Salvadorans march against Bukele's economic and judicial policies

Issued on: 17/10/2021 - 

People take part in a demonstration against the circulation of Bitcoin and other economic measures, as well as a decree that removed judges from their functions, 

in San Salvador, on October 17, 2021 Stanley ESTRADA AFP

San Salvador (AFP)

Thousands of protesters marched in San Salvador Sunday against President Nayib Bukele's government, including the move to make bitcoin legal tender in the country.

Demonstrators, including feminist groups, human rights organizations, environmentalists and members of political parties, shouted slogans and carried signs reading, "Bitcoin is fraud," "No to dictatorship," "Democracy is not up for negotiation, it is defended" and "Enough authoritarianism."

"People are starting to get tired of this authoritarian government, (it's) anti-democratic," Ricardo Navarro, head of the environmentalist NGO Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology, told AFP.

"He is already taking us down a cliff with his bad ideas that are already affecting the economy with this bitcoin."

El Salvador, which has used the US dollar for two decades, became the first country in the world last month to legalize bitcoin as a national currency, which the government says will help revitalize its struggling economy.

Authorities are hoping the use of the digital cryptocurrency could help the country retain the more than $400 million worth of financial fees lost when Salvadorans send remittances home from abroad. Such payments make up some 22 percent of the country's GDP.

Members of the political opposition said their protest participation Sunday was also about other policies from Bukele and his congressional allies.

"He attacked judicial independence," Medardo Gonzalez, former leader of the Farabundo Marti Front for Liberation party, told AFP, referring to the recent legislative vote to remove judges over 60 or who have served more than 30 years.

"That is only something a dictatorial government would do and we don't want that in El Salvador," Gonzalez said.

And head of the Salvadoran Trade Union Front Wilfredo Berrios told AFP he had come to the protest to march against water privatization, as Congress debates a law that would guarantee water access for the whole population and ban any private takeover.

A woman holds a poster that reads, "It's because I love you El Salvador" during a demonstration against bitcoin and other economic measures, as well as a decree that removed judges from their functions, in San Salvador October 17, 2021 

Stanley ESTRADA AFP

Bukele downplayed the discontent, even saying protesters had harassed bystanders who didn't participate in the march.

"In just 12 seconds, they censor the freedom of expression of a senior, push a person using a mobility aid, and try to censor a media outlet," Bukele tweeted, alongside a video showing marchers jostling in the streets.

"This is our opposition."

© 2021 AFP

Bare shelves, no holidays… At last, a biblical kind of Christmas

There’s nothing to buy and no chance of going anywhere anyway. Thank goodness for Boris Johnson and his empty promises

Empty shelves at a TK Maxx store in Swansea.

 Photograph: Robert Melen/Alamy

Ed Cumming
Sun 17 Oct 2021 

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” says Jo at the start of Little Women. BoJo is going one better. This Christmas, not only will there be no presents, but there will be no anything. After cancelling Christmas altogether last year, this time around he is creating a kind of half-Christmas, Christmas methadone, to ease us back into the festival. There is nothing the man will not do to get himself compared to Churchill. Thanks to his foresight and the happy accidents of the global economy, we will be able to wallow in our beloved blitz spirit, making do and mending, with a safe low dosage of consumerism to tide us over.

There will be no PlayStation 5 under where the Christmas tree used to be. There will be no jokes in Mrs Brown’s Boys, as usual, but none in the Christmas crackers either. There’s no petrol or HGV drivers, of course, but correspondents also report shortages of tennis balls, merlot, white bread, sardines, M&S chicken kievs, fish sauce, frozen apple strudel, tinned sardines, spring onions, fire alarms, an effective opposition, chocolate Hobnobs, cat vaccines, cat worming pills, bubble bath, Leon fish-finger wraps, marmalade, butter beans, dog-poo bags, goats, crisps, decaf coffee, bulbs (plant), bulbs (light), pigs, blankets, pigs-in-blankets, roofing lead and Harry Potter merchandise, especially wands. The last is hard to take; usually there are more wands than you can shake a stick at.

On the off-chance you manage to get to 25 December with a full tank and are able to dodge Insulate Britain’s armed roadblocks, you’ll arrive at houses that are too expensive to heat. The environmentalists ought to be encouraging the free movement of cars this Christmas; there are few people more persuasive on the subject of double-glazing than a chilly mother-in-law. There won’t be any turkeys, or at least not dead ones. There are plenty waddling around in barns, but there’s nobody to slaughter them. For the handful that do make it to Bernard Matthews’ big barn in the sky, there’s nobody to drive them to the shops. In a delicious irony, there are shortages of everything except shortages. Like it or not, this is what leadership looks like.

Nobody could accuse this government of neglecting traditional values. This brave, embattled group of officials have worked out the kind of country they want and are going full tilt towards achieving it. They have looked at our tiny lives and realised that while we pretend to crave the choices occasioned by being a modern nation, really we hate them. We scroll Netflix for an hour, increasingly furious, before giving up and going to bed. With the entire history of recorded music in our pockets we turn again and again to Ed Sheeran. We thumb through a hundred cuisines on Deliveroo before deciding to order Domino’s. We don’t know what to do with choice.


