Scientists race to save Florida coral reef from mysterious disease

Issued on: 30/09/2021 

A staff member works on restoring Florida’s coral reef at the Florida Coral Rescue Center in Orlando on September 20, 2021, as the state's reef suffers from the fatal stony coral tissue loss disease 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

Orlando (AFP)

At a laboratory in central Florida, biologist Aaron Gavin uses tiny pipettes to carefully feed shrimp to more than 700 corals living in huge saltwater tanks, with sunlight-mimicking lamps glowing above them.

The work of the scientists here could be the last chance to save the species that make up the only coral reef in the United States' continental waters.

Gavin and his team have diligently recreated the coral reef habitat found in the waters off the southern tip of the state, complete with artificial currents and local fish.

They hope to prevent the 18 species of coral in their care from suffering the same mysterious ailment, called SCTLD (stony coral tissue loss disease), that is afflicting their wild cousins.

Among the sprawling mangroves and darting schools of fish off the Florida Keys, the damaged corals -- normally dark -- now appear as large white patches on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

The situation is the same all along the Florida Reef Tract, which stretches 360 miles (580 kilometers) from the Dry Tortugas, which are the westernmost islands in the Florida Keys, all the way to the town of St Lucie, located about 120 miles north of Miami.

Dead coral sit on the ocean bed in the Straits of Florida near Key Largo, Florida, on September 23, 2021, as the reef has been suffering from a mysterious disease first discovered in 2014 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

"It's heartbreaking, and I think the most alarming (thing) about it is that most people don't know it's happening," said Michelle Ashton, the communications director of the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida.

- Rescue -

What Gavin and his colleagues discover at the Florida Coral Rescue Center could change the future of the state's marine ecosystems.

"We are holding the corals safely and healthy in our care," explained Justin Zimmerman, the director of the Orlando-based lab, which opened in 2020 and is managed by aquatic theme park company SeaWorld.

Rescued corals are kept in a tank as staff members work on restoring Florida's coral reef at the Florida Coral Rescue Center in Orlando

 CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

"If they were still in the wild, up to 90 percent of them would have been dead," Zimmerman said.

The potentially catastrophic SCTLD was first discovered in 2014, near Miami, and has continued to spread rapidly, killing about half of stony coral species, a cornerstone of marine biodiversity.

The disease, whose causes are unknown, is now plaguing the animals further into the Caribbean, all the way in Mexico and Belize.

The rescue lab's work is part of a project created in 2018 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and includes dozens of public and private organizations.

The group, faced with the threat of more than 20 of the 45 species of hard corals in the area going extinct, devised the unprecedented plan to extract healthy corals from the region's waters and care for them in these artificially equipped aquariums in the hope they can be returned to their wild habitats in the future.

A fish swims near rescued coral at the Florida Coral Rescue Center in Orlando on September 20, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

"You are looking at the future of Florida Reef Tract in this room," Aston said of the corals in the Orlando aquariums. "And their grandchildren will be what goes back out to the water."

- Return to the sea –

The first part of the rescue plan has allowed wildlife authorities to save nearly 2,000 colonies of corals, now stored at more than 20 institutions in 14 different states.

The second part of the plan requires researchers to successfully return the corals to the ocean -- though such an operation would likely take place a long time from now, as corals reproduce very slowly.

A tourist snorkels over dead coral on the ocean bed in the Straits of Florida near Key Largo on September 23, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

The scientists are studying the genetics of the rescued animals in an effort to cultivate new specimens that could be more resistant to disease, as well as other threats such as warming water temperatures and pollution.

The success or failure of these endeavors could have huge consequences for the region.

Stony corals, made up of limestone skeletons, are what create coral reefs, which in turn provide a home for a quarter of marine life.

Plus, the structures are natural barriers between the open ocean and land, reducing the strength of waves that hit the coastline, especially during hurricanes and other storms.

And a hit to coral health could mean a hit to Florida tourism revenue, as one study estimated that visitors drawn to the state for fishing and diving along the reef generate $8.5 billion.

