Health care company ends relationship with Aaron Rodgers



GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin health care organization has ended a nine-year partnership with Green Bay Packers star Aaron Rodgers after the quarterback detailed his reasoning for avoiding the three COVID-19 vaccinations endorsed by the NFL.

A statement posted on Twitter by Prevea Health said the company and Rodgers mutually agreed to end their partnership, effective Saturday. Prevea Health and Rodgers had been partners since 2012.

The statement said Prevea Health “remains deeply committed to protecting its patients, staff, providers and communities amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes encouraging and helping all eligible populations to become vaccinated against COVID-19 to prevent the virus from further significantly impacting lives and livelihoods.”

The move comes a day after Rodgers told “The Pat McAfee Show” he had sought alternative treatments to COVID-19 vaccination because he is allergic to an ingredient in two of the FDA-approved shots. Rodgers, who turns 38 in December, did not say what ingredient he was allergic to, or how he knows he is allergic.

Rodgers has strongly questioned the NFL’s COVID-19 protocols, along with any organization forcing health requirements on individuals.

“I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something,” he said Friday. “Health is not a one size fits all for everybody, and for me it involved a lot of study in the offseason.”

GUESS HE SUPPORTS ABORTION RIGHTS FOR WOMEN...

The COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. were tested in tens of thousands of people and proven to be both safe and effective at dramatically reducing the risk of serious disease and death. The vaccines now have been given to more than 200 million Americans and that real-world use plus extra government safety tracking have made clear that serious side effects are extremely rare — and that any risk is far lower than the risks posed by COVID-19.

Rodgers, who has been tested daily as part of NFL protocols for unvaccinated players, found out he contracted COVID-19 on Wednesday. He can’t rejoin the Packers for 10 days and will miss Sunday’s game at Kansas City. He must have a negative test to return to the team on Nov. 13.

The reigning NFL MVP, whose endorsement deals include a starring role in commercials for insurance company State Farm, hinted that his stance on vaccination could have consequences when he described himself Friday as a victim of “cancel culture.”

Anti-vaxxer Aaron Rodgers’ spectacular fall from grace happened in record time


The Green Bay star once vied for the status of the NFL’s most well-liked player. After Friday’s bizarre interview about his vaccine status, it’s safe to assume those days are behind him

The Packers’ Aaron Rodgers looks on during an August preseason game at Lambeau Field. Photograph: Quinn Harris/Getty Images

Hunter Felt
THE GUARDIAN

Sat 6 Nov 2021 

To think, Aaron Rodgers could be hosting Jeopardy! right now. Yes, the Green Bay Packers quarterback was at one point one of the leading candidates to host the iconic quiz show. He got rave reviews during his tenure as a guest host, even, becoming a sort of pop-intellectual figure in American life. Well, after Rodgers’ public-relations disaster of an interview on the Pat McAfee Show on Friday, they can consider themselves fortunate that they dodged at least one bullet on their star-crossed quest to replace the late Alex Trebek.

Rodgers – who is currently unavailable to play with his team after testing positive for Covid-19 – went on the SiriusXM program after reports emerged revealing he was, at best, fudging the truth when he previously claimed he was “immunized” rather than fully vaccinated . The good news was that this time around, he was more direct. The bad news, was that he was probably way too honest for his own good.


Rodgers rips ‘woke mob’ and touts Joe Rogan in first remarks since Covid test

It could have gone much easier for all involved. When given a chance to defend himself for not being vaccinated, Rodgers claimed he had “an allergy to an ingredient that’s in the mRNA vaccines”. Had he stuck with this line of defense, he could have deflected some of the criticism that was to come. Sure, after the “immunized” debacle, Rodgers would not have gotten the benefit of the doubt that he would have been given a week earlier, but it would have been far more prudent than the path he did take directly off the rails.

Instead, Rodgers’ interview featured an avalanche of anti-vaxxer buzzwords and all-too-familiar phrases, each one laying bare the hollowness of his disclaimer that he was not “anti-vax”. You’ll never guess it, but Rodgers did his own research with the aid of none other than conspiracy theory-minded podcaster Joe Rogan. He confirmed that his personal “immunization protocol” included ivermectin and then proceeded to rail against (yawn) “the woke mob” and “cancel culture”. He even threw in a Martin Luther King Jr misquote, as if he were trying to pull off the Full Tucker Carlson.
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The interview, which inspired nonstop ridicule on social media, threatens to irrevocably hurt the reputation of someone who – just months ago – was one of the most beloved athletes in the country. Since replacing Brett Favre as Green Bay’s starter in 2008, Rodgers quickly became one of the NFL’s most bankable stars. He established himself as one of the most exciting and talented quarterbacks in the game and his charming off-the-field persona had, until recently, translated into a broad appeal that few other athletes could claim.

How broad? A 2020 survey revealed that just 8% of respondents had a negative opinion of Rodgers. That’s quite impressive considering how little fun it is for non-Packers fans to watch the league’s reigning Most Valuable Player dismantle their team’s defenses on a regular basis. He even helped break down the stereotype that athletes couldn’t also be intellectually curious, a fact which ironically could be his undoing if it led him to take his current stance on Covid-19.

Aaron Rodgers has been voted the NFL’s MVP by the Associated Press for the 2011, 2014 and 2020 seasons.

 Photograph: Mark J Rebilas/USA Today Sports

His reputation will not survive this unscathed. As ESPN’s Mina Kimes points out, Rodgers’ irresponsible comments aren’t just harmless nonsense. Having already put others in danger with his decision, he added to the harm by going on record by spreading misinformation couched in the all-too-familiar language of the nation’s massive anti-vaccination movement. “My body, my choice” breaks down when we’re talking about infectious diseases.

That point is key here. Rodgers isn’t the only NFL quarterback who has publicly pushed treatments of dubious medical value. One of the reasons that Tom Brady now plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is that the New England Patriots didn’t approve of his closeness to controversial “nutrition advisor” Alex Guerrero. Meanwhile, the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson has been selling his fellow athletes on a type of water that supposedly helps treat concussions (there is no credible medical evidence that it does so).

Aaron Rodgers’ Covid-19 case is a failure of leadership that won’t be forgotten
Melissa Jacobs

While both Brady and Wilson received some negative media attention for propping up what we will charitably call “unproven remedies”, they were smart enough to not escalate the bad press as Rodgers has. Also, to state something that should be obvious but clearly isn’t, there’s a difference in magnitude between making wild, untested claims about the benefits of drinking water and spreading proven disinformation during a literal pandemic.

