Bangladesh: 4 die in protests against India's Narendra Modi

Violence erupted on Bangladesh's independence day as protesters denounced Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Dhaka. They accuse him of discrimination against Muslims.


Friday clashes overshadowed celebrations of Bangladesh's 50th anniversary of independence

Four people were killed and dozens injured on Friday as demonstrators clashed with police in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and the port city of Chittagong.

Protests erupted against a visit to the country by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Demonstrators accused the right-wing leader of inciting anti-Muslim violence in India.

A police officer told Reuters news agency that eight people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. "Among them, four succumbed to their injuries," Mohammad Alauddin told Reuters.

Media reports suggested the four were linked to Islamist groups.

The social media platform Facebook and its messaging app appeared to be down in some parts of Bangladesh. Activists typically use the app to organize protests.

Authorities arrested at least 33 people for violence, according to the Associated Press
Protests turn violent

Witnesses said two groups of protesters clashed outside of Dhaka's main mosque after Friday prayers. An official told the Associated Press agency that members of several Islamist groups had joined the protests.

Members of the Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam reportedly threw stones at the police and attacked government buildings, including a police station in Chattogram, local media reported.

Train communications were also disrupted as protesters set fire to offices of a railway station.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protests.

Protesters reportedly threw stones at a police station in Chattogram

Modi marks Bangladeshi independence

The Indian prime minister landed in Dhaka on Friday for a two-day visit, celebrating five decades since Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina received Modi, who also met with opposition and government leaders.

Modi's trip also comes as he tries to gain grounds for his party in state-level elections. He is set to visit a Hindu temple outside Dhaka that is sacred to the Matua community in the Indian state West Bengal, which borders Bangladesh.

In 1971, India backed Bangladesh in a nine-month war against Pakistan, which killed nearly three million people.

Bangladesh at 50: From 'basket case' to rising economic star

Over the past five decades, Bangladesh has transformed itself from being an economic "basket case" to one of the fastest growing economies in the world.


The garment industry emerged as one of the nation's success stories in recent decades

At the time of independence in 1971, Bangladesh's economy was in tatters, a result of the bloody liberation war. Over 80% of the population were living in extreme poverty.

In the following years, the country struggled with military coups, political turmoil, poverty and famine.

In the 1970s, it was argued that "if development is possible in Bangladesh, it is possible in any other country,"Mustafizur Rahman, an economist at Bangladesh's Center for Policy Dialogue, told DW.

He added that the South Asian country was viewed as "the test case" of development.

But fast forward to today, the situation has dramatically changed for the better.

Norwegian social researcher Eirik G. Jansen said that in 2009 when he returned to a Bangladeshi village after a gap of nearly three and a half decades, he was surprised to see the remarkable improvement in socio-economic development and people's income levels.

"Their incomes increased tenfold. It meant they could buy at least 10-15 kilograms of rice with their daily wages," Jansen told DW.

From 1976 to 1980, he lived with several impoverished families in a village in Manikganj district.

"If you have five or six people in your household and you come home with just one and a half kilograms of rice, you can hardly feed the entire family," Jansen said.

"Severe poverty meant many people lacked enough food. Health and education services hardly existed. Many people became sick, and many died in their 40s and 50s due to diseases that could have been prevented if they had good nutrition. Many children also died," the expert added.

In 1971, Bangladesh's economy was in tatters, a result of the bloody liberation war. Over 80% of the population were living in extreme poverty

Making strides in growth and development

Before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the economy was growing rapidly, recording an annual expansion in the range of 8% for years.

The Asian Development Bank said that despite the hit from the pandemic, the Bangladeshi economy is recovering fast.

"Bangladesh also grows enough food now to feed its 167 million people. The country has a significantly reduced maternal and infant mortality rate than many other countries in the world," Rahman said.

Bangladesh achieved lower middle-income country status in 2015 and is on track to leave the United Nations' Least Developed Countries list.

Currently, 98% of children nationwide have finished primary school, with more girls in secondary school than boys.

Observers say the Muslim-majority nation over the years has invested heavily in the lives of women and girls. It has also made progress in combating child malnutrition and reproductive health.

Jansen said when he visited the village in Manikanj again in 2010, he found that schools in the area were refurbished, and both boys and girls were going to school.

