Other non-native invaders:
Incursion of non-native fruit flies requires $129M in emergency funding
Excerpt:
The Department of Agriculture said Friday it has tapped $129 million in emergency funding to battle a worsening incursion of exotic, invasive fruit flies from Mexico and Guatemala.
Citing an “unprecedented outbreak” of insect damage to fruit and vegetable crops in California and Texas, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has approved the emergency cash infusion into the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the agency announced.
The emergency funds came from the Commodity Credit Corporation.
APHIS Administrator Michael Watson said the fight against the northward spread of non-native tephritid fruit fly species such as the Mediterranean fruit fly and Mexican fruit fly is intensifying as the incursion reaches new levels.
Fruit flies attack more than 400 different types of plants, destroying entire crops, disrupting trade, and causing major financial losses,” he said. “Dedicating emergency funds to address these outbreaks means the collaborative effort to protect U.S. agriculture from this unprecedented outbreak can continue.”
The emergency funding will be used to beef up prevention measures such as improved sterile insect facilities and improvements in early detections the infestations.
Early detection of invasive fruit fly populations is critical to ensuring successful, timely, and cost-effective eradication, reducing the size and duration of regulatory quarantines and other emergency response activities, APHIS says.
Detection is accomplished via fruit fly trapping programs and is especially critical in urban, suburban, and environmentally sensitive areas where large-scale application of pesticides can’t be done.
The other main avenue of attack is the sterile insect technique, or SIT, which makes use of sterile flies to prevent the production of viable offspring. The wild female medflies mate with the sterile males and lay infertile eggs, thereby disrupting the breeding cycle and causing the population to be eliminated.
This tool, however, requires mass production of target fruit fly species in large facilities. APHIS currently operates two large production facilities in Guatemala and one in Texas. It also operates several eclosion and release facilities for Medfly and Mexfly in Guatemala, northern Mexico, Florida and Texas.
Part of the emergency funding with be used to repair the sterile insect facilities in California and Texas as well as to replace essential equipment to enhance the effectiveness of the program.
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More than likely this is a result of the illegal invaders coming across our borders. It’s a continual fight for agriculture but the alien invaders more than likely bring fruit et al with them that adds duel to this problem. Illegals from Asia are notorious for bringing prohibited agricultural.
If you think fruit flies are bad wait until screw worm flies get back in. Pink Lady screw worm paste might make a comeback.
Cuban political prisoner pens an open letter to President Trump
Translation of letter:
Dear and distinguished president,
First and foremost, I offer my warmest greetings. I am writing to you as an independent journalist and two-time political prisoner, including my imprisonment due to the events of July 11, 2021. My name is Carlos Michael Morales Rodríguez.
I want to inform you that I have been an independent journalist since 2005, and during this time, I have faced all kinds of repression from the communist regime of the Island. From the aforementioned date until 2021, I suffered countless beatings, arbitrary arrests, police operations in front of my home, and acts of repudiation. On several occasions, my home was vandalized with stones and tar thrown at it. I also endured continuous threats of imprisonment.
In 2021, I was one of hundreds of Cubans imprisoned for participating in peaceful demonstrations demanding freedom and democracy for Cuba. Throughout my time in prison, I was subjected to physical and psychological torture, beatings, and all kinds of repression in an attempt to break me, something they never succeeded in doing.
The reason I am addressing you through this public letter is to inform you that the process of prisoner releases the Cuban regime is carrying out following the disastrous agreement with the Biden administration is a deception by the Castro regime.
Firstly, these prisoners are not being pardoned; they are only being released on parole and under crude threats, including the risk of being returned to prison. Secondly, the regime is releasing common criminals such as thieves, murderers, fraudsters, and rapists, presenting them as political prisoners, while true prisoners of conscience remain incarcerated. Several released political prisoners and their families have denounced this practice.
I can inform you that this process of releases had already been attempted with me before.
Why do I say this? Because, as the internal peaceful opposition in Cuba and various Cuban exile groups around the world know well, just 45 days after my release following the completion of my sentence related to July 11, I was imprisoned again, accused of a spurious charge of disobedience. The reason for this imprisonment was my continued work as an independent journalist and my denunciation of flagrant human rights violations by the Cuban regime.
As a result of this arbitrary action, I went on a hunger strike and was close to losing my life. For this reason, I was released from prison, but prior to that, I was sentenced to 8 months of house arrest.
During this time, I have endured harassment and constant threats of being sent back to prison by Sandro Rodríguez Águila, president of the Municipal Court of Caibarién, and the political police. Among the harassment actions I have faced is an attempt to force me to work with state-owned companies belonging to the failed state that violates the human rights of the Cuban people, oppresses independent journalists and peaceful activists, incarcerates them, and physically and psychologically tortures political prisoners in jails.
For these reasons, I have always refused to work in the state sector. I have also been deprived of the possibility of working in the private sector and have been constantly threatened with being returned to prison for this reason.
On January 3, I completed my 8-month house arrest sentence, but they simply extended my sentence for another six months, with the threat that this time could continue to increase. In the last 15 days, my family members have been harassed by Sandro Rodríguez Águila, the president of the municipal court, and State Security. They have been told that I will be imprisoned again and have been asked to speak to me and convince me to change my attitude. These repressive actions have continued in the days leading up to these releases.
Now, these released political prisoners will face each of these repressive actions that I have been subjected to and that continue to be applied against me. In summary, what was tried with me is now being applied to the rest of the released political prisoners.
Furthermore, for the past 66 years, Cuba has always practiced terrorism, supporting terrorist groups such as the FARC (in Colombia), ETA (in Spain), and Hamas (in Palestine). It has also practiced ideological terrorism against the United States of America and Israel, demonizing these two nations and trying to pit them against the rest of the international community, in addition to exporting its malignant revolution to other countries, mainly in the region.
If there have been authoritarian and corrupt regimes throughout the continent in recent decades, it is due to the export of the revolution that the Cuban regime has carried out. Among these regimes, I can mention those of Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The current situation in Nicaragua and Venezuela is a product of this action by the Cuban regime.
Based on the arguments presented above, I urge you, President Donald Trump, to re-list Cuba as a state sponsor of international terrorism and to enforce Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.
Please work together with Senator Marco Rubio and the rest of the Cuban-American congressmen to take the appropriate measures that the Cuban regime deserves for being a regime that practices state terrorism against its people on a daily basis.
I bid you farewell, wishing many blessings and much success in your tenure as president.
Sincerely,
Carlos Michael Morales Rodríguez
Independent Journalist and Political Prisoner