Canada/Nato up to their little necks aiding the US with a war against Putin, watch China take advantage of this development

Canada/Nato up to their little necks aiding the US with a war against Putin, watch China take advantage of this development

 ...THIS IS SERIOUS FOLKS! TRUDEAU  INVOLVED SINCE ELECTED PM..CHINESE TROOPS IN CANADA RIGHT NOW

June 29 2022

*watch the cost of diesel in the coming months

Trudeau is  in bed with the CCP and definitely not interested in Canada whatsoever as this  clearly demonstrates. Trudeau has  now become dictator to Canada with unbridled powers indeed...[enemy of the state.] This is TREASON and must be ousted immediately!

Why the US and Nato have long wanted Russia to attack Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has come at a substantial cost for Russia, with the country so far failing to achieve its military objectives and the Russian economy suffering under unprecedented western sanctions. Robert H. Wade argues that while nothing can excuse Russia’s invasion, the Kremlin has effectively fallen into a trap laid by the US and Nato that is intended to bring down Putin’s regime.

On 26 March, President Biden, speaking in Warsaw, said, unscripted: “For God’s sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power.” Such an overt statement of intention for regime change in Russia has not gone down well in most of Europe. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken later clarified Biden’s Warsaw remark: “As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter”. Blinken has apparently forgotten Vietnam, Chile, Iraq, Afghanistan, and quite a few more.

Consider the following quotes. On 24 February, during a White House press conference on the first day of Russia’s invasion, Biden said sanctions are designed not to prevent invasion but to punish Russia after invading “…so the people of Russia know what he has brought on them. That is what this is all about.”

On 27 February, James Heappey, UK Minister for the Armed Forces, wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “His failure must be complete; Ukrainian sovereignty must be restored, and the Russian people empowered to see how little he cares for them. In showing them that, Putin’s days as President will surely be numbered… He’ll lose power and he won’t get to choose his successor.” Finally, on 1 March, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said the sanctions on Russia “we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime.”

These statements reflect long-standing US strategy for regime change in Moscow, with Ukraine as the pivot. On one hand, send sufficient military and other equipment to Ukraine to sink the Russian military in a quagmire. On the other hand, impose severe, far-reaching sanctions on Russia so as to cause major disruption to the Russian elite and a major contraction of living conditions for the Russian middle-class. The combination should last long enough for Russians to rise up to overthrow Putin and install a Yeltsin-like President more sympathetic to the West.

But this weapons-plus-sanctions strategy needed a cause. Putin’s invasion was the required casus belli. It in no way excuses Russia’s invasion and its despicable tactics to say that the Kremlin fell into a US and Nato trap.

Two clashing mega forces

Our “free” mainstream media has tended to stick to the narrative of a “wicked, revanchist Putin” attacking “innocent and unified Ukraine, as a first step to conquest of other parts of eastern and central Europe and restoration of the erstwhile Soviet Union”.

The Ukraine crisis expresses the clash of two mega forces shaping the world order. One is the US’s long-standing assertion of “primacy” or “hegemony” vis-à-vis all other states. Presidents Putin and Xi (as well as many in the West) talk often and pleasurably of the decline of the US and the fracturing of the West, especially since the 2008 North Atlantic financial crisis. Yet what is striking about the US and the West’s response to Russia’s invasion is how forcefully the US has rallied other western states – and very importantly, western multinational corporations – to isolate a prominent G20 state and former G8 member.

The other clashing mega force is the Russian state’s ambition to constitute itself as the centre of the Eurasian polity, culture and economy. This long-term drive is missed by the focus on Putin – his ambition and his state of mind. Jane Burbank, emeritus Professor of History and Russian and Slavic studies at New York University, reminds us, “Since the 1990s, plans to reunite Ukraine and other post-Soviet states into a trans-continental superpower have been brewing in Russia. A revitalized theory of Eurasian empire informs Mr Putin’s every move”.

Indeed, ever since the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 a line of Russian thinkers has developed an ideology of Eurasianism. It was suppressed during the Soviet period but burst forth during perestroika in the late 1980s. The ideology posits not just America but the whole Atlantic world as Russia’s “clash of civilizations” opponent, with Russian Orthodoxy harnessed as the glue in the geopolitical war to come. Under Putin, the themes of imperial glory and western victimisation have been elevated to centre stage across the country.

