Porn video interrupts US court hearing for accused Twitter hacker
Issued on: 06/08/2020

The Florida court hearing of the teenager accused of masterminding a major Twitter hack, held online via the Zoom app, was interrupted with rap music and pornography 

Olivier DOULIERY AFP

Miami (AFP)

A court hearing held via Zoom for a US teenager accused of masterminding a stunning hack of Twitter was interrupted Wednesday with rap music and porn, a newspaper reported.

The purpose of the hearing was to discuss reducing bail terms set for the 17 year old Tampa resident arrested last Friday over the hack last month of the accounts of major US celebrities.

But the interruptions with music, shrieking and pornography became so frequent that Judge Christopher Nash ended up suspending it for a while, the Tampa Bay Times said.


Investigators view the youth -- AFP has chosen not to release his name because he is a minor -- as the brains behind the mid-July cyberattack that rocked Twitter.

Hackers accessed dozens of Twitter accounts of people such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Elon Musk, after gaining access to the system with an attack that tricked a handful of employees into giving up their credentials.

The hack affected at least 130 accounts, with tweets posted by the usurpers duping people into sending $100,000 in Bitcoin, supposedly in exchange for double the amount sent.

Bail for the 17 year old was set for $725,000 and in the hearing his lawyers were seeking to reduce it.

After the judge suspended the hearing, and eventually resumed it, hackers went at it again -- with interruptions that disguised their user names as organizations such as CNN and BBC.

In the end, judge Nash ruled against reducing the youth's bail.

He was arrested along with two others, aged 19 and 22, one of whom lives in Britain, and was charged with cyber fraud.

© 2020 AFP

TRUE CANADIAN FACTS 
Dinosaurs got cancer too, say scientists
SCIENTIFIC PROOF SMOKING DOESN'T CAUSE CANCER
"You have an animal that surely wasn't smoking (a leading cause of cancer in humans) and so it shows that cancer is not a recent invention, and that it's not exclusively linked to our environment."

Issued on: 06/08/2020 -

Ottawa (AFP)

Dinosaurs loom in the imagination as forces of nature, but a new study that identifies the first known case of cancer in the creatures shows they suffered from the debilitating disease too.

A badly malformed Centrosaurus leg bone unearthed in the Alberta, Canada badlands in 1989 had originally been thought by paleontologists to be a healed fracture.

But a fresh examination of the growth under a microscope and using a technique also employed in human cancer care determined it was actually a malignant tumor.

"The cancer discovery makes dinosaurs more real," study co-author Mark Crowther told AFP.

"We often think of them as mythical creatures, robust and stomping around, but (the diagnosis shows) they suffered from diseases just like people."

The findings were published in the August issue of The Lancet Oncology.

Most cancers occur in soft tissues, which are not well-preserved in fossil records, noted Crowther, a dinosaur enthusiast and chair of McMaster University's medical faculty in Canada.

"Oddly enough, under a microscope it looked a lot like human Osteosarcoma," he said.

"It's fascinating that this cancer existed tens of millions of years ago and still exists today."

Osteosarcoma is an aggressive bone cancer that still afflicts about three out of one million people each year.

- 'Just part of life' -

In this horned herbivore that lived 76 million to 77 million years ago it had metastasised and likely hobbled the giant lizard, the researchers said in the study.

But neither the late-stage cancer nor a predator looking to make a meal out of slow and weak prey is believed to have killed it.

Because its bones were discovered with more than 100 others from the same herd, the researchers said, it's more likely they all died in a sudden disaster such as a flood, and that prior to this catastrophe the herd protected the lame dinosaur, extending its life.

Lead researchers Crowther and David Evans, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and their team sifted through hundreds of samples of abnormal bones at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, to find the bone with a tumour, which is about the size of an apple.

The team also used high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans, a multidisciplinary diagnostic technique used in human cancer care.

Crowther said dinosaurs would probably have been at higher risk of Osteosarcoma, which affects youths with fast-growing bones, because they grew very quickly and big.

"In terms of the biology of cancer," he said, "you often hear about environmental, dietary and other causes of cancer. Finding a case from more than 75 million years ago you realize it's just a part of life."

