Evolutionary virologist once open to Wuhan lab leak theory now says COVID spread from animal market

Peter Weber, Senior editor
Fri, November 19, 2021,

Huanan seafood market in Wuhan Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images

Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist who signed a high-profile letter in May urging further study of the theory that the COVID-19 coronavirus accidently leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, reported in the journal Science on Thursday that new research strongly suggests the new virus spread to humans from animals at the Huanan Seafood Market, several miles from the lab. His reconstruction of the early days of the pandemic adds to mounting evidence that the coronavirus originated in bats and infected humans through an intermediary mammal, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Worobey, a leading expert in tracking the evolution of viruses, pored through all available records and found that 10 of 19 early COVID-19 patients worked at or had visited the Huanan market, around the area where raccoon dogs were slaughtered. His research determined that a World Health Organization report incorrectly identified a 41-year-old accountant who had not been near the market as the earliest known case. Instead, the first confirmed patients was a female seafood vendor who became symptomatic on Dec. 11.

"In this city of 11 million people, half of the early cases are linked to a place that's the size of a soccer field," Worobey said. "It becomes very difficult to explain that pattern if the outbreak didn't start at the market." He reiterated to The Washington Post that "it becomes almost impossible to explain that pattern if that epidemic didn't start there."


Chinese officials have said the Huanan market wasn't the source of the pandemic. "The market was quickly closed, the animals culled before any were screened for SARS-CoV-2, and everything cleaned and sanitized soon after the outbreak began," the Post reports. "Still, a subsequent investigation showed that traces of the virus were found on surfaces in the market, including drains, particularly in the area where vendors sold animals."

Worobey's reconstruction of the pandemic's origin doesn't conclusively prove nature over lab leak, and some virologists said that given China's reticence to share information, that debate may never be settled. "He has done an excellent job of reconstructing what he can from the available data, and it's as reasonable a hypothesis as any," Columbia University virologist W. Ian Lipkin told The New York Times. "But I don't think we're ever going to know what's going on, because it's two years ago and it's still murky."

Wuhan’s seafood market may have been the origin of the covid-19 pandemic after all

ALY SONG / REUTERS

The Huanan meat and seafood market in Wuhan

By Samanth Subramanian
Looking into the Future of Capitalism
Published November 19, 2021

When and where the covid-19 pandemic began seems to hinge on when a 41-year-old accountant got sick.

The World Health Organization (WHO) thought it was Dec. 8, 2019, making him the first-known covid-19 patient, according to the WHO’s March 2021 report into the origins of the pandemic. Since the accountant hadn’t visited the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan—where the coronavirus was presumed to have first spread—theories of covid-19’s origins underwent a revision. And since the accountant lived closer to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the WHO report fed the “lab leak” theory: that the coronavirus had slipped into the world from a lab at the Institute.

Among the scientists who believed that the lab leak theory ought to be investigated was Michael Worobey, a virologist at the University of Arizona. On Nov. 18, however, Worobey took a different stance. Having studied the patterns of early cases as well as medical records, Worobey concluded that the accountant first showed symptoms not on Dec. 8 but on Dec. 16, 2019. As a result, Worobey argued in a paper published in Science, the most likely “patient zero” was a woman who sold seafood at the Huanan market, whose symptoms appeared on Dec. 11.

On Twitter, Worobey warned that his article didn’t cover every possible detail. But by bringing the Wuhan market back into the reckoning, Worobey’s paper offers ideas for scientists looking to figure out how the virus jumped the species barrier into human beings. And it offers a counter to those who still believe that the virus was loosed into the world from a Chinese lab.

Who was covid-19’s patient zero?

To determine the date of the accountant’s illness, Worobey relied in part on a video report from The Paper, a Shanghai-based publication funded in part by the Chinese government. In the video, shot in March 2020, the accountant said his covid-19 symptoms began on Dec. 16, 2019. He had been ill on Dec. 8 as well, he said, but that trip to the hospital had to do with a visit to the dentist, to treat “baby teeth retained into adulthood,” Worobey wrote. Closer to his covid-19 infection, the accountant added, he had traveled closer to the Huanan market; by then, several cases had emerged at the market already.