Nestlé says worker shortage could hit Quality Street supplies at Christmas

Through the government’s careful husbandry of shortages, it is removing mundane consumer decisions like what cereal to buy or what milk to put in your flat white, and replacing them with more existential queries, like “will my children starve?” and “will I be able to heat my home?”. In doing so it is creating meaningful experiences for a generation that has grown soft. The joy of selecting from 20 types of pasta is nothing compared to knowing you have snaffled the last packet in Islington. You probably take turning the lights on for granted, but you won’t when they’ve been off for a month. Up and down the country, people who will never know what it’s like to fight in a war are getting a taster of the same esprit de corps on petrol station forecourts.

As to Christmas itself, the event has been crying out for a bit more drama. Rather than a bloated jamboree of dry turkey – a bird that at the best of times proves a choice of meats isn’t always desirable – and low-grade family conflict, Christmas 2021 will be a wholesome affair more in keeping with the original event. Small groups of us, having reverted to subsistence farming, will be sitting around on hillsides, guarding our livestock, before using the stars to navigate on foot to an inn and asking if we might sleep in the barn. We still have two months to go. Plenty of time to appreciate the irony that Brexit has helped bring about the kind of Christmas turkeys might actually have voted for.

NASA's Lucy blasts off on historic mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids

The asteroids are 4.6-billion-year-old relics from the solar system's earliest days.

Lucy lifts off from Cape Canaveral.

Jackson Ryan
Oct. 16, 2021 

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket flared to life under the cover of dark at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida just after 2:30 a.m. local time Saturday morning. Encased within the pencil-shaped payload fairing atop the rocket was NASA's latest interplanetary explorer: a spacecraft named Lucy.

It was the 100th launch from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41. Approximately 58 minutes after launch the probe, which is about as wide as a bus, was released from the second stage rocket booster to begin its long journey toward Jupiter's orbit. The United Launch Alliance team celebrated with hugs and clapping in its mission control room.

"It was one of the most exciting experiences of my life," Hal Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy mission, said post-launch. "It was truly awesome, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word."

Over the next two years, Lucy will use Earth's gravity twice to swing toward the solar system's largest planet. But the gas giant isn't Lucy's destination. Instead, it'll explore a series of asteroids, locked in Jupiter's orbit, known as the Trojans.

These asteroids have never been studied up close before and move as huge swarms, or camps, at the "Lagrangian points" in Jupiter's orbit. The Lagrangian points are regions where gravity's push and pull lock the camps in place, leading and trailing Jupiter in its journey around the sun in perpetuity.

The collection of amorphous space rocks is like a series of cosmic fossils, providing a window into the earliest era of our solar system, some 4.6 billion years ago. Lucy will act as a cosmic palaeontologist, flying past these eight different "fossils" at a distance and studying their surfaces with infrared imagers and cameras.

"No spacecraft has visited so many objects before, and each is a potential window into the material and conditions of the early solar system," says Alan Duffy, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University in Melbourne.

The idea of examining fossils is core to the mission's philosophy -- right down to its name. "Lucy" is derived from a hominid skeleton discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. The skeleton was dubbed Lucy because the Beatles' song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was playing in the scientists' camp after the find. Words from all four Beatles are contained on a plaque inside the spacecraft.

Though the early morning launch and separation was marked down as a success on Lucy's extensive to-do list, the spacecraft had to overcome one final, giant hurdle before it was ready to sail out of Earth's backyard. About one hour into its flight, the probe experienced "20 minutes of terror," as it unfurled its 24 foot wide decagonal solar panels.

The panels are critical to the spacecraft's success and will power Lucy during the 12-year journey toward the Trojans. They can supply about 500 watts of power -- about the same amount of energy necessary to run a washing machine, according to NASA. And Lucy will need every watt, because it'll be the farthest solar-powered spacecraft should it reach its destinations.

Lucy's complex trajectory and flyby dates

.SwRI/NASA

Ninety-one minutes after launch, the team acquired a signal from Lucy confirming the solar panels had deployed. "Things were splendid today," said Omar Baez, the senior launch director of NASA's Launch Services Program.

That means Lucy is alive and well and now there's a lot of ground to cover before it reaches its first object of interest: Donaldjohanson, a space rock positioned in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. That flyby will occur in April 2025.

From there, Lucy will swing toward the Trojans, reaching four worlds throughout 2027 and 2028 in the Greek camp, the swarm of rocks leading Jupiter in orbit. Another Earth flyby will help propel Lucy to its final targets, Patroclus and its binary companion Menoetius, in the Trojan camp trailing Jupiter in 2033. In total, the spacecraft will cover 4 billion miles.

Lucy's ambitious main mission won't necessarily end with Patroclus and Menoetius, either. The spacecraft's orbit will see it drift through the swarms for years to come. NASA has a good track record with extending missions -- but you'll have to keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well for the next decade.

First published on Oct. 16, 2021 at 4:13 a.m. PT.

In green, you see the leading and trailing swarms of Jupiter Trojans. That's where Lucy is headed.

NASA
NASA's Lucy mission: 20 minutes of terror will define the next 12 years

One of Lucy's engineers takes us behind the scenes of the momentous mission to the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the sun.

Monisha Ravisetti
Oct. 16, 2021 


Lucy will journey to eight asteroids over the next dozen years.

Illustration by Lockheed Martin

Editor's note: This story was originally published Friday, Oct. 15. On Saturday, Lucy's liftoff was a success, with the principal investigator of the mission calling the launch "truly awesome, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word." Lucy has safely unfurled her solar arrays, too. Do read on, though, for unique insight into Lucy's launch and mission...