The improvement in female education has transformed the socioeconomic structure, he pointed out.

"Providing scholarships for women's and girls' education is another factor. The women are now more articulate. They are not as shy as when I saw them four decades earlier

Watch video01:19 Bangladesh's traditional weavers fallen on hard times amid pandemic

From agriculture to industry

With a GDP of over $305 billion (€259 billion), Bangladesh currently has the world's 41st largest economy and forecasts suggest that the size of the economy could double by 2030.

While it was primarily an agricultural economy in 1971, the composition has changed over the decades, with industry and services now accounting for the lion's share of the economic output.

Agriculture's share of GDP has dropped to just 13%.

It was the availability of job opportunities outside agriculture that drove economic development, said Jansen.

"For many women, it was working in the textile industry and handicrafts. For men, it was jobs in local small industries. For some, it was migrating abroad to the Middle East, Singapore or Malaysia."

The garment industry emerged as one of the nation's success stories in recent decades. It is the second-largest globally, only next to China, and rakes in over $35 billion a year from exports.

The sector employs 4 million people, the majority of whom are women, contributing to female empowerment.

"The garment sector has changed not only the economy, but also women's social status in Bangladesh," Rahman told DW.

Remittances also play a major role in the economy, with Bangladeshi workers employed abroad transferring nearly $22 billion in 2020.

Watch video 02:49 Rebranding Bangladesh for foreign investors

Quality and inequality challenges

Despite the steep rise in the number of children going to school, the quality of education remains poor, posing a major challenge to the development of a skilled workforce, said Rahman.

Also, not everyone has benefited equally from the nation's impressive growth and development, say experts, pointing to rising income and wealth inequality as well as the slow pace of job creation.

"Per capita income has increased in Bangladesh. But income and wealth distribution could be made equal and fair," Rahman said. "The income disparity between the top 5% and the bottom 40% is increasing day by day.”

Another problem is the heavy concentration of economic activity in big cities like Dhaka and Chittagong, resulting in a huge rural-urban divide and increased urban poverty.

"The poverty level might have come down to 20%, but 50% of those living in some cities face poverty," Rahman stressed.

So, the biggest challenge Bangladesh faces is related to how the country ensures that the fruits of growth and development reach people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

BANGLADESH WAS THE FIRST OF THE LIVE AID CONCERTS

Yellow Vest protesters go on trial over 2018 Arc de Triomphe riot

Issued on: 22/03/2021

The Arc de Triomphe was looted and vandalised during a

 "yellow vest" protest that rocked Paris on December 1, 2018. 

© Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRE

Nine people went on trial Monday accused of taking part in one of the most violent episodes of the anti-government "yellow vest" protests that rocked France two years ago.

Prosecutors admit, however, that the suspects are neither the instigators nor the main culprits of the vandalism and looting around the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris, when scenes of destruction and fierce clashes with police made global headlines.

Dozens of cars were set on fire and businesses were trashed all along the famed Champs-Elysees avenue on December 1, 2018, the third Saturday of mass demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron.

He was accused of ignoring the plight of struggling French families and after months of protests he abandoned a planned fuel tax hike and raised spending on the lowest earners.

The "yellow vest" protesters had already skirmished with security forces at earlier rallies, but police were unprepared for the rioting that engulfed the capital just a few weeks before Christmas.

Despite firing volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets, the officers were forced to abandon their positions around the Arc de Triomphe, which honours France's war dead.

Protesters snuffed out the eternal flame over the tomb of an unknown World War I soldier and spray-painted the stone walls with graffiti including "the yellow vests will triumph".

Others forced their way into the arch, ransacking the gift shop and damaging scores of artworks, causing damage that cost 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million) to repair.

'Small fish'

The seven men and two women on trial on Monday, most of whom have no criminal records, face charges of destruction and theft that carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

For procedural reasons, a tenth suspect who was also to face the judge will be tried at a later date.

The trial opened with presentations of videos and photos showing the extent of the damage, including smashed statues and shattered display cases.

"You see that things are getting out of control, and you don't say to yourself 'this has gone too far, I'm leaving'?" asked the judge, Sonia Lumbroso.

Lawyers for the accused say they are unfairly taking the blame because the main offenders got away before police were able to clear the monument.

