Goats: unlikely allies in California's fight against wildfires



Issued on: 12/07/2021 -

On a hot July morning, a herd of 80 goats were deployed to a hilly patch of land in Glendale, just outside Los Angeles Robyn Beck AFP


Glendale (United States) (AFP)

Their mission, should they choose to accept it, is simple: graze.

Goats are an unlikely but increasingly popular weapon in California's fight against the wildfires that rage through the western US state every year.

On a recent hot July morning, a herd of 80 ungulates were deployed to a hilly patch of land in Glendale, just outside Los Angeles.

They had been chomping away for the past 10 days or so, helping to clear away bone-dry vegetation that could go up in flames and threaten the surrounding homes.

Their work comes up a vital time. Last year was the worst in California's modern history for wildfires, with more than four million acres (1.6 million hectares) scorched.

Due to climate change and a brutal drought, officials fear that months of massive infernos are now the norm.

So any help is welcome.

"We started hearing a lot about goats, both from community members, other fire departments, other cities," said Glendale fire marshal Jeffrey Ragusa.

"And the more we looked into it, the more we realized how effective they can be, how environmentally friendly they can be."

- Corridor -

The goats' voracious appetite serves two purposes.

Eating easily flammable vegetation helps to restrict the spread of fire, and also creates a convenient corridor in which firefighters can operate to "protect the homes in a safer environment" should the need arise, said Ragusa.#photo1

Of course, the animals are just one small part of the strategy for coping with the threat of fires.

But their help can be valuable, lightening the workload for overstretched human contractors who create buffer zones by removing vegetation -- often manually, in sweltering heat and difficult terrain -- before and during ever-longer fire seasons.

"There's always a threat of injury to personnel," said Ragusa.

"I haven't seen a goat trip yet," he added with a smile.

The goats grazing in Glendale are brought in by Sage Environmental Group, a company that carries out habitat restoration and environmental planning.

Its founder, Alissa Cope, began incorporating goats into her work five years ago, and now owns around 400 of the animals.

- 'Watch them closely' -

The strategy carries an inherent risk -- goats, if left to their own devices, will munch anything in their path.

"We watch them closely," she said. "If there's an area that we feel that they're overgrazing -- which is essentially the downside of using goats -- we will deliberately move them," using electric fences or luring them with hay.

Without revealing how much the goats earn for their labor, Cope says the cost of employing the animals is comparable to what authorities would pay for human workers -- at a lower environmental toll.#photo2

The company runs similar projects elsewhere in California, including nearby Anaheim and South Pasadena.

The idea to bring in goats to Glendale originated with Rick Stern, a member of the neighborhood homeowners association.

Stern heard of the strategy when his wife found out goats had helped keep the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library -- also in southern California -- safe from fire in 2019.

Months before the devastating blaze, a trip of goats had been dispatched to create a fire break around the famous complex.

While the goats' presence in Glendale is just a pilot program for now, it will be evaluated with a view to broader use.

"So far, it's been a really good program," said Ragusa. "We've been really happy with the results."

© 2021 AFP

The battle for Brazil's indigenous land heats up



Issued on: 12/07/2021

Indigenous people, who represent some 0.5 percent of Brazil's population, hold about 13 percent of its land under constitutionally-protected ancestral rights Sergio Lima AFP/File



Brasília (AFP)

Brazil's indigenous peoples are bracing for a legal battle with far-right President Jair's Bolsonaro's government as it seeks to rush laws through parliament to carve away at their land.

Indigenous people, who represent some 0.5 percent of Brazil's population, hold about 13 percent of its land under ancestral rights guaranteed by the country's 1988 constitution.

These have been under threat ever since Bolsonaro came to power in 2019 on the promise of ceding "not one centimeter more" to Brazil's native population.

He has sought to open public land up for economic exploitation in one of the world's biggest agricultural producers, and several bills are before parliament seeking to achieve this.

"We are living our worst time," said Joenia Wapichana, the first indigenous lawmaker in the country's history and the spearhead of a protracted legislative and legal fight.

"These (parliamentary) projects which are a setback for us, are being voted on much faster now," she said.

Last month, a commission of the chamber of deputies -- one of two houses of congress -- approved a bill introduced already in 2007 to recognize as ancestral only land occupied by indigenous peoples when the 1988 Constitution was promulgated.

The day before the decision, clashes between indigenous and security forces at a protest against the bill left several injured, including three police struck by arrows.

The bill has yet to pass a full sitting of the chamber, and then the senate.

A slew of other draft laws seek to authorize mining and farming on indigenous land where it is now illegal.

- 'Period of highest risk' -

"The Constitution already provides for economic activity in indigenous areas and lands," Mines and Energy Minister Bento Alburqueque insisted at a meeting with foreign correspondents last week.

"What is there belongs to Brazilian society, and must be regulated taking into account the rights of indigenous peoples," he added.

Brazil's original people also oppose a law passed in May to ease environmental requirements for farming and energy companies.

Indigenous peoples and environmental groups claim the government's moves are unconstitutional and fear a further acceleration of Amazon deforestation, which has picked up pace on Bolsonaro's watch.

The president, widely accused of being a friend of the free market at the expense of the environment, has signed proclamations in the last two years to transfer the delineation of indigenous land to the agriculture ministry, and to allow big business takeovers of public land.

But these endeavors have been paralyzed in congress, partly due to the president's fraught relationship with the speakers of the chamber of deputies and the senate.