"You have an animal that surely wasn't smoking (a leading cause of cancer in humans) and so it shows that cancer is not a recent invention, and that it's not exclusively linked to our environment."© 2020 AFP

Coronavirus pandemic leaves Amazon more vulnerable than ever

THE AMAZON IS SHARED BY BRAZIL, PERU, BOLIVIA, ECUADOR, COLOMBIA, VENEZUELA

Issued on: 06/08/20

A boat travels on the Jurura river in Carauari, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, in March 2020 -- the entire region is facing many challenges, and now must battle the coronavirus crisis as well 

Florence GOISNARD AFP/File

Montevideo (AFP)

The indigenous peoples of the Amazon have already seen their homelands ravaged by illegal deforestation, industrial farming, mining, oil exploration and unlawful occupation of their ancestral territories.

Now, the coronavirus pandemic has magnified their plight, just as the forest fires are raging once more.

The Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, is a vital resource in the race to curb climate change -- it spans over 7.4 million square kilometers (2.85 million square miles).


It covers 40 percent of the surface area of South America, stretching across nine countries and territories: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

Around three million indigenous people -- members of 400 tribes -- live there, according to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO). Around 60 of those tribes live in total isolation.

The following is a look back over at how the novel coronavirus spread through the Amazon jungle, and how those communities are handling the crisis.

- Isolated but not protected -

In mid-March, panic struck Carauari, in western Brazil.

Carauari is home to one of the most isolated communities in the world, and is only accessible by a week-long boat ride from Manaus, the nearest major city.

At first, the virus was seen as a threat that was well removed from the multi-colored houses on stilts that overlook the Jurua river, a tributary of the Amazon.

But the announcement of the first case in Manaus, the regional capital of Amazonas state, quickly sowed panic in the community.

No one in Carauari had forgotten how diseases brought by European colonizers ripped through the native populations in the Americas, nearly eliminating them altogether due to their lack of immunity.

"We're praying to God not to bring this epidemic here. We're doing everything we can -- washing our hands often, like they tell us on TV," said Jose Barbosa das Gracas, 52.

The first confirmed case amongst Brazil's indigenous population was confirmed in early April: a 20-year-old health care worker from the Kokama tribe, who lived near the Colombian border.

She had worked with a doctor who also tested positive.

- Calls for help -

Sensing the mounting threat, indigenous leaders and celebrities sounded the alarm, warning that Amazonian indigenous communities could face annihilation without help.

"There are no doctors in our communities. There is no protective gear to aid prevention," Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, the elected leader of the collective of Amazon indigenous organizations, said in late April.

For Yohana Pantevis, a 34-year-old inhabitant of Leticia, in Colombia's Amazonas state, "falling ill here is always scary, but now we're more afraid than ever."

Brazilian-born photojournalist Sebastiao Salgado, known for his work in the Amazon, warned of the "huge risk of a real catastrophe."

"If the virus gets into the forest, we don't have a way to get help to them. The distances are so huge. The indigenous people will be abandoned," said the 76-year-old.

"I call that genocide -- the elimination of an ethnic group and its culture," he said, accusing the government of Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of anti-indigenous policies.

In early June, iconic indigenous leader Raoni Metuktire accused Bolsonaro of wanting "to take advantage of this disease."

"He's saying, 'Indians have to die, we have to finish them off'," he told AFP in an interview.

- Running scared -

In mid-June, the little indigenous village of Cruzeirinho in Brazil with its wooden huts was left practically deserted as most inhabitants -- fearing coronavirus infection -- fled into the jungle.

They "preferred to take everything they had with them into the forest and avoid contact with others," said resident Bene Mayuruna, who was amongst the few who stayed.

The Brazilian army deployed a team of health workers to Cruzeirinho to provide care for the remaining members of the local tribe.

- Medicinal plants and barricades -

A week's journey by boat from Cruzeirinho, the inhabitants of the Umariacu indigenous reserve adopted a different strategy: they blocked all outsiders from their villages.

"Attention: indigenous land. Closed for 15 days," said a hand-painted sign next to a roadblock at the entrance to the reserve.

The area covers 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) in northern Brazil near the Peruvian and Colombian borders, and is home to about 7,000 people.

To avoid any dependence on the often maxed-out Brazilian public health system, indigenous people often turn to their ancestral traditions.

In mid-May, members of the Satere Mawe ethnic group, wearing colorful feather and leaf headdresses, scoured the river in search of medicinal plants.