On Saturday, NASA's Lucy spacecraft will become the first-ever probe launched toward the Trojan asteroids, eons-old rocks trapped in Jupiter's orbit. These rocks are the fossilized building blocks of our solar system and may hold records of the giant planets' evolution.

But for Lucy to make history and ultimately unlock secrets of our corner of the universe, this weekend's liftoff must be flawless. Given the spacecraft's unique trajectory -- billions of miles will be covered over a dozen years by harnessing the power of the sun -- there are a few checkpoints poised to keep mission specialists on their toes.

As outsiders, we usually only stare in astonishment as rockets launch, engulfed in flame and smoke. But there's much more to Lucy's success than just its fiery departure from Earth. I spoke with one of the spacecraft's engineers from Lockheed Martin and got the inside scoop on what milestones her team will be watching for during liftoff.

Here's the launch sequence from the eyes of NASA.

"When the rocket lifts off from the ground, that's very visual and exciting," said Emily Gramlich, a system integration and test engineer at Lockheed Martin and a Lucy mission specialist. "As the rocket ascends, we go through the atmosphere."

During that phase, Lucy will reach its maximum speed and pressure. "Then," Gramlich continued, "we have separation from the boosters and then the bearing will deploy and open us up to outer space."

A researcher works on one of Lucy's folded solar arrays.

Lockheed Martin

Lucy's epic launch doesn't end there. Arguably the most crucial part of the launch pattern will be the unfurling of the spacecraft's two solar arrays after its 62-mile (100-km) journey up into space.

When fully open, the arrays together reach the height of a five-story building. "They are enormous," Gramlich said. It will take about 20 minutes to completely extend them from their origami-like folds.

They're so large because Jupiter's orbit, where Lucy is headed, is so far from the sun. And Lucy will need all the sun power it can get to travel those 530 million miles (853 million km).

"These 20 minutes will determine if the rest of the 12-year mission will be a success," NASA planetary scientist and principal investigator of the Lucy mission, Hal Levison, said in a statement.

"Mars landers have their seven minutes of terror, we have this," he said.

After the solar arrays stretch out in their entirety, Lucy will have another vital task: It must adjust itself so the sun can shine onto all the solar panels that make up the two arrays. Without sun, the solar panels cannot provide power. Without power, the mission is over.

"Once we've done that," Gramlich said, "the spacecraft will then move itself a little bit more so that it can also point its antenna down at the Earth, so we can get our initial acquisition."

Let me repeat that last bit: "initial acquisition." That means every step up to that point is pre-programmed. That's right. No one will be controlling the spacecraft during its most crucial moments. Each precise movement has already been coded into its software.
One of Lucy's solar arrays, fully stretched out.

Lockheed Martin

"Lucy has been encapsulated since last week and so we have not seen it … other than through a small access window," Gramlich said. "The next time it will be open is out in outer space."

NASA engineers will just have to sit tight and keep their fingers crossed until Lucy finds its cosmic footing.

Lucy's bootcamp

You name it, Lucy's been through it. Several times.

"We do an acoustic test and a vibration test in a large building on the Waterton campus," said Gramlich referring to Lockheed Martin's testing grounds in Colorado. "We shake the spacecraft really hard and then we blast it with sound to simulate mostly the launch."

The most physically intense part of Lucy's 12-year journey, she said, will be the launch happening this weekend. Once it's in space, the situation will become much calmer. But space has its own extremes, so the team has tried to ensure that Lucy will be shielded from those, too.


"We take the spacecraft and put it into a giant thermal chamber and run it through all the temperature ranges that it is going to see in space -- hot and cold, light and no light," Gramlich said.

Lucy, which is named for the famous fossil of a human ancestor, is lowered into its environmental testing chamber at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.

Lockheed Martin

Lucy's complexities aren't only in regard to its mechanics. The software piloting the metal space explorer has a sizable number of integral components, like the computer, thermometer, cameras and battery. Each one had to be tested over and over again.

Gramlich explained one important device on Lucy is the star tracker that helps with navigation similar to how the north star aids in deducing what direction we're facing.

"We have extra ground support equipment to simulate the star that it might be seeing," she said. "And to rotate those stars and make sure that the star tracker detects that the stars [actually] rotated on its little simulator."
Once Lucy stabilizes and beyond

"I am beyond excited to see Lucy lift off on Saturday," Gramlich said. "We have been working towards this launch date for a long time, and there are a lot of long hours in the pandemic, and I have been just extra energetic for the last few weeks."

If all goes well on NASA's launch day on Saturday, Lucy will continue on toward the Trojan asteroids at about 39,000 mph (62,764 kph). It will use Earth's gravitational pull as leverage during the long journey and visit seven of the prized ancient rocks. It'll also make a pit stop on another world between Mars and Jupiter.

During the expedition, Gramlich said the team will check up on Lucy about once every two weeks to input commands based on newly discovered information, such as photographs and spectroscopic data, about the asteroids that Lucy sends back to Earth. Each command will take about 55 minutes to reach the craft, she said.

Lucy engineers working on the spacecraft.

Lockheed Martin

And after the mission wraps up next decade, the possibilities are endless.

"Our last flyby is in 2033," Gramlich said. "We will have done three Earth flybys by then, and have learned a lot about our trajectory and how to make it most efficient to continue exploring other asteroids."

Calling that an extended mission, Gramlich says Lucy's solar arrays can continue powering the spacecraft as it traverses through the solar system indefinitely. That means Lucy can theoretically continue sending information back about other forms of cosmic matter.