This all changed in February when Bolsonaro succeeded in appointing two allies -- Arthur Lira and Rodrigo Pacheco, which both enjoy the backing of the agri-business lobby -- to these positions.#photo1

"We are living the period of highest risk since Bolsonaro came to power," said Mauricio Voivodic, executive director of WWF Brazil.

"Especially the speaker of the chamber (of deputies) has shown a big appetite for advancing on (projects which threaten) the rights of indigenous peoples, reducing their territories."

According to environmental lawyer Andre Lima, Brazil's agri-business lobby believes the country already has "too many parks and conservation areas, and too much reserved native land" and that expanding conservation will "undermine rural development."

"We are a minority in parliament defending our rights," said Wapichana, who has vowed to take the battle to the highest court if necessary.

"If parliament makes our lives difficult, our only alternative is to seek support from justice... to save what remains of our indigenous land and natural resources."

© 2021 AFP

Avocado farmers take up arms as Mexico violence spikes

Issued on: 12/07/2021 

Members of the Mexican self-defense group Pueblos Unidos guard avocado plantations in the western state of Michoacan ENRIQUE CASTRO AFP

Ario de Rosales (México) (AFP)

A convoy of vigilantes snakes along a road in western Mexico, vowing to defend their avocado orchards from gangs sowing terror in a country reeling from a new wave of bloodshed.

Armed with assault rifles and other firearms, the masked men travel between plantations and maintain checkpoints in Ario de Rosales in Michoacan state, the scene of a bloody cartel turf war.

Before they began patrolling the area, residents lived in fear of kidnapping, extortion and theft of avocados, according to a member of the self-defense group Pueblos Unidos, which says it has 700 members.

"We need to be armed to defend ourselves," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity, wearing a badge reading "Down with injustice, no more dead."

Previously, criminals "came to do what they wanted to us, and that doesn't happen anymore," he added.#photo1

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador opposes such self-defense groups -- a phenomenon that dates back to 2013 -- saying that some of them have become fronts for criminals.

Such comments are not well received in Ario de Rosales, where another Pueblos Unidos member says the president should "get his shoes dirty" to discover the reality of life in the area, where the Jalisco New Generation and Los Viagras cartels operate.

The police and military "feared the criminals or were paid by them to do nothing," said another vigilante who gave his name as Martin.

- 'Hugs not bullets' -

It is estimated that there are around 50 such self-defense groups in Mexico, which has seen intensifying violence in recent months, notably in Michoacan and the northern states of Tamaulipas and Zacatecas.

Mexico registered 14,243 murders in the first five months of the year, and the bloodshed has shown no sign of stopping since then.

On June 19, alleged members of the Gulf Cartel shot dead 15 people described by the government as innocent victims in the border city of Reynosa in Tamaulipas.

Four attackers were killed by the police.

One hitman who was arrested said that the massacre sought to "heat up the plaza" -- a form of random killings to divert the attention of the authorities away from other areas.

On June 29, nine bodies were found near Ciudad Miguel Aleman, also in Tamaulipas, where criminals are fighting for control of a border bridge used to smuggle drugs, weapons and migrants, according to an intelligence source.#photo2

And a shootout between alleged gang members left 18 dead in Zacatecas, where the bodies of two policemen were hung from a bridge.

Despite the escalation in violence, Lopez Obrador refuses to declare war on the cartels, arguing that this policy failed in the past.

Instead he has maintained a strategy of "hugs not bullets" and fighting crime at its roots by attacking poverty and inequality.

More than 300,000 people have been murdered since the government of then president Felipe Calderon deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006.

- 'Power vacuums' -

Since then the dominant cartels have splintered to the point that around 200 gangs now operate in the country, according to the think tank InSight Crime.

Lopez Obrador has told the United States that he wants to end military cooperation in fighting narcotics trafficking.

"You cannot confront violence with violence," he said on Friday about the situation in Aguililla, another Michoacan town terrorized by warring gangs.

In April, former US ambassador Christopher Landau said that Lopez Obrador saw the cartels as a "distraction" from a domestic agenda mostly focused on social programs.#photo3

"So he has basically adopted a pretty laissez-faire attitude towards them," said Landau, who was ex-president Donald Trump's envoy in Mexico City.

Lopez Obrador's policy of non-confrontation with the cartels has left "power vacuums" exploited by gangs, according to Jose Reveles, a drug trafficking specialist.

In Aguililla, residents recently attacked a garrison with homemade explosives to try to pressure the military into reopening roads that had been blocked by rival gangs.

"We were trapped in the village and getting food was very difficult," said Eugenia, a mother of two living in the town.

Aguililla is at the center of a turf war between Carteles Unidos and Jalisco New Generation, whose leader Nemesio Oseguera was born there.

"While the government said that things were fine and there was no organized crime, we saw them on a daily basis, with high-powered weapons," another resident who did not want to be named told AFP.

"The government always looks the other way."

© 2021 AFP

Heat risks add to challenges for Tokyo's pandemic-hit Olympics


Issued on: 12/07/2021 - 

Tokyo has been notorious for its stifling summer for years CHARLY TRIBALLEAU AFP


Tokyo (AFP)

Searing heat, dripping humidity, and face masks: it's going to be a sweaty Tokyo Olympics and while coronavirus measures are top priority, heatstroke remains a serious risk, experts warn.

Long before the pandemic forced Tokyo 2020's postponement, the Japanese capital's brutal summer heat was the main health concern for organisers.

