THIRD WORLD USA 

Study: Most Americans don't have enough assets to withstand 3 months without income

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- A new study from Oregon State University found that 77% of low- to moderate-income American households fall below the asset poverty threshold, meaning that if their income were cut off they would not have the financial assets to maintain at least poverty-level status for three months.

The study compared asset poverty rates in the U.S. and Canada. Canada's asset poverty rate has improved over the past 20 years while the U.S. rate has worsened, but still, 62% of low- to moderate-income Canadians also fall below the asset poverty threshold.

The implications of these findings have become starkly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, said David Rothwell, lead author on the study and an associate professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

"The fact that the U.S. safety net is so connected to work, and then you have this huge shock to employment, you have a system that's not prepared to handle such a big change to the employment system ... It results concretely in family stress and strain, and then that strain and stress relates to negative outcomes for children and families," Rothwell said.

The study, published last week in the journal Social Policy Administration, looked at financial assets such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds, rather than real assets like houses and property, because financial assets are easier to cash in and use in an emergency. Existing research has found that U.S. wealth inequality is more pronounced that income inequality.

Researchers used data from nationally representative financial surveys in Canada and the U.S. from 1998 through 2016, looking at low- to moderate-income households, defined as those in the bottom 50% of income distribution in each country, headed by working age adults age 25-54.

Rothwell and co-authors Leanne Giordono from OSU and Jennifer Robson from Carleton University in Ontario, Canada, were investigating how asset poverty changed over time in the two countries and how that change was affected by changes in transfer share -- the portion of household income that comes from government assistance. They chose the U.S. and Canada because of their close geographic proximity and similar legal traditions but significantly different welfare policies.

In 1998, Canada's asset poverty rate among low- to moderate-income households was 74%, compared with 67% in the U.S. The two rates were nearly identical in 2005, then Canada's kept falling and the U.S. rate kept rising, arriving at 62% and 77% in 2016.

Canada spends twice what the U.S. does on financial assistance for families, and much of it is spent in cash benefits, rather than in-kind benefits like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP, formerly food stamps) in the U.S. In 2016, 96% of low- to moderate-income Canadian households received some transfer income from the government. In the U.S., that number was 41%.

For the most part, results showed that more generous welfare policies were associated with greater rates of asset poverty in Canada, Rothwell said. There, as the government reduced the amount of public assistance families received as a proportion of their income over time, asset poverty improved.

However, he said, this relationship between welfare generosity and asset poverty should be interpreted as correlational, not causal, and the topic warrants further study. Because the levels of public assistance are greater in Canada than the U.S., it's hard to extend results from one country to the other, but when controlling for demographic characteristics, researchers found that decreasing transfer share has no impact on the risk of asset poverty in the U.S.

"What stands out there is, so few American families receive any type of transfers at all, compared to other countries, and small adjustments to an already minimal safety net was not related to asset poverty in this study," Rothwell said. In contrast, Canadian families receive a child benefit, a monthly cash payment of several hundred dollars to help with the cost of raising a child.

Many safety net programs, including Medicaid and SNAP, also disincentivize saving because they impose asset limits on people seeking assistance. Rothwell calls these a "poverty trap."

"If you have someone who's low-income and they are working hard trying to save money but you're telling them that they're going to lose benefits if they save over some given threshold, that's a disincentive to accumulate wealth," he said.

Rothwell notes that asset poverty rates are much higher among people of color, due to decades of discriminatory laws and policies that prevented Black people, in particular, from buying and owning homes or securing well-paying jobs.

"This is the story of COVID, as I see it -- it's just exposing these existing inequalities, and the people who are most vulnerable going into the crisis are magnified in their vulnerability getting through it," Rothwell said.

A study coming out later this year from the same research team will look specifically at racial and ethnic asset disparities and how they impact people's health, he said.

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Lava tubes on Mars and the Moon are so wide they can host planetary bases

UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA

IMAGE: THE MORPHOLOGICAL SURFACE EXPRESSION OF LAVA TUBES ON MARS AND THE MOON IS SIMILAR TO THEIR TERRESTRIAL COUNTERPART. view more 

CREDIT: ESA / LUCA RICCI

The international journal Earth-Science Reviews published a paper offering an overview of the lava tubes (pyroducts) on Earth, eventually providing an estimate of the (greater) size of their lunar and Martian counterparts.