"The solar arrays that we have for Lucy are incredibly efficient and will allow us to operate the spacecraft for a long time," she said. "Even out at the distances of Jupiter. And the battery on board is also designed to be used and recharged."

But first, Lucy must get past its legendary launch.

"I am so honored that I was part of this team to see how much everybody cares and put into it," Gramlich said.

"We are just ready for a successful science mission to the Trojans."

Correction, 2:20 p.m. PT: An earlier version of this story misstated where one of the spacecraft's engineers works. Emily Gramlich works for Lockheed Martin. Also, the deck headline was changed to clarify that the Trojan asteroids share Jupiter's orbit.

First published on Oct. 15, 2021 at 5:00 a.m. PT.

Lucy stands 13 feet (4 meters), nearly fully assembled in this photo.

Lockheed Martin

Russian filmmakers land after shoot aboard space station

In this photo taken from video footage released by Roscosmos Space Agency, actress Yulia Peresild sits in a chair shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-18 space capsule, southeast of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. The Soyuz MS-18 capsule landed upright in the steppes of Kazakhstan on Sunday with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, actress Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko aboard after a 3 1/2-hour trip from the International Space Station. 

(Roscosmos Space Agency via AP)

In this photo taken from video footage released by Roscosmos Space Agency, Russian space agency cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, centre, actress Yulia Peresild, left, and film director Klim Shipenko sit in chairs shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-18 space capsule, southeast of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. 

The Soyuz MS-18 capsule landed upright in the steppes of Kazakhstan on Sunday with cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, actress Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko aboard after a 3 1/2-hour trip from the International Space Station. (Roscosmos Space Agency via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — A Soyuz space capsule carrying a cosmonaut and two Russian filmmakers has landed after a 3 1/2-hour trip from the International Space Station.

The capsule, descending under a red-and-white striped parachute after entering Earth’s atmosphere, landed upright in the steppes of Kazakhstan on schedule at 0435 GMT Sunday with Oleg Novitskiy, Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko aboard.

Actress Peresild and film director Shipenko rocketed to the space station on Oct. 5 for a 12-day stint to film segments of a movie titled “Challenge,” in which a surgeon played by Peresild rushes to the space station to save a crew member who needs an urgent operation in orbit. Novitskiy, who spent more than six months aboard the space station, is to star as the ailing cosmonaut in the movie.

After the landing, which sent plumes of dust flying high in the air, ground crews extracted the three space flyers from the capsule and placed them in seats set up nearby as they adjusted to the pull of gravity. They were then taken to a medical tent for examination.

All appeared healthy and cheerful. Peresild smiled and held a large bouquet of white flowers as journalists clustered around her. But she said she also felt a touch of melancholy.

“I’m feeling a bit sad today. It seemed that 12 days would be a lot, but I did not want to leave when everything was over,” Peresild said on state TV.

The transfer to the medical tent was delayed for about 10 minutes while crews filmed several takes of Peresild and Novitskiy in their seats, which are to be included in the movie. More scenes remain to be shot on Earth for the film whose release date is uncertain.

Seven astronauts remain aboard the space station: Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov; Americans Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur; Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency; and Japan’s Aki Hoshide.

Russian cosmonaut and film crew returned safely to Earth from space station

By Georgina Torbet

October 17, 2021 

A trio of Russian crew members consisting of a cosmonaut, an actress, and a film producer has landed safely after departing the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday, Saturday, October 16. The three traveled home to Earth in a Russian Soyuz MS-18 craft and landed in Kazakhstan, southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan.

The cosmonaut, Oleg Novitskiy of Russian space agency Roscosmos, has spent 191 days in space performing research and helping to maintain the station. He was accompanied by actress Yulia Peresild and producer Klim Shipenko who were on the ISS to film scenes for an upcoming movie. The movie, titled Challenge, is a cooperative project between Moscow media companies and Roscosmos 

The Soyuz MS-18 crew ship is pictured docked to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.

NASA

The three said farewell to the remaining ISS crew — consisting of European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, and Mark Vande Hei, JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov — yesterday afternoon before getting into the Soyuz MS-18.

The hatch between the spacecraft and the station was closed at 4:41 p.m. ET (1:41 p.m. PT), and the spacecraft undocked at 9:14 p.m. ET (6:14 p.m. PT).

The Soyuz traveled back to Earth in a short flight, arriving a little after midnight ET. A safe touchdown was achieved at 12:36 a.m. ET on Sunday morning (9:36 p.m. PT on Saturday night).

According to NASA, the trio was collected from the landing site by Russian helicopters and taken to the recovery staging city in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. From there, they returned to their training base in Star City, Russia, aboard a Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center aircraft.

The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft had caused a worrying issue on the ISS on Friday, October 15, when a thruster fired incorrectly during a test and pushed the space station out of alignment. Roscosmos says that the crew of the ISS were not in any danger, and fortunately, the Russian trio on the MS-18 was returned to Earth safely.

However, this was the second such incident this year, as a newly docked Russian module for the ISS — the Nauka Multipurpose Logistics Module — errantly fired its thrusters and pushed the station out of alignment in July.

EXCLUSIVE
Extinction Rebellion plans ‘maximum havoc’ for polluters at COP26



By Nan Spowart Journalist

THE NATIONAL, SCOTLAND

CLIMATE change protestors have vowed to cause minimum disruption to Glaswegians during COP26 – but maximum havoc for those driving the climate crisis.