As Burbank explains, Ukraine figured in this Eurasian ideology as an obstacle from the start. Eurasian ideologists in the 1920s were already talking of “the Ukraine problem”, presenting Ukraine as excessively “individualistic” and insufficiently Orthodox. Prominent ideologists of the 1990s identified Ukrainian sovereignty as, in the words of one, a “huge danger to all of Eurasia”. Russia’s Eurasia project, he said, required, as an “absolute imperative”, total control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea. Ukraine had to become “a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralized state”.

This is the ideology which motives Putin, which led him to declare Ukraine as “a colony with a puppet regime” on the eve of the invasion. This is the ideology which inspires and justifies his brutal war in his eyes.

The US and Nato strategy

Having summarised the ambition of Putin and the Russian state, we return to the US and Nato strategy for Ukraine and Russia. I draw on an eye-opening essay by Joe Lauria, which fleshes out the US and Nato’s ulterior motives in the Ukraine crisis: to end the Putin regime and replace it with one friendly to and subordinate to the US.

The US strategy for regime change in Moscow has been long in preparation. In 2013 (before Ukraine’s President Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014) , Carl Gershman, Director of National Endowment for Democracy (NED), wrote: “Ukraine is the biggest prize.” He explained that if it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, “Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

This larger strategy for containing Russia is the context to understand the expansion of Nato members all along Russia’s borders, from the Baltics to Bulgaria, and the presence of 30,000 Nato-designated troops. It also helps understand the US and some other western states’ military intervention to overthrow Syria’s ruler, Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s ally, as well as the policy of encouraging US NGOs to foment unrest in Russia.

Since 2015 the CIA has been overseeing a secret intensive training programme in the US for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel. On 13 January, it was reported that the CIA-trained forces “could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion.” A former CIA official explained, “The United States is training an insurgency.” It is no surprise that Moscow has long read US and Nato actions as being deeply hostile and intended to produce “regime change” in the Kremlin.

The countdown to Russia’s invasion

In 2014 the democratically elected president Yanukovych – explicitly friendly to both the EU and to Moscow – was overthrown in a coup (with substantial US backing). On 23 February, the day after Yanukovych fled, the first act of the Ukrainian parliament was to revoke the legal status of Russian as a national language; and more broadly, to prevent regions from allowing the use of any other language than Ukrainian. The government set about blocking access to Russian news, TV channels and radio. All through the next months, the government, the broadcast media and large sections of the population chanted the motto “One Nation, One Language, One People”.

These were blatantly belligerent acts towards a large minority. It is easy to understand why the many millions of Russian speakers felt under envenomed siege; and why they felt emboldened by support from the powerful state on their doorstep. The fact that language legislation was then not put into law did not suddenly “make everything right again”. The efforts to marginalise Russian speakers continued.

The largely Russian speaking and Russian Orthodox believing populations of the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk voted in favour of independence from Ukraine. The government in Kyiv (mostly Ukrainian speaking and Catholic) launched a war against these provinces to crush their resistance.

Scroll forward to December 2021. The Kremlin presented treaty proposals, which included implementation of the eight-year old Minsk peace accords (which include a commitment that Ukraine not join Nato); dissolving extreme right Ukrainian militias; and engaging in serious negotiations about a new security architecture in Europe. The US and Nato consistently refused to negotiate. As they refused, they also warned the world, from December 2021 onwards, that Russia would invade. And they transferred huge quantities of weapons and trained the Ukrainian military.

On 19 February, Ukrainian President Zelensky gave an impassioned speech at the Munich Security Conference insisting that Ukraine must have a clear path to join Nato, and expressing regret that Ukraine had given up its nuclear arsenal at the end of the Soviet Union, then the world’s third biggest. In the third week of February, the Ukrainian military dramatically increased its shelling of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, as reported by observers from the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). It is likely that this step-up in the Ukrainian attack had the blessing of the US and Nato.

Until this point, the Kremlin had not recognised the two Donbas republics; it had held off for eight years. Now, as the Ukrainian military stepped up its attack, the Kremlin had to decide. It entered the on-going civil war in order to protect the Donbas republics from the stepped up Ukrainian military attacks, and on a scale big enough for it to replace the national government.

The US-laid trap

It now appears the Kremlin has fallen into a trap (and to say this is not – to repeat – an attempt to excuse Russia’s actions). The trap has similarities to the trap the US set for Saddam Hussein in 1990 when it said it would not interfere in his government’s dispute with Kuwait. Saddam invaded Kuwait, which gave the US the casus belli to destroy Iraq’s military.