This study involved the Universities of Bologna and Padua and its coordinators are Francesco Sauro and Riccardo Pozzobon. Francesco Sauro is a speleologist and head of the ESA programmes CAVES and PANGAEA, he is also a professor at the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna. Riccardo Pozzobon is a planetary geologist at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua.

"We can find lava tubes on planet Earth, but also on the subsurface of the Moon and Mars according to the high-resolution pictures of lava tubes' skylights taken by interplanetary probes. Evidence of lava tubes was often inferred by observing linear cavities and sinuous collapse chains where the galleries cracked", explains Francesco Sauro. "These collapse chains represent ideal gateways or windows for subsurface exploration. The morphological surface expression of lava tubes on Mars and the Moon is similar to their terrestrial counterpart. Speleologists thoroughly studied lava tubes on Earth in Hawaii, Canary Islands, Australia and Iceland".

"We measured the size and gathered the morphology of lunar and Martian collapse chains (collapsed lava tubes), using digital terrain models (DTMs), which we obtained through satellite stereoscopic images and laser altimetry taken by interplanetary probes", reminds Riccardo Pozzobon. "We then compared these data to topographic studies about similar collapse chains on the Earth's surface and to laser scans of the inside of lava tubes in Lanzarote and the Galapagos. These data allowed to establish a restriction to the relationship between collapse chains and subsurface cavities that are still intact".

Researchers found that Martian and lunar tubes are respectively 100 and 1,000 times wider than those on Earth, which typically have a diameter of 10 to 30 meters. Lower gravity and its effect on volcanism explain these outstanding dimensions (with total volumes exceeding 1 billion of cubic meters on the Moon).

Riccardo Pozzobon adds: "Tubes as wide as these can be longer than 40 kilometres, making the Moon an extraordinary target for subsurface exploration and potential settlement in the wide protected and stable environments of lava tubes. The latter are so big they can contain Padua's entire city centre".

"What is most important is that, despite the impressive dimension of the lunar tubes, they remain well within the roof stability threshold because of a lower gravitational attraction", explains Matteo Massironi, who is professor of Structural and Planetary Geology at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua. "This means that the majority of lava tubes underneath the maria smooth plains are intact. The collapse chains we observed might have been caused by asteroids piercing the tube walls. This is what the collapse chains in Marius Hills seem to suggest. From the latter, we can get access to these huge underground cavities".

Francesco Sauro concludes: "Lava tubes could provide stable shields from cosmic and solar radiation and micrometeorite impacts which are often happening on the surfaces of planetary bodies. Moreover, they have great potential for providing an environment in which temperatures do not vary from day- to night-time. Space agencies are now interested in planetary caves and lava tubes, as they represent a first step towards future explorations of the lunar surface (see also NASA's project Artemis) and towards finding life (past or present) in Mars subsurface".

Researchers also point out how this study opens up to a completely new perspective in planetary exploration, which is increasingly focusing on the subsurface of Mars and the Moon.

"In autumn 2019, ESA called up universities and industries with a campaign seeking ideas for developing technologies for lunar caves exploration. They are specifically looking for systems that would land on the lunar surface to operate missions exploring lunar tubes", clarifies Unibo professor Jo De Waele, who is one of the authors of the study and a speleologist. "Since 2012, in collaboration with some European universities including Bologna and Padua, ESA has been carrying out two training programmes for astronauts focusing on the exploration of underground systems (CAVES) and planetary geology (PANGAEA). These programmes include lava tubes on the island of Lanzarote. So far, 36 astronauts from five space agencies have received training in cave hiking; moreover, six astronauts and four mission and operation specialists have received geological field training".

###

The title of this study is "Lava tubes on Earth, Moon and Mars: A review on their size and morphology revealed by comparative planetology" and it was published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews. The authors are: Francesco Sauro, Jo De Waele and Pierluigi De Berardinis (Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences of the University of Bologna); Riccardo Pozzobon and Matteo Massironi (Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua); Tommaso Santagata (VIGEA - Virtual Geographic Agency in Reggio Emilia).

Raphael's face reconstructed to solve tomb mystery

Issued on: 06/08/2020 - 18:28

This is how Raphael looked, although he wouldn't have liked the accurate depiction of his nose Tor Vergata University of Rome/AFP

Rome (AFP)

Art sleuths have created a 3D reconstruction of the face of Italian painter Raphael, solving an age-old mystery over his final resting place, Rome's Tor Vergata University told AFP Thursday.