They are also calling for as many people in Scotland as possible to take to the streets on November 6 to join others across the world in a mass demonstration demanding radical ­action to reduce emissions.

Moray-based architectural ­designer Simon Clark will be among those ­protesting in Glasgow and told the Sunday National he is so angry about the crisis he is prepared to be ­arrested.

However he said more could be achieved if people turn out in their millions in cities and towns across the globe.

“This affects everyone and only a massive uprising of people on the streets across the world will really drive the massive change that has to come, otherwise it will be business as usual,” said Clark who is a member of Extinction Rebellion Scotland.

“The previous 25 COPs have failed in their purpose to reduce ­emissions. We have had 40 years of ­warnings, 30 years of negotiations and yet ­emissions have risen 50% since 1990 and the UN predict they will rise ­another 26% by 2030. We are in a ­climate emergency because of the lack of action. We are in the last chance saloon and the next few years will determine what will happen for thousands of years to come.”



In the lead up to the mass protest on November 6 there will be a ­“Pilgrims’ Procession” on October 30, when protestors from across Europe will ­arrive in Glasgow before the start of the global summit the following day.

“The action call is to everyone who is worried and terrified about what the future will bring and who ­understands that the decisions that come out of COP will affect us all,” said Clark.

He said he was particularly ­worried by a recent report from the normally conservative think tank Chatham House which said there was only a 1% chance of keeping the rise in ­global temperatures at under 1.5 ­degrees and just a 5% chance of ­staying under two degrees. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted major climate catastrophes even if the rise is kept to 1.5 degrees.

Clark became involved with ­Extinction Rebellion two years ago when he found out the target of net zero by 2050 was based on IPCC ­research that concludes it will still only give a one in two chance of avoiding catastrophe.

“I thought, my God, if I caught a train to London that had a one in two chance of getting there I wouldn’t even get on board – nobody would. And yet these are the projections that politicians and corporations are ­playing with. It’s criminal,” he said.

Critics have queried why protestors targeting a summit intended to take action to reduce global warming but the activists point out that every summit so far has failed to solve the crisis.

“Our view is that fuel companies, governments, investment banks and the media who will tell the story of all this, will spin it as a success to an unsuspecting public,” said Clark. “We take the view that COP will decide who is sacrificed, who escapes and who profits the most.

“Our objective is to be disruptive –not with the general public – but those who perpetuate the climate ­crisis.”


UK Home Secretary Priti Patel (above) has branded Extinction Rebellion as “eco-crusaders turned criminals” but Clark said his experience with the group was one of non-violent, direct action.

“We are a very disciplined bunch in terms of what we are doing. We are well organised and have specific ground rules about how we behave,” he said. “A lot of work is done on that and a lot of training in preparation for these actions. If we are advocating system change and a different world we need to behave as we would wish to see that world.”

He admitted the COP26 protest could attract elements more intent on causing mayhem than action on climate change but said it would be a “shame” if that was the media’s focus.

“Anyone can jump on it but ­generally I don’t think it happens,” said Clark. “It would be a shame if that image is projected because we are a peaceful, non-violent group and our view is that the major disruption to the people of Glasgow will be the event itself and the massive police and military presence protecting those in power. Anything we do will be tiny droplets in the ocean of ­disruption.

“We will focus on organisations that drive the climate crisis which is ­mainly fuel companies, investment banks and the media who prefer not to report the extent of the crisis. Our aim will be to minimally disrupt the people of Glasgow.”

The flagship march of the Global Day of Action begins at noon on ­November 6 at Kelvingrove Park and heads to Glasgow Green for a rally at 3pm. To see the Glasgow Day of Action route map on November 6 go to: https://goo.gl/maps/L5w4rB4bNeUrQk9G9

Fears COP26 cruise ships could spark a new wave of infections

Cruise ships used to house conference staff during COP26 could cause Covid outbreaks and prompt a new wave of infections, public health experts have warned.

By John Jeffay

Sunday, 17th October 2021, 

Two huge vessels will be berthed on the River Clyde to provide accommodation for workers during the climate summit, which will attract about 25,000 delegates to Glasgow.

Scottish Government adviser and public health professor Devi Sridhar previously called cruise ships floating "germ factories" and urged holidaymakers to avoid them.COP26 organisers have sourced two ships from an Estonian operator to provide accommodation for "security and production staff" amid a shortage of hotel rooms and soaring room rates in Glasgow.

Tallink's MS Romantika, which has capacity for 2,500 people, has already berthed at King George V dock, next to Braehead Shopping Centre in Renfrew. A second cruise ship, MS Silja Europa, will provide 3,123 more beds. Shuttle buses will take those on board to and from the summit.

Dr Rowland Kao, a professor of epidemiology at Edinburgh University, said: "Cruise ships are likely places with high transmission of Covid because of enclosed spaces, especially if there is poor ventilation where people come into close contact. Given how transmissible the delta variant is, even to vaccinated individuals there will be risks. So lots of testing is going to be important.

"Professor Andrew Watterson, an expert in public health at Stirling University, added: "Much more information needs to be provided to reassure the population of Glasgow and the visitors that there will be no increased Covid risk to either group from the use of cruise ships."

If the cruise ship occupants come from all over the world, and if there are not rigorous requirements on vaccination and testing along with on-board Covid mitigation measures, the cruise ships could prove to be sources of significant virus transmission in the city. 

