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Showing posts from April, 2020

Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

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  By Andrew Aloia BBC Sport Last updated on 11 October 2021 11 October 2021 . From the section Football Watson was a trailblazer who helped transform how football was played There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. And yet today, 100 years on from his death aged 64, Watson remains something of an enigma, the picture built around him a fractured one. His grainy, faded, sepia image evokes many differen...

Why smart people believe coronavirus myths

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From students to politicians, many smart people have fallen for dangerous lies spread about the new coronavirus. Why? And how can you protect yourself from misinformation? By David Robson 7th April 2020 It is a sad truth that  any health crisis will spawn its own pandemic of misinformation . In the 80s, 90s, and 2000s we saw the spread of  dangerous lies about Aids  – from  the belief that the HIV virus was created by a government laboratory  to the  idea that the HIV tests were unreliable , and even the spectacularly unfounded theory that  it could be treated with goat’s milk . These claims increased risky behaviour and exacerbated the crisis. Now, we are seeing a fresh inundation of fake news – this time around the coronavirus pandemic. From Facebook to WhatsApp, frequently shared misinformation include everything from  what caused the outbreak  to  how you can prevent becoming ill . ...

2 top French doctors said on live TV that coronavirus vaccines should be tested on poor Africans, leaving viewers horrified

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sinessinsider.com (Julian Kossoff) , Business Insider • April 3, 2020 A man during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown near Durban, South Africa. Rogan Ward/REUTERS Two highly respected French doctors discussed on live television how a new  COVID-19  vaccine under development should be first tested in Africa, "where there are no masks, no treatment, nor intensive care." One of them, Jean-Paul Mira, even compared Africans to prostitutes who were the focus of past AIDS studies. "We tried things on prostitutes because they are highly exposed and do not protect themselves," he said. Several African soccer stars who played in Europe, including the former Chelsea star Didier Drogba and the former Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o, tweeted their outrage at the two medics' remarks. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . A discussion between two top French doctors on live T...

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