"This is a trial for small fish, because the big fish aren't here," said Veronique Massi, a lawyer for one of the suspects, who says he was only seeking refuge as the police charged.

"They wanted to be at the heart of the action, they didn't think it was going to end like that," she said.

But for Jean-Philippe Morel, a lawyer for the HAPPAH heritage defence association, a claimant in the case, there is sufficient evidence to prove that the suspects took part in the violence.

"We have those responsible," he said, "even if they aren't the main ones."

The trial is scheduled to last until Friday.

Seven other people, including a minor, will be tried later on charges of unlawfully entering a historic monument.

(AFP)

Fashion industry failing to meet green targets: report



A recent Ellen MacArthur Foundation study found that 40 million tonnes of textiles were sent to landfills or incinerated every year. 

Paris (AFP)

Issued on: 22/03/2021 - 

Fashion's biggest firms are making slow progress in meeting promises to improve their environmental and social impact, according to a damning sustainability report released Monday.

The inaugural Sustainability Index by the Business of Fashion magazine, the first to offer direct comparisons between the industry's top firms, found they were often falling far short of their ambitious rhetoric on going green.

"The global economy has 10 years to avoid catastrophic climate change and an urgent duty to improve the welfare of the workers who make it tick," said the report, which was put together by a panel of sustainability experts from around the world.

"Time is running out and simply stating an ambition to change is no longer good enough."

It graded the biggest 15 fashion companies across six areas: transparency, emissions, water and chemicals, materials, workers' rights and waste.

Not one company scored more than 50 out of 100, with Swiss firm Richemont and US firm Under Armor faring worst with scores of just 14 and nine overall. They did not respond to requests for comment.

The best performers were French luxury house Kering and Nike, who scored 49 and 47 respectively.

"Many of fashion's biggest companies still don't know or don't disclose where their products come from, and the further down the supply chain you go, the more opaque things become," the report said.

"That enables exploitation and human rights abuses and creates difficulties measuring the industry's environmental impact."

- 'Just not working' -

A 2019 study by the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion found that fashion was the second-biggest consumer of water, and responsible for eight-to-10 percent of global carbon emissions -- "more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined".

The new Sustainability Index said many firms had targets to reduce emissions but little information on how they were faring.

Three firms -- Richemont, Under Armour and LVMH -- had not set emissions targets at all, it said.

Fewer than half were found to have clear goals on reducing the use of water and hazardous chemicals, and only four had a time-bound target to replace oil-based polyester -- the most commonly-used fabric in the world -- with recycled alternatives.

The worst results were on the issue of waste, with the report citing a recent Ellen MacArthur Foundation study that found 40 million tonnes of textiles were sent to landfills or incinerated every year.

"Companies are talking more about circularity than they are embracing it," it said.

Scores on workers' rights were also dismal.

"We have been stuck with the current state of play for more than 10 years and the discourse is still way ahead of the action," Anannya Bhattacharjee of the Asia Floor Wage Alliance was quoted as saying in the report.

"No matter how many committees are set up in factories, they are just not working," she added. "Commitments to a living wage are meaningless if buying prices do not cover the cost of living wages."

Nonetheless, the report sought a constructive tone, saying it was not designed to chastise or praise individual companies, but to encourage innovation.

"Environmental sustainability is bigger than any one brand, supplier or retailer. We all have to work together," wrote another of the authors, Edwin Keh, of the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel.

© 2021 AFP

France kicks off first medical marijuana trial

Issued on: 26/03/2021 - 

Cannabis is credited with powerful anti-pain properties Angela Weiss AFP

Clermont-Ferrand (France) (AFP)

A doctor in France wrote the country's first prescription for therapeutic cannabis on Friday, kicking off a two-year trial involving 3,000 patients that could lead to marijuana's legalisation for medical use.

Cannabis is prohibited in France even for medical purposes, but patients' associations have been lobbying for years to get it cleared for use to relieve pain.

"This is an important day in the history of medicine in France," Health Minister Olivier Veran told reporters after witnessing the filling-in of the prescription.

"You are the first French patient to receive a cannabis-based treatment," Veran told the recipient, who said he had been "suffering for seven years" because of an illness.

The prescribed treatment contains active cannabis-derived substances in the form of essential oil to be taken orally, or of cannabis flowers for vaping.