Being in the one port for several days with ship occupants possibly moving around the central belt and beyond may present unusual Covid control challenges.”COP26 said the Scottish Government and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde were consulted about the cruise ships plan and a rigorous Covid testing system will be in place.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: "We have been working with event organisers for some time to ensure COP26 can proceed with as little detriment to the current public health situation."As ever, we will need everyone to play their part in reducing any potential impact on our health and care services. This includes regular lateral flow tests, when you have no symptoms, to help combat the spread of Covid, social distancing where possible, and good hand hygiene.

"If anyone has Covid symptoms, they should self-isolate immediately and arrange to take a PCR test."

The Scottish Government said: "We expect all hotel accommodation providers for COP26 to follow the relevant Scottish Government guidance for Covid-19 mitigation."

Tallink said: "All our crew ­members are vaccinated, they were PCR tested before travelling to the UK, they wear face masks and, in some key areas, gloves. They will also be taking regular lateral flow testing throughout the whole charter. All crew are in single cabins. Plexi-glass partitions are in place at key customer service points, rigorous cleaning and sanitising is taking place on board with sanitising ­stations all around the ship."

NOT JUST GRETA AND THE GANG

Cop26 corporate sponsors condemn climate summit as ‘mismanaged’

Exclusive: NatWest, Microsoft and GSK among firms to raise complaint over poor planning and breakdown in relations

The Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, Scotland, one of the host venues for the Cop26 climate summit in November.

 Photograph: Ewan Bootman/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

Jillian Ambrose
Sun 17 Oct 2021 

Companies that stumped up millions of pounds to sponsor the Cop26 climate summit have condemned it as “mismanaged” and “very last minute” in a volley of complaints as next month’s event in Glasgow draws near.

The sponsors, which include some of Britain’s biggest companies, have raised formal complaints blaming “very inexperienced” civil servants for delayed decisions, poor communication and a breakdown in relations between the organisers and firms in the run-up to the landmark talks.

The Guardian understands that a letter to the organisers, written by broadcaster Sky and co-signed by senior leaders from other Cop26 sponsors, has raised concerns with them over these and other problems, and followed another co-signed letter in July.

The UK is running its Cop26 presidency from within the Cabinet Office, under the leadership of the former business secretary Alok Sharma, who is the Cop26 president, and the businessman Nigel Topping who was appointed the government’s high-level climate action champion last year. Sponsorship is expected to help defray a policing bill estimated to reach up to £250m.

Alongside Sky, the summit has 10 other major sponsors, including energy giants Hitachi, National Grid, Scottish Power and SSE, US tech titan Microsoft, and FTSE companies GSK, NatWest, Reckitt, Sainsbury’s and Unilever. Unilever has denied signing the letter penned by Sky. Other lower tier “partners” include the car maker Jaguar Land Rover and the furniture retailer Ikea.

One source, employed by a Cop26 sponsor, said that “the biggest frustration” was the lack of information about how the event will run, and the role for its key backers, because important questions have gone unanswered and planning decisions have been delayed.

“They had an extra year to prepare for Cop due to Covid, but it doesn’t feel like this time was used to make better progress. Everything feels very last minute,” the source said.

The upcoming climate talks, considered the last chance to put the world on track to meet its climate ambitions, are due to take place in early November after the event was postponed by a year because of the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020.

They have already been thrown into turmoil by suggestions that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will skip the event, threatening the chances of a global pact with the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter.

Organisers of Cop26 promised sponsors an “outstanding opportunity” and “unique benefits” in exchange for their support, including a chance to promote their brands at the conference “green zone” exhibition space and the participation of government ministers at their events.

But in multiple emails and official letters the companies have complained to organisers about unmet expectations, and deepening concerns over delays to the green zone plans. They have also raised complaints that ministers have not always been available for their events in the run-up to Cop26, as agreed as part of the sponsor deals.

Other sources have described the “shifting goal posts” and “inertia” plaguing the Cop26 planning as “deeply frustrating”.

Many of the event’s corporate backers regularly take part in high-profile sponsorship deals for big events, and have been left bewildered by the slow progress of the Cop26 events, another source explained.

The source blamed the “very young, very inexperienced” civil servants tasked with planning the event for taking a “top-down public sector approach” that has raised hackles among sponsors.

“It’s clear that many of them have very little experience managing relationships in the private sector, or even experience attending a Cop event,” the source said.

The energy company sponsors – Hitachi, National Grid, Scottish Power and SSE – are understood to be particularly frustrated because they were under the impression that no other energy brands would feature at Cop26. However, the “blue zone”, which is organised by the UN, will include rival brands.

Ministers had been due to release three key documents on Monday on the government’s plans to achieve its net zero target by 2035, but publication has been delayed owing to the murder of the MP Sir David Amess.

The documents reveal a stark split within the cabinet, understood to be between on one side Boris Johnson, the prime minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, and Michael Gove, responsible for improving the UK’s homes, all seeing benefits to strong climate action; and on the other, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, a free-market hawk instinctively opposed to government intervention.

All three papers are now expected to come later in the week, with the government seeking to preserve a show of unity over the publications.

The row over the government’s handling of Cop26 planning has emerged amid public order concerns, with up to 150,000 protesters expected to take to Glasgow’s streets in early November alongside the crucial climate talks, which will require one of the largest policing operations ever undertaken in Britain.

Countries and organisations planning to host events have also said they fear that increased costs will cause problems for developing nations.

Multiple participants told the Guardian earlier this month that the cost of renting Cop26 pavilions – event spaces for hosting workshops, panel discussions and keynote speeches during the conference – is considerably higher than it was at Cop25 in Madrid, with some saying it had increased by as much as 30%.