Key Largo resident Steve Campbell, 59, is worried about what comes next. He is sitting next to the small tourist boat he captains, currently anchored in the port.

A staff member works on restoring Florida's coral reef, which is suffering from stony coral tissue loss disease, at the Florida Coral Rescue Center in Orlando on September 20, 2021 CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

He said the coral disease has already had an impact on his business.

"I've been in the Florida Keys now for 20 years, and I'm out on the water every day," he said.

"Obviously we make our living out here, so we take people out to the reef for the enjoyment of seeing the reef."

"So for us it's extremely important."

© 2021 AFP

Algeria-Morocco standoff threatens Spain gas supplies

Issued on: 30/09/2021

For a quarter of a century, gas from Algeria's vast southern desert has been transported to Spain and Portugal through Morocco but a deepening rift between the North African neighbours means the taps could soon be turned off 

KJETIL ALSVIK STATOIL/AFP/File

Tunis (AFP)

Algeria pumps huge volumes of gas through Morocco into Europe, but with Algiers and Rabat at loggerheads as a pipeline agreement nears expiry, experts say the taps could soon be turned off.

That would hit Spain's gas supplies just as prices soar across Europe and with winter approaching, and Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares was due in Algeria on Thursday to discuss the issue, his office told AFP.

Algeria, Africa's biggest natural gas exporter, has been using the Gaz-Maghreb-Europe (GME) pipeline since 1996 to deliver several billion cubic metres (bcm) per year to Spain and Portugal.

But the GME contract is due to expire at the end of October -- just over two months after Algiers severed diplomatic ties with Rabat over "hostile actions".

And in August, Energy Minister Mohamed Arkab told Spanish ambassador Fernando Moran that Algeria was ready to deliver all its Spain-bound gas exports via an alternative undersea pipeline, bypassing Morocco.

"A deal to continue the GME agreement before October 31 is very unlikely," Maghreb geopolitics expert Geoff Porter told AFP.

"In light of the lack of diplomatic channels between Rabat and Algiers, it's difficult to see any pathway for negotiations."

Unlike their border, closed since 1994, the GME pipeline has stayed open for a quarter of a century, despite repeated crises.

Both sides benefit. Morocco receives around one bcm of gas per year, half of which it buys and the other half of which it receives as transit fees in kind -- worth some $50 million per year, according to a Moroccan energy expert who asked to remain anonymous.

In return, Algeria gets a cost-effective route for around half of its piped gas exports to Spanish and Portugese markets.

Yet with another diplomatic spat flaring just as the contract expires, a new deal is far from certain.

- Economic weapon -

The latest crisis followed months of tensions, partly over Morocco's normalisation of ties with Israel in exchange for Washington recognising Rabat's sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Morocco threatens gas supplies to Spain 

Patricio ARANA AFP

Algiers, which has hosted the Polisario independence movement and supported the Palestinian cause, in August accused its neighbour of "hostile actions", including complicity in deadly forest fires, backing separatists in the Kabylie region and using Pegasus spyware against Algerian officials.

Morocco called the Algerian move "completely unjustified", but experts say Algeria is keen to hit its rival where it hurts -- in the pocket.

"Algeria could deprive Morocco of transit fees, which are a major and stable source of revenue, but also of gas supplies at a good price," said North Africa energy expert Roger Carvalho.

But, he added: "Algeria has obligations (towards Spain and Portugal) and can't deprive itself of international revenues from these contracts. So it has to find another delivery route."

- International revenues -

Algeria does have two alternatives to the GME, but both have shortcomings.

The Medgaz undersea pipeline, which transports Algerian gas directly to Spanish shores, is already operating near its full capacity of 8 bcm per year -- around half total Algerian gas exports to Spain.

"If the Algerians manage to deliver enough gas via Medgaz, they probably will," Carvalho said.

But while Algeria's state energy firm Sonatrach and its Spanish partner Naturgy have vowed to boost Medgaz's capacity to 10 bcm per year in the coming months, that still falls far short of the total needed at current levels.

The second option is liquefying the gas and sending it to Spain by ship.

But Porter says the short distance means this option "does not make financial sense".

