El Nino puts millions in childhood malnutrition: study


Issued on: 12/10/2021 -

El Nino is a periodic event that affects global weather patterns, leading to heavy rain in some regions but relative drought in others

 Ezequiel BECERRA AFP/File


Paris (AFP)

Changing rain patterns caused by the El Nino warming phenomenon frequently drives millions of children into malnutrition and saddles them with life-long health issues, researchers said Tuesday, calling for action against the "predictable" impact.

El Nino is a periodic event that affects global weather patterns, occurring every few years when eastern Pacific Ocean waters get unusually warm, leading to heavy rain in some regions but relative drought in others.

US-based researchers examined 40 years worth of data for more than one million children across all developing country regions and compared their weight in El Nino with non-El Nino years.

They found that warmer and drier El Nino conditions increased childhood malnutrition across the tropics -- a part of the world where 20 percent of children are already severely underweight.

Crucially, while the children's weight appeared to rebound following an El Nino, the shock to their nutrition caused by the phenomenon led to stunted growth for years.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the team found that a typical El Nino event saw childhood malnutrition rates soar as much as three times higher than that witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic.

"It would have been very difficult to prepare the world for a pandemic that few saw coming," said co-author Amir Jina, from the Harris School of Public Policy.

"But we can't say the same about El Nino events that have a potentially much greater impact on the long-term growth and health of children."

In 2015, a particularly strong El Nino year, the team found that an additional six million children were driven into malnutrition.

While it is unclear if global heating will increase the frequency of El Nino years, it is already making hot and dry areas hotter and drier.

Because the event can be predicted by climatologists at least six months in advance, authors of Tuesday's paper called for governments to integrate El Nino into their humanitarian plans.

"These are routine events in the climate that lead to real tragedy around the world," said Jesse Anttila-Hughes, from the University of San Francisco.

Anttila-Hughes said that further study of how El Nino affects crop cycles on a regional level could provide insight into how food systems globally are likely to adapt to a warming world.

"But the fact that we live through an El Nino every few years, we know they're coming, and we still don't act is a bad sign since many of these climate shifts," he said.

© 2021 AFP

UN can’t rule on climate case brought by Greta Thunberg

Youth climate activists argued before the United Nations that inaction on climate change violates children’s rights.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg filed a complaint with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2019

 [File: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images]
11 Oct 2021

A UN panel said it could not immediately rule on a complaint by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and others that inaction on climate change constitutes a violation of children’s rights.

The committee, made up of 18 independent human rights experts, said on Monday it found a “sufficient causal link” between the harm allegedly suffered by children and the omissions of five states.

However, it accepted the countries’ argument that the children should have brought their case to national courts first.

“You were successful on some aspects but not on others,” the committee told the youth activists in a letter, in which it saluted their “courage and determination”.

“We hope that you will be empowered by the positive aspects of this decision, and that you will continue to act in your own countries and regions and internationally to fight for justice on climate change,” it said.

The complaint was filed in 2019 with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child by 15 activists, aged between eight and 17 at the time, from 12 countries. It argued France, Turkey, Brazil, Germany, and Argentina had known about the risk of climate change for decades but failed to curb their carbon emissions.

The panel had been conducting hearings and deliberating since.

Ramin Pejan, a senior lawyer with Earthjustice – which helped bring the case, said he was “disappointed” with the committee’s decision on admissibility.

But Margaretha Wewerinke, an international lawyer focused on environmental justice, said the case had “broken new ground in climate litigation and will no doubt inform future efforts to protect rights against climate change”.

Climate litigation cases invoking human rights have been on the rise. The UN Human Rights Council plunged into the climate crisis last week, recognising the right to a clean environment and creating a special rapporteur on protecting rights threatened by climate change, just weeks before the COP26 summit set to start in Glasgow on October 31.

The rapporteur will be tasked with identifying how the adverse effects of climate change affected the full enjoyment of human rights, and making recommendations on how to prevent those effects.

Environmentalists are worried the policies formulated at the 26th annual UN summit will not go far enough to significantly slash carbon emissions and slow the warming of the planet.

Thousands of protesters marched in Brussels on Sunday to demand the adoption of bold and far-reaching policies by member states.

The summit is seen as one of the last chances to put the brakes on climate change and avert environmental catastrophe.

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA

Kashmir is one of the most militarised zones in the world

Kashmiri Hindus, Sikhs reel from spate of deadly attacks

Some members of the Hindu community leave the region while Sikhs are terrified after a wave of attacks killed seven civilians.

Muslim religious leaders have condemned the killings from mosques, asking people to take initiatives to make the minorities feel safe in the region

 [Danish Ismail/Reuters]

LONG READ

By Rifat Fareed
10 Oct 2021

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – A string of targeted killings of civilians this week in the Indian-administered Kashmir has caused a sense of fear among the minority communities, with many Hindus starting to leave the region.

A Sikh principal and her Hindu colleague were shot dead inside their school on the outskirts of Srinagar, the region’s main city, on Thursday in the third attack within a week. The attackers first checked the identity cards of the teachers and then isolated 46-year-old Sikh woman Supinder Kaur and a local Hindu teacher Deepak Chand before shooting them dead on the school premises, officials said.

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A total of seven people have been killed in the recent spate of killings, blamed on the rebels fighting Indian rule.

