve methadone replacement therapy for drug addicts, which allows them to stop injections, preventing them from contracting HIV from tainted syringes.

On menu for world leaders - trash, and a message

Yahoo – AFP, Shaun Tandon, 28 Sep 2015

US chef Dan Barber takes part in the

 presentation of the Basque Culinary 

Center, on July 26, 2010, in the northern

 Spanish Basque city of San 

Sebastian (AFP Photo/Rafa Rivas)

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - World leaders accustomed to fine dining had a surprise on their plates Sunday at the United Nations -- trash.

Chefs cooked up a lunch made entirely of food that would have ended up in garbage bins, hoping to highlight the extraordinary waste in modern diets and its role in worsening climate change.

On the menu for the lunch at the UN headquarters was a vegetable burger made of pulp left over from juicing, which typically wastes most of the produce.

The burger came with fries created from starchy corn that would typically go to animal feed -- which along with biofuels is the end product of the overwhelming majority of the 90 million acres (36 million hectares) of corn grown in the United States.

"It's the prototypical American meal but turned on its head. Instead of the beef, we're going to eat the corn that feeds the beef," said Dan Barber, a prominent New York chef who co-owns the Blue Hill restaurant.

"The challenge is to create something truly delicious out of what we would otherwise throw away," he told AFP.

Barber crafted the menu with Sam Kass, the former White House chef who drove the anti-obesity "Let's Move" campaign of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Kass thought of the waste-lunch concept as he learned about year-end UN climate negotiations in Paris, which aim to reach a far-reaching global agreement to tackle the planet's worsening climate change.

US First Lady Michelle Obama (C) receives some planting advice from 

White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass (L) while planting vegetables with 

children at Bancroft Elementary School, May 29, 2009, in Washington, DC

(AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards)

"Everybody, unanimously, described it as the most important negotiation of our lifetime," he said.

But food waste "was not something that was being discussed at that point, except in small environmental circles," he said.

Vast contributor to climate change

Major world leaders took part in Sunday's lunch that was led by French President Francois Hollande and Peruvian President Ollanta Humala with an aim of building momentum for the Paris talks.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking to reporters afterward, said the lunch demonstrated how food waste was "an often overlooked aspect of climate change."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks to the United Nations 

Sustainable Development Summit at the United Nations General Assembly

on September 27, 2015 (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)

"That is shameful when so many people suffer from hunger," Ban said.

According to UN figures, 28 percent of agricultural lands around the world go to produce food that is lost or wasted.

The loss each year is the equivalent of 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon responsible for climate change -- which would make food waste, if it were a nation, the biggest emitter after China and the United States.

"It's just unthinkable, the inefficiency in our system, particularly when you look at something of this magnitude," Kass said.

'Delicious' social change

Barber earlier this year ran a pop-up restaurant in New York sourced from food scraps and is the author of the book "The Third Plate" that has championed a global approach to his farm-to-table philosophy.

He said that the elimination of food waste was in fact an ancient rather than modern idea, as cooks historically would use everything edible at their disposal.

"The idea of doing a 'waste dinner' would not have existed in the 1700s," he said.

White House Chef Sam Kass (C) serves food to members of the press, 

prepared with help from Zach Strief (R), a member of the 2010 Super Bowl

 Champion New Orleans Saints, at the Briefing Room at the White House in

Washington, DC, August 9, 2010 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

"The Westernized conception of a plate of food is enormously wasteful because we've been able to afford waste," he said.

Food waste rates are even higher in the United States, which is blessed with vast agricultural resources.

Barber expressed hope that events such as the lunch could gradually change food culture.

"The long-term goal of this would be not to (be able to) create a waste meal," he said.

"You don't do that by lecturing -- you do it... by making these world leaders have a delicious meal that will make them think about spreading that message."

Payouts promised to Fijian veterans of British nuclear testing

Fijian victims of British nuclear testing in 1958 are to get compensation, according to Fiji's government. Seventy military personnel were taken to Christmas Island, a test site in the Pacific, more than 50 years ago.

Deutsche Welle, 27 Jan 2015

Fiji's government said on Tuesday that military veterans exposed to radiation 56 years ago or their families are to get compensation for subsequent health problems, including cancer of the blood.

The Fiji Sun newspaper quoted the country's National Security and Defense Minister Timoci Natuva as saying Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama would outline compensation details on Friday.