The WHO report doesn’t seem to take this timeline into account; it regards the date of the accountant’s sickness as Dec. 8, 2019. Speaking to the New York Times, Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO team, said the report’s conclusion about that date was a mistake.

Focusing again on the Huanan market

If the accountant is ruled out, the second confirmed case identified by the WHO becomes the first: the seafood vendor in the Huanan market. That fits the preponderance of cases that emerged in and around the market, Worobey argues. It wasn’t “just” a super-spreading site, he said; there were other places in Wuhan, such as restaurants or hospitals or shopping malls, that would have been more likely super-spreading sites. Instead, the market was the likely origin of the disease’s spread itself, Worobey believes.

Worobey’s paper isn’t, by any means, the final word. David Relman, a Stanford microbiologist, told the Washington Post that Worobey had based his paper “on fragmentary information and to a large degree hearsay.” Worobey responded on Twitter, saying that scientists should refrain from “dismissing the voices of the frontline workers and COVID patients in Wuhan as dishonest or hopelessly unreliable in recounting their own experiences.”

Column: A new research paper adds to the evidence that COVID-19 came from animals, not a Chinese lab


Michael Hiltzik
Fri, November 19, 2021

Medical staff help a patient walk into the hospital in Wuhan, China, in January 2020 as the pandemic was beginning. (Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

A new peer-reviewed research paper points to the likelihood that the COVID-19 pandemic originated at a seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan, China, rather than from a Chinese laboratory studying bat viruses.

The paper, by University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey, supports the consensus among virology experts that the pandemic's origin was natural — that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 spread via contacts between humans and animals, first from bats, then to intermediate mammalian species, and then to humans. Worobey's report was published Thursday in the journal Science.

Worobey's finding that the earliest identified COVID-19 cases centered around the Huanan Market in central Wuhan, the teeming metropolis where the outbreak apparently originated, "takes the lab-leak idea almost completely off the table," he told me.

I would be very happy to have rejected the natural origin idea with this deep dive that I've done. But that's just not how it worked out
Michael Worobey, University of Arizona

Worobey notes that more than half of the earliest identified COVID-19 cases were centered around the market.

The patients either worked at the market or had friends or other contacts who did, some of whom has visited their homes. Others lived in the "direct vicinity" of the market and may have been connected by only one or two transmissions of the highly infectious virus to someone with direct contact with the market.

"So many of the early cases were tied to this one Home Depot-sized building in a city of 11 million people, when there are thousands of other places where it would be more likely for early cases to be linked to if the virus had not started there," he says.

For even early cases not directly linked to the market to arise among patients with home addresses clustered around the market "is an absolutely crucial point," he says. "There's no way you should expect a bunch of people with the earliest cases of the virus to live around the market unless it started at the market."

Worobey's paper takes aim at one of the central contentions of lab-leak proponents — that Chinese investigators tied the earliest COVID cases to the Huanan Market deliberately to steer attention away from government laboratories in Wuhan, specifically the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The institute was known to have been studying bat viruses purportedly similar to SARS-CoV-2.

The paper undermines a competing theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from the Wuhan institute or another lab studying bat viruses, whether inadvertently or as the result of secret bioweapon research. No evidence of research at those labs on viruses that could be precursors to SARS-CoV-2 has ever emerged.

The lab-leak theory originated in 2020 among ideologues in the State Department under then-President Trump. For them, blaming a pandemic on the Chinese government served the dual purposes of scoring points against a geopolitical adversary and distracting attention from the Trump administration’s incompetent response to the pandemic.

Worobey performed what he calls a "deep dive" into the chronology and pattern by which the earliest patients were identified at local and regional hospitals.

He found that doctors were finding patients with what turned out to be telltale signs of COVID-19, such as distinctive X-ray images of infected lungs and patients' failure to respond to customary antiviral treatments, well before anyone identified the market as an epicenter of the infection.

