Amazon deforestation: Cheap supermarket meat is killing the rainforest and driving people like Osvalinda from their homes – Philip Lymbery

Smallholders like the late Osvalinda Pereira face a campaign of deadly threats and harassment from big companies that produce feed for animals in Europe and China

By Philip Lymbery
Published 3rd May 2024, 

The noise was deafening as dust clouds formed beside the seemingly impenetrable Amazon rainforest. A bulldozer then started clanking through the clearing, its engine roaring, pulling a heavy-duty metal chain originally designed for mooring ships which tightened fast like a fishing line. At the other end was another bulldozer.


With an ear-splitting din, the two moved together through the forest. Nothing escaped. Everything was brought down. No matter how old or stubborn. Onlookers laughed as another patch of rainforest was destroyed. Correntão, or ‘The Chain’, is a controversial means of deforestation. Long considered illegal in Brazil but now authorised in the state of Mato Grosso, whole stands of trees can be brought down in seconds. The remnants of ancient forest are then cleared, first by fire, and then by cattle.

There’s nothing new about the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon rainforest. What’s little known is how the real driver of this destruction is ‘cheap’ meat on our supermarket shelves.

Osvalinda Pereira, who was twice forced out of smallholdings in Brazil's Mato Grosso, died on April 12 (Picture: Mauricio Monteiro Filho/CIWF)

Amazon ‘soya rush’

Existing cattle pastures have been put to the plough to grow crops to feed chickens, pigs, fish, and dairy cows, much of which is exported to China, Europe, and the UK. The UK annually imports about three million tonnes of soya, the vast majority for animal feed. Longstanding cattle pastures in Brazil are replaced with soya in what is known as a ‘land-use cascade’. Triggered by demand for soya for export, this cascade has caused land prices to rocket as much as ten-fold.

Read MoreScotland’s rainforest: What is it, where is it and why is it under threat?


Cattle ranchers then sell their fields for enormous profits and expand their herds elsewhere with the proceeds. The ‘soya rush’ has led to dramatic levels of deforestation, not least in the Amazon.

As industrial agriculture, or ‘Big Ag’, moves in to the forest, small farmers are forced out. Just one of the many moving stories involves a couple, Osvalinda and Daniel.


They were fulfilling a long-held dream by running a smallholding in the Mato Grosso. They had crops, dairy cattle and chickens. Then they became surrounded by big agricultural producers. The Correntão passed, bringing down surrounding forest. When the couple’s health began to suffer, they moved out, only for history to repeat itself 1,000 miles away.

Trees help humans in so many different ways. Yet they still need defending – Philip Lymbery

Graves dug as a threat

On another settlement, Osvalinda and Daniel found themselves again as smallholders in a sea of big producers sharking for land. It was then that the threats and intimidation began. One morning in 2018, Osvalinda went to tend to her chickens and found two graves meticulously dug with crosses, one for her and one for her husband. They fled to the city.

Their plight mirrors that of other small farmers in the wake of the soya rush. For some, like Osvalinda and Daniel, moving on becomes the only option. Through the lens of Osvalinda and Daniel’s story, I came to realise that whilst cattle ranching has long been linked to Amazon deforestation, the real driving force is closer to home: cheap, soya-fed meat and dairy on our supermarket shelves.

Postscript: This article is dedicated to the memory of Osvalinda Maria Alves Pereira who passed away on April 12, 2024.


Philip Lymbery is chief executive of Compassion in World Farming, a former United Nations Food Systems Champion and an award-winning author. His latest book is Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future. Philip is on Twitter @philip_ciwf

MODERN PRIMITIVES

Battle of Waterloo: Teeth taken from the dead were worn with pride amid patriotic fervour over Wellington's victory – Susan Morrison

Replacement teeth were not the only grisly uses of the remains of those who fell at Waterloo

By Susan Morrison
Published 3rd May 2024

The day after the Battle of Waterloo was a busy one. The battlefield buzzed with human scavengers as they stalked through the clouds of flies swirling around more than 50,000 dead men, including the fallen of Scottish regiments such as the Royal Scots Greys, the Highland Light Infantry and the Black Watch. They didn’t overlook the tens of thousands more who lay wounded and alone. Money was to be made from bloodied armour, discarded swords, fancy officers uniforms, and teeth. These grisly tooth fairies had markets and mouths to fill.

Rotten teeth, their removal and replacement, has a long and royal tradition in Scotland. When James IV of Scotland, a king who took up hobbies the way his brother-in-law Henry burned through wives, paid to have a troublesome tooth removed, he became so fascinated by the process he ordered his own set of pinchers (pliers). In 1511, he actually whipped out two teeth from one of his own courtiers. Fortunately, current royal interests lie in town planning and architecture. On the plus side, James went on to grant a charter to the barbers and surgeons of Edinburgh in 1505, one of the first in the world.