"We've been treating our symptoms with our own traditional remedies, the way our ancestors taught us," said Andre Satere Mawe, a tribal leader who lives in a rural area on the outskirts of Manaus.

The Satere Mawe remedies include teas made from the bark of the carapanauba tree, which has anti-inflammatory properties, or the saracuramira tree, an anti-malarial.

- Virus takes hold -

In Manaus, Maria Nunes Sinimbu saw five members of her family die of COVID-19 in less than a month, including three of her 12 children.

"My daughter didn't believe this illness was so serious. She kept working and traveling normally, without taking any precautions," said the 76-year-old retired school teacher.

In late July, the Pan-Amazonian Church Network said more than 27,500 indigenous people belonging to 190 tribes had been infected on the continent with over 1,100 deaths.

Amongst the victims have been important tribal leaders such as Paulinho Paiakan and Aritana Yawalapiti in Brazil, and Peru's Santiago Manuin.

- Indigenous culture under threat -

For many indigenous people living deep in the rainforest, the health crisis has left them with a cruel choice: stay in their villages with limited medical resources or head into bigger towns where they might not be able to practice ancestral funeral rites.

Brazilian Lucita Sanoma lost her two-month-old baby on May 25. The boy was buried, without her knowledge, 300 kilometers (185 miles) from her home village after dying in a hospital in Boa Vista.

The burial followed government health guidelines but ran counter to the traditions of her Yanomami tribe, which dictate that the deceased must be left in the open air in the forest before their bones are collected and cremated.

The ashes are kept in an urn for a long time before eventually being buried in a new ceremony.

In Colombia, Ticuna chief Remberto Cahuamari spoke in early June of his concern that the loss of the older generation to COVID-19 would spell the end of the passing down of ancestral wisdom.

"We'd be left with our young who in the future won't know anything about our cultures and our customs. That's what scares us," he told AFP.

Added to that is the threat of isolation as riverside villages become cut off as authorities suspend boat traffic in a bid to curb the spread of the virus.

- The scourge of wildcat miners -

For the Yanomami people, illegal gold miners are the main problem on their territory, a vast swathe of territory on Brazil's border with Venezuela that is home to about 27,000.

"Without that, we would be fine," said indigenous leader Mauricio Yekuana, whose white mask contrasts with his black face paint.

According to NGOs, around 20,000 gold miners make regular incursions into indigenous land, encouraged by Bolsonaro, who wants to "integrate" those areas with "modernity."

But Greenpeace Brazil warns that gold miners are "potential transmitters" of COVID-19.

A study conducted by Minas Gerais University showed that as many as 40 percent of Yanomami living close to mining areas risked becoming infected with the virus if nothing is done.

- Record deforestation -

While the world's attention is laser-focused on the coronavirus, forest fires continue to ravage the Amazon, after an already challenging 2019.

Land-grabbers in Brazil want to accelerate deforestation to make way for soybean plantations or pasture land for cattle -- two key exports. The resumption of fires is no accident.

"What I saw in the places I went to was that the trees had already been cut down, they just hadn't yet been burnt," Erika Berenguer, a researcher at Oxford and Lancaster universities, said in June.

She feared that "breathing problems caused by the fires" could make things worse for those who contract the coronavirus.

Authorities have a limited ability to prevent deforestation -- and sometimes are found to be complicit in the operations.

The latest figures make for some grim reading: Amazonian deforestation over the first half of the year was 25 percent higher than the same period in 2019, which was already a record, Brazil's national space agency INPE said.

Experts fear August will be particularly devastating.

© 2020 AFP

Brazil adrift as virus toll approaches 100,000

WHEN KEEPING UP WITH AMERICA IS NOT A GOOD IDEAIssued on: 06/08/2020 - 

People walk along a commercial street, in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil on August 4, 2020, amid the new  LONG FIRST WAVE coronavirus pandemic NELSON ALMEIDA AFP


Sao Paulo (AFP)

Five months after confirming its first case of the new coronavirus, Brazil is fast approaching the bleak milestone of 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, a tragedy experts blame on the country's lack of coherent response.

It will be just the second country to cross that grim threshold, after the United States, where the death toll is now over 150,000.

"It's a tragedy, one of the worst Brazil has ever seen," said sociologist Celso Rocha de Barros, as the number of infections in the sprawling South American country approached three million -- also the second-highest in the world, after the US.