Rodgers isn’t heading towards a full-blown “cancellation”, however much as he seems to be itching for one. Conservative football fans – a not-insignificant portion of the NFL audience – will embrace him as one of their own. He’s already setting himself up for a profitable future in right-wing punditry circles. As his friend Rogan knows, there’s a lot of money to be made in calling out the so-called “woke mobs”.

There will almost certainly be consequences, however. Rodgers might lose a few sponsorships and the NFL – probably more irritated at being criticized than the fact that Rodgers misled the public about his vaccination status – has already launched a media counterattack. The Packers also can’t be happy with any of this, but since Rodgers has already made it clear that he wants out of the organization that might be more of a feature rather than a bug here.

Rodgers’ pocketbook might take something of a hit, but as long as he’s one of the top quarterbacks in the league, he will be fine financially. Where the real damage will come will be in his public standing. Rodgers will never compete for the title of most-liked player in the league again and he has nobody but himself to blame. Not all defeats in the NFL happen on the field.

Explaining Aaron Rodgers' situation, how NFL's COVID-19 protocols work

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Considered unvaccinated, quarterback must stay isolated

 for at least 10 days

The Associated Press · Posted: Nov 06, 2021 

Both the NFL and the Green Bay Packers knew Aaron Rodgers, seen above warming up before an October game against the Chicago Bears, wasn't vaccinated. (David Banks/The Associated Press)

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers will miss Sunday's game at Kansas City after being placed in the NFL's COVID-19 protocol. Because he is considered unvaccinated, he must stay isolated for at least 10 days.

• 'I'm not an anti-vax, flat earther': Aaron Rodgers sought treatments instead of COVID-19 vaccine

• Packers QB Aaron Rodgers tests positive for COVID-19

Here's an explanation of the NFL's protocols and a breakdown of Rodgers' case:

Who's responsible for knowing a player's vaccine status?

Each of the 32 NFL teams. Players must submit proof of vaccination to the team, not to the league office.

What is considered sufficient vaccination?

Players must take two shots of one of the approved vaccinations under NFL protocols — Pfizer or Moderna — or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson. As Dr. Allen Sills, the league's chief medical officer, has explained, players who have been previously documented with having had COVID-19 could be considered protected with one shot of those vaccines.

There's also the possibility of a player having antibody levels that show a previous case of the coronavirus, and they can receive one shot to be protected.

"We have very clear protocols on vaccination requirements and what can be considered as being fully vaccinated under those protocols," Sills said.

NFL protocols, created in conjunction with the players' union, oversee not only team facilities but also stadiums, hotels and any travel arrangements.

Did the NFL know Rodgers was unvaccinated?

Yes, as did the Packers and the NFL Players Association.

Rodgers, who says he has an allergy to an ingredient in two of the vaccines, approached the NFLPA during the summer seeking approval of the treatment he took, details of which have not been made public. Dr. Thom Mayer, the union's medical director, consulted with Sills and with infectious disease consultants jointly agreed upon by the NFL and the union. They determined that Rodgers' treatment did not meet the qualifications or protocols to be considered a vaccine.

Rodgers has been required to wear a mask at the Packers' facility and to follow protocols designed for unvaccinated players. He is one of about 5% of the league's players considered unvaccinated.

• PLAYER STATS: Aaron Rodgers

Will anyone be penalized?

Very likely — if the NFL's investigation, which also includes looking into a Halloween party attended by Rodgers — finds violations of the protocols.

Most responsible would be the Packers for not eliminating any violations. They could be fined and stripped of draft choices. For example, the Las Vegas Raiders were fined $500,000 US last year — when there were no vaccinations available — for breaking protocols. But no teams lost picks in the 2021 draft for COVID-19 violations.

Rodgers, naturally, could be sanctioned by the NFL, too. That probably would involve a fine rather than a suspension.

Sills has been very clear that enforcement of the protocols is "serious business."

Study: Climate change makes allergies worse, doesn't increase diagnoses


Climate change may worsen allergy symptoms, but does not necessarily increase the number of people with allergies, a new study has found. 

File Photo by KatePhotographer/Shutterstock

Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Children with asthma in Los Angeles have not seen an increase in allergy diagnoses, despite effects from climate change on the air they breathe, a study presented Friday during the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology annual meeting found.

The percentage of children in the Los Angeles area with allergies to dust mites, cat, dog, cockroach, tree pollen, grass pollen and weed pollen remained relatively unchanged between 1999 to 2014, the data showed.

For example, the percentage of children with allergies to at least one grass, tree, weed or dog allergen held steady at 0.25% or less over the 15-year period.

Similarly, the percentage of children with allergies to dust mites or cockroaches was 0.35% or less over the entire period.

This is despite documented increases in the length of growing seasons and pollen counts due to climate change, they said.

"Although temperatures have been rising and pollen loads increasing, if someone is not genetically predisposed to allergies, they are not likely to be sensitized to more allergens," study co-author Dr. Lyne Scott said in a press release.

"The growing season is year-round in L.A. and people with allergies who are already sensitized to pollens suffer more intensely when the growing season is longer, or the air quality isn't good," said Scott, an allergist who practices in Los Angeles.

However, those with allergies may have worse symptoms because of the effects of climate change, she added.

A study published earlier this year suggested that allergy symptoms may worsen for sufferers due to the warming climate.

Still, despite dire predictions, there is little evidence that climate change will necessarily increase the number of people with allergies.

For this study, the researchers tested nearly 6,000 children in Los Angeles who had been diagnosed with asthma and allergic rhinitis, or hay fever, for allergies to dust mites, cat, dog, cockroach, tree pollen, grass pollen and weed pollen, using standard skin prick tests.

In these tests, allergists prick the skin of a test subject with a pin containing a sample of an allergen and monitor the reaction.

If the skin reacts, such as with a rash, that indicates the test subject is likely allergic to the substance.

After performing more than 123,000 tests on study participants, the researchers found no increase in the number who experienced "allergic sensitizations" over the 15-year study period.

When a person's immune system becomes sensitized to an allergen, or an otherwise harmless substance such as dust or dog hair, they will likely develop symptoms of an allergy each time they are exposed to that same allergen, the researchers said.


High pollen counts, for example, do not mean that individual allergy sufferers will be affected, they said.

This is because there are many types of pollen, from various kinds of trees, from grass and from a variety of weeds. As a result, a high overall pollen count does not always indicate a strong concentration of the specific pollen to which individuals are allergic.