"There is no question of smoking any of it," Veran said.

The minister said that after the trial France would proceed with a "rigorous scientific and medical evaluation" of its results.

Once the treatment's efficacy and side effects were known, it could be cleared for general use for all eligible patients -- an outcome Veran said he hoped for.

Nicolas Authier, president of a scientific committee on medicinal cannabis, said: "We hope that with this new therapeutic tool that we can give patients an improved quality of life."

Some 170 hospitals will contribute data to the trial. Patients will be eligible for cannabis treatment only if other drugs fail to alleviate their condition, or provoke excessive side-effects, according to French medicines agency ANSM.

Conditions that qualify for cannabis treatment include some forms of epilepsy, neuropathic pain, chemotherapy side-effects, a need for palliative care, and pain linked to multiple sclerosis.

Cannabis treatment can also be prescribed for children in cases of refractory epilepsy or cancer.

The treatments will be obtained abroad, as France prohibits cultivating marijuana, and made available with different degrees of THC and CBD, the two active ingredients of cannabis.

© 2021 AFP

Russia pushes Arctic ambitions after Suez jam

Issued on: 26/03/2021 - 

Moscow has channeled large sums into a fleet of icebreakers 

and ice-class tankers linked to the development of the 

Northern Sea Route OLGA MALTSEVA AFP/File

Stuck: the container ship blocking the Suez canal

Moscow (AFP)

Russia has seized on the Suez Canal blockage to promote its northern shipping route as a reliable alternative, part of a broader push by Moscow to develop the Arctic and capitalise on climate change.

President Vladimir Putin has made Russia's Arctic region a strategic priority and ordered investment in military infrastructure and mineral extraction.

The development of the Northern Sea Route is closely linked to that push and Moscow has channelled large sums into a fleet of icebreakers and ice-class tankers.

Russia redoubled efforts to promote the Arctic route after a giant Japanese-owned tanker became wedged this week in the narrow Suez channel barring some 200 ships passage.

A senior Russian diplomat said Friday that the jam underscored the importance of developing the Arctic route.

"The appeal of the Northern Sea Route will grow both in the short- and long-term. It has no alternative," said Nikolai Korchunov,Moscow's point person for international Arctic cooperation.

"Obviously it's necessary to think about how to efficiently manage transportation risks and develop alternative routes to the Suez Canal, first and foremost the Northern Sea Route," Korchunov, Russia's ambassador-at-large, told the Interfax news agency.

The Northern Sea Route is one of several Arctic shipping channels and lies within Russia's exclusive economic zone.

Russia has invested heavily to develop the route, which allows ships to cut the journey to Asian ports by 15 days compared with using the Suez Canal.

Transit of the eastern Arctic usually ends in November but Russia hopes climate change means the commercial benefit of the route will increase.

Moscow is planning to use the route to export oil and gas to overseas markets while companies including Russia's biggest LNG producer Novatek already navigate the northern route.

In August 2017, the first vessel travelled along the Northern Sea Route without the use of ice breakers.

- 'Surprising? No' -

Russia's weather monitor said this week that the northern route was "in some years almost completely free of ice" towards the end of the summer and in 2020 reached a "record low level" of ice cover.

The Japanese-owned, Panama-flagged MV Ever Given became stuck in the Suez Canal during a sandstorm, blocking the waterway that connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and which handles more than 10 percent of global maritime trade.

Tugboats and dredgers scrambled Friday to free the giant container for a fourth day, forcing companies to re-route services from the vital shipping lane around Africa.

Russia's nuclear agency, which is the Arctic passage's official infrastructure operator, mockingly offered its northern route as an alternative Thursday, saying icebreakers would be sent to the rescue if vessels get stuck.

Nuclear agency Rosatom jokingly said the Arctic passage provides "more space to draw peculiar pictures using your giant ships," referring to shipping trackers which showed that the Ever Given traced the outline of a giant penis before getting stuck.

"#Russia will use the #EVERGIVEN case to attract shipowners to the Arctic," tweeted Arctic expert Mikaa Mered. "Is this surprising? No."

Putin on Friday praised Russian navy’s Arctic exercises that launched last week, saying the troops had proven their ability to operate even "in harsh northern environments".