A Cop26 spokesperson said the organisers were “working closely” with sponsors which would increase the value-for-money for taxpayers, and reduce the overall financial cost of Cop26.

A Whitehall veteran of Cop summits said: “It feels like some of these sponsors have forgotten the actual reason we’re in Glasgow. Cop isn’t about branding, it’s about tackling climate change. Keeping 1.5C in reach is the best thing you can do for your bottom line: they would do well to remember this.”

Additional reporting Fiona Harvey

‘Pakistan is facing existential crisis’
National
October 15, 2021



NEW YORK: The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest report in August 2021, on the heels of one of the hottest and most devastating summers on record: floods in northern Europe and China, wildfires in the US, and heatwaves everywhere.

The report tells us that the consequences of the current global warming crisis are largely irreversible. The most we can do is to prevent all-out ecological collapse.

One of the more sobering findings of the report is that polar and mountain glaciers are likely going to continue to melt, irreversibly, for decades or centuries to come.

Pakistan has more glaciers outside of the polar icecaps than anywhere on earth. The glaciers feed one of the oldest and most fertile valleys on the planet – that of the Indus Basin, split between India and Pakistan. Roughly 75 percent of Pakistan’s 216 million population is settled on the banks of the Indus River. Its five largest urban centres are entirely dependent on the river for industrial and domestic water.

Pakistan has been blessed with regular agricultural cycles that have sustained its economy through successive crises. However, if the IPCC report is correct – which it almost certainly is – by 2050, the country will be out of water.

Pakistan is not the only low-income country facing the impacts of climate change. It is not alone in looking on helplessly as industrialised nations – China and the US being the foremost – drag their heels on lowering emissions. Pakistan, like the Maldives and many other island nations, will suffer from the consequences of global warming disproportionately. However, unlike many countries that have taken up the issue of global emissions at the UN, Pakistan is not doing even the bare minimum to try and secure its future.

To say that this is the largest security issue the country will face in the next few decades would be putting it mildly. No other country is as dependent on non-polar ice for freshwater as Pakistan. No other country stands to lose as much. Yet, Pakistan’s government seems singularly unaware of the looming crisis. It has not even made much effort to meet its target of producing 60 percent of its electrical power from renewable sources by 2030. At the moment, the country still gets well over 60 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels.

Pakistan is already facing mounting environmental challenges. Heatwaves are killing scores of people and impacting crop cycles and yields on a regular basis. This year, both largest city Karachi and capital city Islamabad experienced devastating floods. Furthermore, the 806-kilometre (500-mile) Karakoram Highway, which is a critical part of Pakistan’s economic corridor with China, was shut down multiple times, for multiple days, due to landslides.

These devastating landslides were a direct result of large-scale deforestation in the area north of Kohistan and south of Jaglot. Further north towards Shimshal and east towards the Skardu Valley, timber mafias are rapidly stripping old-growth forests, all but guaranteeing future environmental catastrophes.

Local and international environmental experts have long been warning that, without urgent and drastic action, things will get worse – both in Pakistan and wider South Asia. They have been warning for over a decade that Pakistan’s glaciers are melting and it is only a matter of time before the country runs out of water. Now the IPCC is saying the same in no uncertain terms.

Despite mounting evidence of a growing crisis, however, the Pakistani state is refusing to act.

There are several local initiatives to understand and address the impact of climate change on the region, such as those of the Shimshal Trust. But these efforts often face obstructions by the state and the military, who do not want environmental considerations and conservation projects to limit their control over strategic regions near the country’s borders with China and India.

Prime Minister Imran Khan announced, at the beginning of his term in 2018, the Million Tree Plantation Drive to counter the effects of ongoing deforestation and climate change on the country. This, however, is akin to adding a fourth wheel to a tricycle and hoping it will eventually transform into a driverless electric car. No amount of new tree planting can replace old-growth forests. This is just a fact. The ancient alpine and conifer forests quite literally hold the ecology of northern Pakistan – its glaciers, rivers, and fertile valleys – together. They have taken millennia to grow and stabilise. They are irreplaceable.

Today, Pakistan is facing an existential crisis. The effects of climate change are not threatening a single sector or region of the country, but the lives and livelihoods of its entire population. As this year’s IPCC report underlined, we are, sadly, already too late to reverse the damage caused by the rampant consumption of fossil fuels. The choice we are facing now – in Pakistan and around the world – is to continue on a path to certain destruction, or start fighting for our collective survival.

See the 42 biggest asteroids in our solar system in stunning detail

By Georgina Torbet

October 17, 2021

Far out on the border of the outer solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter lies the asteroid belt, where hundreds of thousands of small objects orbit the sun. Most of these objects are small rocky asteroids, but some are known to be 60 miles or larger across. Now, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released images of 42 of the largest asteroids in the belt, showing their variety of sizes and shapes.

The asteroids were imaged using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, marking the most detailed observation of many of these bodies to date. They include well-known bodies like the dwarf planet Ceres, the metal asteroid Psyche, and asteroid Vesta, which was visited by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft in 2011. But they also include lesser-known oddities like the bone-shaped Kleopatra or the flattened, elongated Sylvia.
\

This poster shows 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter (orbits not to scale).