Authorities have asked members of the Hindu community not to venture out of their homes. But that has failed to assuage their fears. Some of them have quietly left the region, bringing back memories of the 1990s, which saw the flight of the Hindu community.

Tens of thousands of people from the minority Hindu community were forced to leave mainly for the southern city of Jammu after some members of the community were targeted following the eruption of an armed rebellion in 1989.

But about 800 families had decided to stay back despite the precarious security situation. Among them was the family of *Rudresh Chaku, 23, a computer science graduate, from Srinagar.

The “recent attacks have brought back the memories of the 1990s,” Chaku, a member of the Hindu Pandit community, told Al Jazeera.

“I was not born in the early 1990s but today my parents are witnessing the flashback of those times and I am able to see closely how tough the times would have been,” Chaku.

The young computer graduate sees his future in Kashmir but says his parents are worried.

“They regret not migrating in the 1990s. If these things continue, we cannot stay here any more,” Chaku said, adding that for the past five days, the family has not stepped out of their home.

“Though my Muslim friends are calling all the time for any help and support me to make me feel safe, but the fear is still there,” he said.

Hundreds detained

Police have detained hundreds of people as they promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.

A police official on the conditions of anonymity said more than 300 people, mostly young men, have been detained in raids across the region. Most of these people have been involved in “stone pelting and violent protests” in the past, the official said.

Kashmir is one of the most militarised zones in the world 

[File: Dar Yasin/AP Photo]

Authorities have tried to reassure the minority community that the latest killings should not be seen through a communal prism, emphasising that out of the 28 civilians killed by rebels this year, 21 were local Muslims. The deadly attacks, the police said, are part of a larger pattern of civilian killings in the restive region, which has seen decades of deadly violence.

The latest attacks started with the killings of Majid Ahmad Gojri and Mohammad Shafi Dar of Srinagar’s old city. On Tuesday, rebels killed a prominent pharmacist Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Hindu, at his shop in Srinagar. Later in the day, two more people were killed, including a Muslim taxi driver in the northern city of Bandipora.

The region’s police chief, Vijay Kumar, said in a statement soon after the killings: “We appeal to general public specially minority communities not to panic.”
Muslim religious leaders stand in solidarity

Muslim religious leaders in the region have condemned the killings from mosques, asking people to take initiatives to make the minorities feel safe in the region.

A senior pro-freedom leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, condemned the killings and said he is “deeply grieved”.

“When militarisation is pursued as a state policy to handle a live and lingering conflict rather than seeking conflict resolution, bloodshed and loss of precious human lives is the consequence,” the senior leader, who has mostly been in house arrest in the past two years after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, said in a statement.

Indian paramilitary soldiers stand guard next to a group of teachers sitting inside a government school where two teachers were shot dead by assailants in the outskirts of Srinagar

 [Dar Yasin/AP Photo]

The killings have invoked resentment and anger in the region as well as across India, with the opposition parties criticising the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the deterioration of the security situation.

Home Minister Amit Shah, a close confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has particularly come in for criticism for the spike in violence as Kashmir falls under the jurisdiction of his ministry. Shah was instrumental in the scrapping of the region’s limited autonomy and bringing it under central rule two years ago.

Shah held an emergency security meeting in India’s capital, New Delhi, to review the security measures in the disputed Muslim-majority region. Both Pakistan and India claim the Himalayan region in its entirety but govern only part of it.

Many pro-Indian politicians say changes in land and domicile laws have generated apprehension among the local Muslim population, who fear that the BJP government aims to bring about demographic change in the region.

Mehbooba Mufti, the former chief minister of the region, said “the government has communalised the whole situation”.

“These things [civilian killings] are unfortunate, but they are the outcome of government policies that have been very suppressive, stringent and muscular. People feel more alienated, if you say anything you are slapped with anti-terror laws. The moderate space or middle ground has been completely obliterated. Now, there is either militancy or the security forces,” she told Al Jazeera.

‘More palpable’

Sanjay Tickoo, the president of Kashmiri Pandits Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), an organisation that works for the rights of Hindus in Kashmir, said that during the current tension the “Muslim majority population is also on the backfoot and fear is more palpable”.

Tickoo said he keeps on getting desperate calls from his community members across Kashmir.

“… I told them we overcame the 1990s and this shall pass, too. I have locked the main door of my house if anyone knocks, I get on the top floor to check first who has come,” Tickoo said, adding that according to the information shared by his community members, 70 families, meaning roughly 300 people, have left Kashmir for Jammu for security reasons.

Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), another organisation of local Hindus, has started an online petition addressed to the region’s administrative head, Manoj Sinha, demanding protection.

“Over 100 memoranda by the KPSS failed to elicit any concrete response and a heartless regime also ignored two hunger strikes by the Kashmiri Pandit group,” read the online petition that has been signed by more than 700 people.

Most of the families that left in recent days had returned to Kashmir after 2010 as they were provided jobs and housing under the prime minister’s rehabilitation package for migrants. Officials say that close to 3,800 Hindu families returned to the Muslim-majority region in the last 10 years.

But those who had decided to stay in Kashmir in the 1990s mostly continue to live among their Muslim neighbours.

The local Hindus working in the government departments have been given leave for the time being. Students from Indian states have been offered safe accommodations by their institutions.