As a result, "Algeria is potentially going to lose some gas export sales revenue in order to deprive Morocco of its primary (97 percent) source of natural gas," he told AFP.

The Moroccan energy expert told AFP that closing the pipeline would hurt Algeria but have only "marginal" impact on Morocco.

"The GME is an opportunity for the Algerians. If they passed it up, it would be an irrational decision and they would be the biggest losers," he said.

Porter says that could force Morocco, which uses GME gas to generate around 10 percent of its electricity, to boost coal imports to cover the shortfall.

- 'Costs will rise' -

Rabat has said it wants to keep the GME open. But notwithstanding a deal directly between the firms managing the contract, many analysts are betting the taps will be turned off.

Matthew Cunningham, an economist at Barcelona-based consultancy FocusEconomics, said that would cause considerable supply disruptions for Spain, which has already been pushed to lower electricity taxes and impose price caps as gas bills soar across Europe.

"Despite this, Spain should be able to satisfy its energy needs by obtaining natural gas from different places or by using other energy sources, even though costs will rise significantly," he said.

Spain's environment ministry told AFP this week that Algeria had given it "the necessary guarantees that gas imports from Algeria will not be jeopardised despite the current crisis".

But Carvalho warned that long term, closing the GME could push Spain and Portugal to diversify their supplies away from Algeria.

"Using gas deliveries as an economic weapon isn't a good calculation in the long term for Algeria," Carvalho said.

© 2021 AFP

Taliban disperse women protesters with gunfire in Kabul

Issued on: 30/09/2021

The Taliban pushed back women protesters as they tried to continue with the small demonstration in Kabul, while a foreign journalist was hit with a rifle and blocked from filming 

BULENT KILIC AFP

Kabul (AFP)

The Taliban on Thursday violently cracked down on a small women's rights demonstration, firing shots into the air and pushing back protesters, AFP journalists witnessed.

A group of six women gathered outside a high school in eastern Kabul demanding the right for girls to return to secondary school, after the hardline Islamist group excluded them from classes earlier this month.

The women unfurled a banner that read "Don't break our pens, don't burn our books, don't close our schools", before Taliban guards snatched it from them.

They pushed back the women protesters as they tried to continue with the demonstration, while a foreign journalist was hit with a rifle and blocked from filming.

A Taliban fighter also released a brief burst of gunfire into the air with his automatic weapon, AFP journalists saw.

The demonstrators -- from a group called the "Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women Activists" -- took refuge inside the school.

Taliban guard Mawlawi Nasratullah, who led the group and identified himself as the head of special forces in Kabul, said the demonstrators "did not coordinate with security authorities regarding their protest".

The demonstrators -- from a group called the "Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women Activists" -- took refuge inside the school 

BULENT KILIC AFP

"They have the right to protest in our country like every other country. But they must inform the security institutes before," he said.

Isolated rallies with women at the forefront were staged in cities around the country after the Taliban seized power, including in the western city of Herat where two people were shot dead.

But protests have dwindled since the government issued an order that unsanctioned demonstrations and warned of "severe legal action" for violators.

It has been almost two weeks since girls were prevented from going to secondary school.

The Taliban follow a strict interpretation of sharia law that segregates men and women, and have also slashed women's access to work.

They have said they need to establish the right conditions before girls can return to the classroom, but many Afghans are sceptical.

© 2021 AFP

Australia returns world’s oldest tropical forest to indigenous owners

Issued on: 30/09/2021 

Australia's Daintree National Forest is famed for its rich biodiversity, including ancient and rare species. In this file photo taken June 30, 2015, an endangered cassowary roams in the forest. 

© Wilson Ring, AP

Text by: FRANCE 24
Video by :Simon Harding

Australia's Daintree Rainforest has been returned to its original Indigenous owners, the state of Queensland, Australia's third most populous, said on Wednesday, as the government begins to cede control of the world's oldest tropical forest.

Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988, the Daintree National Park was handed back to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people in a ceremony in the remote town of Bloomfield on Wednesday.

