Tag: France

Europe has now entered its worst drought in 500 years

– August 28, 2022

Europe is facing its worst drought in 500 years, with two-thirds of the continent under a “warning” or “alert,” a study by the European Commission has discovered.

Preliminary data from the European Drought Observatory found that 47% of Europe is under warning conditions, meaning the soil has a clear deficit of moisture. An additional 17% of the continent is in a state of alert, meaning vegetation is under stress.

Across Europe, hot, dry conditions have threatened livestock and increased crop failure. According to the report, grain yields are expected to fall 16% below the average for the past five years. Forecasts for soybean and sunflower yields are also set to fall by 15% and 12%, respectively.

“The severe drought affecting many regions of Europe since the beginning of the year has been further expanding and worsening as of early August,” the report said.

Countries along Europe’s Mediterranean coast, such as Italy, France, and Spain, are likely to see warmer and drier conditions until November. Mariya Gabriel, research commissioner for the European Union, said the ongoing heat waves and water shortages have created “unprecedented stress on water levels in the entire EU.”

Gabriel added: “We are currently noticing a wildfire season sensibly above the average and an important impact on crop production. Climate change is undoubtedly more noticeable every year.” The report also warned that most of Europe’s rivers have seen a drop in water level, with riverbeds in Germany and France drying up.

Sections of Germany’s River Rhine have completely dried up, disrupting shipping in the country’s most important inland waterway. German officials told CNN on Aug. 12 that levels of water in the river had fallen “exceptionally low.”

Receding water levels have uncovered artifacts from below the depths, including shipwrecks, world war relics and “hunger stones” — rocks placed throughout the centuries to mark water levels during historic droughts — inscribed with warnings to future generations. (Yahoo News)

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Horrifying drought causing widespread crop failures throughout the United States and Europe

ETH – Aug 11, 2022

(OPINION) We really are reaching a major crisis point. Thanks to soaring fertilizer prices, insane weather patterns, and the war in Ukraine, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. So we really needed a banner year for agricultural production in both the United States and Europe in 2022, and that is not going to happen.

In fact, unprecedented drought is absolutely devastating crops all over the northern hemisphere. A lot of people are complaining about how high food prices are right now but just wait. If some sort of a miracle doesn’t happen, agricultural production is going to be way below expectations in both the United States and Europe, and that is going to have very serious implications for 2023.

Let me start by talking about the nightmare that is starting to unfold in Europe. According to CNN, it is now being projected that farmers in Italy have lost “up to 80% of their harvest” because the drought has become so severe… In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday.

How are those farmers going to survive? Many farmers in France are facing similar losses because they have only been receiving a fraction of the rainfall that they normally get… In France, where an intense drought has hammered farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there were just 9.7 millimeters (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said.

That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen for July between 1991 and 2022, making it the driest month since March 1961, the agency added. Crop failures in France would be a really, really big deal because France is normally “the fourth-largest exporter of wheat” in the entire world…

France is the fourth-largest exporter of wheat and among the top five exporters of maize globally. Poor harvests due to drought may heap further pressure on grain supplies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global shockwaves. The situation in Germany is also extremely dire.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

France says 10 million birds culled in massive flu outbreak

AFP Staff Writers – March 23, 2022

Some 10 million ducks, chickens and other poultry have been culled in France since November in one of the most widespread outbreaks of bird flu in years, the agriculture ministry said Wednesday.

The country has been hit by several epidemics since 2015 but they have mainly been contained to the southwest where ducks are bred for the lucrative foie gras liver pate industry.

But this winter has seen the virus spread farther north along the western Atlantic coast to the Pays de la Loire region, spreading rapidly among farms in the Vendee, Loire-Atlantique and Maine-et-Loire departments since late February.

Nearly 1,000 sites have reported cases, including at least 450 in the Vendee, considered strategic by the ministry because it is home to many farms that raise chickens and other birds exclusively for breeding.

However the situation appears to be “stabilising” in the southwest, the ministry said.

Quarantine measures have been taken against the virus and farmers are compensated by the government for losses that can run into the millions of euros.

The H5N1 virus has been detected in 34 European countries this winter, with northern Italy hit particularly hard, prompting authorities to cull 18 million birds so far.

