Stories below the fold

Backyard chickens are causing a Salmonella epidemic.

Wait til they find out that Jakarta banned city chickens after fear of bird flu spreading to humans.

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Saudi is investing in wind farms.

Yes, and they are investing in irrigation, desalinization of water, and exporting a couple hundred thousand overseas workers so local unemployment can go down.

but the only story gets in the news is that now women can drive.

The stories in the western MSM put this as a good thing for women's freedom, but the backstory is that middle class men benefit the most: Those too poor to afford a private driver come home from work and then have to drive their wives to shop, or do the driving themselves. Now their wives will be able to relieve their hard working spouses from domestic chores.

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Vaccine scandal in China is causing protests there.

it's the corruption of the country that is behind these scandals.

250 thousand children got substandard DPT vaccine.
and the article notes other substandard vaccines and medicines that caused outbreaks of disease.

more here at NPR. the scary one is substandard rabies vaccine: which is highly fatal disease. And it's not just problems with manufacturing the vaccines: The vaccines are often fragile and have to be stored properly, but some criminal groups sell vaccines that were not stored properly and were supposed to be destroyed.

and it's not just vaccines: Substandard, fake and counterfiet drugs kill people. The latest scandal: Valsartan.

I always paid extra for Lolo's Diovan because of the worry that the generics might not be up to standard and he's get another stroke.

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SP has a long article on China in Africa. Neocolonialism at it's best.

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Global voices has a series about colonialism and racism by an architect from Africa etc. I haven't listened to the talks, but bookmarking it for later perusal.

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US/EU trade deal?