By the Age of Enlightenment, Scotland's sugar-damaged choppers were being replaced by wallies made from porcelain, ivory and carved animal teeth. Some sets and replacements were made from human teeth. No one could be too sure where they came from. Some were a tad squeamish about flashing the gnashers of some grave-robbed corpse.

A French dentist shows an example of his false teeth in an picture from 1811 (Artist Thomas Rowlandson/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Tooth transplants

Fortunately East Kilbride-born pioneering surgeon John Hunter was on the case. His revolutionary work on blood vessels led him to believe that it would be possible to transplant a healthy tooth into a human mouth. Embedding false ‘teeth’ wasn’t new. Skulls thousands of years old have been found with gold and silver teeth in their jaws, even shells in place of molars.

French cuirassiers charge a British square during the Battle of Waterloo (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)


But Hunter believed that living teeth from donors could be embedded in the jaw. In the late 1770s, he started by transplanting a tooth into the comb of a cockerel. Hunter had observed that the coxcomb was rich in blood vessels. Fertile soil for tooth planting. In the Hunterian museum in London, there is just such a comb, with a human tooth sticking out of it. Hunter declared the experiment a great success. The tooth, he said, showed signs of embedding and the blood vessels signs of growth. Modern scientists believe that Hunter simply walloped the tooth in hard, and that’s what kept it in place whilst the blood vessels grew around it like ivy.


No matter. Here was the cockerel’s comb and there was an apparently living human tooth. The craze for tooth transplanting was on. The poor lined up to sell their healthy incisors and the rich paid to replace their rotting fangs. It sometimes worked, and probably for the same reason as the coxcomb. The donor teeth were hammered in, and some stayed in place for a few years, but they were prone to disease.


Extraction and implanting were done entirely free of such modern fripperies as anaesthetic or pain relief. Not surprisingly, many decided a swift one-off operation was a better solution. Get them all out, and get the false teeth in, fitted by a specialist with a fancy new title. In 1927, dental historian Lillian Lindsay believed she had discovered the first use of the word ‘dentist’ in the UK. The Edinburgh Chronicle of 1759 reported on “the mob's further remonstrance against the importation of French words”. One of those words was ‘dentist’. Apparently, the Scots didn’t like it, preferred the term “tooth-puller” and threw a hissy fit. No matter, ‘dentist’ remained.


Battlefield recycling

Lindsay was not just a dental historian, she was also part of that history. She was the first trained female dentist In Britain, qualifying in Edinburgh in 1895. Lillian was championed by an orthodontic legend, W Bowman Macleod, a man clearly unafraid to confront the big questions of the age. He once addressed the Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland with probably the first paper to examine the effects of bagpipe playing on the teeth.

Dentists could fit sets carved from walrus, elephant and narwhal tusks, but human teeth were very popular. The end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century was a golden era for professional tooth hunters. The Napoleonic Wars meant rich pickings literally lay all around in the aftermath of an epic battle. Obviously, these battlefield recycling specialists took everything they could get from the dead – and the dying – but teeth were lucrative, and easy to transport. Following some bloody encounters, so many teeth were removed that they needed barrels to take them away.

Waterloo was a gold mine. The men with the pliers were out early, shipping the teeth back, ready to be boiled, assorted and assembled into sets. Even though technically the trade was prohibited, they even became a sort of brand name. Such was the patriotic fervour associated with Wellington's victory that these battlefield falsies were proudly worn as ‘Waterloo Teeth’.

It’s hard to know just how many of the soldiers who fell that day were dentally looted. We could analyse their skulls, but we’d have to find them first. Despite the terrible death toll, only three mass graves accounting for some 13,000 men have been found at Waterloo.

There is a very strong chance that they are not there. The dead of Waterloo didn’t rest easy even when they were underground. They lay quiet for a time, but then their bones were mined, crushed and sold as fertiliser. There’s probably no corner of that Belgian field forever a laddie of the Gordon Highlanders, but there may well be English fields fertilised by his bones.

UK whistleblower ‘morally compelled’ to speak out on Afghan withdrawal

Matthew Weaver
Thu, 2 May 2024 

Josie Stewart was ‘horrified’ by the chaos and dysfunction at the Whitehall crisis centre, the tribunal heard.Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian


A Foreign Office civil servant felt “morally compelled” to speak to the media about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after the government presented a “dishonest account” of what happened, an employment tribunal has heard.