‘Live in fear’

In the volatile southern Kashmir’s Pulwama district, a local Hindu family who has been living among their Muslim neighbours for decades refused to speak to Al Jazeera due to the prevailing fear. But a 30-year-old engineer, Sandeep, who lives in the old Srinagar city, told Al Jazeera that “more [Hindus] can leave in coming days”.

“I live with my sister and mother but they fear for my life now. When I leave home my family calls continuously. It is like the 1990s repeating. I was very young then, had I been an adult, I would never choose to stay here,” he said, adding that “it is better to leave than live in fear always.”

Sikh community members carry the body of slain Supinder Kaur, a government school teacher during her funeral procession in Srinagar [Mukhtar Khan/AP Photo]

“It is not possible to stay home all the time, because we have to earn to eat. Now, we don’t know whether we will reach home safely by evening or not,” he said, adding that “the minority should be given security and a one-time solution by the government.”

The BJP, which has presented itself as a champion of the Hindu cause, had promised to bring the displaced Hindus back to the Kashmir Valley – home to about seven million people, overwhelmingly Muslims.

Since it came to power in 2014, it has pushed hardline policies on Kashmir, refusing to speak to pro-freedom politicians. Two years ago, it suspended the local assembly and threw hundreds of pro-India politicians, including former chief ministers, in jail – a move criticised by the opposition.

The August 2019 move to abrogate Article 370 – which granted Kashmir a special status – was followed by the deployment of tens of thousands of more troops to a region already said to be one of the most militarised zones in the world.

The government said the unprecedented move two years ago was to root out “terrorism” – but critics are now saying the government’s hardline policy does not seem to be working.
Sikh-Muslim relations

On Friday, hundreds of angry Sikhs participated in the funeral of Kaul, the slain school principal, and marched in the streets of Srinagar, expressing their resentment over the “shocking incident”.

Jagmohan Raina, who heads All Party Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC), an organisation which advocates for the 150,000 Sikhs in the region, told Al Jazeera “that common Muslim man has nothing to do with such incidents”.

“We have taken a decision at the community level to refrain women from attending their offices till a further decision is made,” he said.

But the Sikh leaders like Raina are conscious, too. He said the community would fight the elements that are trying to create a religious divide between Muslims and Sikhs over these incidents.

“We don’t have fear from Kashmiri common men but from those who are being used for these targeted killings,” Raina said.

Sikhs and Muslims in the region have generally shared cordial relations over the years despite the decades of turmoil.

“We [Sikhs] have been part and parcel of this community for 500 years. We are not going anywhere,” Raina said.

‘Protect minorities’

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a global rights group, has demanded that the government must take measures to protect the minorities in Kashmir.

“The authorities should protect minorities in Kashmir and ensure justice for victims of security force abuses,” Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director at HRW, said in a statement.

She said, “The Indian government’s failure to confront its own rights abuses feeds Kashmir’s brutal cycle of violence.”

Ganguly said this violence will not end “without justice for past and present abuses and respect for people’s rights and freedoms”.

Kashmiri women mourn the death of Supinder Kaur at her residence

 [Al Jazeera]

A rebel outfit, the Resistance Front (TRF), has claimed responsibility for the recent killings. The armed group is believed to be the offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which first surfaced in March last year.

The police had called it a local front of LeT “launched by Pakistan” immediately after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.

Police sources have told Al Jazeera that rebels are taking advantage of a raging debate about the “changing demography” in the region generated by the changes in domicile and land laws.

“The terrorists are targeting minorities and Indian nationalists among Kashmiri Muslims including local BJP workers to spin a narrative about demographic change. In the last two years, around 23 BJP workers, mostly Muslims, have been killed by the terrorists,” an official said. “But these tactics will not succeed.”

*Name changed to protect identity
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

THERE WAS A SURVIOR 

Teens charged over Australia kangaroo deaths  A BRUTAL SENSELESS SLAUGHTER 

Police said they found the dead kangaroos across two separate areas near Batemans Bay.

PHOTO: PEXELS

SYDNEY (AFP) - Two teenagers were charged on Tuesday (Oct 12) over an alleged attack that left 14 kangaroos dead on Australia's east coast, an act labelled "tragic and senseless" by animal rescuers.

The pair of 17-year-old boys were arrested after locals discovered the dead eastern grey kangaroos, including two joeys, near Batemans Bay, about four hours drive south of Sydney last Saturday morning, police said.

"It is a tragic and senseless act that has left an indelible mark on our dedicated Mid South Coast branch volunteers who attended the scene, as well as the local residents," wildlife rescue organisation Wires said on Facebook.

Police said they found the dead animals across two separate areas near the beachside town.

A member of the public discovered one surviving joey, which was nicknamed "Hope" by rescuers.

"Surprisingly, she's doing incredibly well," Mid South Coast Wires chair Janelle Renes told national broadcaster ABC. "When she got here, she was pretty much lifeless."

North Sea Link: World's longest undersea power cable linking Norway and UK is now operational 

By Euronews • Updated: 01/10/2021

The North Sea Link cable. - Copyright National Grid

The world's longest undersea power connection was today switched on, allowing Norway and the UK to share renewable energy.

The North Sea Link should see the UK reduce its carbon emissions by 23 million tonnes by 2030.

