190,000 ducks destroyed at six Dutch farms after bird flu outbreak

Some 190,000 ducks were destroyed on Saturday at six farms in the Netherlands following an avian flu outbreak, the country’s first cull in response to an epidemic sweeping northern Europe.

Outbreaks of avian flu, primarily the highly pathogenic H5N8 strain, have been reported in Denmark, Finland, Germany and Sweden over the past week.

Dutch authorities did not say what strain of the virus had been discovered at a poultry farm in the village of Biddinghuizen, 70km (43 miles) east of Amsterdam.

The cull was implemented at four other sites owned by the same company and at a sixth farm less than a kilometre from the site of the confirmed outbreak.

Officials said they were checking for bird flu at farms within three kilometres of the original site and imposed a ban on transporting poultry products within a 10km radius.

The world’s second largest agricultural exporter, the Netherlands has more than 100 million hens, pigs, cows and sheep on high-intensity farms. The density makes the animals more vulnerable to disease outbreaks.

Since 1997, 40 million hens, cows, goats, pigs and sheep have been slaughtered to contain outbreaks including swine flu, foot-and-mouth disease and BSE.

190,000 ducks destroyed at six Dutch farms after bird flu outbreak

Our precious allotments are being destroyed – it’s time to get our hands dirty | Rose George

In 2014, there was a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice. The protesters were colourful: with flowery dresses, a bee costume and balloons. They had clever signs such as: “Give Peas a Chance” and “Don’t Lose the Plot”. The protest was described as a “turf war” by newspaper headline writers, because they love a pun, and because it was about allotments. Last Friday, the protesters were back, this time with wheelbarrows, pumpkins and produce, because once again Watford council had applied to close Farm Terrace allotments, and once again some of the people of Watford refused and fought back.

On paper, Watford council’s rationale for closing Farm Terrace may sound reasonable, even though the plots have been there since 1896 and have statutory protection. The council wants to build a “health campus”, an Orwellian-sounding scheme that incorporates a new hospital, green spaces and that dreaded phrase beloved of planners, a “community hub”. Watford’s elected mayor, Dorothy Thornhill, interviewed the last time the turf war got to court, said that it would bring “up to 1,300 new jobs, much-needed homes, green open spaces which can be enjoyed by all and community facilities, including a community hub with shops”. She also said Farm Terrace plots were “a really hideous, derelict site”.

‘The Farm Terrace case matters because it is a fight about what is of value.’ The campaigners in 2014. Photograph: Cathy Gordon/PA Archive/PA Images

It’s difficult to object to a new hospital or 1,300 new jobs. But anything that uses the expression “green spaces” raises my hackles, because it means that the rest of the project is hard spaces and concrete. The council’s “master plan” is actually unclear: even the hospital doesn’t know what it will use the site for yet (Sara Jane Trebar, a Farm Terrace campaigner, thinks it will become 68 houses and a car park for Watford football club). But if it were to be built without allotments, as the mayor’s comments imply, it would be an own goal. Gardening, as a Social Care Institute for Excellence review of evidence showed in 2013, reaps “a range of benefits across emotional, social, vocational, physical and spiritual domains”. Allotments are as good for the people of Watford as that community hub with shops (which Watford presumably already has plenty of).

‘Five minutes at my allotment, kneeling to weed, putting my hands into soil, and my spirit lifts.’ Photograph: Sam Frost for the Guardian

I support the Farm Terrace fighters because I’d fight for my plot, even though I’m a haphazard gardener. Slugs have eaten more this year than I’ve managed to grow. But when I’ve struggled with depression, when even getting out of the house seemed like the hardest thing in the world, I still sometimes walked five minutes to my plot, past the neat and flourishing allotments that shame me; past the scruffy ones that comfort me, to my higgledy-piggledy plot with its rose bed, sturdy greenhouse and pathetic tomato plants, my glorious collard greens and magnificent roses.

Five minutes there, kneeling to weed, putting my hands into soil, and my spirits lift. There are other riches there too: the businessman who arrives stressed and leaves less so; the young families who leave with children clutching sweetcorn or potatoes, now knowing that not all fruit and vegetables come wrapped in plastic; the old boys who offer advice, wanted or unwanted. Growing your own isn’t always cheaper, but it’s always better. It is one of the best counter-balances that remains to our cult of lonely, commerce-driven individualism.

In law, allotments are apparently well protected, from the 1908 Small Holdings and Allotments Act that instructed councils to supply allotments to meet demand, to further strengthened legislation in 1925. Allotments on statutory land, such as Farm Terrace, can’t be disposed of without ministerial consent. But pressure groups such as Save All Allotments and Don’t Lose the Plot think the Localism Act of 2011 and recent 2014 guidelines that supposedly simplified the law only made it simpler for plot land to be turned into building sites. In a freedom of information request, Save All Allotments found that between 2007 and 2014, 194 of 198 applications to close allotments were granted by the secretary of state. The National Allotment Society is more sanguine, pointing out that of the 65 of 87 applications for disposal that were granted between 2010 and 2013, most were for small bits of land for access or flood alleviation, or land that had long been disused.