The trap also has similarities to one the CIA laid for Moscow four decades ago, by arming the mujahideen to fight the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan. The US intended for Moscow to send in its military to defend the government, which it did in 1979. President Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in an interview in 1998 with Le Nouvel Observateur, happily admitted the US had set a trap:

Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention… That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap [note his phrase] and you want me to regret it? The day the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Brzezinski presumed, as the US does today, that control of Eurasia is vital for US “primacy” or “hegemony” in the world system (directly countering Russia’s Eurasian ideology). In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geopolitical Imperatives he wrote: “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia.”

He explained that without Ukraine being integrated into or closely allied to Russia, Russia was a “predominantly Asian imperial state”. Whereas Ukraine integrated into Russia gave Russia the opening to be (or resume being) “a Eurasian empire”. So the long-held US aim has been to push Ukraine away from Russia, as a major step towards constraining Russian strategy, and more distantly Chinese strategy too, thereby sustaining US primacy.

It seems likely that US and Nato strategists have a second Ukraine trap in mind. The first one was the invasion; the second one is Russia bogged down in another long insurgency, the second after Afghanistan, the second Russian “Vietnam”. As the Afghanistan insurgency against the Soviet military helped bring down the Soviet Union, the western strategists hope that the Ukrainian insurgency against the bogged-down Russian military will help end the Putin regime. From the US standpoint, the longer the Ukrainians can sustain the insurgency and keep the Russian military bogged down the more likely is the end of the Putin regime. This is called “realist politics”!

In this context we can understand why a senior retired Russian general (Leonid Ivashov) warned in an open letter shortly before the invasion that an attack would be “pointless and extremely dangerous” and threaten Russia’s existence. The Financial Times quotes a Moscow-based military analyst, Pavel Luzin, as saying that the Kremlin “didn’t listen to the military – they listened to [secret service officers] who said we can do this special operation quickly.”

The sanctions strategy

The quagmire or Vietnam strategy is complemented by the sanctions strategy – the harshest sanctions the US and Europe have ever imposed on any nation. As noted, even to those sceptical of claims of “the end of the American empire”, it is astonishing how effectively the US has mobilised western nations around a project of isolating one of the world’s biggest economies, one of the top two nuclear powers, and the biggest energy supplier to Europe, as though it was North Korea.

The list is impressive. The most damaging sanctions are those on Russia’s central bank, which are succeeding in hammering the value of the ruble (from 85 rubles to the US dollar on 24 February, the day of the invasion, to 154 to the dollar on 7 March, back up to 101 on 25 March).

Most Russian transactions are no longer allowed to be settled through the SWIFT international payment system, which means most Russian international transactions are no longer allowed. Russia’s largest banks are sanctioned. The already physically completed German-Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was closed down and its company bankrupt. The US has prohibited imports of Russian oil. BP and Shell have pulled out of Russian partnerships.

Russian exports of wheat and fertiliser have been banned, driving up the price of food in the West. European and US airspace is closed to Russian planes. Putin and many Russian leaders have been personally sanctioned. PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, McDonalds, and Coca-Cola have been shut down in Russia. And US cable providers have succeeded in getting RT (Russia Today) America shut down.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian explained that the aim is “asphyxiating Russia’s economy”, even if the West is damaged in the process. Damage to the West is a price worth paying for regime change in Moscow with new leaders respectful of US primacy.

But after only a month of the invasion, the heavy costs of the US and Nato strategy to themselves are becoming only too clear. As the quagmire drags on, the effects of the economic rupture with Russia are beginning to be felt acutely in Europe in the form of rising prices, energy shortages, lost jobs, the absorption of many millions of Ukrainian refugees, and soon approaching the absorption of still more refugees from food-starved countries that previously relied on Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertiliser. The costs are significant even in the US, where inflation is already high and President Biden’s approval ratings are low. At some point, the US and other western nations will have to backpedal on the regime change objective, to save themselves.

But the US and Nato’s objectives are still more complicated than Moscow regime change and keeping costs to themselves tolerable. The objective of securing a Russian regime respectful of US and Nato primacy is intertwined like a double helix with the objective of keeping Russia as an external enemy in order to provide glue for cooperation between the West’s often fractious member states under US leadership.