While the Games have been held in places that are hotter or more humid than Tokyo, including Athens and Beijing, Japan's sweaty summers offer both, in an unpleasant and sometimes deadly combination.


Organisers have moved the Olympic marathon and racewalks to the northern island of Hokkaido, hoping to outrun temperatures that can hit 37 degrees Celsius and humidity over 80 percent.

And with fans now banned from nearly all Games events over virus fears, the risk of large crowds sizzling in the sun is no longer a concern.

But athletes, who will have little time to acclimatise because they are only allowed to arrive just before competition, could still suffer.

"Holding the games during July and August... was a serious issue even before the coronavirus pandemic," Haruo Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, told reporters recently.

"There are still high risks of heatstroke at events such as competitive walking, triathlon, and beach volleyball," even after moving the marathon and racewalking, he warned.

At test events in summer 2019, organisers rolled out a variety of anti-heat measures: 1,360 tonnes of ice to cool athletes, tents for shade, ice cream for volunteers and mist fans and artificial snow for spectators.#photo1

Even so, several people were treated for suspected heatstroke at a beach volleyball event and 10 people including athletes fell ill at a rowing test event.

Ironically, Tokyo won its bid to host the Olympics, beating out rivals including Doha, in part by boasting of its "mild" weather.

But the city has been notorious for its stifling summer for years. The last time it hosted the Games, in 1964, the event was shifted to October to beat the heat.

And it has only got hotter in recent years, with climate change and urbanisation exacerbating the trend, according to experts.

- 'Not possible to eliminate risk' -

A report published in late May by the British Association for Sustainable Sport (BASIS) warned "intense heat and high levels of humidity are a threat to athletes at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics".

British rower Melissa Wilson told the report she felt her sport was "approaching a danger zone" given rising temperatures at events around the world.

"It's a horrible moment when you see athletes cross the line, their bodies fling back in total exhaustion and then not rise up," she said.

In pre-pandemic 2019, more than 71,000 people sought emergency care for heatstroke across Japan, with 118 deaths during the June-September period.

And even in 2020, with fewer people out and about, emergency care cases stood at just below 65,000 with 112 dying.

Doctors in Tokyo have warned organisers that medical emergencies during the competition -- including heatstroke -- could divert resources away from the domestic coronavirus response.

The pandemic could complicate things, with rules requiring athletes to "wear a face mask at all times, except when training, competing, eating, drinking, sleeping or during interviews".

A Tokyo 2020 official told AFP that the rules would be "flexible depending on the situation" given the risks of heatstroke -- allowing people to go mask-free when "outside and able to keep two metres apart from others".

Masks in hot weather could cause people to feel ill and have difficulty breathing, "even if this is not heatstroke in a strict sense", said Shoko Kawanami, a professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in western Japan.

"It's important that spectators and volunteers take off their masks if they feel uncomfortable... making sure they keep a distance from crowds."

Japan's weather agency forecasts this July-August period in Tokyo will be hotter than average, and even a small rise in temperature "will have a major impact on whether the event is safe to run," Ben Bright, head coach at the British Triathlon Federation, told the BASIS report.

"It is not possible to eliminate risk."

Olympics host city Tokyo enters fresh Covid-19 emergency as Games near

Spectators have already been banned from nearly all venues for the Tokyo Games because of the pandemic.PHOTO: REUTERS

TOKYO (REUTERS) - Olympic host city Tokyo entered a fresh state of emergency on Monday (July 12), less than two weeks before the Games begin amid worries whether the measures can stem a rise in Covid-19 cases.

Organisers last week announced that spectators would be banned from nearly all venues, all but depriving Japan of hopes for a Games with public spectacle.

Spectators from abroad had been banned months ago and officials are now asking residents to watch the Games on TV.

"We would ask people to support athletes from home," Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said on a Sunday TV programme.

The Games, postponed from last year because of the pandemic, run from July 23 to Aug 8, while the state of emergency - the capital's fourth - lasts until Aug 22, shortly before the Paralympics begin.

The government and organisers had long seen the event as a chance to display the country's recovery from a devastating 2011 earthquake and nuclear crisis.

On Saturday, the governor of Fukushima prefecture, site of the nuclear disaster, said spectators would also be banned from softball and baseball games there, reversing an earlier decision.

World No. 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic said on Sunday he was "50-50" about competing at the Tokyo Olympics following the organisers' decision to ban fans from attending and limits on the number of people he can take to the Games.

Some of the sport's biggest names, including Rafa Nadal, Dominic Thiem, Stan Wawrinka, Nick Kyrgios, Serena Williams and Simona Halep have already announced decisions to skip the Games.

Japan has not seen the explosive coronavirus outbreak occurring elsewhere but has recorded more than 815,440 cases and nearly 15,000 deaths.

The recent rise in the number of infections in Tokyo has been particularly worrisome amid a vaccination roll-out that got off to a slow start and has faced supply glitches after speeding up. Only about 28 per cent of the population has received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Tokyo recorded 614 new cases on Sunday, the 22nd straight day of week-on-week gains, and many areas were crowded with shoppers.

The coronavirus curbs include asking restaurants to close early and stop serving alcohol in exchange for a government subsidy, measures that have hit the eateries hard and caused many to complain of unfairness as the Games are set to go ahead.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is in charge of the pandemic response, sparked outrage when he suggested late on Thursday he would ask banks to put pressure on eateries that do not comply with the stricter measures.

In an about-face, the government's top spokesman Kato said on Friday it had decided banks would not be asked to press restaurants and bars that do not follow the government request to stop serving alcohol under the emergency restrictions.