The 720-kilometre cable connects Blyth in Northumberland, in north-eastern England, to Kvilldall, a small village in south-western Norway.

North Sea Link joins Blyth, in north-eastern England, to Kvilldal in south-western Norway.National Grid

It will initially have a maximum capacity of 700 megawatts (MW) which will be gradually increased to reach 1,400 MW in about three months' time.

The UK's National Grid, which operates the interconnector in a joint venture with Norway's Statnett system operator, said in a statement that once at full capacity, the North Sea Link should provide enough clean electricity to power 1.4 million homes.

When wind generation in the UK will be high but energy demand low, extra renewable power will be exported from the UK to Norway and conserve water in Norway's reservoirs, according to the statement. However, when demand is high in the UK but wind generation is low, hydropower from Norway will be imported.

Cordi O'Hara, President of National Grid Ventures, said that it is "an exciting day for National Grid and an important step as we look to diversify and decarbonise the UK's electricity supply".

"North Sea Link is a truly remarkable feat of engineering. We had to go through mountains, fjords and across the North Sea to make this happen. But as we look forward to COP26, Noth Sea Link is also a great example of two countries working together to maximise renewable energy resources for mutual benefit," he added.

100 billion tonnes of carbon saved

The interconnector took six years to complete at a cost of £1.6 billion (€1.9 billion).

It is the fifth interconnector to the National Grid and adds to with links to Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

According to the National Grid, 90% of electricity imported via the interconnectors by 2030 will be from zero-carbon sources that should save 100 million tonnes of carbon.

Statnett, meanwhile, operates a second interconnector between Norway and Germany, which went online last winter.

About 98% of Norway's electricity is generated from renewable energy sources with hydropower accounting for 96% of the total, according to government statistics. Wind power and thermal power ake up the remaining 2%.

A paper released on Wednesday by the UK government showed that during the first six months of the year, fossil fuel accounted for a greater share of electricity generation than renewables.

The paper notes that renewable generation decreased nearly 10% compared to the same period in 2020 due to lower average wind speeds and less favourable weather conditions which impacted both wind and solar production.

PELE GROWS GAIA'S SURFACE

La Palma: New lava streams after volcano's cone collapses

By AP • Updated: 11/10/2021 - 12:04

A volcano continues to spew out lava on the Canary island of La Palma, Spain in the early hours of Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021. - Copyright AP Photo/Daniel Roca

Three weeks since its eruption upended the lives of thousands, the volcano on Spain’s La Palma island is still spewing out endless streams of lava with no signs of ceasing.

Authorities on Sunday monitored a new stream of molten rock that has added to the destruction of over 1,100 buildings.

The collapse on Saturday of part of the volcanic cone sent a flood of bright red lava pouring down from the Cumbre Vieja ridge that initially cracked open on September 19.


The fast-flowing stream carried away huge chunks of lava that had already hardened. An industrial park was soon engulfed.

“We cannot say that we expect the eruption that began 21 days ago to end anytime soon,” said Julio Pérez, the regional minister for security on the Canary Islands.

La Palma is part of Spain’s Canary Islands, an Atlantic Ocean archipelago off northwest Africa whose economy depends on the cultivation of the Canary plantain and tourism.

The new rivers of lava have not forced the evacuation of any more residents since they are all so staying within the exclusion zone that authorities have created. Some 6,000 residents were promptly evacuated after the initial eruption.

Government experts estimated that the largest of the lava flows measures 1.5 km at its widest point, while the delta of new land being formed where lava is flowing into the Atlantic has reached a surface of 34 hectares.

A volcano continues to spew out lava on the Canary island of La Palma, Spain in the early hours of Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021.AP Photo/Daniel Roca

The scientific committee advising the government said that if the delta continues to grow outwards into the sea, parts of it could break off. That would generate explosions, gas emissions and large waves, committee spokeswoman José María Blanco said, but should not represent a danger to those outside the no-go zone.

The Canary Islands' tourism industry was already hard hit by the pandemic, and officials were urging tourists not to keep staying away.

“This eruption is impacting a part of the island, but La Palma is still a safe place and can offer a lot to those who visit,” said Mariano Hernández, the island’s leading authority.

The last eruption on La Palma 50 years ago lasted just over three weeks. The last eruption on all the Canary Islands occurred underwater off the coast of El Hierro island in 2011 and lasted five months.

La Palma volcano: Satellite image shows lava flow to Atlantic Ocean

By Euronews with AP, AFP • Updated: 04/10/2021

The lava flow from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma,

 on Sept. 30, 2021. - Copyright Copernicus Sentinel / Adam Platform


The volcano on La Palma in Spain's Canary Islands blew open a new fissure on Friday, triggering a series of small earthquakes.

Authorities said they have recorded eight new earthquakes up to magnitude 3.5.

They were waiting to see whether lava from the new fissure would join the main flow, which has travelled six kilometres and reached the Atlantic Ocean, shown in the satellite image, above.

The molten rocks have solidified upon contact with the seawater, creating a kind of peninsula.



On Thursday afternoon, the surface area of this expansion was approaching 19 hectares, compared with 10 at the beginning of the morning, David Calvo, spokesman for the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan) said.

Experts have warned it is likely to have a devastating short-term impact on the local marine ecosystem.