(Reprinted with permission from the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science)

That ruled out any chance that investigators had "cherry picked" the early cases to place blame on the market and divert it from government labs.

"The experiences of these hospitals as they went from not understanding anything about these new cases to its dawning on people at different places and different times that it's spreading," Worobey says, "that rules out ascertainment bias. The link to the market is real, not a mirage."

Worobey concludes that the earliest known COVID-19 case was that of a female seafood vendor at the market, who fell ill on Dec. 11, 2019, and who told investigators that she knew of several other people who fell ill with the same symptoms around the same time.

That conflicts with the long-held identification of the first case as that of a 41-year-old male accountant who had been reported as falling ill on Dec. 8, despite living some 20 miles from the seafood market and having no connection to it.

Worobey unearthed reports, confirmed by hospital records, that the accountant's initial disease was related to a dental problem, not the virus. He did not fall ill with COVID-19 until Dec. 16, possibly during a hospital visit for his dental treatment or during a subway commute, and was hospitalized on Dec. 22.

Worobey's paper adds to the growing body of research pointing to a natural, or "zoonotic" origin of the pandemic. That conclusion is regarded as overwhelmingly likely by virologists, especially since it matches the path by which viral pandemics have typically started throughout history.

Worobey was an instigator an co-author of a May 14, 2021, open letter published in Science and signed by himself and 17 other scientists urging a "dispassionate, science-based" inquiry into the two hypotheses.

He says he was concerned that the potential that the virus escaped from a lab had been dismissed "prematurely," though "even at that time, I thought a natural origin was more likely, though I thought the lab-leak scenario was much more of a contender than I think now."

Multiple research findings since the letter's publication have dealt "body blows" to the lab-leak idea, he told me. Those include a published paper documenting that wildlife susceptible to the virus were being sold illegally at the Huanan Market, which Chinese authorities initially denied.

Other research has established that viruses collected from bats at a copper mine in Mojiang, on the Laotian border about 800 miles from Wuhan, and studied at the Wuhan institute are not nearly as genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2 as initially reported. That means they could not have been progenitors of the pandemic virus.

"I've been very much open to the lab-leak idea," Worobey says. "I would be very happy to have rejected the natural origin idea with this deep dive that I've done. But that's just not how it worked out."

Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis argue that no empirical evidence exists for a natural spillover, as no animals of potentially intermediate species have yet been found to carry antibodies for the virus.

That's misleading, however. Scientists have found evidence pointing to an evolutionary pathway leading to SARS-CoV-2 from closely related viruses found in Laos and Cambodia, about 1,000 miles from Wuhan.

"The common wisdom is that we don't know very much about the emergence of SARS-CoV-2," virologist Robert Garry of Tulane University told a colloquium sponsored by the Global Virus Network earlier this week. He observed that nine coronaviruses that share structural features with SARS-CoV-2 have been known to infect humans, including the original SARS virus that spread globally and killed more than 700 people in 2002-2004, and the MERS virus that spread primarily in the Middle East in 2012.

"Compared to these other viruses, we actually know more about the emergence SARS-CoV-2," he said. "We know more about how it got into the human population, we know the proximal ancestor, we know there's a bat, we know the particular kind of bat, we have a virus that's extremely close to SARS-CoV-2 [a virus isolated from bats in Laos], and we know the place that the virus spilled over" from animals to people.

"We've made actually some great strides with determining the origin of SARS-CoV-2," Garry said. "You have to believe in quite a few impossible things to believe that the virus leaked from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The solution to climate change? It could be right under your feet


Jamie Blackett
Sat, November 20, 2021,

Pulling a carrot from the earth - Alamy

This is a very timely book. Farmers are pondering regenerative agriculture, gardeners are discussing “no dig” and we are all worried about reaching carbon “net zero”. But few of us know what we are talking about, largely because the scientific community has spent more time studying the stars than the soil on which our survival depends. As Matthew Evans observes: “For me, soil seemed dull and insipid.” Yet, “Good soil isn’t just an abstract concept; it’s a thing of wonder … There are more living things in a teaspoon of healthy soil than there are humans on Earth.”