But Mr Kozo Hasegawa, president of Global-Dining Inc, which runs 43 restaurants including one that inspired a bloody fight scene in the movie Kill Bill: Volume I, said on Friday that he would not obey the rules and would open as normal.

#ENDTHEEMBARGO

Demonstrators in Havana protest shortages, rising prices

 #EliminatetheBlockade

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ

1 of 13
Plainclothes police detain an anti-government protester during a protest in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, July 11, 2021. Hundreds of demonstrators went out to the streets in several cities in Cuba to protest against ongoing food shortages and high prices of foodstuffs, amid the new coronavirus crisis. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Thousands of Cubans marched on Havana’s Malecon promenade and elsewhere on the island Sunday to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis, in one of biggest anti-government demonstrations in memory.

Many young people took part in the afternoon protest in the capital, which disrupted traffic until police moved in after several hours and broke up the march when a few protesters threw rocks.

Police initially trailed behind as protesters chanted “Freedom,” “Enough” and “Unite.” One motorcyclist pulled out a U.S. flag, but it was snatched from him by others.

“We are fed up with the queues, the shortages. That’s why I’m here,” one middle-age protester told The Associated Press. He declined to identify himself for fear of being arrested later.

Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases, as it suffers the consequences of U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.

An official in the Biden administration tweeted support for Sunday’s demonstrations.

“Peaceful protests are growing in #Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages. We commend the numerous efforts of the Cuban people mobilizing donations to help neighbors in need,” tweeted Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Cuba’s director general for U.S. affairs, Carlos F. de Cossio, dismissed her remarks in his own tweet: “US State Department and its officials, involved to their necks in promoting social and political instability in #Cuba, should avoid expressing hypocritical concern for a situation they have been betting on. Cuba is and will continue to be a peaceful country, contrary to the US.”

The demonstration grew to a few thousand in the vicinity of Galeano Avenue and the marchers pressed on despite a few charges by police officers and tear gas barrages. People standing on many balconies along the central artery in the Centro Habana neighborhood applauded the protesters passing by. Others joined in the march.

Although many people tried to take out their cellphones and broadcast the protest live, Cuban authorities shut down internet service throughout the afternoon.

About 2 1/2 hours into the march, some protesters pulled up cobblestones and threw them at police, at which point officers began arresting people and the marchers dispersed.

AP journalists counted at least 20 people who were taken away in police cars or by individuals in civilian clothes.

“The people came out to express themselves freely, and they are repressing and beating them,” Rev. Jorge Luis Gil, a Roman Catholic priest, said while standing at a street corner in Centro Habana.

About 300 people close to the government then arrived with a large Cuban flag shouting slogans in favor of the late President Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution. Some people from the group assaulted an AP cameraman, disabling his camera, while an AP photographer was inured by the police.

Demonstrations were also held elsewhere on the island, including the small town of San Antonio de los Banos, where people protested power outages and were visited by President Miguel Díaz-Canel. He entered a few homes, where he took questions from residents.

Afterward, though, he accused Cuban of stirring up trouble.

“As if pandemic outbreaks had not existed all over the world, the Cuban-American mafia, paying very well on social networks to influencers and Youtubers, has created a whole campaign ... and has called for demonstrations across the country,” Diaz-Canel told reporters.

Thousands of Cubans Take to Streets in Rare Anti-government Protests
By Reuters
Updated July 11, 2021 

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel (C) is seen during a protest held by citizens demanding improvements in the country, in San Antonio de los Banos, Cuba, July 11, 2021.

HAVANA, CUBA - Thousands of Cubans took to the streets from Havana to Santiago on Sunday in rarely seen protests, expressing frustration over economic conditions, the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations and what they said was government neglect.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who also heads the Communist Party, blamed the United States for the unrest in a nationally televised speech Sunday afternoon.

Special forces jeeps, with machine guns mounted on the back, were seen in the capital, Havana, and Diaz-Canel called on supporters to confront “provocations."

Thousands of people gathered in downtown Havana and along parts of the seaside drive amid a heavy police presence. There were a few arrests and scuffles.

A Reuters reporter witnessed police pepper-spray a few protesters and hit others with batons, but there was no attempt to directly confront the thousands chanting "Freedom" as they gathered and marched in the city center. Their shouts of “Diaz-Canel step down” drowned out groups of government supporters chanting "Fidel."

The protests broke out in San Antonio de los Banos municipality in Artemisa Province, bordering Havana, with video on social media showing hundreds of residents chanting anti-government slogans and demanding everything from coronavirus vaccines to an end to daily electricity blackouts.

“I just walked through town looking to buy some food and there were lots of people there, some with signs, protesting,” local resident Claris Ramirez said by phone.

“They are protesting blackouts, that there is no medicine,” she added.

Diaz-Canel, who had just returned to Havana from San Antonio de los Banos, said many protesters were sincere but manipulated by U.S.-orchestrated social media campaigns and mercenaries on the ground, and warned that further “provocations” would not be tolerated.

There were protests later Sunday hundreds of kilometers (miles) to the east in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, where social media video showed hundreds marching through the streets, again confirmed by a local resident.

“They are protesting the crisis, that there is no food or medicine, that you have to buy everything at the foreign currency stores, and on and on the list goes,” Claudia Perez said.

"We are calling on all the revolutionaries in the country, all the communists, to hit the streets wherever there is an effort to produce these provocations," Diaz-Canel said in his broadcast remarks.