The meeting of lava and water has also produce potentially toxic gases.


Officials were monitoring air quality along the shoreline and although sulfur dioxide levels in the area rose, they do not represent a health threat, La Palma’s government said.

However, it advised local residents to stay indoors. It also recommended that people on the island wear face masks and eye protection against heavy falls of volcanic ash.

There have been no reported injuries or death since the September 19 eruption.

The lava has so far hit more than 1,000 buildings, including homes and farming infrastructure, and entombed around 338 hectares (835 acres).

La Palma, home to about 85,000 people who live mostly from fruit farming and tourism, is part of the volcanic Canary Islands, an archipelago off northwest Africa that is part of Spain's territory.

The island is roughly 35 kilometres (22 miles) long and 20 kilometres (12 miles) wide at its broadest point. Life has continued as usual on most of the island while the volcano is active.

The two previous eruptions in La Palma took place in 1949 and 1971. They caused a total of three deaths, two of which were due to gas inhalation.

WE NEED GLOBAL #UBI

COVID-19 pandemic has forced 100 million into poverty, UN chief says

WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK,

AND DEBT FORGIVENESS

By Orlando Crowcroft & AP • Updated: 12/10/2021 

A Sri Lankan university student receives his coronavirus vaccine at the Sri Jayawardenapura university in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. - 

 Copyright Eranga Jayawardena/Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has lashed out at vaccine inequality which he says has meant that the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic has fallen disproportionately on the poor.

Guterres told a panel at the International Monetary Fund that global solidarity had been "missing in action" and that people living in conflict zones and fragile states were suffering worst of all.

He said that 100 million people had been forced into poverty since the beginning of the pandemic and that four billion lacked social support, health care, and job protection.

Such inequality, Guterres said, was "creating a breeding ground for violence and conflict."

A key issue, the UN chief said, was that while the developed world had access to vaccines and had been able to vaccinate their populations, poorer nations still did not have what they needed.

"Vaccine inequality is a moral outrage that is condemning the world to millions more deaths, and prolonging an economic slowdown that could cost trillions of dollars, hitting the poorest countries hardest of all," he said.

He urged nations to back the World Health Organization's Global COVID-19 vaccination strategy, which aims to get 70% of people in every country vaccinated by 2022.

"In countries affected by crisis and conflict, vaccination will require targeted investment in local delivery mechanisms and capacities," he said.

"This will not only guarantee that vaccines are delivered quickly and fairly; it will strengthen local and national health systems and help prevent future pandemics."
'Economic recovery'

Guterres also spoke about the global economic recovery which was taking place in rich nations, but not in poorer states. He said advanced economies were investing 28% of their GDP in recovery, a figure that dropped to 1.8% for the least developed countries.

"Countries affected by conflict and crisis countries have the least fiscal space to invest in the policies they need for a sustainable, inclusive recovery – policies like renewable energy, social protection and healthcare for all," he said.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on the world's most developed countries to take on and counter widening gaps between the rich and poor.

He told the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris on Tuesday that the coronavirus and climate change have exacerbated inequality among and within nations and that action must be taken to reverse the trend.

Climate change may already affect 85 percent of humanity

Researchers comb through some 100,000 studies documenting climate change’s effects around the planet.

Activists hold banners during a protest as part of the Fridays for Future climate movement's initiatives in New Delhi, India 

[File: Manish Swarup/AP Photo]
11 Oct 2021

Climate change could already be affecting 85 percent of the world’s population, an analysis of tens of thousands of scientific studies found.

The analysis, released on Monday, was carried out by a team of researchers that used machine learning to comb through vast troves of research published between 1951 and 2018 and found some 100,000 papers that potentially documented evidence of climate change’s effects on the Earth’s systems.

“We have overwhelming evidence that climate change is affecting all continents, all systems,” study author Max Callaghan told the AFP news agency in an interview.

He added there was a “huge amount of evidence” showing the ways in which these effects are being felt.

The researchers taught a computer to identify climate-relevant studies, generating a list of papers on topics from disrupted butterfly migration to heat-related human deaths to forestry cover changes.

The studies only rarely established a direct link to global warming – so Callaghan and teams from the Mercator Research Institute and Climate Analytics, both in Berlin, took on the task themselves.

Using location data from the studies, they divided the globe into a grid and mapped where documented climate impacts matched climate-driven trends in temperature and precipitation.

For each grid cell they asked, “Is it getting hotter or colder or wetter or dryer outside of the bounds of natural variability?” said Callaghan.

Then, he said, they checked if this type of change matched expectations from climate models.

They found 80 percent of the globe – home to 85 percent of the world’s population, had generated impact studies that matched predictions for temperature and precipitation changes due to global warming.

Crucially, he said, research has disproportionately documented climate impacts in richer nations, with fewer studies in highly vulnerable regions.

For example he said that trends in temperatures and rainfall in Africa could be linked to climate change.

“Developing countries are at the forefront of climate impacts, but we can see in our study there are real blind spots when it comes to climate impact data,” contributing author Shruti Nath said, according to a news release by Mercator.

“Most of the areas where we are not able to connect the dots attribution-wise are in Africa. This has real implications for adaptation planning and access to funding in these places.”
Machine learning

Climate-related research has grown exponentially in recent decades.