The artist, a child prodigy and part of a trinity of Renaissance greats along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, died in 1520, aged only 37. A red rose graces his tomb in Rome's Pantheon all year round.

His body was exhumed in the 19th century, at which point a plaster cast of his skull was made. But experts were not sure the remains really belonged to Raphael, for the excavation also unearthed other full and partial skeletons.
Several of the skeletons belonged to the artist's students, but others went unidentified.

Popular myth has it that the Renaissance painter, who was said to have had an active sex life, succumbed to syphilis in 1520, though experts widely agree that he died of pneumonia, possibly after visiting lovers late on freezing nights.

As Rome marked 500 years since his death this year, the university team set about making a 3D reconstruction of the plaster cast.

It found a clear match with the Raphael pictured in portraits by other artists in the period, as well as the artist's self-portraits, molecular biology expert Mattia Falconi told AFP.

"We have concrete evidence for the first time that the skeleton exhumed in 1833 belongs to Raffaello Sanzio," Falconi said.

- 'Not his nose' -

A 3D-reconstruction "only captures 80 percent of the original face, but there's no doubt about the result. It looks nothing like the students we know are buried there, and it would be too much of a coincidence for a stranger to look so similar".

Falconi said the only part of the face that could not be reconstructed this way were the ears -- "but fortunately Raphael had long hair that covered his ears".
Confirmation the skeleton is Raphael's opens the door to further analysis of the skeleton to determine hair and eye colour.

A project to re-exhume the body this year was put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, but if it resumes Falconi said his team would be interested in seeing how faithful the artist was to his real self.

"The 3D model shows the eyes and mouth (in the portraits) are his, but he has been kind to himself about his nose," he said.

"We know that Raphael often painted himself younger than his years, and this model allows us to see him as he really was".

A life-size 3D-printed bust of the man dubbed the "Prince of Painters" by fellow artist and famed 16th-century biographer Giorgio Vasari will go on display at the museum at his birthplace in Urbino in Italy's Marche region.

Despite his premature death, Raphael produced a vast oeuvre of seminal work, much of it at the Vatican, whose opulent museums include several rooms filled with his frescoes.

Completed by Raphael's students after his death, they remain some of the Vatican's most popular rooms.

© 2020 AFP

Climate change to bring longer droughts in Europe: study

The intense drought in Europe from 2018 to 2019 was the first two-year dry period in 250 years, the study found 

Patrick Pleul dpa/AFP/File
Issued on: 06/08/2020 

Paris (AFP)

Punishing two-year droughts like the record-breaking one that gripped Central Europe from 2018 to 2019 could become much more frequent if the region fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions, researchers said Thursday, affecting huge swathes of its cultivated land.

The five hottest years in recorded history have occurred in the last five years.

This extreme heat was exacerbated in 2018 and 2019 by two consecutive summers of drought that affected more than half of Central Europe, according to a new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

Researchers in Germany and the Czech Republic used data going back to 1766 to conclude the drought was the largest-scale and most severe dry spell ever recorded.

"The observational record suggests that the ongoing 2018–2019 European drought event is unprecedented in the last 250 years, with substanprolongedtial implications for vegetation health," the study said.

Researchers then sought to estimate whether prolonged droughts would become more frequent in the future by using global climate change models.

Under a scenario where greenhouse gas emissions continue their inexorable rise, the researchers predicted that the number of extreme two-year droughts will increase sevenfold in Europe in the second half of this century.

"This projection also suggested that drought-affected cropland areas across Central Europe will nearly double," said co-author Rohini Kumar, of the UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, in Leipzig.

This would result in a total of 40 million hectares of cultivated land affected -- equivalent to 60 percent of all crop areas in the region.

When researchers modelled for moderate emissions, the predicted number of two-year droughts halved compared to the worst case scenario, while the area expected to be hit by the drought also reduced.

Kumar said this suggests a reduction in emissions could lower the risk of these damaging dry periods.

- Threat to agriculture -


The researcher said a two-year dry period presents a far greater threat to vegetation than the single-summer droughts of previous years because the land cannot recover as quickly.

He said around a fifth of the Central European region had recorded poor vegetation health in the last two years.