Josie Stewart was sacked by the Foreign Office (FCDO) after blowing the whistle on the failures of the withdrawal from Kabul and disclosing emails indicating Boris Johnson’s involvement in an “outrageous” decision to prioritise the evacuation of staff from the animal charity Nowzad, despite his denials.

Her claim for unfair dismissal on the grounds that her whistleblowing was protected under the Employment Rights Act 1996 began on Thursday at the central London employment tribunal.


Stewart was “horrified” by the chaos and dysfunction at the Whitehall crisis centre where she had volunteered to work when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the tribunal was told.

She believed “the government’s mismanagement of the crisis caused huge amounts of avoidable suffering in Afghanistan and that it had probably cost lives”.

Her lawyers’ opening arguments also said Stewart and others “believed that, at a moment of very high stakes, the UK government failed badly, and that political and civil service leaders sought to ‘cover up’ failures, presenting a misleading and in some instances even dishonest account to the public”.

She agreed to speak anonymously to the BBC about these failures after a junior civil servant, Raphael Marshall, gave damning evidence to a committee of MPs about the withdrawal from Afghanistan and was then subjected to attempts to discredit him, the tribunal was told.

She also leaked emails to the BBC after Johnson had described as “complete nonsense” claims that he had been involved in the decision to evacuate Nowzad staff and animals, the court was told. The emails “indicated, contrary to the prime minister’s claim, that No 10 had been involved in the decisions relating to Nowzad”, the submission said.

It added: “[Stewart] had viewed numerous emails which appeared to confirm the PM’s involvement in the Nowzad decision and it was impossible to reconcile those emails with the PM’s public denial of any involvement.” Her lawyers argued that Stewart was acting in the public interest.

She was suspended and then sacked after a BBC reporter tweeted the emails and “unintentionally” disclosed Stewart’s identity. The case will decide the extent of the rights of civil servants to make public interest disclosures to the press.

In her witness statement, Stewart said she knew she was unauthorised to speak to the media but felt she had been put in an impossible position. “Doing so [speaking to the media] was less wrong than my alternatives,” her statement said. Her lawyers described Stewart as “a committed and public-spirited person who was deeply troubled by what she observed in the crisis centre, and by subsequent portrayals of what had happened, and who in the end felt morally compelled to speak out”.

She was dismissed without any allowance for statutory whistleblowing protection, the submission said.

Lawyers for the FCDO had previously challenged the admissibility of some of Stewart’s evidence on the grounds that including parts of her witness testimony would breach principles of parliamentary privilege.

In November, the employment tribunal decided to allow some of the whistleblower’s contested evidence, but redacted some elements.

An FCDO spokesperson said: “The 2021 Afghanistan response was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country – and we are proud of our staff who worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people within a fortnight.

“We have learned lessons from the evacuation and have seen the benefits of this work in our response to the Sudan and Niger evacuations, as well as in our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

“We have continued to provide assistance to those in Afghanistan, including bringing thousands more people to safety. We cannot comment further while legal proceedings are ongoing.”

The tribunal will continue until 20 May.

Failures in Afghanistan evacuation probably cost lives, tribunal hears

Piers Mucklejohn, PA
Thu, 2 May 2024 

A sacked Foreign Office whistleblower believed the Government’s “chaotic, dysfunctional and ineffective” response to the fall of Kabul “probably cost lives”, a tribunal has heard.

Josie Stewart was “horrified” at how the Afghanistan Crisis Centre was run, as top politicians and officials – including then-prime minister Boris Johnson – prioritised “managing political and media fallout” over evacuating “those in most need on the ground”, tribunal documents say.

Ms Stewart, a former senior official at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), was dismissed after an interview with the BBC in which she spoke about her “tragic experiences” working in the FCDO crisis centre in the summer of 2021.


Following the Taliban gaining control of Afghanistan, the British government evacuated 15,000 people from its capital, Kabul, in what was known as Operation Pitting.

On Thursday, Ms Stewart attended an employment tribunal against the department, in which she is alleging unfair dismissal for making a protected disclosure.

The case will decide the extent of the rights of civil servants to make public interest disclosures to the press when “misleading claims” from ministers and civil servants are made to Parliament and the media, according to Ms Stewart’s lawyers.

Following the Taliban gaining control of Afghanistan in summer 2021, the British government evacuated 15,000 people from the country (MoD/PA)

Documents supplied to the Central London Employment Tribunal read: “(Ms Stewart) believed that the Government’s mismanagement of the crisis caused huge amounts of avoidable suffering in Afghanistan and that it had probably cost lives.”