The communist-run country has been experiencing a worsening economic crisis for two years, which the government blames mainly on U.S. sanctions and the pandemic, while its detractors cite incompetence and a Soviet-style one-party system.

A combination of sanctions, local inefficiencies and the pandemic has shut down tourism and slowed other foreign revenue flows in a country dependent on them to import the bulk of its food, fuel and inputs for agriculture and manufacturing.

The economy contracted 10.9% last year, and 2% through this June.

There has been a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths this year, with a record 6,900 cases and 47 deaths reported Saturday.

Cuba has two vaccines and has begun a mass vaccination campaign, with 1.7 million of its 11.2 million residents vaccinated to date and twice that many at various states of the multishot process.

Cubans take part in rare anti-government protests

Issued on: 12/07/2021 - 

The Cuban police detain a man during anti-government protests on July 11 2021 in Havana. © Adalberto Roque, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Thousands of Cubans took part in rare protests Sunday against the communist government, chanting, "Down with the dictatorship," as President Miguel Diaz-Canel called on his supporters to confront the demonstrators.

The anti-government rallies started spontaneously in several cities as the country endures its worst economic crisis in 30 years, with chronic shortages of electricity and food.

Several hundred protesters marched through the capital Havana chanting, "We want liberty," with a heavy military and police presence deployed after demonstrators massed outside the Capitol building.

Police used tear gas to disperse crowds, and at least ten people were arrested, while officers used plastic pipes to beat protesters, AFP journalists witnessed.

Several thousand protesters -- mainly young people -- also took to the streets of San Antonio de los Banos, a town 30 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of Havana.

Security forces arrived soon after the protests began, and Diaz-Canel later visited the town himself surrounded by party activists as residents heckled him, according to videos posted online.

The president delivered a combative television address, saying: "The order to fight has been given -- into the street, revolutionaries!"

"We call on all revolutionaries of the country, all communists, to go out in the streets where these provocations occur... and to face them in a decisive, firm and courageous way."

Government supporters held some counter-demonstrations in Havana.

Social media showed several anti-government protests around the country, and mobile internet -- only introduced in Cuba since 2018 -- was largely cut off on Sunday afternoon.

The United States reacted swiftly to the day's events.

"The US supports freedom of expression and assembly across Cuba, and would strongly condemn any violence or targeting of peaceful protesters who are exercising their universal rights," US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Twitter.

Boiling public anger

One local in San Antonio de los Banos, on condition of anonymity, told AFP that she participated in the demonstration as she was exasperated by "the situation with electricity and food."

Public anger has been driven by long food lines, worsening power shortages for several hours a day and a critical shortage of medicines since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, with Cuba under US sanctions.

Cuba is experiencing its toughest phase yet of the coronavirus epidemic, and on Sunday reported a new daily record of infections and deaths.

"The energy situation seems to have produced some reaction," Diaz-Canel told reporters in San Antonio de los Banos, blaming US sanctions imposed by Donald Trump and left unchanged by President Joe Biden.

He accused "a Cuban-American mafia" of whipping up the protests on social media.

"People have come to express their dissatisfaction with the situation they are living in," he acknowledged.

Diaz-Canel has been president since 2018, succeeding Raul Castro, who served as leader after his brother Fidel Castro.

The only authorised gatherings in Cuba are normally Communist Party events.

The country of 11.2 million people was left relatively unscathed in the first months of the Covid outbreak but has seen a recent hike in infections, with a new record of 6,923 daily cases reported Sunday and 47 deaths for a total of 1,537.

"These are alarming numbers which are increasing daily," said Francisco Duran, head of epidemiology in the health ministry.

Under hashtags such as #SOSCuba, calls for assistance have multiplied on social media, with citizens and music stars alike urging the government to make it possible for much-needed foreign donations to enter the country.

An opposition group called Saturday for the creation of a "humanitarian corridor," an initiative the government rejected by saying Cuba was not a conflict zone.

Ernesto Soberon, a foreign affairs official, denounced a "campaign" he said sought to "portray an image of total chaos in the country which does not correspond to the situation."

(AFP)

Virgin Galactic: space tourism takes off with Branson’s inaugural flight



Virgin Galactic takes off. Virgin Galactic

With British billionaire Sir Richard Branson’s successful flight to the edge of space, he and his company Virgin Galactic have firmly established themselves in the history books as space tourism pioneers.

While not the first tourist to enter space, 70-year-old Branson is the first to make his journey with a commercial spaceflight company, marking a giant leap for the space tourism industry being championed by some of the world’s most famous billionaires.

Unlike its rivals, Virgin Galactic launched its spacecraft from a carrier craft – not from the ground. Branson and three Virgin Galactic mission specialists travelled along with two pilots in the company’s SpaceShipTwo craft “VSS Unity”, which was carried by a WhiteKnightTwo aircraft to an altitude of 50,000 feet before being launched from the carrier craft. The mothership aircraft, named VMS EVE (after Branson’s late mother), launched the afternoon of July 11, after a short weather-related delay.



VSS Unity then ignited its own rocket, taking it to a height of over 50 miles above Earth. The four passengers experienced weightlessness and observed the curvature of the planet’s surface before reentering the earth’s atmosphere and landing at the company’s spaceport America base in New Mexico.

While SpaceShipTwo did not reach the Kármán line – 62 miles altitude above Earth and often regarded of as the edge of outer space – the Federal Aviation Administration puts the dividing line lower, at 50 miles.