"Thus, it is with the utmost urgency that we need to recognise the importance of these persevering consecutive year events, and to develop a holistic framework to model the risk," he added.

The study defined Central Europe as including parts of Germany, France, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, as well as Czech Republic, Belgium, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia.

Over 34 percent of the total land area in the region is extensively used for agricultural purposes, it said.

The 2015 Paris climate deal commits nations to capping temperature rises to "well-below" 2C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and to strive for a 1.5C limit if at all possible.

With just 1C of warming so far, Earth is already buffeted by record-breaking droughts, wildfires and super storms made more potent by rising sea levels.

To keep in line with the 1.5C target, the United Nations says global emissions must fall by 7.6 percent every year this decade.

© 2020 AFP

What we know so far about COVID-19 and children

Issued on: 06/08/2020

We know for sure children are less likely to fall seriously ill from the coronavirus, and emerging evidence suggests they're less likely to be infected too; what's less clear is how much they spread the virus once infected CESAR MANSO AFP/File

Washington (AFP)

President Donald Trump has been censored on Facebook and Twitter after saying children are "almost immune" from COVID-19. What do the facts say?

We know for sure children are less likely to fall seriously ill from the coronavirus, and emerging evidence suggests they're less likely to be infected too.

What's less clear is how much they spread the virus once infected.


- Children rarely become seriously ill -

Under-18s have accounted for just two percent of hospitalized COVID-19 cases and less than 0.1 percent of all deaths in the United States, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A total of 45 children died from the coronavirus in the United States between February 1 and August 1 -- compared to 105 who died from seasonal flu -- out of a total of 13,000 children who died of all of causes over the period.

When they do catch the virus, children are far less likely than adults to fall seriously ill.

An informative study of 2,143 confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus among children in China found 94 percent of cases were asymptomatic, mild or moderate.

Those children who do fall ill often have underlying conditions. A study found all 10 pediatric patients who were hospitalized in Chicago in March and April with COVID-19 had either pre-existing conditions or co-infections.

The bottom line here is that children get sick and die from COVID-19 far less often than adults do, though that does not mean they are immune.

Some limited research indicates infants (under one) may be at slightly higher risk than older children.

It's worth emphasizing that given that children are more prone to severe cases of flu, it wasn't obvious at the start of the pandemic that children would be less susceptible to COVID-19.

There is also a highly rare, post-viral condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) which can develop about a month after SARS-CoV-2 infection and causes multiple organs to become painfully inflamed.

As of July 15, the CDC had reported 342 cases and six deaths -- a death rate of under two percent. The average age was eight-years-old, and 70 percent of cases occurred among either Hispanic or black children.

- They seem less likely to contract the virus -

The next question is, are children major drivers of viral transmission? This breaks down into two parts: 1) How easily do they become infected? 2) How much do they spread the virus once they have it?

There have now been several studies on the first part that do indeed seem to suggest children, especially younger children are infected less often.

Icelandic researchers selected just over 13,000 people for viral screening, including some 850 children under 10. The overall prevalence of the coronavirus was 0.8 percent, but no children under 10 were infected.

Similar surveys carried out in Spain, Italy and Switzerland all had similar results, finding children accounted for a far smaller proportion of infections compared to adults.

That said, this remains an area of ongoing study.

In the US, top infectious diseases official Anthony Fauci is leading a study into the question of infection and transmission rates among children and adults, with results expected by December.

- We don't know yet how contagious children are -

This is perhaps the most pressing question as authorities consider when and how to reopen schools.

If children are major spreaders, then they could cause fresh outbreaks within their homes and communities -- and unfortunately the evidence right now on this point is mixed.

A study out of Chicago that appeared last week found that children under the age of five carry between 10 to 100 times greater levels of viral nucleic acid in their noses compared to adults.

Since this genetic material causes the virus to grow in labs, the authors suggested that children are probably important drivers of transmission.

That hypothesis merits more study but is not yet proven.

Another way of approaching the problem is through the lens of epidemiology -- that is, what happened in real life?

On the one hand, spectacular clusters have erupted -- for example at a summer camp in the US state of Georgia where hundreds of unmasked children who slept together in large dorms were infected.

Israel, too has been a cautionary tale, with outbreaks in multiple schools that infected hundreds of students, teachers and relatives.