To justify US leadership, to present a unitary front in Nato, and to justify big increases in western (especially German) military budgets, Russia must be presented as the common enemy. Western military firms also have a strong demand for the West to believe it faces existential enemies in the form of major states (and not just slippery “terrorists” or “a bunch of midgets”, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, labelled the Islamic State). Indeed, the share prices of the major US arms manufactures zoomed skywards as the Russian invasion looked likely.

The key point was made by Georgy Arbatov, a political scientist and advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev (and other secretaries of the Communist Party), and founder and director of the Institute for US and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Science. He said to a group of senior US officials in 1987: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”

This is how one can understand the West’s persistent rebuff to the efforts of Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and early Putin to establish non-adversarial relations with western states. It needs Russia as an enemy to provide internal unity. But on the other hand, it also needs Russia as a cooperative partner showing suitable deference to the West, especially over the coming decades as China grows stronger.

Meanwhile, China is watching the Ukraine crisis and the US and Nato strategy, and probably recalculating its confidence in the decline of the West. That recalculation may prompt Beijing to forge closer ties with Moscow – while Beijing also wants to make sure that it does not help the Kremlin to the point where Russia could challenge its own design to dominate the Eurasian landmass, which is well underway in the form of the infrastructure alliances created by the giant  CCP Belt and Road Initiative to control the world,

China's diesel exports fall 9.2% in April vs month earlier affecting global supply

China's diesel exports fall 9.2% in April vs month earlier affecting global supply

    BEIJING, May 23 2022- China's diesel exports in April...

...fell 9.2% from a record-high level a month earlier, after the easing of coronavirus
restrictions prompted an increase in demand and supported profit
margins. 

    Diesel exports were 2.57 million tonnes last month, data

from the General Administration of Customs showed on Saturday,
down from a record 2.83 million tonnes in March. 
    Gasoline exports were 1.9 million tonnes, versus 1.82
million tonnes in March and 1.17 million tonnes in April 2019. 
    The increase in gasoline exports occurred as Chinese
refiners cranked up throughput by 11% last month from March and
overall refined fuel exports rose to a single-month record of 8
million tonnes.
    Chinese fuel demand may rebound this month though, with some
analysts estimating gasoline consumption may return to 95% of
pre-pandemic levels and diesel usage to rise after government
stimulus measures.
    Still, refiners have cut jet kerosene production by 22% and
gasoline by 15% over the first four months of 2020.
    Plants are raising fuel oil output to build up stocks for
cleaner marine fuels that meet the new global maritime emissions
rules in place from January 2020.  
    However, customs does not yet provide data on China's fuel
oil exports. The government issued its first-ever export quotas
for fuel oil in April.
    China's jet kerosene exports in April rose 31.4% from a year
earlier to 2.03 million tonnes, which compared to 1.48 million
tonnes in March, customs data showed. 
    Imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) last month were 5.1 
million tonnes, up 12.3% from the same month last year.
    Below is the latest customs data on fuel exports in millions
of tonnes and imports of LNG in millions of tonnes.
 Exports        April  y/y       Jan-April  y/y
                       %change              %change
 Gasoline         1.9      62.1       6.45      30.8
 Diesel          2.57      -1.1       8.87      -2.4
 Jet kerosene    2.03      31.4       6.44      12.8
 Fuel oil          --                               
 Imports                                            
 LNG              5.1      12.9       20.3       4.6
 

 

G7 aims to raise $600-billionto counter China’s Belt and Road project

June 27 2022

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks next to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the first day of the G7 leaders' summit held at Elmau Castle, Germany, on June 26.

Group of Seven leaders on Sunday pledged to raise US$600-billion in private and public funds over five years to finance needed infrastructure in developing countries and counter China’s older, multitrillion-dollar Belt and Road project.

U.S. President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders relaunched the newly renamed “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment,” at their annual gathering being held this year at Schloss Elmau in southern Germany.

Biden said the United States would mobilize US$200-billion in grants, federal funds and private investment over five years to support projects in low- and middle-income countries that help tackle climate change as well as improve global health, gender equity and digital infrastructure.

“I want to be clear. This isn’t aid or charity. It’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone,” Biden said, adding that it would allow countries to “see the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies.”

Biden said hundreds of billions of additional dollars could come from multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds and others.

Europe will mobilize 300-billion euros for the initiative over the same period to build up a sustainable alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative scheme, which Chinese President Xi Jinping launched in 2013, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the gathering.

Trudeau and the leaders of Italy and Japan also spoke about their plans, some of which have already been announced separately. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were not present, but their countries are also participating.