Officials say there is no risk to humans from eating products that may have been produced from infected birds.

https://www.seeddaily.com

France orders lockdown… for domestic fowl over bird-flu threat

RT – November 5, 2021

The French Agriculture Ministry has ordered the country’s poultry farmers to keep their fowl indoors to prevent the potential spread of a highly contagious bird-flu strain via migratory birds.

The ministry published the order in the French official journal on Thursday, citing the “rising infection rate in migratory corridors” as a sufficient reason to consider the potential infection risk “high” across the country.

The measure is aimed at protecting farms, as no cases in humans have been reported so far. The ministry announced the move after a highly contagious H5 strain of bird flu was discovered at a farm in the neighboring Netherlands. The discovery prompted a cull of 36,000 birds as part of the Dutch authorities’ precautionary measures. The Netherlands then also introduced a “lockdown” for poultry on its territory

The UK declared a nationwide Avian Influenza Prevention Zone on Wednesday, demanding farmers toughen their infection prevention measures, but stopping short of ordering them to keep fowl indoors. The move followed the discovery of several bird-flu cases in wild birds in the UK.

“Since the beginning of August, 130 bird-flu cases or clusters have been detected in wild animals or on farms in Europe,” the French ministry said on Thursday, adding that the list included at least three cases among domestic birds in northeastern France. The three bird flu outbreaks detected in France were related to the H5N8 strain.

The avian flu strain, H5N1, is notorious for its high mortality rate of around 60% in humans, and is contracted via contact with the excretions of infected birds. The World Health Organization still considers the risk of its human-to-human transmission to be “low.”

https://www.newsmax.com

Mark of the COVID Beast: Store Denies People Food, Water Without Vaccine Passport – Report

Samantha Chang – August 23, 2021

The liberal nation of France has deteriorated into a fascist police state whose vaccine passport requirements may be preventing the unvaccinated from getting basic essentials such as food, judging by a disturbing Twitter video.

“French supermarkets have hired bouncers in order to deny people basic human rights to food and water because they didn’t get the right government permission slip,” independent journalist Luke Rudkowski tweeted on Friday.

The alarming video he posted shows a security guard brutally grabbing a masked woman and throwing her out of the store like a trash bag.

The woman gets outraged by the abusive manhandling and yells at the security guard.

After she leaves, a man approaches the bouncer and scolds him for not allowing the female shopper to get “alimentaire” (a French word for food).

The shocking video is evocative of the “mark of the beast,” a biblical hallmark of those pledged to the forces of evil.

In an Aug. 20 commentary in the Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram, titled “Is the COVID vaccine the ‘mark of the beast’”, the Rev. Darin Wood, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Midland, explained that “in Revelation 13:16-18, the Apostle John speaks of an apocalyptic pair of beasts who will rule the earth with vengeance, cruelty and animosity. Their severe manner and harsh rule will inflict pain and grief on all those on the earth at the time.

https://www.westernjournal.com

French soldiers warn of civil war in new letter

BBC – May 10, 2021

A new open letter has been published in France warning of the threat of civil war and claiming to have more than 130,000 signatures from the public.

The message, published in a right-wing magazine, accuses the French government of granting “concessions” to Islamism.

“It is about the survival of our country,” said the text, said to be issued anonymously by soldiers and appealing for public support.

The French government condemned it, as well as a similar letter last month.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called the latest letter a “crude manoeuvre” and accused its anonymous signatories of lacking “courage”, AFP news agency reported.

The letter to the government last month came from semi-retired generals. The minister in charge of the armed forces, Florence Parly, said they would be punished for defying a law that forbids reservists or serving members of the military from expressing opinions in public on religion and politics.

However, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a candidate in next year’s presidential election, spoke out in support of the estimated 1,000 servicemen and women who backed the April letter.

The new text was published late on Sunday by Valeurs Actuelles, although the numbers and ranks of its original signatories – said to be active members of the military – remain unclear.

https://www.bbc.com

‘Frexit’ on Horizon? Ex-Brexit Chief Negotiator Barnier Reveals What May Prompt France to Leave EU

– April 17, 2021

The remarks came after the latest poll conducted by the French think tank IFOP, which revealed that Marine Le Pen, who leads the party National Rally, would prevail over Emmanuel Macron by two percentage points in the first round of the 2022 presidential election in France.

Macron himself told the BBC in 2018 that the French people would probably vote to secede from the EU if they were to hold an analogue of the Brexit referendum.