Conversely, a large study in South Korea showed that children under the age of 10 infect household contacts at much lower rates than those above 10 and adults.

As for possible reasons as to why children seem to get infected less -- no one knows for sure, but there are ideas.

Maybe the virus can't latch on as readily to the cell receptors of children.

Another theory gaining more traction is that the four coronaviruses that cause the common cold are remembered by the body's T cells -- white blood cells that fight infections -- which then provide cross immunity.

Since children often get colds, they may have more immunity than adults.

The hypothesis remains to be tested through widespread screening.

© 2020 AFP

Authorities evacuate homes near melting glacier in Italian Alps


Homes were evacuated Thursday near the Planpinceux Glacier on Mont Blanc amid fears of an imminent landslide, in Valle d'Aosta, northwest Italy. File Photo by Riccardo Dalle Luche/EPA-EFE

Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Italian authorities evacuated homes and closed roads in the Aosta Valley Thursday amid concerns that portions of the Mont Blanc glacier could break apart.

At least 65 people, most tourists, were evacuated in the hamlet of Val Ferret beneath the Planpincieux Glacier in Grandes Jorasses Park.

Glacier experts from the Safe Mountains Foundation warned that 500,000 cubic meters of ice are in danger of breaking off. Mont Blanc is the highest peak in the Alps at 15,748 feet.A similar threat last fall forced officials to close roads around the glacier. The region has been closely monitored since 2013 because of the speed of the glacier's melting ice.

A couple died in the area two years ago when their vehicle was swept off the road during a heavy storm. That road has remained closed.

Column: I'm in Canada, where the COVID police are watching

Doyle McManus

LA TimesAugust 5, 2020

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has urged provincial leaders to be cautious in their coronavirus policies.  (Associated Press)

For two weeks, we waited for the pandemic police to come.

In mid-July, my wife and I headed on vacation to a rustic cabin her father built 65 years ago on a small lake north of Toronto.

Most Americans can’t visit Canada these days. Because of the coronavirus threat, both countries have closed their borders to nonessential traffic.

But my spouse is a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, so we were allowed in — as long as we agreed to quarantine ourselves for 14 days.

Not a symbolic, wear-a-mask-and-keep-your-distance-but-go-about-your-business quarantine; a real one — no venturing beyond the cabin and the dock. No shopping trips, no long walks, no visitors.

And no swimming in the lake — a question I rashly asked one of the public health officers who telephoned almost every day to check on us.

“I’m sorry, but no,” he said. “It’s a public lake. You might run into someone out there. And if you got into trouble, someone would have to fish you out.”

“I’m really sorry,” he added. He sounded like he meant it.

But he also reminded me that the Ontario Provincial Police could show up at any time to make sure we weren’t breaking the rules — and that we could be fined the equivalent of U.S. $206 to $1,125.

He wasn’t kidding. In June, two Ontario men who violated quarantine after a visit to Minnesota were each fined about U.S. $850. Seven Americans who took an unauthorized hike in Banff National Park were each fined about U.S. $900.

It's one reason Canada is doing so much better in this pandemic than we are: Unlike Americans, they set tough rules — and mostly obey them.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set guidelines to help governors decide when it was safe to reopen their states for business. But President Trump urged governors to ignore those rules, and many did — producing COVID-19 outbreaks across more than half the country.

That didn’t happen in Canada. Just as in the United States, most decision-making on health is at the level of provinces, not the federal government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But Trudeau urged caution, not recklessness, and provincial leaders followed suit — even those from the opposition Conservative Party.

The result: The United States has suffered almost twice as many COVID-19 deaths as Canada on a per capita basis.

Canada’s response to the crisis hasn’t been perfect. Its two biggest provinces, Quebec and Ontario, saw severe outbreaks in April and May. A wave of infections swept through nursing homes, claiming some 7,000 dead, about 80% of the country’s total.

Quebec, which allowed bars to reopen in June, may have acted a little early; the province suffered a mini-outbreak in July.

But elsewhere, reopening has been more deliberate. Toronto, the country’s largest city, allowed bars and restaurants to resume indoor service — with lots of spacing — only last week.

As a result, the epidemic’s spread has slowed. Canada reported 3,043 new cases last week; California, whose population is only slightly larger, reported more than 55,000.