Between 1951 and 1990, “We have about 1,500 studies in total,” Callaghan said, “Whereas in the five years or so since the last [UN] assessment report we have between 75,000 and 85,000 studies – a phenomenal increase.”

Callaghan said the sheer volume of research has made it impossible to individually identify all the studies that reliably link observed impacts to man-made climate change.

The machine learning technique offered a global picture that could help experts trying to synthesise huge numbers of studies, Callaghan said, although he added that “it can never replace human analysis”.


“Our world map of climate impacts provides guidance for the global fight against global heating, for regional and local risk assessments and also for on-the-ground action on climate adaptation,” he said according to the news release.

‘Fossil fuels killing us’

The World Health Organization and about three-quarters of global health care workers on Monday called on governments to step up climate action at the COP26 global climate conference, saying it could save millions of lives a year.

The UN health agency’s report on climate change and health calls for transformational action in every sector including energy, transport and finance, saying the public health benefits of ambitious climate actions far outweigh the costs.

“The burning of fossil fuels is killing us. Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity,” the WHO said on Monday.

The WHO has previously said some 13.7 million deaths a year, or around 24.3 percent of the global total, were caused environmental risks such as air pollution and chemical exposure.

It is not clear exactly how many of those are directly linked to climate change, although the WHO’s Maria Neira said about 80 percent of the deaths from air pollution could be prevented through compliance with its guidelines.

The report’s release coincides with a letter backed by more than 400 health bodies representing more than 45 million nurses, doctors and medical professionals also calling for action.

“The actions called for in this letter — which are necessary although not sufficient to fully address the climate and health crises — will go a long way toward protecting people worldwide,” the letter said.

Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Council recognised access to a clean and healthy environment as a fundamental right, adding its weight to the fight against climate change.

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UK govt fumbled start of Covid crisis: MPs' probe

By AFP
Published October 11, 2021

Former special advisor Dominic Cummings gave a scathing assessment of Johnson's handling of the crisis during his evidence. — © AFP

British government delays locking down society when Covid-19 hit last year were “one of the most important public health failures” in the country’s history, a parliamentary report said Tuesday.

In a damning assessment, a cross-party group of British MPs found government pandemic planning was too focused on flu and had failed to learn the lessons from the prior Sars, Mers and Ebola outbreaks.

The study, published by two parliamentary watchdog committees after months of hearings, comes ahead of an independent public inquiry into the government’s coronavirus handling due to begin next year.

Britain has been hit hard by the crisis, with nearly 138,000 Covid-19 deaths since March last year, raising questions about why it has fared worse than other nations.

MPs on two parliamentary committees said the government had waited too long to push through lockdown measures in early 2020.

Leading advisors had pushed a “deliberate policy” to take a “gradual and incremental approach” to interventions such as social distancing, isolation and lockdowns, said the report.

That approach had been proved “wrong” and cost lives, they noted.

“Decisions on lockdowns and social distancing during the early weeks of the pandemic — and the advice that led to them — rank as one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced,” they wrote.

There was a “policy approach of fatalism about the prospects for Covid in the community”, which contributed to the failures.

– ‘Groupthink’ –

Government planning for a pandemic was also misplaced and too “narrowly and inflexibly based on a flu model”, while ministers and advisers were accused of “groupthink” by some experts, according to the report.

“The Government took seriously scientific advice but there should have been more challenge from all to the early UK consensus that delayed a more comprehensive lockdown,” it stated.

Britain had also been too slow to introduce the isolation of infected people and their households, and mistakenly implemented “light-touch border controls” only on countries with high Covid rates.

The panel took evidence from a range of figures, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s controversial former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who assailed his ex-boss’s handling of the crisis.

Johnson has also faced criticism over his refusal to start the public inquiry sooner.

The British leader announced in May that the probe would go ahead and examine his government’s actions “as rigorously and as candidly as possible and to learn every lesson for the future”.

But he has refused to allow it to begin before spring next year, arguing the inquiry could hamper the country’s ongoing pandemic response.

Report by MPs says government’s response to Covid was ‘one of the worst ever public health failures’

Basit Mahmood Today
LEFT FOOT FORWARD

The UK has one of the world’s highest death tolls from Covid, with more than 138,000 deaths

The UK’s early handling of the Covid pandemic has been described as ‘one of the worst public health failures in UK history’ in a landmark report.

Published by the Commons science and technology committee and the health and social care committee, the report was scathing of the decision to pursue ‘herd immunity’. It states that ‘the UK, along with many other countries in Europe and North America made a serious early error in adopting this fatalistic approach and not considering a more emphatic and rigorous approach to stopping the spread of the virus as adopted by many East and Southeast Asian countries.”

The UK has one of the world’s highest death tolls from Covid, with more than 138,000 deaths. The cross-party group of MPs also said that the pandemic had exposed ‘some major deficiencies in the machinery of government’, with protocols to share vital information between public bodies ‘absent’.

The 151-page report also says that the decision not to impose an earlier lockdown and act with urgency had resulted in a higher death toll. It adds: “This slow and gradualist approach was not inadvertent, nor did it reflect bureaucratic delay or disagreement between Ministers and their advisers. It was a deliberate policy— proposed by official scientific advisers and adopted by the Governments of all of the nations of the United Kingdom.”