"We were somewhat surprised at the results as we expected there would be an increase in the number of kids with asthma who were sensitized to pollen and other allergens," study co-author Dr. Kenny Kwong said in a press release.

"Between 80% to 90% of children with asthma have allergy triggers, which is why it's important for children with asthma to be tested for allergies," said Kwong, an allergist who also practices in Los Angeles.

Harris says space technology to play a key role in addressing climate change

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (C), and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., (L), tour the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on Friday.

 Photo by Ting Shen/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 6 (UPI) -- As the United States seeks to address climate change it will look to space, Vice President Kamala Harris said during a speech at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Saying the "opportunity of space will define the 21st century," Harris made the remarks Friday as she prepares to convene the inaugural meeting of the Biden administration's National Space Council on Dec. 1.

She said life on Earth has already been improved by technology developed to explore space, such as camera phones and CT scans.

"Today, our nation is more active in space than ever before, and there are more ways than ever before that space can benefit humanity," she said. "I believe it is incumbent on all of us, then, to seize all the ways in which space can help us solve our biggest challenges, including that of the climate crisis."

RELATED Harris to announce first National Space Council meeting in nearly a year

Harris referenced the United Nations Climate Change Conference underway in Glasgow, Scotland. She said world leaders gathered at the conference declared climate change an "existential threat" that needs urgent action.

She pointed to how space-based technology is already being used to monitor emissions and measure the impact of climate change.


"We have a fleet of satellites and sensors providing citizens and scientists with the data that they -- that you need to mitigate the impact and to adapt to the impact," she said.

RELATED Kamala Harris, Energy Department announce $200M to reduce vehicle emissions

Harris mentioned Landsat 9, a satellite developed at Goddard and launched into space last September. The satellite can produce real-time landscape images that can aid first responders during increasingly frequent natural disasters, she said.

In addition to helping scientists working on climate change, she said images produced by the satellite can help farmers respond to drought and heat.

While on a recent visit to Hampton University, a historically Black university in Virginia, Harris said students were working with scientists on new satellite technology and connections between climate change and atmospheric changes.

"So, here's the bottom line: I truly believe space activity is climate action. Space activity is education," she said. "Space activity is also economic growth. It is also innovation and inspiration. And it is about our security and our strength."

When the National Space Council, which she chairs, meets next month, Harris said its members will discuss a broad framework that includes civilian efforts, STEM education, military and national security efforts, as well as the "emerging space economy."

COP26: Dozens of nations pledge to safeguard nature amid past failures

To save a salt marsh, conservationists opted to let nature take its course. 

© Nicolas Tucat, AFP

Issued on: 06/11/2021
Text by: NEWS WIRES

Dozens of nations pledged on Saturday to do more to protect nature and overhaul farming at the COP26 U.N. climate talks, amid misgivings about past failures.

Agriculture, deforestation and other changes in land use account for about a quarter of humanity’s planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, making reforms vital to safeguard nature and feed a rising global population without stoking global warming.

“Nature and climate are interlinked, and both our people and our surroundings are facing the very real impacts of rising temperatures,” Alok Sharma, the British president of the Glasgow summit, told a news conference.

He said that 70% of tropical corals, which are nurseries for fish, would be lost if temperatures rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

“If we get to two degrees they are all gone,” he added.

Temperatures are already up nearly 1.2C and the overriding goal of the Glasgow negotiations is to keep alive hopes of limiting warming to 1.5C, the toughest goal set by almost 200 nations in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Britain said 45 nations were making pledges to safeguard nature on Saturday, including the United States, Japan, Germany, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Vietnam, the Philippines, Gabon, Ethiopia, Ghana and Uruguay.

Sharma said the pledges included $4 billion in public sector investment which would help spur innovation such as developing crops resilient to droughts, floods and heatwaves that could benefit "hundreds of millions of farmers".

Campaigners said needed shifts to agriculture to curb emissions and protect food security should have a larger share of the global spotlight.

'Sexy' Farming

“We need to shine a light on climate justice, and we need to make food and farming sexy,” said Idris Elba, a British actor and goodwill ambassador for the U.N.’s International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Vanessa Nakate, 24, a climate justice advocate from Uganda, warned that in her country, "we're watching farms collapse," with floods, droughts, heatwaves and swarms of locusts making hunger more widespread.

Among pledges on Saturday, Canada said it would allocate about $1 billion - out of $5.3 billion previously pledged for climate finance - to "nature-based climate solutions" in developing countries over the next five years.

Britain said it would give a 500-million-pound ($675 million) boost to protect more than 5 million hectares - equivalent to more than 3.5 million football pitches - of tropical rainforests across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Nations including Peru and Cameroon said they would increase support for small-scale farmers, while Nepal and Madagascar said they would join efforts to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030.

But other similar past pledges have fallen short.

A U.N. report last year found that the world had failed to fully meet any of the 20 global goals it set in 2010 to protect biodiversity.

Those ranged from phasing out harmful agricultural subsidies to limiting the loss of forests and raising sufficient finance for developing nations.

British officials said there was hope the Glasgow pledges would be different. They pointed to plans to track pledges, as well as the promises of cash and innovative technologies, such as high-yielding, drought-resistant crops.

Britain said 28 nations that are big consumers of deforestation-linked commodities such as beef, soy, palm oil and cocoa had joined a Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) roadmap launched in February this year.

FACT says it promotes sustainable land use as a step to unlock investments, create jobs and protect forest livelihoods.

“The next challenge is to go from bold statements to real implementation,” said Yadvinder Malhi, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford.

Britain grabbed headlines this week by announcing a range of new alliances, such as one by more than 40 nations to phase out coal and another by major investors with $130 trillion at their disposal to boost the green economy.

“Important as these announcements may be, they are not legally binding," noted Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a Kenya-based climate and energy think-tank.

(REUTERS)

Net-zero emissions plans expect too much from nature

By Doreen Stabinsky, College of the Atlantic

 & Kate Dooley, The University of Melbourne

Nature has received a great deal of attention for its ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the biosphere, such as in soils, grasslands, trees and mangroves, via photosynthesis. Photo by Siggy Nowak/Pixabay

Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Net-zero emissions pledges to protect the climate are coming fast and furious from companies, cities and countries. But declaring a net-zero target doesn't mean they plan to stop their greenhouse gas emissions entirely -- far from it. Most of these pledges rely heavily on planting trees or protecting forests or farmland to absorb some of their emissions.

That raises two questions: Can nature handle the expectations? And, more importantly, should it even be expected to?