It’s hard to avoid giving some credit to the elusive notion of national character: Canadians — unlike Americans — pride themselves on being a nation that generally follows the rules.

Last month, when Major League Baseball asked Trudeau’s government to relax the quarantine regulations to allow U.S. teams to enter Canada to play against the Toronto Blue Jays, the government refused — and exiled the Blue Jays to play out the season in the United States. It’s hard to imagine any U.S. politician doing that to a hometown team.

“Americans celebrate independence, individualism, personal liberty; many distrust government [and] resent politicians,” columnist Andrew Cohen wrote in the Ottawa Citizen. “Canadians accept big government, which is how we built the social welfare state…. We defer to authority.”

Last week, Trudeau unveiled a government-sponsored smartphone app that will notify users if someone they’ve been in contact with tests positive for COVID-19. More than a million Canadians downloaded it within three days.

In the United States, the proposed use of contact-tracing apps has sparked furious debate over invasions of privacy. In Canada, the main controversy has been that the app works only for those with up-to-date Apple or Android phones, so low-income people and the elderly may not have access.

Canada does have anti-government skeptics, of course. Anti-mask crusaders held small protests in Toronto and Montreal. But they attracted only a handful of supporters — and they didn’t get public backing from any major politician.

From what we could see, mask-wearing appears almost universal in cities and small towns. And businesses are diligent about requiring patrons to sanitize their hands when they enter. I discovered that when I walked into a liquor store and forgot to sanitize; an elderly clerk chased me down the aisle with a spray bottle in her hand.

Alas, the pandemic police never showed up to inspect us during our 14-day quarantine. They relied on our sense of civic responsibility — and those threats of giant fines — to keep us in line.

But that’s the point.

Canada hasn’t needed heroic or draconian measures beyond an initial lockdown to get the pandemic under control. All it needed was a set of sensible rules — and, crucially, a consensus across political parties that the rules were there to be followed.

That path was available to the United States, too. It’s a shame we didn’t take it.

UPDATE    
Lebanon blames blast on chemicals; port officials under house arrest

NO WORD OF IT BEING AN ATTACK 

 Photo by Ahmad Terro/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 5 (UPI) -- The Lebanese government on Wednesday placed Beirut port officials on house arrest as they investigate why highly explosive materials linked to this week's explosions were stored in warehouses there.

Authorities said a fire at the port caused a number of small explosions Tuesday before igniting 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab blamed the chemical for a larger explosion that knocked out windows across the city and led to at least 135 deaths and more than 4,000 injuries.

Beirut broadcaster OTV reported that the ammonium nitrate was placed in the warehouse six years ago by court order. The port's general manager, Hassan Koraytem, told the station that customs and state officials asked authorities for the chemical to be moved but "nothing happened."

The Guardian reported the chemical, which is used to make bombs and in fertilizers, was confiscated when a Russian-owned, Moldovan-registered vessel carrying it was impounded at the port. The ship, the Rhosus, was deemed to be unseaworthy, but the ship's captain told Radio Free Europe there was nothing wrong with the ship and it was detained over failure to pay port fees.

During a legal battle that lasted until 2015, the ship's captain and crew were forced to stay on board the Rhosus, prompting complaints from them about the safety of the chemical stores. After they left, Lebanese officials moved the ammonium nitrate to a warehouse at the port.

Lebanon's customs director-general, Badri Daher, told broadcaster LBCI that in the intervening years, the agency sent six warnings to the judiciary about the dangerous substance.

"We requested that it be re-exported but that did not happen," he said. "We leave it to the experts and those concerned to determine why."

The Lebanese Cabinet on Wednesday ordered port officials to be placed on house arrest until investigators can determine who is to blame for the blast. It's unclear how many officials and at what seniority will be confined.

Lebanese Information Minister Manal Abdesamad said the military would oversee the home confinements and that the arrests would be made within the next five days.

"As head of the government, I will not relax until we find the responsible party for what happened, hold it accountable and apply the most serious punishments against it," Diab said.

upi.com/7026909

Leaders knew stockpile could 'blow up all of Beirut'

Anger at politicians as city lies in pieces … 

Top story: Lethal stash was from impounded ship

Aerial view of Beirut’s destroyed port. Photograph: Getty Images
by Warren Murray Thu 6 Aug 2020 

ALL VIDEOS ARE AT THE END

Lebanese officials have admitted the massive port explosion in Beirut that killed at least 135 people, injured thousands and left many more homeless came from nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate kept unsafely in a warehouse since 2014. As recently as six months ago, officials inspecting the consignment warned that if not moved it would “blow up all of Beirut”. The government, facing popular fury, said it was putting an unspecified number of Beirut port officials under house arrest pending an investigation into how the highly explosive materials came to be stored less than 100 metres from residential neighbourhoods.