The 135-million-year-old tropical rainforest is famed for its rich biodiversity - from a giant clawed cassowary bird to plants that have existed since the age of the dinosaurs. But it has come under sustained pressure from climate change and industries such as logging.

In striking a new deal to manage the rainforest, Queensland said the Daintree would be returned to the traditional owners of the land.

Queensland state environment minister Meaghan Scanlon said the return of lands was a key step on the path toward reconciliation after an "uncomfortable and ugly" past.

"The Eastern Kuku Yalanji people's culture is one of the world's oldest living cultures and this agreement recognises their right to own and manage their country, to protect their culture, and to share it with visitors as they become leaders in the tourism industry," Scanlon said in a statement.

Eastern Kuku Yalanji traditional owner Chrissy Grant said the move was a historic event that put the community "in control of our own destinies".

In total, 160,000 hectares (about 395,000 acres) of land on the Cape York peninsula - the northeast tip of Australia - is being returned to the area's traditional Aboriginal owners as part of reconciliation measures, Scanlon added.

British settlers arrived in Australia in 1788, colonising the continent and leaving Aboriginal groups marginalised.

The deal is the first time Queensland has transferred the ownership of a national park in the Wet Tropics region of the state's northeast to an Indigenous group.

Australia's Uluru and Kakadu parks in the country's remote north are already owned by a local Indigenous population.

The national parks will initially be jointly managed with the Queensland state government, before being transferred into the sole care of the Indigenous group.

Grant said a foundation would be created to provide training and employment for local First Nations people in areas such as land management, tourism and research.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP & REUTERS)

Tunisia leader picks first woman as PM at moment of crisis

Publishing date: Sep 29, 2021 • 

TUNIS — Tunisian President Kais Saied named Najla Bouden Romdhane, a little-known university engineer with World Bank experience, as prime minister on Wednesday nearly two months after he seized most powers in a move his foes call a coup.

Romdhane, Tunisia’s first woman prime minister, will take office at a moment of crisis, with the democratic gains won in a 2011 revolution in doubt and as a major threat looms to public finances.

A geological engineer, Romdhane was responsible for implementing World Bank projects at the education ministry, but she has little experience of government.

Speaking in a video published online, Saied said her appointment honored Tunisian women and asked her to propose a cabinet in the coming hours or days “because we have lost a lot of time.”

The new government should respond to the demands and dignity of Tunisians in all fields, including health, transport and education, he added.

Saied dismissed the previous prime minister, suspended parliament and assumed wide executive powers in July and has been under growing domestic and international pressure to form a new government.

Last week he brushed aside much of the constitution, saying he could rule by decree and control the government himself, during an emergency period that has no defined endpoint.

Tunisia faces a rapidly looming crisis in public finances after years of economic stagnation were aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic and political infighting. Government bonds are under pressure and the cost of insuring against their default has hit a record high.

The new government will have to move very quickly to seek financial support for the budget and debt repayments after Saied’s power grab in July put talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on hold.

However, after Saied’s announcement last week that the government will be responsible to the president and that he can select or sack cabinet ministers, the role of prime minister will be less important than in previous administrations.

Most of Tunisia’s previous political elite, including most parties in the suspended parliament, have said they oppose Saied’s power grab.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams, William Maclean)

 

UK govt mobilises 150 army tanker drivers to alleviate fuel crisis

Motorists queue for fuel at East Barnet Esso in London

The UK government has mobilised 150 military tanker drivers to help alleviate the supply gridlock at petrol stations caused by Britons panic buying.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Wednesday confirmed that drivers around the country are queuing again for fuel, despite claims from Prime Minister Boris Johnson that the situation was improving.

"I think in the next couple of days, people will see some soldiers driving the tanker fleet. The last few days have been difficult. We’ve seen large queues but I think the situation is stabilising, we’re getting petrol into the forecourts. I think we’re going to see our way through this," Kwarteng said.

Fears are now mounting that Britain's already critical supply-chain problems could worsen in the weeks leading up to the crucial Christmas trading period.

By the early morning rush hour there were already long queues of cars in and around London and on the busy M25 motorway circling the capital. Social media has carried footage of fights breaking out as tempers fray at petrol stations.