We have been involved in international climate negotiations and land and forest climate research for years. Research and pledges from companies so far suggest that the answer to these questions is no.

What is net-zero?
Net-zero is the point at which all the carbon dioxide still emitted by human activities, such as running fossil fuel power plants or driving gas-powered vehicles, is balanced by the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Since the world does not yet have technologies capable of removing carbon dioxide from air at any climate-relevant scale, that means relying on nature for carbon dioxide removal.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global carbon dioxide emissions will need to reach net-zero by at least midcentury for the world to have even a small chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F), an aim of the Paris climate agreement to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The devil of net-zero, of course, lies in its apparent simplicity.


Nature's potential and its limits

Climate change is driven largely by cumulative emissions -- carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere and stays there for hundreds to thousands of years, trapping heat near Earth's surface.

Nature has received a great deal of attention for its ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the biosphere, such as in soils, grasslands, trees and mangroves, via photosynthesis. It is also a source of carbon dioxide emissions through deforestation, land and ecosystem degradation and agricultural practices. However, the right kinds of changes to land management practices can reduce emissions and improve carbon storage.

Net-zero proposals count on finding ways for these systems to take up more carbon than they already absorb.

Researchers estimate that nature might annually be able to remove 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the air and avoid another 5 gigatons through stopping emissions from deforestation, agriculture and other sources.

This 10-gigaton figure has regularly been cited as "one-third of the global effort needed to stop climate change," but that's misleading. Avoided emissions and removals are not additive.

A new forests and land-use declaration announced at the U.N. climate conference in November also highlights the ongoing challenges in bringing deforestation emissions to zero, including illegal logging and protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Stored carbon doesn't stay there forever

Reaching the point at which nature can remove 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year would take time. And there's another problem: High levels of removal might last for only a decade or so.

When growing trees and restoring ecosystems, the storage potential develops to a peak over decades. While this continues, it reduces over time as ecosystems become saturated, meaning large-scale carbon dioxide removal by natural ecosystems is a one-off opportunity to restore lost carbon stocks.

Carbon stored in the terrestrial biosphere -- in forests and other ecosystems -- doesn't stay there forever, either. Trees and plants die, sometimes as a result of climate-related wildfires, droughts and warming, and fields are tilled and release carbon.

When taking these factors into consideration -- the delay while nature-based removals scale up, saturation and the one-off and reversible nature of enhanced terrestrial carbon storage -- another team of researchers found that restoration of forest and agricultural ecosystems could be expected to remove only about 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually.

Over the century, ecosystem restoration might reduce global average temperature by approximately 0.12 C (0.2 F). But the scale of removals the world can expect from ecosystem restoration will not happen in time to reduce the warming that is expected within the next two decades.

Nature in net-zero pledges

Unfortunately there is not a great deal of useful information contained in net-zero pledges about the relative contributions of planned emissions reductions versus dependence on removals. There are, however, some indications of the magnitude of removals that major actors expect to have available for their use.

ActionAid reviewed the oil major Shell's net-zero strategy and found that it includes offsetting 120 million tons of carbon dioxide per year through planting forests, estimated to require around 29.5 million acres (12 million hectares) of land. That's roughly 45,000 square miles.

Oxfam reviewed the net-zero pledges for Shell and three other oil and gas producers -- BP, TotalEnergies and ENI -- and concluded that "their plans alone could require an area of land twice the size of the U.K. If the oil and gas sector as a whole adopted similar net zero targets, it could end up requiring land that is nearly half the size of the United States, or one-third of the world's farmland."

These numbers provide insight into how these companies, and perhaps many others, view net-zero.

Research indicates that net-zero strategies that rely on temporary removals to balance permanent emissions will fail. The temporary storage of nature-based removals, limited land availability and the time they take to scale up mean that, while they are a critical part of stabilizing the earth system, they cannot compensate for continued fossil fuel emissions.

This means that getting to net-zero will require rapid and dramatic reductions in emissions. Nature will be called upon to balance out what is left, mostly emissions from agriculture and land, but nature cannot balance out ongoing fossil emissions.

To actually reach net-zero will require reducing emissions close to zero.

Doreen Stabinsky is a professor of global environmental politics at College of the Atlantic and Kate Dooley is a research fellow in the Climate & Energy College at The University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Glasgow climate negotiators seek to resolve 4 key challenges

By FRANK JORDANS

1 of 6

FILE - Delegates gather inside the venue on another day at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 3, 2021. The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow gathers leaders from around the world, in Scotland's biggest city, to lay out their vision for addressing the common challenge of global warming. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)


GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — As this year’s U.N. climate talks go into their second week, negotiations on key topics are inching forward. Boosted by a few high-profile announcements at the start of the meeting, delegates are upbeat about the prospects for tangible progress in the fight against global warming.

Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who helped forge the Paris climate accord, said the general atmosphere had improved since the talks began Oct. 31 and “most negotiators want an agreement.”

But negotiators were still struggling late Saturday to put together a series of draft decisions for government ministers to finalize during the second week of the talks.

“People are having to take tough decisions, as they should,” Archie Young, the U.K.’s lead negotiator, said Saturday.

Here’s the state of play in four main areas halfway through the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow:

TOP RESULT FROM THE CONFERENCE

Each Conference of the Parties, or COP, ends with a general statement. It’s as much a political declaration as a statement of intent about where countries agree the effort to combat climate change is heading.

A flurry of announcements at the start of the COP26 talks in Glasgow on issues including ending deforestation, cutting methane emissions, providing more money for green investments and phasing out the use of coal could be reflected in this final declaration. Even though only some countries signed on to each of those deals, others would be encouraged to add their signatures at a later date.

Affirming the goal of keeping global warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial times, is also seen as important. With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise, host Britain has said it wants the Glasgow talks to “keep 1.5 C alive.” One way to achieve that would be to encourage rich polluters in particular to update their emissions-cutting targets every one or two years, rather than every five years as now required by the Paris accord.

MONEY MATTERS TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE

Rich countries pledged to mobilize $100 billion each year by 2020 to help poor nations cope with climate change. That target was likely missed, much to the frustration of developing nations.

Restoring goodwill and trust between rich and poor countries on this issue requires a clear commitment on raising financial support starting from 2025. Addressing the thorny question of who is to pay for the losses and damages that nations face as a result of global warming they aren’t responsible for is likewise important, but agreement there could be elusive, observers say.

“It’s about finance, finance, finance, finance,” said Fabius.