China’s investment scheme involves development and programs in more than 100 countries aimed at creating a modern version of the  Silk Road trade route from Asia to Europe.

White House officials said the plan has provided little tangible benefit for many developing countries.

Mr. Biden highlighted several flagship projects, including a US$2-billion solar development project in Angola with support from the Commerce Department, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, U.S. firm AfricaGlobal Schaffer, and U.S. project developer Sun Africa.

Together with G7 members and the EU, Washington will also provide US$3.3-million in technical assistance to Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal as it develops an industrial-scale flexible multi-vaccine manufacturing facility in that country that can eventually produce COVID-19 and other vaccines, a project that also involves the EU.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will also commit up to US$50-million over five years to the World Bank’s global Childcare Incentive Fund.

Friederike Roder, vice president of the non-profit group Global Citizen, said the pledges of investment could be “a good start” toward greater engagement by G7 countries in developing nations and could underpin stronger global growth for all.

G7 countries on average provide only 0.32 per cent of their gross national income, less than half of the 0.7 per cent promised, in development assistance, she said.

“But without developing countries, there will be no sustainable recovery of the world economy,” she said.

New Zealand Suspends Live Cattle Exports... After Ship Sinks with 6,000 Cows Onboard

New Zealand Suspends Live Cattle Exports... After Ship Sinks with 6,000 Cows Onboard

New Zealand has suspended the export of live cattle after a ship carrying 43 crew members and nearly 6,000 cows capsized off the coast of Japan.

On Sept. 2, 2020, the ship, the Gulf Livestock 1, left New Zealand for China but reportedly developed engine problems and sank in rough seas caused by Typhoon Maysak.

Most of the crew is feared dead as only two crew members have been rescued and hospitalized. Carcasses of at least a dozen cows were seen floating in the water after the ship went down.

In light of the incident, New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries announced that it had “temporarily suspended consideration of cattle livestock export applications” as they investigate what happened to Gulf Livestock 1.

Although New Zealand has placed restrictions on the export of livestock for slaughter since 2016, live animals are sold abroad for breeding. Nearly 40,000 cattle have been exported so far this year, according to the ministry’s data. Most of the cattle have gone to China which has become the biggest market for New Zealand beef.

Animal advocates have argued that the temporary restrictions don’t go far enough to stop the cruel livestock trade.

“Ultimately, this is a trade that has to be banned,” Will Appelbe, a spokesman for SAFE, an animal welfare group in New Zealand, told The New York Times.

Animals are packed into overcrowded spaces, where they cannot lie down. Ships do not have proper ventilation systems, which has caused several animals to die from heat stress. Poor drainage systems mean the animals frequently become covered in urine and feces.

In addition to animal welfare issues, the transnational livestock trade has a large environmental impact, emitting significant greenhouse gases during the transport of the animals.

Livestock ships have a history of disasters that have left crew members and animals dead at sea. In November 2019, around 14,000 sheep died after a livestock carrier capsized on its way from Romania to Saudi Arabia.

 

Just Say “No” to GMO Mosquitoes

World's largest 'mosquito factory': Inside the pioneering Chinese laboratory that raises 20 MILLION insects every week to combat deadly Zika virus

• The lab at China's Sun Yat-sen University spreads over 37,700 square feet and has four workshops to raise bugs 
• Male mosquitoes are given a type of bacteria called wolbachia pipientis which inhibits Zika and Dengue
• These sterilised insects are then released on islands to mate with wild females for them to inherit the antibody 
• Experts hopes the technology could make China a global leader in combating mosquitoes-borne diseases

ADVERTISEMENT

March 28 2016

Most of the time, mosquitoes are a hated summer pest. But in a tropical city in China, these deadly insects are carefully raised and petted by scientists.

Welcome to the mosquitoes factory inside the Sun Yat-sen University in the city of Guangzhou, where a team of experts produce 20 million sterilised male insects every week before releasing them to islands to mate with the females.

These male mosquitoes, which are infected with a type of bacteria called wolbachia pipientis, are used as a means for scientists to try and stop the spreading of deadly diseases, such as Zika and Dengue.