As part of the drill, three nuclear-powered submarines broke the ice and surfaced simultaneously while a nuclear submarine also fired a torpedo from beneath the ice.

© 2021 AFP

Rally in rebel-held Sanaa marks six years of Yemen war

Issued on: 26/03/2021 - 

Supporters of Yemen's Huthi rebels attend a rally in the capital Sanaa to mark the sixth anniversary of the Saudi-led coalition's intervention in Yemen 

MOHAMMED HUWAIS / AFP

Sanaa (AFP)

Thousands of people marched through Yemen's capital Sanaa on Friday to mark the sixth anniversary of a Saudi-led military intervention against Huthi rebels, as the United Nations renewed calls for a ceasefire.

The Iran-backed Huthis overran Sanaa in September 2014 and went on to capture most of the country before a coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in March 2015 to bolster the government.

Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced, according to international organisations, in what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia offered the Huthis a "comprehensive" UN-supervised ceasefire to try and end the brutal conflict, but the rebels have dismissed the initiative as "nothing new".

"If they want peace, they must stop their aggression and end the blockade imposed on the Yemeni people," senior Huthi official Deif Allah al-Shami told AFP on the sidelines of Friday's rally.

"We don't need any initiative," he said, referring to the Saudi peace offer.

Around him, Huthi supporters held up pictures of rebel leader Abdul Malik al-Huthi, Yemeni flags and signs that read "death to America, death to Israel, curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam".

Huthi security forces, masked and in military garb, were deployed in Sanaa for the rally, where many protesters brandished weapons or raised clenched fists as they shouted slogans against Saudi Arabia.

- Ceasefire efforts -

Hours earlier, a projectile attack sparked a fire at an oil terminal in the southern Jizan province of Saudi Arabia, the country's energy minister announced, without saying who was behind the attack.

And on Thursday the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted several explosives-laden drones fired towards the kingdom by the Huthis.

The rebels, who have recently escalated attacks on the oil-rich neighbouring kingdom, including on its energy facilities, claimed responsibility for the Jizan attack in a video.

Saudi Arabia's ceasefire offer was the second since last year.

The kingdom also proposed to re-open the international airport in Sanaa and restart political negotiations between the warring sides.

UN special envoy Martin Griffiths on Friday met Huthi official Mohammed Abdelsalam in neighbouring Oman to discuss ways of restoring peace in Yemen.

"They discussed the urgency to agree on opening Sanaa airport and... entering a nationwide ceasefire and resuming the political dialogue under a UN framework to pave the way for sustainable peace," Griffiths' office said in a tweet.

Talks also centred on "easing restrictions on Hodeida", the Red Sea port that is a lifeline gateway for food, fuel and humanitarian aid entering Yemen.

The Huthis have been demanding the lifting of a Saudi-led air and sea blockade that the coalition says it imposed to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the rebels from Iran -- allegations Tehran denies.

The Saudi ceasefire offer and UN efforts to find a solution come as the US administration of President Joe Biden is also pushing to try to end the conflict.

Washington's special envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, visited the region last month and made contact with the Huthis in Oman as well, sources told AFP. He is set to return to press for a ceasefire.

On Friday, the US condemned the latest attack on Saudi oil infrastructure, saying the strikes "are a clear provocation meant to perpetuate the conflict".

"The Huthis' actions are... jeopardizing peace efforts at a critical moment when the international community is increasingly united behind a ceasefire and a resolution of the conflict," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

Analysts have said that Riyadh's ceasefire offer is an attempt to portray the rebels as aggressors while the kingdom seeks an exit from the military quagmire.

- 'Yemen is desperate' -

With no quick solution in sight, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA on Friday lamented the consequences of six years of war in Yemen in a series of tweets.

"Six years of war mean six years of hunger, six years of displacement, six years of destruction, six years of misery and lives lost," it said.

"Yemen is desperate for peace and time is now for all to act," OCHA added, using the hashtag "#YemenCantWait".

Famine could become part of the country's "reality" in 2021, UN Development Programme chief Achim Steiner told AFP earlier this month after a donor conference raised $1.7 billion in aid for Yemen -- half its target.

More than 16 million Yemenis will face hunger this year, and nearly 50,000 are already starving in famine-like conditions, according to the latest UN figures.

Around two thirds of Yemen's 29 million people depend on some form of aid for survival.