Brazil confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus on February 26: a Sao Paulo businessman returning from a trip to Italy.

The country of 212 million people registered its first death on March 16.

"At that point, Brazil was more or less getting organized to deal with the pandemic," said Paulo Lotufo, an epidemiologist at the University of Sao Paulo.

But then, political chaos ensued.

Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro condemned the "hysteria" around the virus and railed against decisions by state and local authorities to impose stay-at-home measures to contain it, arguing the economic damage would be worse than the disease.

Meanwhile, the country's infection curve exploded.

Chilling images emerged from Sao Paulo of six-minute speed burials by grave-diggers clad head-to-toe in protective gear and mass plots excavated by bulldozers in the Amazon city of Manaus.

The curve has plateaued in recent weeks, but at a high level: Brazil has registered an average of around 1,000 deaths per day for more than a month.

The toll stood at 2.9 million infections and 97,256 deaths late Wednesday. The country appeared to be on track to record its 100,000th death at the weekend.

- 'Face up to it' -

A fervent advocate of the drug hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19 -- despite a lack of evidence for its effectiveness -- Bolsonaro churned through two health ministers in less than a month, after falling out with them over the response to the pandemic.

The post is now held on an interim basis by an army general with no prior medical experience.

The president meanwhile has continued to downplay the virus, even after catching it himself last month. He was forced into quarantine for three weeks.

"Nearly everyone here is going to catch it eventually. What are you afraid of? Face up to it," he said after emerging from isolation.

The message from the Bolsonaro government has been "the exact opposite" of what it should have been, said Barros.

"Lockdown is difficult. It has to be coordinated by a leader with political credibility," he told AFP.

"You have to explain to people that it's hard, but necessary to avoid a massacre."

Instead, most Brazilian states started exiting lockdown in June, under pressure from Bolsonaro and despite warnings from experts that it was too soon.

Beaches, bars and restaurants were soon packed, even as the death toll continued to soar.

The virus has hit hardest among poor and black Brazilians, especially in the favelas -- slums where crowded living conditions and lack of clean, running water make social distancing and hand-washing difficult.

The Amazon region has also been devastated, particularly indigenous peoples, who have a history of vulnerability to outside diseases.

- 'Feeling of powerlessness' -

As states now start to consider reopening schools, "the way people behave in the coming weeks will be decisive," said Lotufo.

The country is in a strange gray zone between crisis mode and normality.

"It's shocking to see some people partying while so many others are dying," said Andre Rezende, a driver for a ride-hailing service whose mother-in-law died of COVID-19 and whose brother just came out of 30 days in intensive care with the virus.

"A lot of people are getting back to normal life. The feeling of powerlessness makes some people think, 'Might as well try to live normally, because there's no solution to this,'" said Barros.

Some are putting their faith in one of the two vaccines that are currently in advanced clinical trials in Brazil -- an ideal testing ground because the virus is still spreading so fast.

© 2020 AFP

VIDEO
In Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, locals divided over legalisation of medical marijuana

Issued on: 03/08/2020 -

FOCUS © FRANCE 24

By:Mayssa AWAD|Romeo LANGLOIS|Catherine NORRIS-TRENT

For thirty years, the Lebanese government tried to crack down on marijuana production. But in May of this year, in a bid to save the ailing economy, the Lebanese parliament legalised marijuana for medical use. However, local villagers have greeted the move with suspicion. Our team reports from the Beqaa Valley in north-eastern Lebanon, where the marijuana harvest season has begun.

'How can I help?': Lebanon's diaspora mobilizes in wake of blast
Issued on: 06/08/2020

Lebanese come together for a vigil held at Kensington gardens in central London to honour the victims of the Beirut blast on August 5, 2020. Tolga Akmen AFP

Los Angeles (AFP)

Lebanon's diaspora, estimated at nearly three times the size of the tiny country's populatio of five million, has stepped up to provide assistance following the massive explosion that laid waste to the capital Beirut.

Lebanese expats rushed to wire money to loved ones who lost their homes or were injured in the blast on Tuesday that killed at least 113 people, while others worked to create special funds to address the tragedy.