Ms Stewart also suggested Mr Johnson, then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab and other “political and civil service leaders” made misleading claims about the success of the evacuation efforts in Afghanistan and the performance of the crisis centre.

She said in some instances officials were deliberately “dishonest”.

The tribunal heard Mr Johnson was involved in an “outrageous” decision to allow animals and staff working for the charity Nowzad to use Kabul airport which he then publicly denied involvement with – an allegation Ms Stewart had put before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in 2022.

Internal emails, to which Ms Stewart had access, demonstrated that Mr Johnson had been involved in the decision, her lawyers argued.

They added: “Demonstrating that the (Prime Minister) had intervened in a potentially life and death scenario to favour a less vulnerable group over a more vulnerable group, and then publicly denied doing so, is a matter of quintessential public interest.”

The tribunal heard Boris Johnson was involved in an ‘outrageous’ decision to allow animals and staff working for the charity Nowzad to use Kabul airport (Andrew Boyers/PA)

Mr Raab had told the same committee in September 2021 that he believed the crisis centre had met requirements, a comment Ms Stewart had suggested was “misleading” at a preliminary tribunal hearing last year.

Ms Stewart – whose anonymity was compromised after her unredacted emails were accidentally posted on social media – did not feel “safe” disclosing her concerns internally at the FCDO as she feared the department may have put “a black mark against my name”, tribunal judges heard.

Her lawyers said this left the whistleblower in an “impossible” situation as she believed it was in the public interest to speak out about how the Government had failed and subsequently attempted to “cover up” those failures.

In a witness statement referred to at an earlier preliminary hearing, Ms Stewart claimed she “witnessed denial, lies and the complete lack of accountability” while working on the Afghan crisis response.

She said: “In my career as a civil servant, I witnessed many failings within government and was privy to much information that would have made a good news story.

“I disclosed none of it.

“But through the Afghan evacuation, I witnessed both the biggest foreign policy failure of our time and the shameful handling of the resulting crisis.

Ms Stewart did not feel ‘safe’ disclosing her concerns internally (Yui Mok/PA)

Lawyers for the FCDO had previously challenged the admissibility of some of Ms Stewart’s evidence on the grounds that including parts of her witness testimony would breach article nine of the Bill of Rights 1689 and general principles of parliamentary privilege.

Article nine says: “The freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.”

In November, the employment tribunal decided to allow some of the whistleblower’s contested evidence, but redacted some elements.

An FCDO spokesperson said: “The 2021 Afghanistan response was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country – and we are proud of our staff who worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people within a fortnight.

“We have learned lessons from the evacuation and have seen the benefits of this work in our response to the Sudan and Niger evacuations, as well as in our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

“We have continued to provide assistance to those in Afghanistan, including bringing thousands more people to safety. We cannot comment further while legal proceedings are ongoing.”

The tribunal will continue until May 20.

UK

 

UK police arrest 45 at protest against migrant removals

By

 AFP

Police in London made 45 arrests on Thursday as protesters tried to stop the removal of migrants from their temporary accommodation, after the UK government began detaining people before controversial deportation flights to Rwanda.

Dozens of people surrounded a bus believed to be taking asylum seekers from a hotel in the Peckham area of south London to the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge moored off the south coast of England.

Several other protests have been held or are planned around the country to stop immigration officers detaining migrants.

In Peckham, police moved in to disperse the protesters, who had formed a human chain around the bus and blocked the road in front of a hotel.

Most had their faces covered and hire bikes were put under the wheels of the bus, which reportedly had its tyres slashed or deflated.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan, from the Metropolitan Police, said officers were sent to remove people from the road.

“A total of 45 people have been arrested and taken into police custody for offences including obstruction of the highway, obstructing police and assault on police,” he said.

The bus left the scene without the seven migrants on board, according to protesters. Similar action in Margate, southeast England, on Wednesday also stopped migrants being taken to the Bibby Stockholm.

Interior minister James Cleverly was defiant and condemned those seeking to stop the removals.

“Housing migrants in hotels costs the British taxpayer millions of pounds every day,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

“We will not allow this small group of students, posing for social media, to deter us from doing what is right for the British public.”

Cleverly’s ministry this week confirmed that it has begun detaining asylum seekers before planned deportation to Rwanda, after parliament passed a law declaring it a safe country.

Several migrants were seen in photos and video footage released by the ministry being taken away in handcuffs by immigration officers.

– Channel crossings –

The ministry has not confirmed how many people have been held so far, but the government says it expects Rwanda to take 5,700 migrants this year.

The protests come after official figures published on Thursday showed that 711 people were brought ashore the previous day after trying to cross the Channel in small boats from northern France.