Maleli Naigulegu, now aged 80 and one of the surviving veterans who has campaigned for decades for assistance, told the Fiji Sun it was "the greatest news."

"At last my group has been recognized," the former laboratory technician said.

During British Cold War nuclear testing in 1957 and 1958, some 70 Fijian military personnel were sent to Christmas Island on board New Zealand naval ships.

The island is now part of the Pacific nation of Kiribati.

Naigulegu said the Fijian personnel were not briefed on the purpose of their deployment to the test zone.

Several Pacific test zones

Last year, a lawsuit was filed at the International Court of Justice by another Pacific nation, the Marshall Islands, where the US conducted 60 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958.

The Marshalls, with a population of 70,000, became fully independent in 1986 after being administered in the past by the United States.

The lawsuit seeks to hold the US and eight other nuclear-weapon nations accountable for breaching or allowing violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Nuclear weapons have been used twice - at Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan by the US, near the close of World War Two in the Pacific region.

Several thousand tests

From 1946 until the 1990s nuclear powers conducted more than 2,000 nuclear tests worldwide.

A French 'test' over Mururoa in 1971

The United State's largest was at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in 1954. The former Soviet Union's largest test "Tsar Bomba" took place in 1961.

France conducted tests in French Polynesia in the 1970s and 1990s, prompting strong protests from New Zealand, Australia and environmental rights group Greenpeace.

Last year, remote southern Australian land used by Britain to test atomic bombs in the 1950s and 1960s was handed back to its Aboriginal owners, the Maralinga Tjarutja, after attempts to decontaminate it.

Around 16,300 atomic bombs remain, held mainly by the US and Russia, despite the various versions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Some 70,000 to 80,000 had existed at the height of the Cold War.

ipj/jlw (AFP, IPS)

A huge dome is shown in 1980 covering a crater left by one of the 43

nuclear blasts on Runit Island, in the Marshall Islands, the fallout from

which is expected to last 25,000 years (US Defence Nuclear Agency/AFP)

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Russia bans transvestites and transsexuals from driving

Yahoo – AFP, January 9, 2015

Russia bans transvestites and transsexuals from driving

Moscow (AFP) - Russia has passed a controversial law banning transvestites and transsexuals from driving, prompting sharp criticism from rights activists, including a prominent Kremlin advisor.

The legislation that entered into force this week bans anyone diagnosed with a range of personality and gender identity disorders, including transvestites and transsexuals, from taking the wheel.

The list also includes people with sexual fetishes, voyeurs and paedophiles, as well as pathological gamblers and kleptomaniacs.

The law follows other legislation passed in Russia discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation.

In 2012, President Vladimir Putin signed a law that bans providing information on gays to minors, despite opposition from international rights activists as well as global stars such as Madonna.

The legislation claims to be aimed at lowering Russia's high road accident death rate by taking drivers with certain medical conditions off the roads.

But a member of the rights council that advises the Kremlin publicly questioned the justification for the legislation, saying it appeared to be a breach of human rights.

Yelena Masyuk, a journalist and member of the Kremlin rights council, spoke out against the driving ban in a statement Thursday on the council's website.

She highlighted the "possible unfairness of removing the right to drive for those suffering from disorders of gender identity and sexual preference."

"I don't understand why, for example, people with fetishes, kleptomaniacs and transsexuals can't drive a car," Masyuk said in her blog on the rights council's website.

"It seems to me that this is a breach of the rights of Russian citizens."

Russia needs to "study global practice" and "judge whether a ban on people with fetishes, exhibitionists, voyeurs, kleptomaniacs and others from taking the wheel is well-grounded," Masyuk said.

The Association of Advocates of Russia for Rights said the law bans from driving "all transgender people, bi-gender, asexual, transvestites, cross-dressers and people who need gender correction (surgery)."

The ban "obviously contradicts international norms and standards," it said in a statement.

The legal advocacy group pointed out that the ban would cover many comedians and pop stars popular in Russia, including drag performer Verka Serdyuchka, who performed at the Eurovision Song Contest for Ukraine.

"If a (male) driver is dressed as a woman and he gets recorded on a police camera, he'll lose his licence," wrote a commentator, Kolya Bakhtinov, on Gay.ru news website. "More and more restrictions, hello North Korea!"