Virgin Galactic’s success has not been an overnight one. Founded in 2004 to provide paying customers a trip into suborbital space, the company has experienced many false dawns over the years with projected dates of flights proving overly optimistic and a major setback involving a fatal accident in 2014.

The company has made substantial progress in recent years, achieving its first suborbital flight in December 2018. Virgin Galactic became the first commercial spaceflight company to list on the stock market in October 2019. While the stock has been volatile in the meantime, it has rallied by around 50% since securing approval from the US Federal Aviation Authority last month to proceed with passenger flights.

With an eye on the history books, Virgin Galactic immediately announced plans to advance Branson’s spaceflight aboard SpaceShipTwo to July 11, upstaging by nine days his rival billionaire Jeff Bezos’ planned trip into space.

Virgin Galactic plans to start commercial space tourism flights early next year. This is welcome news for the 600 aspiring space tourists who have waited years since making their reservations at a reported price of $250,000 in the late noughties. The company has plans to produce dozens of spacecraft in anticipation of increased passenger demand.
Billionaires blast off

In winning the first round of the space tourism race, Branson has – for now – eclipsed his fellow billionaires, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and SpaceX and Tesla’s Elon Musk, and has scored a major marketing coup. However, both Bezos and Musk have ambitious plans for space tourism, extending in the case of the latter to the moon and even Mars.

Bezos himself is due to launch into space on July 20 – 52 years since the first moon landing – aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Bezos will be accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos, American aviator Wally Funk who was part of jettisoned programme to send women into space in the 1960s, and a fourth passenger who won the auction for the remaining seat with a winning bid of US$28 million (£20.1 million)

.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is set to travel into space later this month. Blue Origin / Alamy Stock Photo

Beyond these initial flights with their billionaire founders aboard, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin will be competing to take paying customers on suborbital flights.

The two companies will also derive revenue from taking science experiments and researchers into space. This will be far less expensive than the more elaborate task of sending experiments and people to the International Space Station. Later this year, Musk’s SpaceX plans to send four passengers on a three-day orbit around the earth, circling it in a Crew Dragon capsule at an altitude of 335 miles.

With the takeoff of space tourism and more generally the business of space, Bezos, Branson and Musk can no longer be dismissed as wealthy boys with toys. They have brought a renewed pioneering spirit and entrepreneurial zeal and intensity to the space sector. In doing so, they have made substantial progress in advancing the frontier of space and space tourism.

They have created cost economies through, for example, their innovative implementation of circular economy principles. For example, SpaceX’s embrace of reusable rockets has drastically reduced costs.

Critically, these flights have been an inspiration to others. Private capital is now flowing into the space sector with its size forecast to increase almost threefold by 2040 to become a US$1 trillion industry (£719 billion).

While the first round of the new space race may have a winner, there are many more rounds to be completed. Given the high risk nature of space travel and space more generally, there will be setbacks as well as successes. Still, while the stakes may be high, the potential rewards are great. Branson’s successful journey marks an important moment in the commercialisation of space.

July 11, 2021 12.56pm EDT

Author

Louis Brennan
Professor of Business Studies, Trinity College Dublin

Head of Aid Group Reports Increased Attacks by Myanmar Military in Border Areas

By VOA News
July 11, 2021


Displaced people carry a sick person in eastern Myanmar's Kayah State, June 17, 2021.

BANGKOK - The head of a Thai-based volunteer aid group, speaking from inside Myanmar, has described increasing attacks by that country’s military in the ethnic areas along the country’s borders with China and Thailand.

Speaking to VOA by satellite phone Friday from northern Kayin state in Myanmar’s east, David Eubank, the head of the Free Burma Rangers, said since the February 1 coup, Myanmar’s military has not only attacked urban protesters but is now carrying out increasing offensives on the country’s fringes.

The United Nations said last month that almost a quarter of a million people have been driven from their homes and villages by post-coup violence, and that millions risk hunger in coming months. Most of them are spread across the border areas, where ethnic minorities with standing armies have been fighting the military for autonomy for decades. Eubank’s Free Burma Rangers sends hundreds of volunteers into Myanmar’s conflict zones with medical services and supplies — from rice to schoolbooks — for remote rural areas.

‘The gloves came off’

“Once the coup happened,” Eubank said, “it was like the gloves came off the Burma military. Not only did they begin to crush the people in the streets, as you’ve seen; they began to unleash their power on the ethnics, and that’s when we saw this huge uptick of attacks and displacement.” Myanmar is also known as Burma.

When the military started attacking targets in northern Kayin after the coup, by air for the first time in decades, the area’s displaced population jumped tenfold from 4,000 to 40,000 by April, Eubank said.

He estimated the airstrikes have killed about 20 civilians in the area and wounded some 40 more. He said that is fewer than those killed by the military’s ground forces in northern Kayin, which he puts at about 40, “but the psychological impact of the airplanes is just huge up here.”

“Way past the killing that the airstrikes [caused] and damage they did has been the fear,” he said.

Myanmar government officials could not be reached for comment. In the past the military has said it has only uses proportionate force against threats to state security.

In the jungle

Eubank said most of the 40,000 have returned home in recent weeks as the airstrikes died down and most of the new troops the military moved in were pulled back, although skirmishes with forces of the Karen National Union, one of the country’s many armed ethnic groups, have kept up.

He said the most intense fighting since the coup is in the northernmost state of Kachin, where the military has been losing ground to the Kachin Independence Army, another ethnic armed group.