The number is the highest on a single day so far this year and comes even as London insists that its plan to “stop the boats” is working, including through the Rwanda deportation scheme.

The new high is more than the previous 2024 single-day record of 534 on April 14. 

It takes the total number of migrants who have made the Channel crossing so far this year to 8,278 — up more than a quarter on the same period in 2023.

The highest-ever single-day arrivals figure was 1,295 and was recorded on August 22, 2022.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said the figures demonstrated why the Rwanda plan was needed but the main opposition Labour party called it “unaffordable and unworkable”.

French police on Wednesday said they had rescued 66 people after their boat ran into trouble off the coastal town of Dieppe.

UK police have made several arrests as part of an investigation into the deaths of five people whose boat got into difficulties off the French coast on April 23.

Migration — both regular and irregular — has been a major political issue in the UK, given the government’s promise to tighten the country’s borders after leaving the European Union.

But doing so has proved a challenge, with the Conservative government desperate to trumpet successes as it goes into local elections on Thursday and a general election later this year.

Some 122,600 people have been intercepted in British waters and brought ashore since the UK began recording such arrivals in 2018.

by Henry NICHOLLS

Arrests made as protesters block coach taking asylum seekers to Bibby Stockholm



Police try to stop protesters forming a blockade around a coach in Peckham (Yui Mok/PA)
By PA ReportersToday at 11:55

More than 40 people have been arrested after protesters blocked a coach set to take asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge.

Police said they were called at around 8.40am on Thursday to reports of people obstructing a coach, which was parked outside a Best Western Hotel in Peckham, south-east London.

A total of 45 people were arrested after officers were assaulted whilst trying to stop the protesters from obstructing the coach, the Metropolitan Police said.

A large group of people, many with their faces covered, surrounded the coach and were seen linking arms and sitting in Peckham Road.

Pictures showed lines of police officers attending the scene, while footage captured some jostling with protesters at one point.

The demonstrators could be heard chanting “no borders, no nations, stop deportations”, “say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here”, and “when refugees are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back”.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said in a statement: “It saddens me greatly to say that a number of officers have been assaulted in the course of their duty following an incident in Peckham today where they sought to uphold the law.”



Police officers at the scene in Peckham (Yui Mok/PA)

He said that officers spoke to the coach driver and protesters “at length” and warned them that they could be arrested, and added: “After this demonstrators blocked the road and continued to prevent the coach, and police vehicles, from leaving.

“More officers were sent to the scene to safely remove people from the road, allow the vehicles to leave and for the road to reopen.

“A number of officers have reported being assaulted. Thankfully I’m glad that none of those are seriously hurt.”




Police remove a protester after demonstrators formed a blockade around the coach (Yui Mok/PA)

But protesters claimed police had been “pushing and shoving” peaceful demonstrators.


Laurence Smith, founder of the charity Lewisham Donation Hub, said two of his organisation’s volunteers, who are asylum seekers, had been threatened with being sent to the barge.

He told the PA news agency: “I came down today to make sure our volunteers left that hotel and went to the private accommodation that we found.”




Protesters formed a blockade around the coach which was set to take asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge (Yui Mok/PA)

He added that he had spoken to Superintendent Matt Cox, from the Metropolitan Police, at 10am to try to defuse the situation.

Jennie, 34, who did not want to give her surname, is a member of one of the groups who were involved in the protest.

She told PA: “We’re now trying to support the asylum seekers who weren’t removed.”


Jennie, who had visible cuts and bruises on her arms and hands, said police were “pushing and shoving” people and that she needed medical attention.

PA understands the asylum seekers were taken off the coach and have not yet left the hotel.

No amount of chanting, drum banging or tyre-slashing by a noisy few will prevent us doing what is necessary to deliver the firm but fair approach that the British people expectJames Cleverly, Home Secretary

The Home Office has not confirmed whether there are plans to try again to move the asylum seekers to the barge on another day or if the move had been abandoned, but Home Secretary James Cleverly said protests would not deter the “firm but fair approach the British people expect”.

He said: “We will continue to remove those with no right to be here, despite continued efforts by the Labour Party and a coalition of disparate student groups to stop us.

“No amount of chanting, drum banging or tyre-slashing by a noisy few will prevent us doing what is necessary to deliver the firm but fair approach that the British people expect.


“I’d like to thank the police for their swift and professional action. They have my full support in clamping down on unacceptable criminality, racism and intimidation regardless of where it comes from.”

It comes as the Home Office abandoned plans to move a group of asylum seekers to the barge in the wake of protests in Margate last week.