Anti-tobacco conference struggles to stub out lobbyists

Yahoo – AFP, Anais Llobet, 18 Oct 2014

While delegates at the World Health Organization gathering were discussing ways

 to stop people lighting up, those representing the interests of the tobacco industry

were doing their best to influence the outcomeSAGET (AFP Photo/Joel Saget)

Moscow (AFP) - A major conference in Moscow aimed at cutting global smoking rates this week found itself grappling with another issue: how to stop the powerful tobacco lobby from butting in on the debate.

While delegates at the World Health Organization gathering were discussing ways to stop people lighting up, those representing the interests of the tobacco industry were doing their best to influence the outcome.

Officially, lobbyists were banned from attending the week-long gathering that involved government representatives from some 190 countries. But they still made their presence felt on the sidelines -- and sometimes even inside the conference hall itself.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R)

and Director-General of the World Health

Organization Margaret Chan (L) meet in the

 Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow,

 on October 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Vasily

Maximov)

That led those in charge to sound the warning alarm over any attempts to derail the talks that included discussions on raising taxes, proposals the industry is desperately trying to stub out.

"The cigarette manufacturers insist on being an integral part of the debate to find solutions," WHO director Margaret Chan told the roughly 1,500 delegates.

"But allowing a place for the tobacco industry would be the same as letting the foxes look after the chickens," Chan said. "Don't let them seduce you."

International officials at the biennial conference discussed -- and eventually agreed -- guidelines for taxes they hope will help stop a habit blamed for some six million deaths each year.

But some from the tobacco lobby turned a deaf ear to the trenchant warnings from organisers and snuck into the conference in the area reserved for members of the public.

Francois van der Merwe, from the International Tobacco Growers Association, woke up at 6am to snatch his seat but was then among a group of lobbyists turfed out after a vote by the delegates.

"We don't need these members of the public here," said the Ugandan delegate Sheila Ndyanabangi.

Van der Merwe though argued that it was wrong to kick him out.

"I represent thirty million farmers. Is it right that they expel me while they decide my future?" he huffed to AFP.

For anti-smoking activists the spat was part of a long-standing push by the multi-billion dollar industry to try to stamp out any curbs on their business.

"These places are almost all snapped up by people who work for the tobacco industry and who walk the halls every day to convince delegates not to vote on tobacco control measures," said Jesse Bragg, spokesman for Corporate Accountability International.

Sideline meetings

While the lobbyists may have been chucked out of the conference itself that did not stop them setting up meetings on the sidelines to try to get their point of view across.

Persona non grata Van der Merwe arranged a lunch for eight handpicked journalists to hear his views.

Meanwhile, the International Tax and Investment Centre, a group financed by the big four cigarette producers, organised a conference in Moscow on the eve of the WHO summit and invited all the delegates along.

"We had to send around a note out explaining that it was not one of our meetings and encouraging delegates not to visit it," said one of the organisers of the anti-tobacco event.

"We had suspicions about interference by the pro-tobacco lobby at our conference."

The major cigarette manufacturers have blasted the moves to exclude them from the talks, with a spokeswoman for Philip Morris calling them a "flagrant violation" of the meeting's commitments to public debate.

For anti-tobacco activists, however, keeping the industry lobbyists out of the discussion was much-needed.

"WHO is facing a challenge: how to ensure the transparency of our conference without allowing the tobacco industry to participate because they use the same desire for transparency to threaten the whole process," said Bragg, spokesman for Corporate Accountability International.

Related Article:

Asia's rising tobacco epidemic

McDonald's Faces 'Millennial' Challenge

Customers in Their 20s and 30s Are Defecting to Fast-Casual Restaurants Like Chipotle, Five Guys

WSJ, Julie Jargon, Aug. 24, 2014

McDonald's is trying to enhance its credibility with young customers by marketing
 more on digital channels and testing mobile ordering and payment. Associated Press

Behind McDonald's Corp.'s worst slump in a decade is a trend that may augur even tougher times ahead: The Golden Arches is losing its luster with younger consumers.

The world's largest restaurant company by revenue earlier this month reported its sharpest monthly decline in global same-store sales since early 2003, adjusted for calendar irregularities.

In the U.S., with more than 40% of McDonald's 35,000-plus global locations, sales at restaurants open at least 13 months have been flat or falling for most of the past year.