"I've been on the phone all morning with ... our partners in order to put together an alliance for an emergency fund in light of the explosion," said George Akiki, co-founder and CEO of LebNet, a non-profit based in California's Silicon Valley that helps Lebanese professionals in the United States and Canada. "Everyone, both Lebanese and non-Lebanese, wants to help."
Akiki said his group, along with other organizations such as SEAL and Life Lebanon, have set up Beirut Emergency Fund 2020, which will raise much-needed money and channel it to safe and reputable organizations in Lebanon.

Many Lebanese expats, who almost all have loved ones or friends impacted by the disaster, are also helping individually or have started online fundraisers.

"As a first step, my wife Hala and I will match at least $10,000 in donations and later on we will provide more help towards rebuilding and other projects," Habib Haddad, a tech entrepreneur and member of LebNet based in Boston, Massachusetts, told AFP.

He said many fellow compatriots are doing the same, channeling their grief and anger toward helping their stricken homeland, which before the blast was already reeling from a deep economic and political crisis that has left more than half the population living in poverty.

"They're asking Lebanese emigrants around the world to try and help," said Maroun Daccache, owner of a Lebanese restaurant in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a country that has an estimated seven million people of Lebanese descent.

"I'm trying to help with something but here the business is not very good because of the pandemic. Still, we are much better off than those over there," Daccache said.

- 'Terrible and heartbreaking' -

Even before the tragedy, Lebanon heavily relied on its diaspora for cash remittances but these inflows had slowed in the last year given the country's political crisis.

Expats also usually visit home every summer, injecting much-needed cash into the economy. But the diaspora this year has largely been absent because of the COVID-19 pandemic and many had become increasingly skeptical and reluctant to send aid to a country where corruption is widespread and permeates all levels of society.

"People are outraged by the mismanagement of the country and they want to help, but no one trusts the people in charge," said Najib Khoury-Haddad, a tech entrepreneur in the San Francisco area, echoing the feeling of many Lebanese leery of giving money to a dysfunctional government.

"I heard that the government has set up a relief fund but who would trust them?" he added.

Ghislaine Khairalla, 55, of Washington DC, said one idea being floated was to pair a needy family in Beirut with one outside the country that could provide a safe and direct source of assistance.

"We (the diaspora) are the financial bloodline especially since the economy is not going to recover anytime soon," Khairalla, whose brother's home was reduced to rubble by the blast, said. "And we are lucky to have a kind of stable life here. We are physically outside Lebanon but our hearts and emotions are there."

Nayla Habib, a Lebanese-Canadian who lives in Montreal, said she planned to help in whatever way she can and expressed outrage at reports that the blast was caused by more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the Beirut port, which is located in the heart of the densely populated city.

"My God, the state of our country is terrible and heartbreaking," Habib told AFP. "I donated before the blast to a lady that helps feed the poor and I will donate again.

"Whatever I give is like a drop in the ocean but it's necessary," she added. "I live in Canada but part of my heart is still there."

© 2020 AFP

Chemical linked to Beirut blast caused past explosions in Texas, Toulouse
Issued on: 05/08/2020 -

A worker lifts a sack of confiscated ammonium nitrate at the customs office of Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, September 22, 2016. © Sonny Tumbelaka, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES|

Video by:Shirli SITBON AT THE END

Ammonium nitrate, which Lebanese authorities have said caused the devastating Beirut blast, is an odorless crystalline substance commonly used as a fertilizer that has been the cause of numerous industrial explosions over the decades.


These include notably at a Texas fertilizer plant in 2013 that killed 15 and was ruled deliberate, and another at a chemical plant in Toulouse, France in 2001 that killed 31 people but was accidental.

When combined with fuel oils, ammonium nitrate creates a potent explosive widely used in the construction industry, but also by insurgent groups such as the Taliban for improvised explosives.

Two tonnes of it was used to create the bomb in the 1995 Oklahoma City attack that destroyed a federal building, leaving 168 people dead.

Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored for years in a Beirut portside warehouse had blown up, killing dozens of people and causing widespread damage to the Lebanese capital.

In agriculture, ammonium nitrate fertilizer is applied in granule form and quickly dissolves under moisture, allowing nitrogen -- which is key to plant growth -- to be released into the soil.

Generally strict rules on storage

However, under normal storage conditions and without very high heat, it is difficult to ignite ammonium nitrate, Jimmie Oxley, a chemistry professor at the University of Rhode Island, told AFP.

"If you look at the video (of the Beirut explosion), you saw the black smoke, you saw the red smoke -- that was an incomplete reaction," she said.