Britain left the EU single market at the start of this year, which stopped haulage companies from recruiting drivers in the bloc. To tackle the driver shortage, the government has said it will issue temporary visas to 5,000 foreign drivers, a measure it had previously ruled out on ideological grounds.

European truck drivers have suggested that takeup could be low, given applicants would have little chance of finding short-term accommodation, the poor state of facilities for truckers while on the road and low pay.

Nepal introduces third gender category in latest census
Agence France-Presse
September 29, 2021

Officials from the Central Bureau of Statistics have been visiting homes across the country of 30 million people since Saturday PRAKASH MATHEMA AFP

Nepal has introduced a third gender category in its census for the first time, a move the Himalayan nation's LGBTQ community hopes will bring them greater rights.

Officials from the Central Bureau of Statistics have been visiting homes across the country of 30 million people since Saturday, giving respondents the option of choosing "others" as their gender, alongside male and female.

Nepal already has some of South Asia's most progressive laws on homosexuality and transgender rights, with landmark reforms passed in 2007 prohibiting gender or sexual orientation discrimination.

A third gender category for citizenship documents was introduced in 2013 and Nepal began issuing passports with the "others" category two years later.

But gay and transgender Nepalis and rights activists say the LGTBQ community -- estimated at 900,000-strong -- still faces discrimination, particularly for jobs, health and education.

LGBTQ activists say a lack of data has hampered access to benefits they are entitled to.

"When there is data after the census, we can use it as evidence to lobby for our rights. We can make demands in proportion to our size of the population," said Pinky Gurung, President of LGBTQ rights group Blue Diamond Society.

However, in more than 70 census questions there is only one linked to gender and critics say the results will still be limited.

Rukshana Kapali, a transgender woman and activist, who has filed a Supreme Court writ against the methodology, said the census was "problematic" and "cannot capture the real data of the LGBTQ community in Nepal".

Rights groups say LGBTQ people have also been scared to identify themselves in the past but they are encouraging them to be more open this time.

"We are counting the population with the 'others' category as part of our commitments toward gender equality," Dhundi Raj Lamichhane, director at the statistics bureau's population section, told AFP.

"We have worked with members of LGBTQ organisations this time and hope for a more reflective output to publish."

© 2021 AFP

'Fire DeJoy' demand intensifies as 10-year plan to sabotage postal service takes effect

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
September 29, 2021

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy (Photo: Screen capture)

Defenders of the U.S. Postal Service are urgently renewing their calls for the ouster of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy as his 10-year plan to overhaul the cherished government institution is set to take effect Friday, ushering in permanently slower mail delivery while hiking prices for consumers.

"DeJoy calls his plan 'Delivering for America,' but it will do the exact opposite—slowing many First Class Mail deliveries down, taking their standard from three to five days," Porter McConnell of Take on Wall Street, a co-founder of the Save the Post Office Coalition, warns in a video posted online late Tuesday.

"Slower ground transportation will also now be prioritized over air transportation," McConnell added. "These new service standards won't improve the Postal Service—they will make it harder for people all across the country to receive their medications, their bills, their paychecks, and more."



Appointed in May 2020 by the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, DeJoy—a major donor to former President Donald Trump—sparked a nationwide uproar by dramatically slowing mail delivery in the run-up to that year's pivotal elections, which relied heavily on absentee voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"We're still wondering why the hell Louis DeJoy is still Postmaster General when he's doing this to USPS."

But DeJoy, who can only be fired by a majority of the USPS board, has clung to his job despite incessant demands for his resignation or removal over the past year. In recent months, calls for DeJoy's termination have intensified as his conflicts of interest and past fundraising activities continue to draw scrutiny from watchdogs and the FBI.

During a House Oversight Committee hearing in February, DeJoy made clear he has no intention of leaving his post voluntarily.

"Get used to me," he told lawmakers.

Despite widespread criticism of his performance as head of the USPS, DeJoy still enjoys the enthusiastic backing of key postal board members, including Chairman Ron Bloom, a Democrat. Bloom, along with five other officials on the nine-member board, was appointed by Trump.