In 2014 a Russian-owned vessel carrying the chemical – a fertiliser that can be used in bombs – was impounded at Beirut’s port, with its load apparently confiscated and taken ashore. Various reports said a fire started at a warehouse in the port before spreading to the ammonium nitrate’s storehouse and igniting the contents.

The explosion has left much of East Beirut uninhabitable and 300,000 people are said by the governor to have fled the city. International rescue crews have begun flying in to help with the search for survivors. Martin Chulov writes: “Ground zero of the explosion that destroyed much of the Lebanese capital was an enormous arc of warehouses, restaurants, homes and shops that, until Tuesday evening, were the still-functioning heart of an already dying city … Grappling with the cause of such a catastrophic event looms as yet another test for a government that has failed to convince many Lebanese that it is up to implementing a stated goal of introducing accountability. ‘If any country wants to help us, please help institutions you can trust,’ said Fady Haddad, a doctor. ‘Not through the government.’” Here is how anyone wishing to donate can help.

Beirut explosion: death toll rises to 137 as army takes control of site

Volunteers help clean up shattered streets as officials begin blame game over ammonium nitrate storage 

What we know so far 

Beirut explosion: anger at officials grows after missed warnings

Michael Safi @safimichael Thu 6 Aug 2020

The death toll from a massive blast at Beirut’s port has risen again to 137, as the Lebanese army took control of the site on the first day of a two-week state of emergency.

The new casualty figures on Thursday morning include at least 5,000 injured and a health ministry spokesman said dozens were still missing. “This toll is not final,” he said.

As volunteers worked with the army to clean up shattered streets, buildings and hospitals, the government said it had formed an investigation committee to look into the explosion, which appears to have been set off by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that had been stored at the port since 2014.

Lebanese officials have started blaming each other for leaving the highly explosive substance sitting so close to residential neighbourhoods for six years. The ammonium nitrate was taken from a ship that docked in Beirut in 2013 and was apparently abandoned by its Russian owner and mostly Ukrainian crew.

Badri Daher, the director general of Lebanese customs, said on Wednesday his office had sent six letters to the country’s judiciary urging them to deal with the chemicals either by exporting the load, reselling it or giving it to the army.


Part of the destroyed port as rescue work continues. 

Photograph: Wael Hamzeh/EPA

An unspecified number of port officials have been ordered to be placed under house arrest pending the investigation, which is scheduled to take five days. It will report to the national cabinet, which will refer its findings to the judiciary.

Amnesty International was among the organisations calling for an independent investigation into the circumstances leading up to the explosion.

“Whatever may have caused the explosion, including the possibility of a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely, Amnesty is calling for an international mechanism to be promptly set up to investigate how this happened,” said Julie Verhaar, the group’s acting secretary general.

Q&A

What is ammonium nitrate, the chemical blamed for the blast in Beirut?

Hide

Ammonium nitrate is a common industrial chemical used mainly for fertiliser because it is a good source of nitrogen for plants. It is also one of the main components in mining explosives.
It is not explosive on its own, rather it is an oxidiser, drawing oxygen to a fire – and therefore making it much more intense. However, it ignites only under the right circumstances, and these are difficult to achieve.
While ammonium nitrate can in fact put out a fire, if the chemical itself is contaminated, for example with oil, it becomes highly explosive.

Protests have been planned for central Beirut on Thursday afternoon as residents of the capital seethed at a disaster that appears to have been foreseeable and frequently warned about.


Beirut's ground zero: a rip through the heart of an already dying city

One one shattered balcony, someone hung a thin noose along with the sign, “Whose heads will be hung?” Lebanese social media was trending with the hashtag “Hang up the nooses”, as rage threatened to boil over in the grief-stricken city.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, arrived in Beirut on Thursday morning, the first world leader to visit in the wake of the disaster. His office said he would head straight to the blast site. He is expected to call for international aid to rebuild Beirut but also press for changes to the political system – a major hurdle to receiving billions of dollars of aid to alleviate one of the worst financial crises in modern Lebanese history.