People take refuge in a jungle area in Demoso, Kayah state, June 3, 2021

In the past few weeks, though, fighting has picked up most in the tiny eastern state of Kayah, also known as Karenni, where the military is up against smaller militias and new “people’s defense forces” of locals who have pooled their weapons to resist the junta. Fighting there has driven more than 100,000 people out of their homes, now the most in any state or region, Eubank, who has teams there, said.

Those teams, he said, report soldiers looting villagers’ homes and firing into the jungle with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, both to keep any rebels at bay and to clear tracts of land of anyone else.

“I’m looking at photos that my team sent right now. … I see wrecked houses. I’m looking at a destroyed church. I’m looking at a guy who was shot. I’m looking at pictures of IDPs [internally displaced persons] hiding in the jungle,” he told VOA.

Heavy rains have only made it worse for those pushed into the jungle, he added, with many reduced to catching frogs and hunting squirrels to supplement their rice.

Those who can, find caves, the rest make due under pitched tarps, or less, Eubank said.

“Very often they fled out of the house with just what they could carry and maybe had a sheet of plastic over their shoulders. So maybe they’ll cut bamboo and make a frame, like a lean-to frame, and then lay banana leaves and other leaves over it to make a little shelter and huddle under that,” he said.

“They live pretty rough. And then there’s no school, and they’ve got the clothes on their back. And if there’s hundreds of them on the same stream. then you have pollution problems and dysentery.”

A looming crisis

Eubank said the military was also setting up checkpoints and sending out patrols to keep aid shipments from flowing from the plains into the hills and rebel-controlled areas, where many of the displaced are taking shelter, checking people for everything from extra food and medicine to batteries and children toys.

He said supplies were still getting in and that most of the newly displaced have enough rice right now and to last the next two to three months.

Even those who have felt safe enough to return home, though, as in Kayin, are a month or two behind on their farming and coming back to overgrown fields that need extra work, he added. That could mean much less rice at harvest time.

Some of those who have returned are also still under fire, he said.

Eubank said he came across a woman in Kayin a few weeks ago being shot at with automatic and sniper rifles from the surrounding hills while planting her rice field. Determined to get the job done, he said, she gathered up her neighbors and together they finished the planting that night in the dark.

The 100,000 still living rough in Kayah cannot even do that. Last month the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Thomas H. Andrews, warned of “mass death” among the displaced there from starvation, disease and exposure if the military continued to cut them off from critical supplies.

Eubank said that could come to pass if more aid does not get in and if they cannot move to where they can find what they need to survive.

“I think it’s a big risk if this goes on, especially for right now in Karenni,” he said. “We have these 100,000 people, and we’re moving literally tons of rice up there through a variety of means. But that’s not sure to meet all the needs. And if the Burma army continues the pressure against those 100,000, they’re going to have to move or they’re going to starve to death,” he said.

The junta claims it toppled the country’s civilian government because it had ignored reports of widespread irregularities in last year’s general elections, in which the military’s proxy party was soundly defeated, but has shown no evidence to back it up. State media now run by the junta has blamed the crisis that has followed the coup on “dishonesty of democracy” in the election.

 

Hepatitis C vaccine could be rolled out within five years, says Nobel Prize winner who discovered virus

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

A vaccine to protect against infection with hepatitis C could be in use within 5 years, says Professor Sir Michael Houghton, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology along with three other scientists for discovering the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in 1989. Sir Michael will discuss the development of a vaccine in a special presentation at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), held online this year.

Up to 2 million new HCV infections occur every year around the world, with an estimated 70 million carriers of the virus globally, most of whom are not diagnosed. The virus is estimated to cause some 400,000 deaths annually. Many infected with the virus go on to develop liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.

"While the advent of directly acting antivirals (DAAs) to cure hepatitis C has given us a huge weapon to turn the tide on this pandemic, there is no doubt that a vaccine is required to help the world reach its ambitious target of reducing new hepatitis C infections by 90% and mortality rates by 65% by 2030," explains Sir Michael, who is currently based at the Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute, University of Alberta, Canada.

He will discuss that, while countries like Egypt have managed to enact huge control programs for hepatitis C (50 million screened and 4 million treated and cured using DAAs since 2014), they have only been able to do so thanks to mass production of generic drugs ($US84 per patient). However, the cost per patient in high-income countries is some $US20,000 per patient.

He will explain how the scientific community has learnt what immune responses protect against HCV infection, and many technologies including the new RNA technology (used in Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines) and adenovirus-based technologies (developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson) are able to reproduce these protective immune responses through vaccination.

Sir Michael and colleagues at the Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute are currently developing an adjuvanted recombinant vaccine, which is expected to induce production of antibodies to multiple cross-neutralising epitopes, making it harder for the virus to escape the humoral immune response. Put another way, there are many different antibodies likely to be produced by this vaccine that can prevent HCV infection, making it very hard for the virus to evade them by mutation and thus protecting the vaccine recipient from hepatitis C infection.

Sir Michael will discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed back many areas of medical research, including work on hepatitis C vaccines. But he anticipates phase 1 trials in 2022 using different adjuvants followed by phase 2 human efficacy trials from 2023-2026, either in an at-risk population such as people who inject drugs, or via human vaccine challenge trials.

He says: "If safety and efficacy are proven, roll-out of vaccine to the high-risk people-who-inject-drugs population could begin in 2026/2027. Following phase 3 trials, the hepatitis C vaccine could then be rolled out to other high-risk groups in or around 2029, such as men who have sex with men, healthcare workers, and babies born to mothers with hepatitis C, in all countries of the world."