"I am assuming that there was a small explosion that instigated the reaction of the ammonium nitrate -- whether that small explosion was an accident or something on purpose I haven't heard yet."

That's because ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer -- it intensifies combustion and allows other substances to ignite more readily, but is not itself very combustible.

For these reasons, there are generally very strict rules about where it can be stored: for example, it must be kept away from fuels and sources of heat.

In fact, many countries in the European Union require calcium carbonate to be added to ammonium nitrate to create calcium ammonium nitrate, which is safer.

In the United States, regulations were tightened significantly after the Oklahoma City attack.

Under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, for example, facilities that store more than 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate are subject to inspections.

Despite its dangers, Oxley said legitimate uses of ammonium nitrate in agriculture and construction have made it indispensable.

"We wouldn't have this modern world without explosives, and we wouldn't feed the population we have today without ammonium nitrate fertilizer," she said.

"We need ammonium nitrate, we just need to pay good attention to what we're doing with it.”

(AFP)

I WORKED FOR LIQUID AIRE CANADA EDMONTON IN MY EARLY UNIVERSITY DAYS

IT WAS A GAS PLANT WE USED THIS IN OUR PLANT AS WELL PRODUCING OTHER DANGEROUS MATERIALS LIKE ACETYLENE, IN THE MIDDLE OF EDMONTON NOT FAR FROM WHERE I LIVE NOW. THE PLANT IS NOW A CLEANING PLANT, WAIT THATS JUST AS DANGEROUS

'State, what state?' Lebanese together in solidarity and rage

THIS IS WHAT REAL ANARCHY LOOKS LIKE!
MUTUAL AID, SOLIDARITY, DIRECT ACTION (DIY)
Issued on: 06/08/2020 

The day after a massive explosion at Beirut's port devastated the Lebanese capital's Mar Mikhail district, a spontaneous cleanup operation was underway

PATRICK BAZ AFP

Beirut (AFP)

In Beirut's beloved bar districts, hundreds of young Lebanese ditched beers for brooms on Wednesday to sweep debris in the absence of a state-sponsored cleanup operation following a deadly blast.

"What state?" scoffed 42-year-old Melissa Fadlallah, a volunteer cleaning up the hard-hit Mar Mikhail district of the Lebanese capital.

The explosion, which hit just a few hundred metres (yards) away at Beirut's port, blew all the windows and doors off Mar Mikhail's pubs, restaurants and apartment homes on Tuesday.

By Wednesday, a spontaneous cleanup operation was underway there, a glimmer of youthful solidarity and hope after a devastating night.

Wearing plastic gloves and a mask, Fadlallah tossed a shard of glass as long as her arm at the door of the state electricity company's administrative building that looms over the district.

"For me, this state is a dump -- and on behalf of yesterday's victims, the dump that killed them is going to stay a dump," she told AFP.
The blast killed more than 110 people, wounded thousands and compounded public anger that erupted in protests last year against a government seen as corrupt and inefficient.

"We're trying to fix this country. We've been trying to fix it for nine months but now we're going to do it our way," said Fadlallah.

"If we had a real state, it would have been in the street since last night cleaning and working. Where are they?"

- 'Even a smile' -

A few civil defence workers could be seen examining building structures but they were vastly outnumbered by young volunteers flooding the streets to help.

In small groups, they energetically swept up glass beneath blown-out buildings, dragging them into plastic bags.

Others clambered up debris-strewn stairwells to offer their homes to residents who had spent the previous night in the open air.

"We're sending people into the damaged homes of the elderly and handicapped to help them find a home for tonight," said Husam Abu Nasr, a 30-year-old volunteer.

"We don't have a state to take these steps, so we took matters into our own hands," he said.
Towns across the country have offered to host Beirut families with damaged homes and the Maronite Catholic patriarchate announced it would open its monasteries and religious schools to those needing shelter.

Food was quickly taken care of, too: plastic tables loaded with donated water bottles, sandwiches and snacks were set up within hours.

"I can't help by carrying things, so we brought food, water, chocolate and moral support," said Rita Ferzli, 26.

"I think everyone should be here helping, especially young people. No one should be sitting at home -- even a smile is helping right now."

- 'This is it' -

Business owners swiftly took to social media, posting offers to repair doors, paint damaged walls or replace shattered windows for free.