CARBON TRADING: A TRICKY NUT TO CRACK

Many negotiators and observers at climate conferences roll their eyes when they hear the words “Article 6.”

The section dealing with rules for carbon markets has become one of the trickiest parts of the Paris climate accord to finalize. Six years after that deal was sealed, countries appear to be making headway though and there’s even talk of a breakthrough on the issue that so frustrated negotiators in Madrid two years ago.

Observers say Brazil and India may be willing to drop demands to count their old — but others say worthless — carbon credits amassed under previous agreements. The price for this might be that rich nations grant poor countries a share of proceeds from carbon market transactions to adapt to climate change. This has been a red line for the United States and the European Union until now.

A deal on Article 6 is seen as crucial because many countries and companies aim to cut their emissions to “net zero” by 2050. This requires balancing out any remaining pollution with an equal amount of carbon they can reliably say is captured elsewhere, such as through forests or by technological means.

TRANSPARENCY AND RIGOR IN NATIONAL EMISSIONS-CUTTING TARGETS

The Paris Agreement lets governments set their own emissions-cutting targets, and many of them are in the distant future.

Verifying that countries are doing what they committed to, and that their goals are backed up by realistic measures, is tricky. China in particular has bristled at the idea of having to provide data in formats set by other nations. Brazil and Russia, meanwhile, have resisted demands to lay out in greater detail the short-term measures they’re taking to meet their long-term goals.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the climate talks at http://apnews.com/hub/climate

Ice on the edge of survival: Warming is changing the Arctic

By SETH BORENSTEIN

today

1 of 7

FILE - Broken blocks of sea ice emerge from under the hull of the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails through the Victoria Strait while traversing the Arctic's Northwest Passage, Friday, July 21, 2017. The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet and is on such a knife’s edge of survival that the 2021 U.N. climate negotiations in Scotland could make the difference between ice and water at the top of the world in the same way that a couple of tenths of a degree matter around the freezing mark, scientists say. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

While conducting research in Greenland, ice scientist Twila Moon was struck this summer by what climate change has doomed Earth to lose and what could still be saved.

The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet and is on such a knife’s edge of survival that the U.N. climate negotiations underway in Scotland this week could make the difference between ice and water at the top of the world in the same way that a couple of tenths of a degree matter around the freezing mark, scientists say.

Arctic ice sheets and glaciers are shrinking, with some glaciers already gone. Permafrost, the icy soil that traps the potent greenhouse gas methane, is thawing. Wildfires have broken out in the Arctic. Siberia even hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). Even a region called the Last Ice Area showed unexpected melting this year.

In the next couple of decades, the Arctic is likely to see summers with no sea ice.

As she returns regularly to Greenland, Moon, a researcher with the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, said she finds herself “mourning and grieving for the things we have lost already” because of past carbon dioxide emissions that trap heat.

But the decisions we make now about how much more carbon pollution Earth emits will mean “an incredibly large difference between how much ice we keep and how much we lose and how quickly,” she said.

The fate of the Arctic looms large during the climate talks in Glasgow — the farthest north the negotiations have taken place — because what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. Scientists believe the warming there is already contributing to weather calamities elsewhere around the world.

“If we end up in a seasonally sea ice-free Arctic in the summertime, that’s something human civilization has never known,” said former NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati, who runs the University of Colorado’s environment program. “That’s like taking a sledgehammer to the climate system.”

What’s happening in the Arctic is a runaway effect.

“Once you start melting, that kind of enhances more melt,” said University of Manitoba ice scientist Julienne Stroeve.

When covered with snow and ice, the Arctic reflects sunlight and heat. But that blanket is dwindling. And as more sea ice melts in the summer, “you’re revealing really dark ocean surfaces, just like a black T-shirt,” Moon said. Like dark clothing, the open patches of sea soak up heat from the sun more readily

Between 1971 and 2019, the surface of the Arctic warmed three times faster than the rest of the world, according to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program.

An iceberg delivered by members of Arctic Basecamp is placed on show near the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. The four ton block of ice, originally part of a larger glacier, was brought from Greenland to Glasgow by climate scientists from Arctic Basecamp as a statement to world leaders of the scale of the climate crisis and a visible reminder of what Arctic warming means for the planet. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

 

The result?

“The Arctic isn’t just changing in temperature,” Abdalati said. “It’s changing in state. It’s becoming a different place.”

The 2015 Paris climate agreement set a goal of limiting the warming of the Earth to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures, or, failing that, keeping it under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The world has already gotten 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer since the late 1800s.

The difference between what happens at 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees can hit the Arctic harder than the rest of the world, University of Alaska Fairbanks climate scientist John Walsh, a member of the Arctic monitoring team. “We can save the Arctic, or at least preserve it in many ways, but we’re going to lose that if we go above 1.5.”

The Arctic itself has blown past 2 degrees Celsius of warming, Stroeve said. It’s approaching 9 degrees Celsius (16 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming in November, she said.

For John Waghiyi Jr., the Arctic is not a number or an abstraction. It’s been home for 67 years, and he and other native Bering Sea elders have watched the Arctic change because of warming. The sea ice, which allows humans and polar bears to hunt, is shrinking in the summer.

“The ice is very dangerous nowadays. It’s very unpredictable,” said Waghiyi of Savoonga, Alaska. “The ice pack affects us all, spiritually, culturally and physically, as we need to have it in order to keep harvesting.”

The ice is “at the core of our identity,” said Dalee Sambo Dorough, international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, representing 165,000 people in several nations.

This isn’t just a problem for people living in the Arctic. It spells trouble for regions much farther south.

An increasingly large number of studies link Arctic changes to alterations of the jet stream — the river of air that moves weather from west to east — and other weather systems. And those changes, scientists say, can contribute to more extreme weather events, such as floods, drought, the February Texas freeze, or more severe wildfires.

Also, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers can add considerably to rising sea levels.

“The fate of places like Miami are tied very closely to the fate of the Greenland,” said David Balton, director of the U.S. Arctic Executive Steering Committee, which coordinates U.S. domestic regulations involving the Arctic and deals with other northern nations. “If you live in Topeka, Kansas, or if you live in California. If you live in Nigeria, your life is going to be affected. ... The Arctic matters on all sorts of levels.”