Decisions on lockdowns and social distancing during the early weeks of the pandemic – and the advice that led to them were described as “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced.” The report concludes: “This happened despite the UK counting on some of the best expertise available anywhere in the world, and despite having an open, democratic system that allowed plentiful challenge.”

The decision to discharge elderly patients into care homes without testing them for coronavirus was also criticised. The MPs stated: “The UK was not alone in suffering significant loss of life in care homes, but the tragic scale of loss was among the worst in Europe and could have been mitigated.”

The report did however praise the vaccination programme, describing it as “one of the most effective initiatives in the history of UK science and public administration”.

Cabinet Office minister Stephen Barclay refused to apologise 11 times on Sky News following publication of the report.

Asked by Kay Burley if he would be apologising in the wake of the report, Mr Barclay replied: “Well no, we followed the scientific advice, we protected the NHS, we took the decisions based on the evidence before us.”

UK 'waited too long' to impose COVID-19 lockdown, costing thousands of lives: report

By AP • Updated: 12/10/2021 - 

In this Friday, March 6, 2020 file photo, the front page of the Evening Standard is displayed at Bond Street Station, in London. - 

 Copyright Alberto Pezzali/Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

The British government waited too long to impose a lockdown in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, missing a chance to contain the disease and leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths, a parliamentary report concluded Tuesday.

The deadly delay resulted from ministers’ failure to question the recommendations of scientific advisers, resulting in a dangerous level of “groupthink” that caused them to dismiss the more aggressive strategies adopted in East and Southeast Asia, according to the joint report from the House of Commons’ science and health committees. It was only when Britain's National Health Service risked being overwhelmed by rapidly rising infections that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative government finally ordered a lockdown.

“There was a desire to avoid a lockdown because of the immense harm it would entail to the economy, normal health services and society,’’ the report said. “In the absence of other strategies such as rigorous case isolation, a meaningful test-and-trace operation, and robust border controls, a full lockdown was inevitable and should have come sooner.’’

The U.K. parliamentary report comes amid frustration with the timetable for a formal public inquiry into the government’s response to COVID-19, which Johnson says will start next spring.

Lawmakers said their inquiry was designed to uncover why Britain performed “significantly worse” than many other countries during the early days of the pandemic so that the U.K. could improve its response to the ongoing threat from COVID-19 and prepare for future threats.

The 150-page report is based on testimony from 50 witnesses, including former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and former government insider Dominic Cummings. It was unanimously approved by 22 lawmakers from the three largest parties in Parliament: the governing Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party and the Scottish National Party.

The committees praised the government’s early focus on vaccines as the ultimate way out of the pandemic and its decision to invest in vaccine development. These decisions led to Britain’s successful inoculation program, which has seen almost 80% of people 12 and over now fully vaccinated.

“Millions of lives will ultimately be saved as a result of the global vaccine effort in which the U.K. has played a leading part,” the committees said.

But they also criticized the government’s test-and-trace program, saying its slow, uncertain and often chaotic performance hampered Britain’s response to the pandemic.

The government’s strategy during the first three months of the crisis reflected official scientific advice that widespread infection was inevitable given that testing capacity was limited; that there was no immediate prospect for a vaccine; and the belief that the public wouldn’t accept a lengthy lockdown, the report said. As a result, the government sought merely to manage the spread of the virus, instead of trying to stop it altogether.

The report described this as a “serious early error” that the U.K. shared with many countries in Europe and North America.

“Accountability in a democracy depends on elected decision-makers not just taking advice, but examining, questioning and challenging it before making their own decisions,” the committees said. “Although it was a rapidly changing situation, given the large number of deaths predicted, it was surprising the initially fatalistic assumptions about the impossibility of suppressing the virus were not challenged until it became clear the NHS would be overwhelmed.”

Trish Greenhalgh, a professor of primary care health services at the University of Oxford, said the report “hints at a less-than-healthy’’ relationship between government and scientific bodies. With COVID-19 still killing hundreds of people every week in Britain, advisory committees continue to debate exactly what evidence is “sufficiently definitive” to be considered certain, she said.

“Uncertainty is a defining feature of crises...,’’ Greenhalgh said. “Dare we replace ‘following the science’ with ‘deliberating on what best to do when the problem is urgent but certainty eludes us’? This report suggests that unless we wish to continue to repeat the mistakes of the recent past, we must.”

Even senior officials like Cummings and Hancock told the committees they were reluctant to push back against scientific consensus.

Hancock said as early as Jan. 28, 2020, he found it difficult to push for widespread testing of people who didn’t show symptoms of COVID-19 because scientific advisers said it wouldn’t be useful.

“I was in a situation of not having hard evidence that a global scientific consensus of decades was wrong but having an instinct that it was,” he testified. “I bitterly regret that I did not overrule that scientific advice.”

Endangered turtles found slaughtered in Malaysia

Wildlife officials found the green turtles last Friday during patrols near the city of Semporna, in Sabah state.

PHOTO: AFP
PUBLISHED OCT 4, 2021
ST Asian Insider: Malaysia Edition

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Eleven endangered turtles have been found slaughtered off the Malaysian part of Borneo island, with members of an indigenous, sea-dwelling community suspected of targeting them for food, officials said on Monday (Oct 4).