Bird flu likely circulated in US cows for 4 months before diagnosis

Dairy farmer Brent Pollard's cows stand in their pen at a cattle farm in Rockford, Illinois, US, April 9, 2024.

PUBLISHED MAY 02, 2024 

CHICAGO — Bird flu likely circulated in US dairy cows on a limited basis for about four months before federal officials confirmed the disease that has now spread to nine states, according to a new federally funded research paper.

The US Department of Agriculture reported the first-ever H5N1 virus infection in a dairy cow in Texas on March 25, following reports of decreased milk yields in multiple states.

The USDA has said it believes wild birds, which can carry the virus, introduced H5N1 to cattle. The outbreak then expanded as cows were shipped to other states, according to the paper released on Wednesday that was funded by USDA, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"Data support a single introduction event from wild bird origin virus into cattle, likely followed by limited local circulation for approximately four months prior to confirmation by USDA," the paper said.

A team of academic scientists led by University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey pieced together raw genetic sequences released by USDA on April 21 without dates or locations and concluded a week ago that a single transmission event occurred in late 2023.

Scientists have criticised USDA for not releasing details of the data that would allow academic researchers around the world to trace the evolution of the virus.

One person, a Texas farm worker, has tested positive for H5N1 in the current outbreak, though the only symptom was conjunctivitis, believed to be caused by contact with cow milk. The CDC has said the general public faces a low risk for infection.

Bird flu has long been on the list of viruses with pandemic potential, and any expansion to a new mammal species is concerning to scientists.

Carol Cardona, a bird flu expert at the University of Minnesota, said the virus was able to spread during the four months it was undetected.

"By the time it was recognised, we were beyond our ability to contain the outbreak," she said.

Veterinarians observed dairy cattle displaying unexplained reductions in milk production and changes in milk quality, along with reduced feed consumption, starting in January, according to the paper. It was published an open-access preprint server for the biological sciences called bioRxivon.

Members of USDA's network of laboratories that monitors for diseases identified influenza A virus, which includes bird flu, in milk and nasal swabs from cows at a Texas dairy, the paper said, without specifying a date.

They forwarded samples to USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories, which respond to animal-health emergencies, for testing as epidemiologic investigations continued elsewhere, the paper said.

USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Overall, it's wonderful that these data have been shared," virologist Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organisation, who worked on sequencing the virus with Worobey, said in a post on X.

Edward Snowden's 'free speech' retort to Elon Musk's poll on dissent

In his reply to Elon Musk's online poll, US whistleblower Edard Snowden suggested that it would rather be a good idea to take those using the right to free speech to McDonald's to eat.


India Today World Desk
New Delhi,

UPDATED: May 3, 2024
Written By: Vivek Kumar

In Short

Elon Musk posts online poll on university protests in US

Edward Snowden retorts with a 'free speech' post

Snowden suggests taking dissenters to McDonald's to eat

Americans' freedom of expression is 'constitutionally protected' for a very good reason, US whistleblower Edward Snowden responded to X owner Elon Musk after the latter created a poll as to what should be done with a person who 'disrespects the American flag'.

"Proposed law: if someone tears down the American flag and puts up another flag in its place, that person should get a free (but mandatory) one-way trip to that flag’s country," Tesla chief Elon Musk on Thursday posted on X with options 'Yes' or 'No.'

Proposed law: if someone tears down the American flag and puts up another flag in its place, that person should get a free (but mandatory) one-way trip to that flag’s country

Among many hits and replies to the post, one came in from whistleblower Edward Snowden, whose revelations about alleged espionage by the US National Security Agency (NSA) shook the world back in 2013.

"First of all, Americans' freedom of expression, which includes all manner of flag-trampling and other unlikable acts, is constitutionally-protected for a very good reason. Secondly, what are you going to do when they tear it down and replace it with this?," Snowden posted on X with a picture of fast food giant McDonald's in his reply.




Elon Musk's post apparently referred to the ongoing pro-Palestine protests at university campuses across the United States and how those protesters should be treated.

Musk followed his online poll with a comment on his own post that read "I’m not saying they can’t come back, but they have to experience that country for some period of time before returning."

Meanwhile, Snowden seemed to be suggesting that it would rather be a good idea to take those using the right to free speech to McDonald's to eat.

Edward Snowden had fled the US and was given asylum in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013 that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA, where he once worked.

China to launch first probe to return samples from Moon’s far side


ByAFP
May 2, 2024

A guard stands watch near the launch platform for the Chang'e-6 lunar mission - Copyright AFP Hector RETAMAL
Hector Retamal with Qian Ye

China is set Friday to launch a probe to collect samples from the far side of the Moon, a world first as Beijing pushes ahead with an ambitious programme that aims to send a crewed lunar mission by 2030.