Notably, however, two recently confirmed board members appointed by President Joe Biden have vocally criticized DeJoy's looming 10-year strategic plan for the U.S. Postal Service.

Ronald Stroman, the former deputy postmaster general and one of Biden's picks, called DeJoy's plan "strategically-ill conceived" during a postal board meeting in August.

Presented as a roadmap toward "financial sustainability and service excellence," Stroman warned that DeJoy's initiative "creates dangerous risks that are not justified by the relatively low financial return, and doesn't meet our responsibility as an essential part of America's critical infrastructure." Experts have noted that the Postal Service's recent financial woes are largely the fault of an onerous congressional mandate that requires the USPS to prefund retiree benefits decades in advance.

"There is no compelling financial reason to make this change," Stroman said of DeJoy's plan. "The relatively minor savings associated with changing service standards, even if achieved, will have no significant impact on the Postal Service's financial future."

On top of lengthening mail delivery timelines and raising prices, DeJoy's strategy (pdf) would slash Post Office hours across the nation and consolidate mail processing facilities—a plan that the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union condemned as a "slap in the face."

After DeJoy rolled out his 10-year blueprint in March, a group of House Democrats ominously predicted the plan would ensure the "death spiral" of the Postal Service


Citing USPS spokesperson Kim Frum, NPR reported Tuesday that "beginning October 3 and ending on December 26, the postal service will temporarily increase prices on all 'commercial and retail domestic packages' due to the holiday season."

"In August, the Postal Service announced its standard for first-class mail delivery was met 83.6% of the time throughout the quarter ending June 30, in comparison to its 88.9% performance during the same period in 2020," NPR noted.

As USA Today summarized, "USPS mail delivery is about to get permanently slower and temporarily more expensive."

To limit and potentially reverse the damage DeJoy has inflicted on the USPS, watchdog groups and progressive advocates are ramping up pressure on Biden to take immediate action.

While the president can't remove DeJoy on his own, analysts have noted that he can soon replace both Bloom—who is currently serving a one-year holdover term—and John Barger, whose term expires in December. Such steps would give Biden appointees a majority on the USPS board—and potentially the votes to oust the postmaster general.

"President Biden has the power to remake the postal governing board and remove DeJoy," McConnell said in her video Tuesday. "He must act soon to name two new governors who understand the Postal Service is essential and must be strengthened as a beloved public institution."

Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research, told Common Dreams that "the American people deserve a Postal Service with leaders devoted to ensuring that this public institution provides fast and affordable mail and other public services like postal banking."

House gears up to subpoena DeJoy over his refusal to turn over documents: report

 (Photo: Screen capture)

"Instead with DeJoy and the majority of the board Trump appointed," Graves added, "we have seen the Postal Service politicized, a series of poor decisions that have caused severe delays, issued directives that will charge people more for slower mail, and rebuffed innovations like postal banking."

This story has been updated with comment from Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research.

USA

Editorial: Wasted lives, wasted time, and $5.7 billion wasted on treating the unvaccinated
2021/9/29 

© St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Caregivers tend to a COVID-19 patient in the improvised COVID-19 unit at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center on July 30, 2021, in Los Angeles. - Mario Tama/Getty Images North America/TNS

The costs of treating unvaccinated people for coronavirus infections were $5.7 billion between June and August of 2021, a new report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation has concluded. In the world of health care, that might not be much. Americans spent about $3.8 trillion dollars on health care in 2019, so $5.7 billion represents just 0.15% of overall health care spending.

But in the world that most of us live in, $5.9 billion is a lot. It represents a staggering loss that didn’t have to happen.

Since mid-April, safe and effective vaccines have been available without charge to virtually every American adult. Yet only 63% of Americans are fully vaccinated; 25% have yet to receive a single shot of the vaccine. In three Missouri counties, 75% of residents haven’t had a single shot.

Those unvaccinated people fueled a huge surge in cases from June to August, a number that continued to grow in early September. The Kaiser study estimates that 530,000 adult coronavirus cases were admitted to American hospitals from June 1 to Aug. 31. Of them, the authors estimated that 86% — 455,800 people — were unvaccinated.