Wildlife officials found the green turtles last Friday during patrols near the city of Semporna, in Sabah state.

They also found sacks of suspected turtle meat, a stove, and a knife at the scene, Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said.

Efforts are ongoing to catch the perpetrators but none have been arrested.

It is a crime in Malaysia to target protected turtles, punishable by jail terms and fines.

The department said such crimes in the area are usually committed by the Bajau Laut, a community of sea-dwelling nomads who typically live on boats off Borneo.

The massive island is shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

Green turtles are one of the largest sea turtles, and are classified as endangered by protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

They face multiple threats, including being targeted by poachers, caught in fishing gear, and having their eggs harvested.

Muqtada al-Sadr set to win Iraq vote, former PM al-Maliki second

Initial results amid record low turnout suggest that the grievances that drove people to the streets in 2019 are unlikely to be addressed.

Iraq's Shia groups have dominated governments and government formation since the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein

[File: Karim Kadim/AP]
11 Oct 2021

Shia Muslim religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s party is set to be the biggest winner in Iraq’s parliamentary election, increasing the number of seats he holds, according to initial results, officials and a spokesperson for the Sadrist Movement.

Former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki looked set to have the next largest win among Shia parties, the initial results showed on Monday.

Iraq’s Shia groups have dominated governments and government formation since the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein and catapulted the Shia majority and the Kurds to power.

Sunday’s election was held several months early, in response to mass protests in 2019 that toppled a government and showed widespread anger against political leaders whom many Iraqis said have enriched themselves at the expense of the country.

But a record low turnout of 41 percent suggested that an election billed as an opportunity to wrest control from the ruling elite would do little to dislodge sectarian religious parties in power since 2003.

A count based on initial results from several Iraqi provinces plus the capital Baghdad, verified by local government officials, suggested al-Sadr had won more than 70 seats, which if confirmed could give him considerable influence in forming a government.

A spokesperson for al-Sadr’s office said the number was 73 seats. Local news outlets published the same figure.

An official at Iraq’s electoral commission said al-Sadr had come first but did not immediately confirm how many seats his party had won.

The initial results also showed that pro-reform candidates who emerged from the 2019 protests had gained several seats in the 329-member parliament.

Iran-backed parties with links to militias accused of killing some of the nearly 600 people who died in the protests took a blow, winning fewer seats than in the last election in 2018, according to the initial results and local officials.

Al-Sadr has increased his power over Iraq since coming first in the 2018 election where his coalition won 54 seats.

The unpredictable populist religious leader has been a dominant figure and often kingmaker in Iraqi politics since the US invasion.

He has opposed all foreign interference in Iraq, whether by the United States, against which he fought an armed uprising after 2003, or by neighbouring Iran, which he has criticised for its close involvement in Iraqi politics.

Al-Sadr, however, is regularly in Iran, according to officials close to him, and has called for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, where Washington maintains a force of about 2,500 in a continuing fight against ISIL (IS

Speaking from Baghdad, Iraq analyst Ali Anbori said that al-Sadr’s victory was not a surprise.

“Muqtada has been working a great deal to win a lead in the election. They [the Sadrists] have a good election machine, and they use all kinds of means to achieve their goals,” Anbori told Al Jazeera.

“Also, Muqtada isn’t so far away from Iran himself. Eventually, all groups will sit together and form a government under the umbrella of the Iranian regime,” he added.

“Muqtada has been the main political player in Iraq since 2005,” said Anbori, explaining that no Iraqi prime minister has taken that position without the tacit consent of al-Sadr.

Anbori said however that with “al-Sadr and his group being influential players accused of corruption,” he did not expect al-Sadr to address people’s grievances that took them the streets during the 2019 protest movement.
New law, same big parties

Elections in Iraq since 2003 have been followed by protracted negotiations that can last months and serve to distribute government posts among the dominant parties.

The result on Monday is not expected to dramatically alter the balance of power in Iraq or in the wider region.

Sunday’s vote was held under a new law billed by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi as a way to loosen the grip of established political parties and pave the way for independent, pro-reform candidates. Voting districts were made smaller, and the practice of awarding seats to lists of candidates sponsored by parties was abandoned.

But many Iraqis did not believe the system could be changed and chose not to vote.

The official turnout figure of just 41 percent suggested the vote had failed to capture the imagination of the public, especially younger Iraqis who demonstrated in huge crowds two years ago.

“I did not vote. It’s not worth it,” Hussein Sabah, 20, told the Reuters news agency in Iraq’s southern port Basra. “There is nothing that would benefit me or others. I see youth that have degrees with no jobs. Before the elections, [politicians] all came to them. After the elections, who knows?”

Al-Kadhimi’s predecessor Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned after security forces and gunmen killed hundreds of protesters in 2019 in a crackdown on demonstrations. The new prime minister called the vote months early to show that the government was responding to demands for more accountability.

In practice, powerful parties proved best able to mobilise supporters and candidates effectively, even under the new rules.

Iraq has held five parliamentary elections since the fall of Saddam. Rampant sectarian violence unleashed during the US occupation has abated, and ISIL fighters who seized a third of the country in 2014 were defeated in 2017.

But many Iraqis say their lives have yet to improve. Infrastructure lies in disrepair and healthcare, education and electricity are inadequate.