A rocket carrying the Chang’e-6 lunar probe is scheduled to blast off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan province just before 5:30 pm (0930 GMT), officials have said.

It is the latest leap for China’s ambitious space programme, which Washington has warned is being used to mask military objectives and an effort to establish extraterrestrial dominance.

The Chang’e-6 aims to collect around two kilograms of lunar samples from the far side of the Moon and bring them back to Earth for analysis.

It is a technically complex 53-day mission that will also see it attempt an unprecedented launch from the side of the Moon that always faces away from Earth.

“Chang’e-6 will collect samples from the far side of the Moon for the first time,” Ge Ping, vice director of China’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, told journalists.

The probe is set to land in the immense South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system.

Once there, it will scoop up lunar soil and rocks, and carry out other experiments in the landing zone.

It must then lift off from the Moon’s surface and retrace its steps back home.



– Space dream –



Plans for China’s “space dream” have been put into overdrive under President Xi Jinping.

Beijing has ploughed huge resources into its space programme over the last decade, targeting a string of ambitious undertakings in an effort to close the gap with the two traditional space powers — the United States and Russia.

The country has notched several notable achievements, including building a space station called Tiangong, or “heavenly palace”, to which it sent a fresh crew of three astronauts last month.

Beijing has landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon, and made China only the third country to independently put humans in orbit.

China aims to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030, and plans to build a base on the lunar surface.

The United States is also planning to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2026 with its Artemis 3 mission.

The rapid advance of China’s space programme has raised alarm bells in Washington, with the head of NASA warning last month that the US was now in a “race” against Beijing.

“We believe that a lot of their so-called civilian space program is a military program,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.



– Dark side of the Moon –



Chang’e-6 is the first of three high-wire uncrewed missions to the Moon planned by China this decade.

Its successor, Chang’e-7, will scour the lunar south pole for water, while Chang’e-8 will attempt to establish the technical feasibility of building a planned base, known as the International Lunar Research Station, with Beijing saying a “basic model” will be completed by 2030.

Scientists say the Moon’s dark side — so-called because it is invisible from Earth, not because it never catches the sun’s rays — holds great promise for research as its craters are less covered by ancient lava flows than the near side.

That might mean it is more possible to collect material that sheds light on how the Moon formed in the first place.

“The samples collected by Chang’e-6 will have a geological age of approximately 4 billion years,” Ge said.

“Collecting lunar samples from different regions and geological ages, and conducting experiments is of great value and significance for humanity.”

 

Canada emissions rose in 2022 but ‘on track’ for 2030 goal: govt

By

 AFP

Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2022 from a pandemic dip the prior year but were still 7.1 percent below a 2005 benchmark, a government report showed Thursday.

Annual total emissions — including carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gasses — were 708 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent, or 7.1 percent below revised 2005 levels.

“The report shows that Canada remains on track to meet our emission reduction goals of 2026 and on track towards 2030,” Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said at a news conference.

Canada has committed to reducing emissions by 40-45 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

The government report however showed that emissions had risen over 2021, as the economy roared back to life from Covid-19 pandemic disruptions, with increases in the transportation sector, the construction and housing sector and parts of the oil and gas industry.

Guilbeault acknowledged the emissions increase, but insisted the overall trend was curving downward.

The report showed that despite the total emissions increase in 2022, a metric of emissions per GDP had continued to steadily decline.

The oil and gas sector remained by far Canada’s most emitting, responsible for 217 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent, or 31 percent of total emissions, according to the annual report.

That was followed by transportation — which is undergoing a massive transformation with a push toward electric vehicles — at 156 megatonnes or 22 percent of the total.

The energy sector, meanwhile, was the biggest driver of CO2 reductions, thanks to a phase out of coal-burning power plants.

Guilbeault said the government would continue to “keep up the momentum with new measures like an oil and gas emissions cap and investments in electric vehicle supply chains.”

Canada has lured several automotive giants such as Honda, Volkswagen and Stellantis to set up electric vehicle and battery plants in Canada, by offering billions of dollars in incentives.

Guilbeault said draft regulations on capping the oil and gas sector’s emissions would be unveiled “by the fall” of this year.

For the first time, Ghana’s Asante King displays long-lost treasure looted by British forces in 1800s

Stephen NarteyMay 02, 2024  

Photo credit: Manhyia Palace

Ghana’s Asante king Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has unveiled the long-lost treasure of the kingdom that was plundered during colonial times by British military forces.

After a decades-long wait, the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum relinquished 32 gold and silver treasures that were looted during the Anglo-Asante Wars in the 19th century. Among the returned artifacts are the state sword referred to as Mpomponsuo and the gold badges of officials responsible for purifying the king’s soul.