But Farm Terrace isn’t disused, nor derelict, nor hideous. The case matters because it is a fight about what is of value. Of course hospitals and houses are needed. The problem with Farm Terrace is that Watford council can’t see the worth of the plots, nor that a proper health scheme can be more than a community hub, shops and a bit of green space. The judicial review adjourned on Friday with no decision reached, but my grubby allotmenting fingers are crossed that peas will be given a chance. I hope that there is room, still, in our era of cat-calling, spite and profound uncertainty, for the simple, humble act that is putting your fingers into the earth, and reaping what you sow.

Our precious allotments are being destroyed – it’s time to get our hands dirty | Rose George

Ketamine death of public schoolgirl an "act of stupidity which destroyed family"

“Ellie was a hugely intelligent man or woman who liked to analysis every little thing from the contents of her cat meals to background searches on the poets she studied for A-degree and biogs on each and every actor in the Harry Potter movies, no fact was too obscure for Ellie.

“The fact she failed to study the results of ketamine on the human body method beggars’ belief.

“It is effectively-documented that alcohol and ketamine do not go well with each other but I feel that it need to truly be reinforced – if you take even a small quantity of ketamine and a modest quantity of alcohol, you could die.

“We can only say that for an intelligent man or woman, Ellie did a extremely stupid thing, probably she considered she was taking a calculated risk or perhaps she was tired of contemplating.

“She invested her total lifestyle contemplating and she often liked to check out.

“It truly is possible to envision for her it would be all too eye-catching to cease pondering for a whilst and simply experiment in the false liberation of intoxication.

“Nothing at all will carry our beautiful daughter back, if something optimistic is to come out of our daughter’s death it may possibly be the sombre reminder that looks, brains, fitness and sheer enthusiasm for human encounter are no match for the toxic blend of alcohol and ketamine.”

The inquest heard that the teenager, from Glastonbury, Somerset, was volunteering as a steward for Oxfam at the festival with a pal, Stephanie Peirce, on August eight when she snorted a line of ketamine powder having drunk a number of cans of Carlsberg lager throughout the day.

In a statement study to the Winchester inquest, Miss Peirce, also 18, described how she fell asleep in their tent following taking the drug and came about to find Miss Rowe unconscious.

She explained: “I experimented with to wake her up but she wouldn’t, at the time I imagined she felt a bit cold, I received a bit anxious so I tried different strategies of waking her up, speaking loudly, shaking her.

“I stumbled out of the tent and I asked the 1st person I noticed to aid me since I couldn’t wake her up.”

On-internet site paramedics attempted to revive the former Wells Cathedral School pupil, including giving her an emergency tracheotomy to aid her breathing, until finally an ambulance arrived and took her to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester exactly where she was pronounced dead.

Pathologist Dr Adnan Al-Badri informed the hearing that toxicology tests showed that Miss Rowe had two.14mg of ketamine per litre of blood in her program which was the second lowest recorded fatal dosage of the drug recorded.

He explained that the use of alcohol exacerbated the danger of taking ketamine, including: “In mixture, she really brought on a lot more harm than if she had taken ketamine alone.”

Coroner Sarah Kirby recorded a narrative verdict which stated that Miss Rowe died as a result of alcohol and ketamine toxicity and central nervous system depression obtaining taken ketamine and alcohol.

She said that Miss Rowe had snorted roughly 200mg of the drug from two wraps of ketamine that the pair had bought from a “pal of a friend” at the festival.

She explained: “Ellie was a youthful woman who would have had no thought whatsoever that what she did would cause her death.

“She was 18, it is not that she was an habitual drug user, she believed it would be fine, she didn’t consider about it.”

Speaking soon after the inquest, her father Anthony Rowe, a self-employed businessman and caretaker, mentioned: “She was quite accountable, it truly is an absolute tragedy, it was a single act of stupidity and that can ruin a loved ones.

“This wasn’t some significant drug use.”

Mr Rowe, who was informed of his daughter’s death on his 58th birthday, described how his daughter was independent and outgoing.

He stated that Miss Rowe, who had sisters, Iona, 20, and Belinda, 16, had been named as British Army cadet of the 12 months after finishing an outward-bound survival course in Canada.

He extra that they would be collecting her Duke of Edinburgh gold medal subsequent month at a ceremony in London, and just days ahead of her death she had completed a cycling tour of the Bulgarian mountains.

He said: “I often imagined that if any harm came to her, it would be a bungee leap or a canoe down a fierce river, an accident on a mountain bike, nothing at all like this.

“She was really sensible, it really is an absolute tragedy for our household.”

He mentioned that he supported the improve from Class C to Class B.

He said: “The major message is do not take any powder because you do not know what is in it, you do not know the power of it, you do not know how your metabolism will act upon it, you run the chance of triggering harm to your whole household which we really feel with all our hearts.”

Iona added: “I have an problem with the way the classification method does not reflect the harm it does to the human entire body and the deaths it has brought on.”

Describing her sister, who intended to go on to university to grow to be a lawyer, Miss Rowe said: “She was extremely independent, quite personable, loved talking to individuals.

“She was constantly my leader since she was the stronger, a lot more independent character.”

Mr Rowe extra: “We would really significantly like to pressure, do not take ketamine, but if you do consider ketamine, do not consider anything at all else, just drink water.”

Ketamine death of public schoolgirl an "act of stupidity which destroyed family"