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Read stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

EXPLAINER: How warming affects Arctic sea ice, polar bears

By SETH BORENSTEIN, CAMILLE FASSETT and KATI PERRY

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This 2020 photo provided by Polar Bears International shows a polar bear in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada during migration. At risk of disappearing, the polar bear is dependent on something melting away on our warming planet: sea ice. (Kieran McIver/Polar Bears International via AP)

Majestic, increasingly hungry and at risk of disappearing, the polar bear is dependent on something melting away on our warming planet: sea ice.

In the harsh and unforgiving Arctic, where frigid cold is not just a way of life but a necessity, the polar bear stands out. But where it lives, where it hunts, where it eats — it’s disappearing underfoot in the crucial summertime.

“They have just always been a revered species by people, going back hundreds and hundreds of years,” said longtime government polar bear researcher Steve Amstrup, now chief scientist for Polar Bear International. “There’s just something special about polar bears.”

Scientists and advocates point to polar bears, marked as “threatened” on the endangered species list, as the white-hot warning signal for the rest of the planet — “the canary in the cryosphere.” As world leaders meet in Glasgow, Scotland, to try to ramp up efforts to curb climate change, the specter of polar bears looms over them.

United Nations Environment Program head Inger Andersen used to lead the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which monitors and classifies species in trouble. She asks: “Do we really want to be the generation that saw the end of the ability of something as majestic as the polar bear to survive?”

THE STATE OF SEA ICE

Arctic sea ice — frozen ocean water — shrinks during the summer as it gets warmer, then forms again in the long winter. How much it shrinks is where global warming kicks in, scientists say. The more the sea ice shrinks in the summer, the thinner the ice is overall, because the ice is weaker first-year ice.

Julienne Stroeve, a University of Manitoba researcher, says summers without sea ice are inevitable. Many other experts agree with her.

Former NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati, now a top University of Colorado environmental researcher, is one of them.

“That’s something human civilization has never known,” Abdalati said. “That’s like taking a sledgehammer to the climate system and doing something huge about it.”

The warming already in the oceans and in the air is committed — like a freight train in motion. So, no matter what, the Earth will soon see a summer with less than 1 million square kilometers of sea ice scattered in tiny bits across the Arctic.

The big question is when the Arctic will “look like a blue ocean,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Maybe as early as the 2030s, most likely in the 2040s and almost assuredly by the 2050s, experts say.

The Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. In some seasons, it has warmed three times faster than the rest of the globe, said University of Alaska at Fairbanks scientist John Walsh.

That’s because of something called “Arctic amplification.” Essentially, white ice in the Arctic reflects heat. When it melts, the dark sea absorbs much more heat, which warms the oceans even more quickly, scientists say.

THE POLAR BEAR CONNECTION

There are 19 different subpopulations of polar bears in the Arctic. Each is a bit different. Some are really in trouble, especially the southernmost ones, while others are pretty close to stable. But their survival from place to place is linked heavily to sea ice.

“As you go to the Arctic and see what’s happening with your own eyes ... it’s depressing,” said University of Washington marine biologist Kristin Laidre, who has studied polar bears in Baffin Bay.

Shrinking sea ice means shrinking polar bears, literally.

In the summertime, polar bears go out on the ice to hunt and eat, feasting and putting on weight to sustain them through the winter. They prefer areas that are more than half covered with ice because it’s the most productive hunting and feeding grounds, Amstrup said. The more ice, the more they can move around and the more they can eat.

Just 30 or 40 years ago, the bears feasted on a buffet of seals and walrus on the ice.

In the 1980s, “the males were huge, females were reproducing regularly and cubs were surviving well,” Amstrup said. “The population looked good.”

With ice loss, the bears haven’t been doing as well, Amstrup said. One sign: A higher proportion of cubs are dying before their first birthdays.

Polar bears are land mammals that have adapted to the sea. The animals they eat — seals and walruses mostly — are aquatic.

The bears fare best when they can hunt in shallow water, which is typically close to land.

“When sea ice is present over those near-shore waters, polar bears can make hay,” Amstrup said.

But in recent years the sea ice has retreated far offshore in most summers. That has forced the bears to drift on the ice into deep waters — sometimes nearly a mile deep — that are devoid of their prey, Amstrup said.

Off Alaska, the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea polar bears provide a telling contrast.

Go 30 to 40 miles offshore from Prudhoe Bay in the Beaufort Sea “and you’re in very unproductive waters,” Amstrup said.

Further south in the Chukchi, it’s shallower, which allows bottom-feeding walruses to thrive. That provides food for polar bears, he said.

“The bears in the Chukchi seem to be faring pretty well because of that additional productivity,” Amstrup said. But the bears of the Beaufort “give us a real good early warning of where this is all coming to.”

THE FUTURE

Even as world leaders meet in Scotland to try to ratchet up the effort to curb climate change, the scientists who monitor sea ice and watch the polar bears know so much warming is already set in motion.

There’s a chance, if negotiators succeed and everything turns out just right, that the world will once again see an Arctic with significant sea ice in the summer late this century and in the 22nd century, experts said. But until then “that door has been closed,” said Twila Moon, a National Snow and Ice Data Center scientist.

So hope is melting too.

“It’s near impossible for us to see a place where we don’t reach an essentially sea ice-free Arctic, even if we’re able to do the work to create much, much lower emissions” of heat-trapping gases, Moon said. “Sea ice is one of those things that we’ll see reach some pretty devastating lows along that path. And we can already see those influences for polar bears.”


VIDEO
Second Quote_2.mp4 from AP Enterprise and Investigations on Vimeo

MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION

Arctic sea ice is disappearing and it’s harming polar bears (apnews.com)


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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Fassett, a data journalist based in Oakland, California, is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics.

Yazidis still displaced in their own country

Years after the Yazidi massacre by the "Islamic State," tens of thousands of survivors still aren't able to return home. In Iraqi Kurdistan, a German aid worker is trying to help these refugees.

The Mam Rashan camp is bigger than a town, with some 1,500 families living there

A wide gravel road extends into the distance and blurs into the horizon. To the left is a sea of corrugated metal containers and electric poles — beyond that, nothing. This is where the Mam Rashan camp ends.

The refugee camp in the Nineveh district of the autonomous Kurdistan region is like a small town. Over 1,500 Yazidi families live here. Jan Jessen, a German journalist and development aid worker, is a regular visitor to the area in northern Iraq.

German aid worker Jan Jessen (left) is a regular visitor to the region

Today, he's meeting up with Mezafar Berges Matto, a friendly Yazidi man in his late 30s who seems much older. He and his family were just able to escape "Islamic State" (IS) terrorists and have been living in Mam Rashan since December 2015.