There’s also a gold lute harp gifted by Asantehene Osei Bonsu to British diplomat Thomas Edward Bowdich during an 1817 trade agreement, according to RTE News.

Addressing the gathering during the event “Homecoming: adversity and Commemoration,” Otumfuo Osei Tutu II said the first exhibition of the artifacts at Manhyia Palace reflected the “soul of the Asante people”.

DARPA’s Manta Ray UUV 'Underwater Drone' Could Transform the U.S. Navy

DARPA has successfully completed the first in-water testing of the Manta Ray uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) prototype, developed by Northrop Grumman.

by Peter Suciu

May 2, 2024


Summary: DARPA has successfully completed the first in-water testing of the Manta Ray uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) prototype, developed by Northrop Grumman. This testing phase, conducted off the coast of Southern California, confirmed the UUV's hydrodynamic capabilities and operational readiness through various propulsion and steering methods.

-The Manta Ray is designed for extended, autonomous missions in remote oceanic environments, featuring modular construction for easy transport and field assembly. Its efficient buoyancy-driven propulsion and multiple payload bays make it adaptable for diverse naval missions.

-The U.S. Navy sees the Manta Ray as a potential game-changer for long-duration undersea operations, including mapping, mine detection, and surveillance, enhancing security for both military and commercial maritime activities.
DARPA's Manta Ray UUV Prototype Triumphs in Initial Sea Trials

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has moved forward with its Manta Ray uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) prototype and completed the first in-water testing. The Manta Ray, which was built by defense giant Northrop Grumman, completed full-scale, in-water testing off the coast of Southern California earlier this year. The tests demonstrated at-sea hydrodynamic performance, including submerged operations using all of the vehicle’s modes of propulsion and steering: buoyancy, propellers, and control surfaces.

“Our successful, full-scale Manta Ray testing validates the vehicle’s readiness to advance toward real-world operations after being rapidly assembled in the field from modular subsections,” said Kyle Woerner, DARPA program manager for Manta Ray. “The combination of cross-country modular transportation, in-field assembly, and subsequent deployment demonstrates a first-of-kind capability for an extra-large UUV.”

Like a Fish in Water

As previously reported, the Manta Ray’s design was modeled on the aquatic creature, and it is reported to be outfitted with two rear propellers for movement, while it was also designed to operate for extended periods in oceanic environments inaccessible to humans. The UUV was developed in partnership with Seatrec—a renewable energy company—to enhance the understanding of marine environments and operate independently for extended periods.

The prototype was shipped in subsections from the build location in Maryland to its test location in California. The demonstrated ease of shipping and assembly supports the possibility of rapid deployment throughout the world without crowding valuable pier space at naval facilities.

“Shipping the vehicle directly to its intended area of operation conserves energy that the vehicle would otherwise expend during transit,” said Woerner. “Once deployed, the vehicle uses efficient, buoyancy-driven gliding to move through the water. The craft is designed with several payload bays of multiple sizes and types to enable a wide variety of naval mission sets.”

Northrop Grumman completed the assembly of the Mantra Ray earlier this year.
Long-Haul UUVs

The United States Navy aims to develop and demonstrate a new class of long-duration, long-range, payload-capable UUVs ready for persistent operations in dynamic maritime environments. DARPA is engaging with the sea service on the next steps for testing and transition of this technology.

According to Northrop Grumman, the Manta Ray is “payload-capable to support a variety of missions,” while it can operate without the need for on-site human logistics. It can anchor to the seafloor and hibernate in a low-power state, while it is also modular, which could allow for different mission-specific components.

The U.S. Navy hasn’t disclosed exactly what roles the UUV could be employed in, nor have the Manta Ray’s dimensions been disclosed. However, it is apparently large enough that it could serve as a mother ship for smaller UUVs. It was designed for easy transport and assembly on-site from five standard shipping containers, so it could likely be launched from a dock or even a ship at sea.

There has been speculation that the Mantra Ray could be outfitted to conduct undersea mapping, mine detection, and passive surveillance. In the latter role, it could be utilized to monitor for underwater threats to a carrier strike group or even aid in protecting commercial shipping.

Northrop Grumman was awarded a Phase 2 contract in 2021 to continue work on the Manta Ray program that began a year earlier. Phase 2 called for North Grumman Systems Corporation and Martin Defense Group to each build a full-scale tech demonstrator. It now appears the tests are well underway with the demonstrator.

A second Manta Ray performer, PacMar Technologies, is continuing testing of its full-scale energy harvesting system.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.