  

The hamburger giant on Friday announced it was replacing the head of its U.S. division for the second time in less than two years. The company tapped a former executive, Mike Andres, to take the helm of the domestic business—another sign that the company is trying to revive its fortunes at home.

McDonald's stock has traded in a relatively narrow range in the nearly 26 months since Chief Executive Don Thompson took the helm, while the share prices of many of its rivals have soared. McDonald's shares are down about 2% since the start of the year, closing at $94.45 Friday.

Demographics help shed light on McDonald's woes. Data compiled for The Wall Street Journal by restaurant consultancy Technomic Inc. point to an age problem for the chain. Customers in their 20s and 30s—long a mainstay of McDonald's business—are defecting to competitors, in particular so-called fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and gourmet-burger chain Five Guys Holdings LLC.

Increasingly, younger diners are seeking out fresher, healthier food and chains that offer customizable menu options for little more than the price of a combo meal.

The percentage of people age 19 to 21 in the U.S. who visited McDonald's monthly has fallen by 12.9 percentage points since the beginning of 2011, according to Technomic, while the percentage of customers age 22 to 37 visiting monthly during that period has been flat. 

 

McDonald's U.S. sales have been flat or falling for much of the past year.
John Taggart for The Wall Street Journal

During the same period, the percentage of 19-to-21-year-olds increased their monthly visits to fast-casual restaurants by 2.3 percentage points, and 22-to-37-year-olds by 5.2 percentage points, Technomic says.

Alec Petersen, a 21-year-old from Hoboken, N.J., rarely visits McDonald's anymore. "I do have nostalgic memories of McDonald's, but Chipotle has much better quality food, or at least it feels like they do," said Mr. Petersen, who recently graduated from Duke University.

McDonald's says new items like its McWrap sandwiches—chicken and vegetables rolled in tortillas—are helping to woo millennials, consumers in their midteens to mid-30s. The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company also is trying to enhance its credibility with young customers by marketing more on digital channels and testing mobile ordering and payment.

"The millennial generation has a wider range of choices than any generation before them," McDonald's Global Chief Brand Officer Steve Easterbrook said in an interview. "They're promiscuous in their brand loyalty. It makes it harder work for all of us to earn the loyalty of the millennial generation."

McDonald's U.S. sales struggles have also been compounded recently by other woes challenging Mr. Thompson, a 24-year company veteran who became CEO in July 2012 after a decade of strong growth.

In China, a former bright spot, sales have fallen after authorities last month accused a key supplier of selling expired meat. McDonald's said the problem drove sales at existing locations in its Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa region down by 7.3% in July.

In Russia, amid heightened tension between the West and Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, authorities last week closed some McDonald's restaurants in Moscow for alleged sanitary violations and are now inspecting its outlets across Russia.

Meanwhile, at home, it also is grappling with growing worker protests calling for higher wages and the right to organize. And the National Labor Relations Board last month determined that McDonald's could be treated as a joint employer with its franchisees in labor complaints, which could make the company liable for the actions of its franchisees.

McDonald's has acknowledged other recent missteps, including an overcrowded menu that slowed service. Executives have said that the nearly 60-year-old company has lost relevance with consumers. In June it set up a "learning lab" at a restaurant in Laguna Niguel, Calif., to better understand what people want and to experiment with customizable burgers.

The fast-casual concept took shape in the 1990s, melding the fresher ingredients and custom ordering of table-service restaurants with the convenience of fast-food joints.

Other examples include Panera Bread Co. , Noodles & Co., and Corner Bakery Cafe. The chains appeal to younger consumers who came of age at a time of skepticism of fast food—evident in the 2001 book "Fast Food Nation" and the 2004 documentary "Super Size Me"—and a burgeoning foodie culture that emphasizes fresh ingredients.

A decade ago, there were 9,000 fast-casual restaurants in the U.S., versus nearly 14,000 McDonald's. Now, fast-casual restaurants number more than 21,000, according to Technomic, while McDonald's U.S. restaurant count has risen only slightly.

Chipotle, founded in 1993, today has more than 1,600 U.S. outlets and a market value of about $21 billion. Five Guys, which boasts that it offers more than 250,000 ways to order a burger, has grown to more than 1,000 outlets since it was founded 28 years ago.