"Six years of war have shown failure," the Huthi official Deif Allah al-Shami said Friday.

© 2021 AFP

US condemns Huthi 'provocation' after latest Saudi oil attack

Issued on: 26/03/2021 - 

Supporters of Yemen's Huthi rebels in the capital Sanaa attend a rally marking the sixth anniversary of the Saudi-led coalition's intervention in Yemen Mohammed HUWAIS AFP

Washington (AFP)

The United States on Friday accused Yemen's Huthi rebels of deliberate provocations to jeopardize peace efforts after a projectile sparked a fire at an oil terminal in Saudi Arabia.

"The actions by the Huthis are a clear provocation meant to perpetuate the conflict," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

"The Huthis' actions are prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people and jeopardizing peace efforts at a critical moment when the international community is increasingly united behind a ceasefire and a resolution of the conflict," Price said.

The strike on Thursday in Saudi Arabia's southern Jizan province came shortly after Saudi Arabia -- which has waged a devastating six-year campaign in Yemen -- proposed a ceasefire.

US President Joe Biden's administration has stepped up efforts to end the conflict and address what the United Nations considers the world's most dire humanitarian situation, with 80 percent of Yemen depending on assistance.

But the Iranian-backed rebels, who control the capital Sanaa, have been pressing their advantage and stepped up cross-border attacks.

The latest strike on oil giant Saudi Arabia came as the US special envoy on Yemen, Tim Lenderking, returns to the region to press for an end to the war.

© 2021 AFP

Louvre museum makes its entire collection available online

Issued on: 26/03/2021 - 

The Louvre Museum in Paris showing 'The Raft of the Medusa',

 painted by Theodore Gericault, with the museum closed amid

 the Covid-19 pandemic. January 8, 2021. © Martin Bureau, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

The Louvre museum in Paris said Friday it has put nearly half a million items from its collection online for the public to visit free of charge.

As part of a major revamp of its online presence, the world's most-visited museum has created a new database of 482,000 items at collections.louvre.fr with more than three-quarters already labelled with information and pictures.

It comes after a year of pandemic-related shutdowns that has seen an explosion in visits to its main website, louvre.fr, which has also been given a major makeover.

"It's a step that has been in preparation for several years with the aim of serving the general public as well as researchers. Accessibility is at the heart of our mission," said president-director Jean-Luc Martinez.

The new database includes not only items on public display in the museum but also those in storage, including at its new state-of-the-art facility at Lievin in northern France.

The platform also includes the Delacroix museum, which is run by the Louvre, as well as sculptures from the neighbouring Tuileries gardens and works recovered from Germany since the end of the war in 1945 that are waiting to be restored to the families from which they were looted.

The museum announced earlier this month that it would intensify its efforts to restore items looted from Jewish families by the Nazi regime.

It is working to complete the verification of all 13,943 items acquired between 1933 and 1945, a process it hopes to complete within five years, to be followed by investigations on works acquired in later decades.

Martinez estimated that around one percent of portraits in the collections were looted.

"The Louvre has nothing to hide, and the reputational risk is enormous," he said. "When the next generations want to know where these collections came from, how do we react? By doing the historical work and establishing the facts."

(AFP)

Guatemala's Pacaya volcano continues erupting after 50 days


Issued on: 26/03/2021

Lava flowing out of the Pacaya volcano, 25km south of 

Guatemala City on March 25, 2021 Johan Ordóñez AFP

Guatemala City (AFP)

The Pacaya volcano close to Guatemala's capital is maintaining "high levels" of activity with strong eruptions, ash clouds and rivers of lava spewing out, officials said on Friday.

The 2,500-meter (8,200-foot) volcano that lies 25 kilometers to the south of Guatemala City has been erupting for 50 days, damaging plantations in the path of the lava.

Pacaya is expelling ash up to 500 meters from its crater, located 2.5 kilometers southwest of the cone, the vulcanology institute said in a statement.


Falling ash was registered in the El Rodeo and El Patrocinio communities, the institute said, adding that "the volcanic activity is considered at high levels."

The activity has produced a lava flow 2.2 kilometers long on the west flank of the volcano.

The national disaster coordination body said the lava had caused "fire and the destruction of coffee and avocado plantations."