Coronavirus hospitalizations doubled in July compared with June, the study found; they rose to 345,000 in August, up from 125,000 in July. In total, 287,000 hospitalizations from June through the end of August could have been prevented if more Americans were vaccinated, the study found. Those hospitalizations had an average cost of $20,000 each, which should be sobering news to the unvaccinated.

We’ve previously noted that insurance companies, which had waived deductibles and copayments for coronavirus treatments during the early part of the pandemic, were backing away from that policy. While the $20,000-per-case figure was being shared widely by insurance companies and the government, it will soon start hitting unvaccinated Americans in the pocketbook — as it should.

In case you don’t have a calculator handy, a 15% copay on $20,000 works out to $3,000. A $20,000 hospital bill is just the tip of the iceberg. Every dollar spent on health care is a dollar that can’t be spent on a competing need.

The $5.7 billion cost of treating people who likely wouldn’t have been infected if vaccinated means $5.7 billion less to spend on education, or repairing crumbling infrastructure. It could have gone a long way toward providing high-speed internet to rural areas that are notoriously underserved.

And then there are all of the lost lives: the fathers and mothers who will not raise their children, the grandparents whose loss blew a hole in thousands of American families. Those costs are incalculable.

An even bigger waste from the failure to immunize all Americans is that the nation still cannot be done with this pandemic and return to normal. It’s time for the unvaccinated to roll up their sleeves and stop wasting America’s time and money. And patience.

Reforming UN should be the first step for future

BY BAYRAM ALIYEV OP-ED
SEP 28, 2021

The United Nations headquarters building is seen from inside the U.N. General Assembly hall before heads of state begin to address the 76th Session of the General Assembly, New York City, U.S., Sept. 21, 2021. (Photo by Getty Images)

Wars leave societies in a state of poverty and destruction. At the beginning of the 21st century, approximately 60 countries were either experiencing conflict or the conflicts had just ended in these countries, according to Human Security Report 2005. Recent destructive crises in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are but one addition to them. Stopping the conflicts and building post-conflict peace in conflict areas are among the priorities of the United Nations.

However, the U.N. draws much criticism over its activities, its approach to the ongoing global problems and its role in solving these problems. The veto power issue in the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) emerges as the most criticized issue as it may block the ability to solve crises. Be it from academics, researchers or states, these criticisms are very accurate when the current structure of the U.N. is investigated.

Does the U.N. play an active role in maintaining international peace and resolving crises? Does it have the ability to make decisions that directly or indirectly come into conflict with the interests of any of the UNSC members? What is the role of the U.N. in current crises and conflict zones and in the peaceful resolution of these conflicts? Can it help build and maintain peace? Such questions will enable us to understand better the current functioning of the global system.

Since the U.N. is the largest international organization, it is expected to take an active role in all international problems. It is also expected to play a role in the resolution of conflicts with a problem-solving and peace-building mechanism based on impartial and objective laws.

However, the U.N. has not been able to demonstrate its expected impartiality and effectiveness. While the U.N.'s obsolete structure from the Cold War era requires comprehensive reform, the great powers' acting in line with their own interests rather than international law also draws criticism. For example, in the Syrian crisis, this was notably observed.

Whether we look at the example of Libya and Syria, or the resolutions of the UNSC on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue that had not been implemented for a long time – as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan noted in his speech at the U.N., Azerbaijan itself was forced to implement it by using hard power – it is clear that the U.N. is a relatively dysfunctional and passive organization.

In a nutshell, the U.N. has failed to contribute to the end of the ongoing crises and human tragedy around the world.

The resolutions' failure

Furthermore, although the UNSC resolutions are binding by all members and have sanction power, we see that the UNSC actually implements practices in line with the interests of major international actors. In other words, rather than the UNSC implementing decisions as a U.N. agency, we see that member states take and implement decisions that do not conflict with the interests of other states.