Raising bugs with care: Scientists in a laboratory inside the Sun Yat-sen University, China, are raising up to 20 million mosquitoes a week

Friends or foes? Here, the hated summer pests are infected with a special bacterium to help human combat deadly diseases, such as Zika

Cutting-edge technology: A Lab technician looks at cages of adult male mosquitoes used in research at the laboratory on June 20

See the insect like never before: Mosquito larvae is seen as male and female are separated in the lab at the Sun Yat-Sen University

As one of the the most deadly animals on the planet, mosquitoes are thought to be responsible for millions of deaths every year, according to WHO.

At the larva laboratory of Sun Yat-sen University, billed as the world's largest mosquito factory, scientists are cultivating a special type of bugs which don't bite and don't carry dangerous viruses.

By releasing the millions of insects they produce to the different islands in Guangzhou, the team hope their sterilised insects could mate with the female mosquitoes and gradually replace the local mosquitoes population with the disease-free kind.

Helmed by Xi Zhiyong, director of the Sun Yat-sen University-Michigan State University Joint Center of Vector Control for Tropical Diseases, the laboratory spreads over 37,700 square feet and has four workshops, each producing up to five million male insects a week, according to Sun Yat-sen University. 

First put to use last summer, the laboratory was officially established in April this year with the aim of being the international front-runner in combating mosquitoes-borne diseases.

The lab's mosquitoes are infected with a strain of wolbachia pipientis, a common bacterium shown to inhibit Zika and related viruses including dengue fever. 

For the health of mankind: Lab technicians and researchers look at trays of mosquito larvae in the 'world's largest mosquito factory' 

Take good care of the little ones: A lab technician holds plastic containers of sterile adult male mosquitos that are ready to be released

Look at them! Chinese PhD student and researcher Zhang Dongjing displays a container of sterile adult male mosquitos

Thorough inspection: Researcher Zhang carefully checks trays of mosquito larvae in the mass production facility in the lab on June 20

Back to the nature: Chinese researcher Gan Renxian rides in a cart as he releases adult mosquitos on Shazai Island in Guangzhou

On way to find their partners: The infected male mosquitoes are set to mate with wild females who then inherit the antibody 

Researchers are reported to have released the infected mosquitoes on Shazai island to mate with wild females who then inherit the solbachia bacterium which prevents the proper fertilisation of her eggs. 

The team also planned to release their mosquitoes on the Dadaosha Island in Panyu district, according to the university. 

Xi Zhiyong, the head of the researchers, said: 'The male mosquitoes we set free don't bite, so the local residents support it.'

He then added: 'This technology will face a high demand in the world.'

After a year of research and field trials on Shazai island, the lab claims there is 99 per cent suppression of the population of Asia tiger mosquito, the type known to carry Zika virus. 

People’s Daily Online previously reported that one million sterilised insects were being released in the region each week. 

Battle against deadly diseases: Chinese technicians put pupa into dishes in the lab at the mosquitoes factory in Sun Yat-Sen University

Looking for alternatives: Chinese researcher Gan Renxian examines mosquito eggs caught in a trap in the village on Shazai Island

Not going to miss one! A Chinese lab engineer uses an electric racquet used to kill stray mosquitos in the mass production facility

Close examination: A researcher uses a dropper to put mosquito larvae under a microscope at the field lab on June 21

Deadly animal that kills millions a year: Adult female mosquitos are seen under a microscope at the Sun Yat-Sen University lab

Feeding time: A lab technician pours animal blood onto a hot plate to feed to mosquitoes at the pioneering mosquito factory

Under the microscope: Chinese PhD student and researcher Zhang Dongjing looks at adult mosquitos under a microscope in the lab

In addition to Zika, the centre is also hoping to halt the spread of Dengue fever, a viral infection that is often spread by mosquitoes and kills 25,000 people across the globe every year. 

The southern part of China is regularly troubled by the outbreak of Dengue. 

The summer of 2014, China saw the worst outbreak of dengue fever in two decades, with more than 47,000 cases. 

Almost all of those affected were from Guangdong province, where the factory is based. 

Look, here come the mosquitoes: Local fisherman Chen Shourongon paddles her boat on Shazai Island where the insects are released

Innovation takes place, but life remains the same: A local villager stands near her fields of melon and bananas on Shazai Island

The island where infect bugs are released: A local farmer walks in her fields on the island where mosquito experiment was carried out 

What's that buzzing sound? An woman carries her grandson on Shazai Island as researchers set the infected insects into the wild

Hope they don't bite! Xi Zhiyong, the head of the lab, said: 'The male mosquitoes we set free don't bite, so the local residents support it.'