They sit in their living room, a small 10-square-meter area about the size of a car parking space with a walnut-colored PVC floor and an unpleasant blue light filtered through cigarette smoke. As a group of wide-eyed children turn up — some belonging to Berges Matto, some from nearby homes — his wife serves tea and water.

'They wanted to force us to change religion'

When Jessen asks Berges Matto to recount his story, the man clasps his hands together, breathes deeply and nods. Silence falls over the room as he recounts how his family were living in a village in Sinjar when IS militants turned up.

"They came and captured us. They wanted to force us to change religion," he explains, saying it was a miracle that he and his family were able to escape into the mountains.

They were lucky. According to the US-based NGO Yazda, some 12,000 people were kidnapped or killed in the first week of what the UN has characterized as the Yazidi genocide in August 2014.

Thousands were forced to flee, and many died as a result. IS fighters killed older people, along with those who were too weak to flee and those who refused to convert to Islam. They kidnapped and indoctrinated children. Boys were trained to become IS fighters, and women and girls were sold into sexual slavery. Thousands of Yazidis are still missing. Many mass graves have been found, but not all of them have been exhumed.

At the camp, children try to keep themselves distracted with soccer and other activities

But the "Islamic State" was driven out in 2017, so why have some 300,000 displaced Yazidis still not been able to go home? To find out, DW traveled west to Sinjar, a predominantly Yazidi region before the IS invasion.

The landscape changes drastically as the SUV arrives in the section controlled by Baghdad. Barbed wire, watchtowers and machine guns line the road, which runs through a barren landscape of empty houses, bombed-out cars and mountains of rubble and plastic waste. It feels like another country.

Checkpoints appear every 200 meters (219 yards) or so — and the car is stopped at every other one. Sometimes that means waiting for hours. Jessen gets out of the car to smoke a cigarette, calm despite the presence of soldiers armed with US-made M16 assault rifles and Russian-made Kalashnikovs. Hand grenades and other ammunition hang out of their vest pockets, which are decorated with skulls.

Eventually, the soldiers let the car pass, the decision to stop travelers seemingly made at random.

Various factions are operating in the volatile region of northern Iraq

Sinjar's volatile security situation keeps many away

"There are different problems in different regions," explains Thomas Schmidinger, a political scientist and cultural anthropologist who conducts research on ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East.

The situation is particularly tense in Sinjar, which is crowded with various militias belonging to different factions: the People's Protection Units (YPG), which is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), recognized by the US and the EU as a terrorist organization; the Popular Mobilization Forces, supported in part by Iran; the peshmerga, the Kurdish branch of the Iraqi forces; and numerous other representatives of the Iraqi army. At the same time, Turkey regularly bombs the area, which is home to Kurdish insurgent groups who have demanded separation from Turkey.

The volatile security situation is the main reason not all Yazidis want to come back. And for many survivors, it's simply unthinkable to come back to a place inhabited by their tormentors. "Quite a few supporters and even active IS fighters [were] living in the Arab villages and towns near the Yazidi settlements, and some of them still live there," says Schmidinger.

NEW HOPE FOR YAZIDI WOMEN TORTURED BY IS FIGHTERS

Hoping for help

Perwin Ali Baku escaped the Islamic State after more than two years in captivity. The 23-year-old Yazidi woman was captured together with her 3-year-old daughter. "I don't feel right," she says, sitting on a mattress on the floor of her father-in-law's small hut in a northern Iraq refugee camp. "I still can't sleep and my body is tense all the time."

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Projects to help people 'start anew'

But a few families have returned to the town of Sinun to the north of Sinjar — which, according to Schmidinger, is somewhat safer. Caritas-Flüchtlingshilfe Essen, the refugee NGO for which Jessen works, set up a greenhouse project here last year.

"We are trying to set up projects to make it easier for people to start anew if they come back," he explains, blinking into the afternoon sun with the Sinjar Mountains behind him. Nearby, hoses distribute water among the greenhouses, where mostly cucumbers and herbs grow under white tarpaulin.

"The people coming back do not have jobs. The infrastructure is broken, and the security situation is difficult. But most of all they do not have jobs," said Jessen.

The greenhouse project is to show the returning Yazidis that it's possible to make money growing plants. A family can earn as much as $150 (€130) with one greenhouse — and they can eat their own produce as well.


Thousands of Yazidi children are looking for a brighter future

'I just want to survive'

But what's really necessary is a political solution to the conflict, says Schmidinger. "All the local actors have to agree. Otherwise, there will not be a peaceful solution for Sinjar."

Mezafar Berges Matto and his family plan to stay in Mam Rashan until the political situation back home is clearer. They feel safe here, even if they don't have much space.

Ajad, who is 10, is dressed like children everywhere, in an FC Barcelona tracksuit and sporting a digital watch. But he has a very specific dream: "I just want to survive," he says with a shy smile.

This article has been translated from German

Dearborn, Michigan, elects its first Arab American mayor

A Michigan city considered to be the center of Arab America has finally elected its first Arab-American mayor.

© Courtesy Jaafar Issa Abdullah Hammoud, the son of Lebanese immigrants, was born and raised in Dearborn, Michigan.

By Alaa Elassar, CNN 4 hrs ago

Abdullah Hammoud, the son of Lebanese immigrants, was born and raised in Dearborn, where he was elected mayor on Tuesday. With the victory, he also becomes the city's first Muslim mayor.

Dearborn is home to one of the largest Arab-American communities in the United States. Dearborn's population is about 42% Arab, according to Census figures. But more recent surveys suggest the city could be more than half Arab.

Despite the city's large Arab community, it has never been led by an Arab- or Muslim-American.

"It's just a humbling experience. It's humbling that in this town, people are willing to vote for someone based on the direction in which they lead, not in the direction in which they pray," Hammoud, 31, told CNN. "It's humbling because it shows that someone like me, who has a name like Abdullah Hussein Hammoud, doesn't have to change or shy away from their identity to achieve success."

Hammoud is serving his third term as state representative for Michigan's 15th District, which includes Dearborn. He was first elected in 2016 and has since been re-elected twice.

He will take office as mayor in January.

"It is a huge deal for the Arab community in Michigan and nationwide," Sally Howell, director of the Center for Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told CNN. "The symbolic capital of Arab America, Dearborn, Michigan, finally has an Arab American mayor to speak on behalf of this unique population. Representation matters."

Hammoud says he is ready to get to work and immediately begin tackling issues that affect his city, including climate change.