Despite the spectacular eruptions, inhabitants of the surrounding villages have chosen to stay at home.

The civil protection body has asked authorities to prohibit people from approaching either the crater or the lava flows due to the risk of falling debris.

On Tuesday, a change in wind direction forced the closure of the country's only international airport for almost 24 hours due to ash.

Guatemala has 30 volcanos including two other active ones.

© 2021 AFP

New protein helps carnivorous plants sense and trap their prey

Research by Salk scientists helps explain how plants sense touch, and could have medical applications

SALK INSTITUTE

 

 VIDEO: RESEARCH BY SALK SCIENTISTS HELPS EXPLAIN HOW PLANTS SENSE TOUCH, AND COULD HAVE MEDICAL APPLICATIONS. view more 

CREDIT: SALK INSTITUTE

LA JOLLA--(March 25, 2021) The brush of an insect's wing is enough to trigger a Venus flytrap to snap shut, but the biology of how these plants sense and respond to touch is still poorly understood, especially at the molecular level. Now, a new study by Salk and Scripps Research scientists identifies what appears to be a key protein involved in touch sensitivity for flytraps and other carnivorous plants.

The findings, published March 16, 2021, in the journal eLife, help explain a critical process that has long puzzled botanists. This could help scientists better understand how plants of all kinds sense and respond to mechanical stimulation, and could also have a potential application in medical therapies that mechanically stimulate human cells such as neurons.

"We know that plants sense touch," says co-corresponding author Joanne Chory, director of Salk's Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory and holder of the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology. "The Venus flytrap, which has a very fast response to touch, provides an opportunity to study a sensory modality that historically has been poorly understood."

Scientists have long been fascinated by Venus flytraps and carnivorous plants; Charles Darwin devoted an entire book to them. But while previous studies have looked at the structural mechanism of their bizarre leaves, not much is known about how they work at the cellular level. That's partly because flytraps are challenging to study. They're extremely slow to grow, and the flytrap genome had not been sequenced until recently, opening the door for deeper genetic research.

"Because they're so unusual, people have been interested in these plants for hundreds of years, so there's quite a bit known about them at the gross, macroscopic level, but the molecular details have been hard to tease out," says Carl Procko, a staff scientist in Salk's Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory.

In the new study, the authors grew cloned flytraps from cuttings to get plants that were genetically identical. Then they carefully cut thousands of microscopic, touch-sensitive trigger hairs from these plants and used sequencing technology to identify which proteins were most abundant in the hairs.

Based on previous research, they knew that the proteins involved in sensing touch were likely to have the capability of moving an electrical current across the cell. Sure enough, this type of protein was the second most common type found in the hairs. The scientists named the new protein FLYCATCHER1. To test the protein, colleagues at Scripps Research put it into mammalian cells. The cells responded by producing an electrical current when touched, proving that the protein is sensitive to mechanical stimuli.

The team found the same protein in the tentacles of the sundew, a carnivorous plant that's a close relative of the Venus flytrap. In the sundew, these sticky tentacles sense the movement of a struggling insect, stimulating the leaf to curl up and trap its prey.

"These findings are further evidence that the FLYCATCHER1 protein plays a critical role in the trigger hairs of the Venus flytrap and the mechanisms of the plant that sense and respond to touch," says Chory.

As a next step, the study authors want to do a "knockout" test and grow genetically modified flytraps with the protein missing. If these flytraps are unable to sense touch, it will prove conclusively that the FLYCATCHER1 protein is responsible.

###

Other authors on the study are Swetha E. Murthy, William T. Keenan, Seyed Ali Reza Mousavi, Adam Coombs, and Ardem Patapoutian of Scripps Research; Tsegaye Dabi of Salk; Erik Procko of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Chambaign; and Lisa Baird of the University of San Diego.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Additional funding was provided by the George E. Hewitt Foundation for Medical Research and the University of San Diego

About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:

Every cure has a starting point. The Salk Institute embodies Jonas Salk's mission to dare to make dreams into reality. Its internationally renowned and award-winning scientists explore the very foundations of life, seeking new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology and more. The Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark: small by choice, intimate by nature and fearless in the face of any challenge. Be it cancer or Alzheimer's, aging or diabetes, Salk is where cures begin. Learn more at: salk.edu.