It's our challenge to eliminate Dengue: A local villager holds a bag with the determined slogan on Shazai Island on June 22

Scientific test field: A Chinese man stands in an alleyway of a village as researchers pass by releasing mosquitoes

In February, Brazil announced it's planning to fight the Zika virus by zapping millions of male mosquitoes with gamma rays to sterilise them using a device called an irradiator and stop the spread of the virus linked to thousands of birth defects.

Brazil is trying to eradicate the Aedes mosquito that’s behind the outbreak, which has been linked to babies with abnormally small heads.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said it will ship an irradiator to the state of Bahia so that a non-profit organisation called Moscamed can breed up to 12 million male mosquitoes a week, sterilise them and release them in 12 towns to test the outcome.

If successful, the Brazilian government could scale up the operation, potentially releasing millions of mosquitoes in densely-populated areas of the vast country, using drones.

Like with Dengue, there is no cure for Zika, which has spread to 49 countries in North America, South America, Oceania and Asia.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ZIKA 

WHAT IS ZIKA?

The Zika (ZEE'-ka) virus was first discovered in monkey in Uganda in 1947 - its name comes from the Zika forest where it was first discovered. 

It is native mainly to tropical Africa, with outbreaks in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. 

It appeared in Brazil in 2014 and has since been reported in many Latin American countries and Caribbean islands.

HOW IS IT SPREAD?

It is typically transmitted through bites from the same kind of mosquitoes - Aedes aegypti - that can spread other tropical diseases, like dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever. 

It is not known to spread from person to person. 

Though rare, scientists have found Zika can be transmitted sexually. The World Health Organisation recently warned the mode of transmission is 'more common than previously assumed'.

And, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued first-time guidance, saying couples trying to conceive should abstain or wear condoms for six months if the male has confirmed or suspected Zika.

Additionally, the CDC said couples should abstain or wear condoms for eight weeks if the female has confirmed or suspected Zika, or if the male traveled to a country with a Zika outbreak but has no symptoms.  

ARE THERE SYMPTOMS?

The majority of people infected with Zika virus will not experience symptoms. 

Those that do, usually develop mild symptoms - fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes - which usually last no more than a week.

There is no specific treatment for the virus and there is currently no vaccine to protect against infection, though several are in the developmental stages.

WHY IS IT A CONCERN NOW?

Zika infection in pregnant women to a rare birth defect called microcephaly, in which a newborn's head is smaller than normal and the brain may not have developed properly.

Brazilian health officials last October noticed a spike in cases of microcephaly in tandem with the Zika outbreak. 

The country said it has confirmed more than 860 cases of microcephaly - and that it considers them to be related to Zika infections in the mother. 

The WHO also stated that researchers are now convinced that Zika is responsible for increased reports of a nerve condition called Guillain-Barre that can cause paralysis. 

A team of Purdue University scientists recently revealed a molecular map of the Zika virus, which shows important structural features that may help scientists craft the first treatments to tackle the disease. 

The map details vital differences on a key protein that may explain why Zika attacks nerve cells - while other viruses in the same family, such as dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile, do not.  

CAN THE SPREAD BE STOPPED?

Individuals can protect themselves from mosquito bites by using insect repellents, and wearing long sleeves and long pants - especially during daylight, when the mosquitoes tend to be most active, health officials say. 

Eliminating breeding spots and controlling mosquito populations can help prevent the spread of the virus. 

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It's our grand mission: Experts produce 20 million sterilised male insects a week before releasing them to islands to mate with the females

Not all bugs are welcome: A Chinese lab technician uses an electric racquet to kill a stray mosquito at the centre

Working towards a healthier future: The laboratory spreads over 37,700 square feet and has a total of four workshops in Guangzhou, China

Dedication is the key: The lab claims there is 99 per cent suppression of the population of Asia tiger mosquito, known to carry Zika virus

No effort spared: A researcher uses a dropper to put mosquito larvae under a microscope at the field lab situated in tropical China

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Focus needed: The centre is also hoping to halt the spread of Dengue fever, a viral infection that is often spread by mosquitoes

Millions of Lab-Grown [GMO] Mosquitoes Are Being Released in Guangzhou

The so-called mosquito factory can produce some 50 million mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia bacteria weekly to help combat various diseases.

March 15, 2016

A Chinese factory is breeding 20 million male mosquitoes a week, and releasing them into nature to copulate with wild female mosquitoes. Its aim—culling the population, and eradicating disease.