He argued that “you always take a risk when you have such a [Brexit-like] referendum, just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a very complicated aspect”, adding at the same time that since the context in the UK and France “was very different” he doesn’t want to “take any bets”.

Macron also made it clear he would also welcome Britain’s hypothetical return to the EU, stating that he both respects and regrets the Brexit vote.

https://sputniknews.com

Scientists Start Construction of World’s Largest Fusion Reactor

Victor Tangermann – July 28, 2020

Today, engineers started construction of the world’s largest nuclear fusion project in southern France, The Guardian reports, with operations planned to begin in late 2025.

The project, called ITER, is an international collaborative effort between 35 countries with enormous ambitions: prove the feasibility of fusion energy with a gigantic magnetic device called a “tokamak,” as per the project’s official website.

“Enabling the exclusive use of clean energy will be a miracle for our planet,” ITER director-general Bernard Bigot said during today’s virtual celebration, as quoted by The Guardian.

Fusion power, in theory, works by harnessing the energy released by two lighter atomic nuclei fusing to form a heavier nucleus, and turning it into electricity.

If proven to be economical — that is, if the machine generates more energy than has to be put in to kickstart the process — the technology could lay the groundwork for an entirely new way of generating nearly unlimited clean energy on a commercial scale. Fusion power would be far safer than conventional fission nuclear energy, since there’s no risk of a meltdown or leftover nuclear waste.

But if the last six decades of fusion research are anything to go by, it remains an elusive way of generating net energy. The extremely hot plasma inside the fusion reactors is notoriously difficult to predict and control.

https://futurism.com

European leaders warn coronavirus could lead to the breakup of their union

Loveday Morris, Michael Birnbaum – April 1, 2020

BERLIN —The coronavirus pandemic, with its simultaneous health and economic crises, is

deepening fault lines within Europe in a way some leaders fear could prove to be a final reckoning.

The cohesion of the European Union had been battered by Brexit, bruised by the political fallout from the 2015 migration surge and the 2008 financial crisis, and challenged by rising autocracy in the east that runs contrary to the professed ideals of the European project.

Now, if Europe’s leaders cannot chart a more united course, the project lies in what one of its architects described this week as “mortal danger.”

In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the response among European Union member states showed that national interests trump more-altruistic European ideals. Border restrictions were reimposed haphazardly, and Germany and France threw up export bans on medical equipment such as masks and ventilators, even as Italy clamored for assistance.

Quick to capitalize were the propaganda machines of Russia and China. Moscow and Beijing have swept in with much-trumpeted — if sometimes defective — medical aid, pushing a savior narrative and providing fodder for the region’s Euroskeptics.

E.U. countries have begun to coordinate their efforts to procure supplies, and they have sent more aid to hard-hit Italy than China has. But the past week has seen a reemergence of a north-south rift over how to handle the economic response. The union is also being pulled east and west, as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used emergency powers to effectively suspend democracy, riding roughshod over Europe’s basic principles of the rule of law.

Collectively, these tensions could overwhelm the alliance.

https://www.msn.com

Macron on Arms Race: European States ‘Cannot Remain Spectators’ in an Increasingly Unstable World

Sputnik News – February 7, 2020

Fears of an international nuclear arms race have been allayed with the end of the Cold War, but re-emerged as the United States under Donald Trump pulled out of several arms control treaties with Russia, including one that prohibited nuclear-capable missiles.

President Emmanuel Macron stated that European countries should act proactively in the face of a nuclear arms race as he laid out France’s nuclear weapons strategy.

Speaking to military officers in Paris on Friday, Macron called on EU member states to propose an a “international arms control agenda”.

He also suggested that Europeans should “not confine themselves to a role of spectators” at a time when the existing non-proliferation treaties are being called into question.

“Europeans must collectively realise that, in the absence of a legal framework, they could quickly face a new conventional or even nuclear arms race on their soil.”

Macron has dedicated much of his attention as president to modernising France’s and Europe’s military strategy. He has proposed a “true European army” to cut reliance on the United States, launched a military space force command and suggested a military intervention force outside of NATO, known as European Intervention Initiative, already joined by 14 European states.

The Macron government also plans to spend €37 billion ($41bn) to upgrade and maintain its nuclear arsenal over the next seven years — more than 12 percent of the total defense spending for that period.

https://sputniknews.com