ESO/M. Kornmesser/Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS)

“Only three large main belt asteroids, Ceres, Vesta, and Lutetia, have been imaged with a high level of detail so far, as they were visited by the space missions Dawn and Rosetta of NASA and the European Space Agency, respectively,” said lead author of the study, Pierre Vernazza of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille in France, in a statement. “Our ESO observations have provided sharp images for many more targets, 42 in total.”

These images have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope as part of a program that surveyed 42 of the largest asteroids in our Solar System. They show Ceres and Vesta, the two largest objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, approximately 940 and 520 kilometers in diameter.

ESO/Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS)

By looking at the shapes of the asteroids, which range in size from Ceres at 580 miles across to Urania and Ausonia at 56 miles across, the researchers were able to classify them into two groups: The nearly perfectly spherical and the elongated. They also found significant variability in the density of the asteroids, which suggests that they are not all composed of the same material.

This means that the asteroids may have been formed in different locations and migrated toward the asteroid belt over time. Some of the bone-shaped asteroids may even have formed as far away as beyond the orbit of Neptune before ending up in the asteroid belt.

The researchers now want to continue studying the asteroids in the belt using the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). This more powerful telescope could also enable them to see even more distant objects in our solar system, like those in the remote Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune.

A visit to the barber can do wonders for men's mental health

Talking over issues can help people feel like they are part of a community

I CAN ATTEST TO THE TRUTH OF THIS

OMAR AL OWAIS

Michael Kovrig, after returning home to Canada, poses inside during a hair cut at Kingston Barber Shop in Toronto, Canada, September 27. Reuters

“Do you believe life is hard or easy?” was a question I included in all my recent conversations. I’m not sure what made me ask my barber Zak that question. I am usually reserved and don’t talk much at the barbershop – for fear of distracting Zak. But leaving his shop that day, I felt enriched by what Zak had to offer.

The exchange with him was energetic. It reminded me of a barbershop model for health promotion in the US, among African American communities, being used to advocate for the mental health of African American men. A study was conducted at a barbershop in Durham, North Carolina, where the staff were tested on their knowledge of mental health and willingness to start a conversation with customers on the topic. The study found that the barbers expressed increased confidence in sharing knowledge on mental health, as well as in sharing mental health resources with customers.

The key determinants of the success of this study is that vital mental health support and resources are disseminated in an area where men congregate to get their hair cut, and also by people who are perceived to be trustworthy. Additionally, the barbers would discretely provide to customers the quick response or QR codes to web-based resources such as ADAAM (Against Depression in African American Men). This dynamic strengthens the roles of barbers as mental health advocates within their communities

.
Kenyan barber Barkat Manji (L) gives a haircut to a client inside his recently acquired Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van that he converted into a mobile barbershop, outside his barbershop branch in Nairobi, Kenya, 05 October. EPA

A successful example of what barbershops can do for the community can be exemplified by The Confess Project, a barbershop movement in the US aiming at alleviating the mental health culture within African American communities through capacity building, advocacy, organising and movement building.

The Confess Project trains barbers to become mental health advocates within their communities throughout America. Through their knowledge-based approach The Confess Project is breaking the barriers associated with men’s mental health and building on pre-existing relationships between barbers and their clients.

The training these barbers undergo creates a ripple effect among the customers and their communities. The barbers are trained to become mental health advocates though four main pillars: active listening, validation, positive communication and reducing the stigma.

Perhaps what makes the barbershop model for health promotion successful in the earlier examples is that the barbers and customers are from the same communities, and share similar experiences, which bridge the communication gap and foster a deeper sense of interpersonal understanding and compassion. But there’s much value to be gained by implementing this model in our neighbourhood barbershops.

I spoke to my peers about the roles of barbers in shaping our understanding of mental health. Most of my peers are from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and have an undergraduate education. A common theme among them is that they do engage in conversations with their barbers on some personal matters, they do go to the same barber repeatedly, and are more likely to do so if the barber is closer in age and speaks a common language.

Further research must be conducted to understand the extent to which the barbershop model for mental health promotion would work here in the UAE. While African American and Arab communities do not share lived experiences, the stigma on men’s mental health is globally lived.

Echoing an article I wrote last October, while depression affects more women than it does men, suicide takes more men's lives. Additionally, men-specific depression screenings must be streamlined due to the role that gender role socialisation has on how men perceive their own depression, and that of their peers.

A recent study, on masculinity and help seeking, finds that the majority of interviewees trivialised their symptoms as temporary phases and attempted to solve their challenges on their own before seeking professional help. They were largely influenced by societal norms ascribing a rigid and limiting definition of strength and manliness that resulted in the deterioration of their mental health, and feelings of inadequacy in relation to their gender roles.

Moreover, the study’s participants expressed a lack of empathy and support from family members and peers to their depression diagnosis.

It is quite concerning that men and depression are perceived to be mutually exclusive, that strength and weakness are rigidly defined and unconsciously followed. Another study, in 2011, found that men are more likely to prolong seeking professional help, to associate emotional challenges with stress and difficulties at work and to negatively act out to them rather than express and communicate them.

Further research must be conducted to understand the realities of depression among men in this region, but a study conducted among male and female patients of cardiovascular diseases in Qatar echoes that attitudes of personal failure and weakness to be associated with mental health and depression.

As October 10 marks World Mental Health Day, we must amplify our voices in advocating for men’s mental health, our resources in improving the existing literature, and our hearts, in supporting our fathers, sons, brothers and friends.

Updated: October 10th 2021

Omar Al Owais  was a 2019-20 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow in the UAE