A team of scientists, led by Xi Zhiyong of China’s Sun Yat-sen University and Michigan State University, announced Monday (Mar. 14) that they are breeding mosquitoes that are infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which produces infertile eggs when they mate with females in the wild. Because the transmission of dengue and Zika is carried by mosquitos, the release of these laboratory insects could stop the diseases from becoming epidemics, the research team explains (link in Chinese).

The world’s biggest “mosquito factory,” with a total area of 3,500 square meters (38,000 sq ft), and four workshops that each can breed 5 million mosquitoes a week, has been established in southern China’s Guangzhou city, where dengue fever strikes annually.

It is not clear where the male mosquitoes will be released in the future. But the research team’s pilot project released 500,000 Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes to a small island in Guangzhou in March of 2015. The mosquito population on the island had dropped by half by June that year, Xi told the Beijing News (link in Chinese) at that time. Those “500,000 mosquitoes sound a lot, but in fact, they’re like a drop in the ocean,” Xi said.

Wolbachia mosquitoes could have a greater advantage over genetically modified ones (another experimental way of controlling mosquito populations) because genetic tweaks kill just one generation, while Wolbachia is passed on to the next generation via infected females.

The global Eliminate Dengue program has released Wolbachia mosquitoes in Australia, Vietnam, Brazil and Indonesia, and those schemes are more effective, and less expensive than traditional methods of insecticide spraying, the Guardian reported last year. But their approach is different from Xi’s, as they work on another mosquito specie and aim to “spread Wolbachia into wild mosquito population” in a “self sustaining” method, the group told Quartz.

Early research shows Wolbachia does not increase the risk of other pathogens being transmitted by mosquitoes, and it is not harmful to the environment—but because mosquitoes are prey for birds and fish, the long-term effects on the greater ecosystem are unclear.

The Chinese research team also plans to build a mosquito factory in Brazil, Xi told a local newspaper (link in Chinese) this month. Brazil launched its first trial of Wolbachia mosquitoes in 2014, and is now throwing everything it has at the mosquito-borne epidemics ravaging the country.

Guangzhou is releasing millions of lab-engineered mosquitoes every day to neuter and prevent preexisting mosquitoes in the environment from spreading vector-borne diseases, local television station reported Saturday.

The Guangzhou Wolbaki Biotech Co., Ltd., in partnership with the city’s disease control and prevention bureau, releases about five million lab-grown male mosquitoes daily, which only mate with aedes albopictus mosquitoes to stop them from reproducing disease-carrying offspring, according to the media report. Only female aedes albopictus, also known as tiger mosquitoes, prey on people, potentially transmitting the viruses that cause dengue and chikungunya, among other illnesses.

The biotech company’s “mosquito factory” in Guangzhou — where dengue fever is a public health concern — breeds mosquitoes to produce offspring carrying the Wolbachia bacteria, which is commonly found in insects and not harmful to humans, before releasing them to the environment. When mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia mate with aedes albopictus, it reduces the replication of the viruses they carry, making them less likely to transmit it to humans.The lab-made male mosquitoes do not bite humans and only mate with aedes albopictus without affecting any other species in the wild, according to the media report, citing researchers from the company. The method is described as safer and more efficient than using insecticides to kill mosquitoes.

Researchers at Guangzhou Wolbaki feed the mosquitoes with sheep blood and sugar, producing some 10 million mosquito eggs every day, the local TV station reported. According to the company’s website, its mosquito factory currently produces about 50 million male mosquitoes every week and releases them in the city’s surrounding islands and districts.

Zhang Zhoubin, deputy director of Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the density of the adult mosquitos in the city’s Baiyun District decreased by 59% and 70% in 2018 and 2019, respectively, while the number of mosquito eggs also dropped significantly, domestic media reported.

Guangzhou Wolbaki declined Sixth Tone’s request for an interview Wednesday.

Other countries, including the United States and Brazil, are also attempting to breed and release genetically modified mosquitoes to combat several vector-based diseases, including Zika and malaria. Malaria alone kills over 400,000 people annually, though China eliminated it this year.

In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued new guidance for research on using genetically modified mosquitoes to fight malaria and other diseases. In it, the WHO outlines standards to inform the implications of releasing such mosquitoes and the potential effects on humans, animals, and the environment.

“If proven safe, effective, and affordable, genetically modified vector mosquitoes could be a valuable new tool to fight these diseases and eliminate their enormous health, social, and economic burden,” the WHO said.