Abdo Amer, who owns window company Curtain Glass, said he was moved to make such an offer after narrowly surviving the blast.

"I had driven by the port just three minutes earlier," the 37-year-old said.

He offered to replace windows for half the price, but said he was fixing some for free given the devastating situation for many families following the Lebanese currency's staggering devaluation in recent months.

"I've gotten more than 7,000 phone calls today and I can't keep up," said the father of four.

"You think the state will take up this work? Actually, let them step down and leave."

Outrage at the government was palpable among volunteers, many of whom blamed government officials for failing to remove explosive materials left at the port for years.

"They're all sitting in their chairs in the AC while people are wearing themselves out in the street," said Mohammad Suyur, 30, as he helped sweep on Wednesday.

"The last thing in the world they care about is this country and the people who live in it."

He said activists were preparing to reignite the protest movement that launched in October.

"We can't bear more than this. This is it. The whole system has got to go," he said.

© 2020 AFP

Lebanon has less than a month's grain reserves after Beirut blast
Issued on: 05/08/2020 -

In this photograph taken on July 15, 2020, a woman spreads bulgur to dry in the sun after grinding it in the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun. © Joseph Eid, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Lebanon's main grain silo at Beirut port was destroyed in a blast, leaving the nation with less than a month's reserves of the grain but still with enough flour to avoid a crisis, the economy minister said on Wednesday.

Raoul Nehme told Reuters a day after Tuesday's devastating explosion that Lebanon needed reserves for at least three months to ensure food security and was looking at other storage areas.

The explosion was the most powerful to rip through Beirut, a city torn apart by civil war three decades ago. The economy was already in meltdown before the blast, slowing grain imports as the nation struggled to find hard currency for purchases.

"There is no bread or flour crisis," the minister said. "We have enough inventory and boats on their way to cover the needs of Lebanon on the long term.”

He said grain reserves in Lebanon's remaining silos stood at "a bit less than a month" but said the destroyed silos had only held 15,000 tonnes of the grain at the time, much less than capacity which one official put at 120,000 tonnes.

Beirut's port district was a mangled wreck, disabling the main entry point for imports to feed a nation of more than 6 million people.

Ahmed Tamer, the director of Tripoli port, Lebanon's second biggest facility, said his port did not have grain storage but cargoes could be taken to warehouses 2 km (about one mile) away.

"I want to reassure all Lebanese that we can receive the vessels," he said.

Alongside Tripoli, the ports of Saida, Selaata and Jiyeh were also equipped to handle grain, the economy minister said.

But former Deputy Prime Minister Ghassan Hasbani said other ports did not have the same capabilities.

Hani Bohsali, head of the importers' syndicate said: "We fear there will be a huge supply chain problem, unless there is an international consensus to save us.”

Reserves of flour were sufficient to cover market needs for a month and a half and there were four ships carrying 28,000 tonnes of wheat heading to Lebanon, Ahmed Hattit, the head of the wheat importers union, told Al-Akhbar newspaper.

Lebanon is trying to transfer immediately four vessels carrying 25,000 tonnes of flour to the port in Tripoli, one official told LBCI news channel.

(REUTERS)

THEY ARE KNOWN AS SEX WORKERS NOW
Controversial ‘Hookers for Jesus’ group to get more federal money as Bill Barr and Ivanka Trump announce anti-sex trafficking effort

AND THEY ARE NOT HAPPY ABOUT THEIR WORKING CONDITIONS 
Published on August 5, 2020 By Sky Palma


The Las Vegas-based group Hookers for Jesus has won a grant from the Justice Department less than a year after whistleblowers raised red flags about federal funds being awarded to the organization, Reuters reports.

The complaint from union officials says the group, which is run by a born-again Christian survivor of sex trafficking and operates a safe house for adult trafficking victims, got its grant due to political favoritism.A previous Reuters report revealed that the group required residents of the safe house to go to church, complete Christian homework, and banned them from reading “secular magazines with articles, pictures, etc. that portray worldly views/advice on living, sex, clothing, makeup tips.” As Reuters points out, recipients of federal funds are not allowed to use the funds to promote religion.

The group will now receive $498,764 in new federal funding, which is part of a $35 million grant to trafficking victims unveiled at the White House on Tuesday by Attorney General William Barr and Ivanka Trump.

Read the full report over at Reuters.