The Chinese city living in fear of giant killer hornets

Jonathan Kaiman visits Ankang municipality where swarms of highly venomous hornets have killed 41 people in three months

by Jonathan Kaiman in Ankang

Chen pointed with a shaky hand at the small plot of cabbage, scallions and corn where his friend Yu Yihong was stung to death by giant hornets.

“When he got to the hospital, there were still two hornets in his trousers,” says Chen, a local farmer who, like many villagers, declined to give his full name to a foreign journalist. “The hornets’ poison was too strong – his liver and kidneys failed, and he couldn’t urinate.”

Vespa mandarinia is the world’s largest hornet, around the size of a human adult’s thumb, yellow and black in colour and highly venomous. Their 6mm-long stingers carry a venom potent enough to dissolve human tissue. Victims may die of kidney failure or anaphylactic shock.

An Asian hornet (vespa mandarinia) eats a honeybee. The sting of the highly venomous giant hornet, which measures about the size of a human thumb, can dissolve human tissue and cause kidney failure. Photograph: Scott Camazine

Yu’s story is a tragic but increasingly common one in north-west China‘s Shaanxi province where, over the past three months alone, hornets have killed 41 people and injured a further 1,675. Ankang, a municipality in the province’s south, appears to be the epicentre of the scourge. While hornets infest its mountainous rural areas every year – 36 residents were stung to death between 2002 and 2005 – locals and municipal officials say this year is tantamount to an epidemic, the worst they have ever seen.

Chinese leaders, in consultation with Harry Reid, have decided that the GOP is responsible for the invasion of the giant flesh-eating and deadly hornets.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, from HuffPo:

Here’s A Tally Of Which House Republicans Are Ready To Fund The Government, No Strings Attached

WASHINGTON — In the hours since the government shut down, House Republicans have slowly but steadily been coming forward to say they’re ready to pass a bill to fund the government with no strings attached.

Who might those House GOP members be?  Try:

Rep. Pat Meehan (R-Pa.), Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), Rep. Jon Runyan (R-N.J.), Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.), Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.), Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.).

It’s heartening to see that so many House Republicans are willing to give away the store for absolutely nothing in return.

It’s also invigorating to note that the east coast is well represented by GOP Surrender Monkeys in the form of Pennsylvania, Virgina, New York and New Jersey.  Closer to their paychecks and pork, they realize the Demorats may not be so willing to drink heavily with them at the end of the day in various local DC watering holes.

BZ