Using Canada as an example, Sir Michael points out the huge cost savings that could be generated by a successful vaccine - it is estimated that treating people who inject drugs with DAAs over a decade would incur drug costs of around C$1 billion (US$0.8 billion), compared to $20 million (US$16 million) estimated for vaccine costs to protect the same population.

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New study shows that silver foil could reduce the risk of infection in hospitals

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

 

New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) taking place online (9-12 July) shows that covering high-touch (the most regularly touched) surfaces in hospitals with silver-impregnated foil could significantly reduce levels of contamination by clinically important bacterial pathogens.

The study by Professor Andreas Widmer and colleagues at the University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland, evaluated the antimicrobial effectiveness of a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) foil containing an integrated silver-based agent containing 2% silver ions.

The hospital environment has increasingly been recognised as having critical importance when formulating infection control measures as evidence has increased of the role it plays as a source of bacterial transmission and subsequent hospital-acquired infections. Regular cleaning and disinfection have been proposed as an option for lowering infection risk, however performing this to the required standard is a time and resource-intensive process.

An alternative approach is to use auto-disinfecting surfaces which would make it difficult for pathogens to survive and would require less thorough cleaning to achieve a safe environment in patient rooms. In this study a silver-impregnated PVC foil was applied to high-touch surfaces in patient rooms where contamination levels of bacterial pathogens were anticipated to be high.

The researchers found that contamination levels on foil-covered surfaces were significantly lower than on those without the covering. Overall, mean germ numbers were reduced by more than 60 times, while the median bioburden on untreated control surfaces was more than 3 times higher than on the antimicrobial foil. The large difference between mean and median relates to the large biological variability of germ density on the different types of surfaces.

The team also discovered that clinically important bacteria - in particular Enterococci - were significantly less likely to be present on foil-covered surfaces, and the antimicrobial effects were still present 6 months later.

The authors conclude: "A foil containing an integrated silver-based agent effectively decreases the load of clinically important disease-causing bacteria over a 6-month study period."

They add: "Auto-disinfectant foils or similar antimicrobially equipped surfaces might help prevent transmission, in particular of Gram-positive pathogens from the environment. Many studies confirm rapid recolonization (reinfection) of hospital surfaces even after vigorous disinfection. Therefore, such auto-disinfectant foils could be desirable in certain healthcare areas such as transplant units or also during outbreaks such as the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic we are currently experiencing. Further research should be extended to the antiviral activity of such surfaces, as this silver-impregnated PVC foil has been found to work in experiments against another type of coronavirus: human coronavirus HCov-229E."

 

High-tech toilets could spread antibiotic-resistant superbugs in hospitals, Japanese study suggests

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Research News

Water-jet nozzles in electric toilets--commonly used in Japan and other parts of Asia--may be reservoirs for multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (MDRP) in hospitals, increasing the risk of dangerous germ transmission among patients, according to new research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) held online this year.

"This is the first report of hospital transmissions associated with electric toilets and could have major implications for infection control," says Dr Itaru Nakamura from Tokyo Medical University Hospital in Japan who led the research. "If water-jet nozzles are a source of hospital superbug cross-contamination, additional interventions - such as modified hand hygiene practices and toilet disinfection protocols - may be needed to stem the risk of transmission among healthcare providers and patients alike."

More than 80% Japanese households use electric toilets with an integrated bidet, which flush automatically [2]. The main feature is a nozzle the size of a pencil that comes out from underneath the toilet seat and squirts water to wash the bottom and clean the toilet. The nozzle is also self-cleaning and cleans itself before and after every operation.

P. aeruginosa naturally occurs in soil and freshwater, but it can also thrive on the moist surfaces in hospitals, leading to opportunistic infections in weakened and ill patients that could develop into life-threatening conditions like pneumonia or sepsis.

Because of the overuse of antibiotics, these bacteria have evolved the ability to withstand attempts to treat infections with drugs that once killed them. And infections caused by MDRP bacteria are becoming more common in both the community and hospitals. Mortality rates among people infected with these superbug strains are double those of people infected with strains that are susceptible to treatment [1].

In this study, researchers investigated the presence of multidrug-resistant bacteria recovered from the waterjet-nozzles of electric toilets in a haematology ward of Tokyo Medical University Hospital between September 2020 and January 2021.

The team made more than 10 visits to take samples from water-jet nozzles in electric toilets used by three patients with MDRP infections, including two patients with severe sepsis. MDRP strains were defined as those with resistance to at least two antibiotics such as imipenem, meropenem, amikacin and ciprofloxacin.

Using genetic fingerprinting techniques, they looked to see whether the strains of MDRP from the three infected patients were the same as the environmental MDRP strain sampled from the toilet nozzles. They found the samples matched, with strain 'ST235' dominating in all the samples--suggesting that transfers to and from patients were happening.

"In short, our findings imply that multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa bacteria were being transmitted within the patient community, and critically that the infection may be spread within hospitals via contaminated electric toilet nozzles", says Dr Nakamura. "With good hospital hygiene, which includes handwashing and environmental cleaning, we can control the spread of these pathogens, especially within in settings where patients' immune systems are compromised."

The authors point out that this was only a small study in a single hospital ward. They also highlighted several limitations including that the genetic analysis was not able to distinguish the direction of transfer, whether it is from the patient to the water-jet nozzles, or from those nozzles to the patients.