"There's a clock on the wall, and there's the question of when is the next heavy rain that's going to set in that's going to lead into the next catastrophic flooding, similar to what we experienced in the past summer when nearly 20,000 homes experienced some type of flooding," Hammoud said.

"We have to immediately start adjusting the climate crisis by putting forth bold and innovative proposals," he said.

Hammoud will also work to reduce taxes and assist residents in combating the health and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, according to his campaign website.

Hammoud says he hopes his win sends a message to Dearborn's youth -- especially those who are targeted because of their differences -- that nothing is out of reach.

"Never shy away from who you are," he said. "Be proud of your name, be comfortable in your identity, because it'll take you places if you work hard, you're passionate and you inspire people."

'Her heart was beating too' - Poles protest against strict abortion law

WARSAW (Reuters) - Thousands of people gathered in cities across Poland on Saturday to protest against strict abortion laws after a pregnant woman's death reignited public debate on the issue in one of Europe's most devoutly Catholic countries.

© Reuters/DAWID ZUCHOWICZ People protest after a death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy with activists saying she could still be alive if the abortion law wouldn't be so strict in Warsaw

A ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal that abortion on the grounds of foetal defects contravened the constitution came into effect in January, triggering a near total ban on pregnancy terminations and widespread protests.

© Reuters/DAWID ZUCHOWICZ People protest after a death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy with activists saying she could still be alive if the abortion law wouldn't be so strict in Warsaw

People holding candles and carrying banners saying 'not one more' and 'indifference is complicity', marched through dozens of towns and cities on Saturday, according to organisers, including Pszczyna, southern Poland, where the woman lived.

Activists say the death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy whose family said died of septic shock, was a result of the ruling.

Izabela went to hospital in Pszczyna in September after her waters broke, her family said. Scans had previously shown numerous defects in the foetus. But doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy while the foetus still had a heartbeat.

© Reuters/MARCIN STEPIEN People protest after a death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy with activists saying she could still be alive if the abortion law wouldn't be so strict in Lodz

When a scan showed the foetus was dead, doctors decided to perform a Caesarean. The family's lawyer, Jolanta Budzowska, said Izabela's heart stopped on the way to the operating theatre and she died despite efforts to resuscitate her

.

© Reuters/KRZYSZTOF CWIK People protest after a death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy with activists saying she could still be alive if the abortion law wouldn't be so strict in Wroclaw

'Her heart was beating too' read slogans on banners and in information shared by protest organisers.

"...the anti-abortion law in Poland kills Polish women. It is cruel, it is terrifying," a woman attending a protest in Pszczyna said in a comment aired by a private broadcaster TVN24.

"It is inhuman and I hope that this situation will contribute in some way, so that Polish women will not have to die," she added.

On Saturday, the news website Onet.pl published an interview with a husband of another woman who he claimed died in June in similar circumstances.

The government says the court ruling was not to blame for Izabela's death, rather an error by doctors. Poland's health minister Adam Niedzielski pledged to issue guidelines to make it clear when terminations were legal.

"I asked the National Consultant for Gynecology and Obstetrics to issue such guidelines...that will be unambiguous about the fact that the safety of a woman, in such a case as happened, is a reason to terminate the pregnancy," he told private radio RMF FM.

© Reuters/DAWID ZUCHOWICZ

 People protest after a death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy with activists saying she could still be alive if the abortion law wouldn't be so strict in Warsaw

Poland's president proposed changing the law last year to make abortions possible in cases where the foetus was not viable. In September a draft bill introducing a total ban on abortion was submitted to parliament by a group of citizens.

"...let's finally change the law that kills women, deprives families of mothers, wives and sisters," Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bak, a left-wing lawmaker, was quoted as saying ahead of protests by news agency PAP.

(Reporting by Anna Koper; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Poles protest mother's death blamed on abortion law




Poles protest mother's death blamed on abortion law'Not one more,

' shouted thousands of demonstrators in the capital Warsaw (AFP/Wojtek Radwanski)

Bernard OSSER
Sat, November 6, 2021, 

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in Warsaw and dozens of other Polish cities to denounce a nine-month-old abortion law blamed for claiming the life of a pregnant mother, organisers said.

The 30-year-old woman died of septicaemia in a Polish hospital after her 22-month-old foetus died in her womb, the family's lawyer Jolanta Budzowska tweeted.

She was, she added, the first victim of the near-total ban on abortion.

Izabela, married for 10 years and a mother of a nine-year-old child, agonisingly described her worsening condition in text messages made public since her death in late September.

"Not one more," shouted thousands of demonstrators in the capital Warsaw who protested outside the Constitutional Court and the health ministry.

"I am here to make sure that no woman's life is put at risk any more," Ewa Pietrzyk, a 40-year-old Warsaw resident, told AFP as she held a photo of Izabela. "The current legislation is killing women."

Women's rights groups said they organised similar demonstrations in around 70 other Polish towns and cities.

Izabela's family issued a statement saying doctors at the hospital in the southern town of Pszczyna "took a wait-and-see attitude," which it attributed to "the rules in effect limiting the possibility of a legal abortion".

The pregnant mother recalled the limbo she was in with a baby she said weighed 485 grammes, just over a one pound, according to text messages that were made public.

"For now, thanks to the law on abortion, I must remain lying down," she said.

- 'It's dreadful' -

"And there's nothing they can do. They will wait until (the baby) dies or until something starts, and if not, I can, great, expect septicaemia," Izabela wrote in a text to her mother.

"My fever is increasing. I hope that I don't have septicaemia, otherwise I will not make it," the pregnant mother said.

"It's dreadful. And I have to wait," she said.

According to the nationalist government running the country, the woman's death had nothing to do with the new law.

Two doctors at the hospital in Pszczyna were suspended after Izabela's death, and the town's prosecutors have launched an inquiry.

Poland's Constitutional Court last year sided with the Catholic country's populist right-wing government to rule that terminations over foetal defects were unconstitutional.

This resulted in a further tightening of already heavy restrictions on abortions, which came into effect in late January.

Rights group say that several thousand women have sought their help to seek abortions, more often that not abroad.

In October, a coalition of 14 rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said that as a result of the court ruling "women, girls, and all pregnant people have faced extreme barriers to accessing legal abortions".

The NGOs called on the European Commission to immediately implement a mechanism that could see Poland denied funds from Brussels for not respecting "EU values".

The Constitutional Court, which the EU says has had its independence stripped away, is currently at the centre of a separate row with Brussels after a controversial ruling earlier this month against the supremacy of the bloc's laws.

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