“For the president, it’s a matter of showing that France is there – that is its role – and that he believes in Lebanon,” the presidential palace said. “The visit is also an opportunity to lay down the foundations for a pact for the reconstruction of Lebanon, binding for all, that will limit conflicts, offer immediate aid and open up a long-term perspective.”
French aircraft were among several including from Turkey, Germany, Gulf countries and the World Food Programme to land in Beirut since Tuesday, bringing rescuers, medical supplies and equipment.

Tuesday’s explosion echoed another blast 15 years ago in which the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was killed by a car bomb not far from the port. An international court trying four men accused of Hariri’s assassination and killing 21 others with him was supposed to give its long-awaited verdict on Friday.

But the court outside The Hague said it was delaying the announcement “out of respect for the countless victims of the devastating explosion that shook Beirut on 4 August, and the three days of public mourning in Lebanon,” its registry said in a statement.
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CHEMISTRY 101

Beirut deadly blast: What makes ammonium nitrate so dangerous?

The huge explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital on Tuesday is thought to have been caused by ammonium nitrate. The chemical is often used as fertilizer — and in explosives.

    

Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab says he believes Tuesday's explosion in Beirut could have been caused by large quantities of ammonium nitrate stored in the port.

The ammonium nitrate in question was said to have been brought to the Lebanese capital on a freight ship that was impounded for safety reasons in 2013. It had been en route from Georgia to Mozambique.

Diab said some 2,750 metric tons (3,025 US tons) of the highly explosive chemical had been stored at the port since then without necessary safety precautions in place.

Read more: 'Apocalyptic' scenes as Lebanon reels from trauma and rage

The blast was so powerful it could be heard in Cyprus, some 200 kilometers (124 miles) further to the west, media reports said.

What is ammonium nitrate?

Ammonium nitrate is a white crystalline salt that can be fairly cheaply produced from ammonia and nitric acid. It is soluble and often used as fertilizer, as nitrogen is needed for healthy plant development.

The port was completely destroyed by the explosion

Ammonium nitrate in its pure form is not dangerous. It is, however, heat sensitive. At 32.2 degrees Celsius (89.96 degrees Fahrenheit), ammonium nitrate changes its atomic structure, which in turn changes its chemical properties.

When large quantities of ammonium nitrate are stored in one place, heat is generated. If the amount is sufficiently vast, it can cause the chemical to ignite. Once a temperature of 170 C is reached, ammonium nitrate starts breaking down, emitting nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas. Any sudden ignition causes ammonium nitrate to decompose directly into water, nitrogen and oxygen, which explains the enormous explosive power of the salt.

Deadly disasters

As ammonium nitrate is a highly explosive chemical, many countries strictly regulate its use. Over the past 100 years, there have been several disasters involving the chemical.

In 1921, for example, a massive blast occurred at a BASF chemical plant in Ludwigshafen in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. About 400 metric tons of a mixture of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 559 people and injuring 1,977. The plant was largely destroyed in the blast, which could be heard as far away as Munich, some 300 kilometers distant.

The 2015 explosion in Tianjin caused widespread destruction in the city

In 2015, explosions caused by ammonium nitrate ripped through the Chinese port city of Tianjin. Eight hundred metric tons of the chemical were said to have been stored along with other substances in a warehouse for hazardous materials. The blasts killed 173 people and destroyed an entire city district.

Two years earlier, in 2013, an ammonium nitrate explosion occurred at the West Fertilizer Company site in the US state of Texas, killing 14 people. And in 2001, 31 people died in Toulouse, France, in an explosion caused by the chemical.

Terrorist favorite

In Germany, the purchase and use of ammonium nitrate is regulated by the explosives act. This is because the cheap, highly explosive and relatively easily obtainable material  has in the past been used by terrorists to carry out attacks.

For example, in 1995, US conspiracy theorist and gun enthusiast Timothy McVeigh used a mixture of ammonium nitrate and other substances to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik also used 

• ammonium nitrate in a car bomb attack in Oslo in 2011.
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    IN PICTURES: BEIRUT BLAST AFTERMATH — DESTRUCTION, CHAOS AND RESCUE EFFORTS
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