It is not more than a hope that global problems will be resolved when the approach to global politics and ego-centered interests of the states are replaced by global justice and a conscientious vision. When global problems are squeezed between the interests of five countries, they become more and more chronic. This seems clear in the example of Russian hard power exercises in the post-Soviet region. The U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan can also be analyzed from this perspective.

In order to ensure peace swiftly and to ensure its perpetuity in the conflict zones, there is a need to make the U.N. the most effective decision-maker for international peace by undergoing radical reform. Otherwise, as stated above, the organization will continue to be stuck between the UNSC members and it will continue to take dysfunctional decisions that are not implemented or given the opportunity to be implemented, in the end becoming an increasingly ineffective institution. The U.N. falling into such a situation might bring along the threat of new chaos in the world, further deepening international problems and potentially causing the outbreak of a new war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Faculty member at International Relations Department of Nakhchivan State University
UN a toothless tiger… or an appendage of the US? - EDITORIAL

29 September 2021 

THE MIRROR PAKISTAN

Yesterday (September 27) brought the curtain down on the final day of world leaders addressing the august body.

Addressing the sessions, Secretary General Antonio Guterres promoted the lofty ideals of the world body, spoke on issues of justice, warned the world of impending dangers climate change posed to future generations, as well as of death, destruction and the possibility of famine in Ethiopia and Yemen caused by war in those regions.

 
Meanwhile in Switzerland, another ‘game’ was playing out. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), an arm of the United Nations announced that he was ‘depriortising’ investigations into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan!

The prosecutor’s reason for this about was even more startling. Prosecutor Karim Khan said he had filed an application to resume his office’s investigation into alleged atrocities committed in Afghanistan since July 1, 2002. But, with a big difference… he said he would be focusing on the actions of the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan - an ISIS-K- militia.

His thinking was that since the Taliban had driven the US and NATO troops out of their country, it was impossible. Since the US-supported government was no longer in power, there was little chance for ‘a genuine and effective domestic investigation’.

In other words, only an investigation carried out by a regime backed by the perpetrator of war crimes, and atrocities committed by on the Afghan people could be considered reliable and genuine.

Who is trying to deceive whom?

All over the world the US has been committing war crimes with complete impunity.
Sadly, it looks like a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. The poor Secretary General is obviously completely unaware of what one of the most important arms of his organization is planning to unleash on an unsuspecting world.

When the ICC announced last year that it was going to investigate alleged US war crimes and atrocities in Afghanistan, the people of the world believed that at last the US would be held to account for its numerous crimes against the civilian populations in different parts of the world.

Alas! That it not to be, among some of the worse ‘incidents’ committed and reported by rt.com was a US airstrike in 2002 which struck a wedding banquet in Uruzgan province, killing dozens and injuring many more.

 
In 2015, a NATO attack killed 15 policemen on an anti-narcotics mission, and in 2019, a US drone attack killed at least 30 Afghan farmers in Nangarhar Province.

According Brown University’s ‘Costs of War project,’ up to 47,245 Afghan civilians have been killed in the war launched by Washington two decades ago.

These killings took place and were documented by several reputed organisations, backed up by proof and witness reports.

As the character ‘Alice’ in Lewis Carol’s novel ‘Alice Wonderland’ want to say, things get curiouser and curiouser and so it was with the UN prosecutor who emphasised ‘It is this finding that has necessitated the present application…’ that is ‘deprioritising’ investigations into alleged US war crimes and atrocities.

We wonder whether the ICC prosecutors will apply the same criteria to allegations of war crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s ‘War on Terror’, which ended in 2009. But of course this paper has always stood for justice to the victims of war.

Or for that matter will the UN even at this late stage charge the US for crimes against humanity for dropping two nuclear bombs on civilian targets in Japan at a time when Japan was on the brink of surrendering?

Even the head of the then US forces, then General Eisenhover asked President Harry Truman not to use nuclear arms, (according to his diary kept by an aide to the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union).

If this was not a war crime, what is? But the US has never been charged for these crimes.

All evidence points to the US crimes in Afghanistan being swept under the table. However, this time around, the UN will be unable like Pontius Pilot of old be able to white wash itself off the crimes committed against the Afghan. People.