Last month, Consumer Reports magazine said that in a survey of more than 32,000 subscribers, readers rated McDonald's burgers as the worst-tasting of 20 rival burger chains.

The magazine cited the preferences of younger consumers as a main factor. "Diners, especially younger adults in the millennial generation, may be more willing to go out of their way to get a tasty meal," Consumer Reports said.

McDonald's responded that it is "proud to serve 27 million customers" daily in the U.S., and "It's important for us to listen to their feedback as it helps us better meet their needs and expectations."

Fast-casual chains like Chipotle and Panera also have cultivated an image of social responsibility that appeals to many young people, such as by offering organic ingredients and pork from "naturally raised" pigs

Millennials "want to buy into a brand not just from it," said Mr. Easterbrook. He said McDonald's is developing mobile apps that will enable people to access information about the company's social responsibility. "What we've got to do is find interesting and engaging ways to share that information with millennials, not old-fashioned corporate lecturing.

Yet adjusting to the new competitive threats is tricky for such a giant and its huge, complex supply chain. Fresher ingredients and more customizable orders could appeal to some customers but alienate others by driving up prices or slowing preparation times.

Some analysts and investors feel McDonald's is simply too big to make meaningful changes within its U.S. restaurants. Scott Rothbort, president of LakeView Asset Management, who sold his McDonald's shares earlier this year, says the company needs to do something bold to juice growth, such as acquiring a fast-casual chain.

McDonald's has been a player in the fast-casual segment before. It bought a stake in Chipotle in 1998, which it later increased before selling it eight years later for $1.5 billion.

"McDonald's has an image problem and it needs to set out a vision of what it wants to be," said Dieter Waizenegger, executive director of CtW Investment Group, which advises pension funds that have holdings in McDonald's. "They need to chart a new course."

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Young Dutch teenagers are drinking less, impact of new laws unclear

Airlines struggle to serve sustainability

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

The Unthinkable… Politics, A Review

Humans will begin to search for integrity and fairness and it's going to happen in the places you never expect. I said this last week, so this is a review. There'll come a time when you will demand this of your politics - fairness and integrity. So when the candidates start calling each other names, you will turn your back on them and they won't get any votes. They're going to get the point real fast, don't you think? How about that?

Let me give you another potential. This country that I sit in right now [USA] will set the mold for that particular attribute. I have no clock. Watch for the youngsters to set this in motion, and they will, for they are the voters of tomorrow and they do not want the energy of today. To some of them, it's so abominable they won't even register to vote in this energy. You're going to see this soon. That was number five.. ..."

Russia will not import GMO products - PM Medvedev

RT.com, April 06, 2014

RIA Novosti / Maksim Bogodvid

Russia will not import GMO products, the country’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, adding that the nation has enough space and resources to produce organic food.

Moscow has no reason to encourage the production of genetically modified products or import them into the country, Medvedev told a congress of deputies from rural settlements on Saturday.

“If the Americans like to eat GMO products, let them eat it then. We don’t need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food,” he said.

The prime minister said he ordered widespread monitoring of the agricultural sector. He added that despite rather strict restrictions, a certain amount of GMO products and seeds have made it to the Russian market.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev speaks at a meeting of United Russia deputies
 from Russian rural villages in Volgograd on April 5, 2014. (RIA Novosti /
Ekaterina Shtukina)

Earlier, agriculture minister Nikolay Fyodorov also stated that Russia should remain free of genetically modified products.

At the end of February, the Russian parliament asked the government to impose a temporary ban on all genetically altered products in Russia.

The State Duma’s Agriculture Committee supported a ban on the registration and trade of genetically modified organisms. It was suggested that until specialists develop a working system of control over the effects of GMOs on humans and the natural environment, the government should impose a moratorium on the breeding and growth of genetically modified plants, animals, and microorganisms.

Earlier this month, MPs of the parliamentary majority United Russia party, together with the ‘For Sovereignty’ parliamentary group, suggested an amendment of the existing law On Safety and Quality of Alimentary Products, with a norm set for the maximum allowed content of transgenic and genetically modified components.

There is currently no limitation on the trade or production of GMO-containing food in Russia. However, when the percentage of GMO exceeds 0.9 percent, the producer must label such goods and warn consumers. Last autumn, the government passed a resolution allowing the listing of genetically modified plants in the Unified State Register. The resolution will come into force in July.