Evans is the right man to explain. An Australian with an interesting CV, reflecting an insatiable curiosity: from chef-cum-food writer and broadcaster to Tasmanian farmer and now one of the best commentators on anything between the soil and our stomachs. He first came to attention over here with On Eating Meat, one of the best critiques of modern farming you will ever read. Evans is not an academic – which perhaps explains his didactic talents as he deftly guides us through the story of soil with simple explanations and the enthusiasm of a Blue Peter presenter – but has dug deep to understand the science and present it to us in an easily digestible format.

And what a story it is. Evans ranges freely from geology to nutrition via agronomy on an evangelical mission to show how central soil is to life. He explains how smelling healthy soil is good for our sense of wellbeing and how soil microbes have been found to be the nuclei of raindrops. He takes us to the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Centre’s “body farm”, where volunteers leave their corpses for research into how bodies decompose, to give us a stark reminder that we are only briefly “not soil”. And he suggests, only partly tongue-in-cheek, that we should consider using human remains as fertiliser, particularly as cremation releases carbon and nitrogen into the atmosphere leaving calcium phosphate, which is “not available to plants in that form”. And then there is the discussion of “humanure”, which is best read between meals.

If some of it is shocking, it reinforces Evans’s main thesis that healthy topsoil has either been vanishing at an alarming rate, or poisoned by chemicals, and that we must make more of it. He shines a merciless light on the damaging side effects of the “green revolution” and particularly on its main architect, the Nobel laureate Fritz Haber, the inventor of the process that creates the nitrogen to produce “about one mouthful out of every two a human eats”. Haber’s invention of poisoned gas caused his wife, also a chemist, to kill herself a week after its first use at Ypres in 1915.

As a knowledgeable foodie, Evans traces the links between healthy bacteria in the soil biome and the nutrients we need for health and rattles off some very depressing statistics showing how the food we eat is far less nutrient dense than in our grandparents’ day. He is dismissive of air proteins, “lab food” manufactured using electricity when we should be utilising the sun’s energy to grow better food.

Happily, contrary to the zero-sum arguments we often hear from environmentalists, we can make more topsoil relatively easily. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are about how prehistoric peoples in West Africa and South America independently discovered different methods of creating rich dark soils from charcoals, manures and composts, something we have been slow to investigate in the modern era.

Most importantly, Evans explains how regenerative agriculture that draws carbon out of the atmosphere into the soil so that it is “like chocolate cake’” (through minimising soil disturbance and exposure, diverse cropping and grazing livestock) is our best hope of reversing climate change. He quotes Stéphane Le Foll’s “quatre pour mille” idea: that if all the world’s soils under human management were to increase in soil carbon by just four parts per 1,000 (0.4 per cent) annually, virtually the entire global increase in carbon emissions for each year could be offset. Suggestion for Mr and Mrs Thunberg: please pop a copy of Soil into Greta’s stocking this Christmas.

Soil is published by Murdoch Books at £14.99.

COP26 achieves less than hoped

Mahmoud Mohieldin

Saturday 20 Nov 2021

Despite pledges made at last week’s COP26 Climate Change Conference, the world is no closer to keeping global warming below the 1.5 degree Celsius target.

One of the achievements of the conference was the agreement to limit the Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. The Paris Agreement in 2015 set the target at below 2 degrees Celsius. To meet this goal, all countries must adopt more effective plans to reduce their carbon emissions by 2030 during the coming year. Because of the difficulties this presents to some, the participants at COP26 were unable to reach an agreement over the future of coal. China and India would commit only to gradually reducing their use of coal but not to ending it.  

COP26 President Alok Sharma reportedly choked back tears as he apologised for the conference being unable to do more, though he still described the results as a whole as being “a fragile win.” Indeed, optimists say that the mere mention of phasing down the use of coal and inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies in the Glasgow documents was in itself an unprecedented achievement. The participants also pledged to carry out an annual review of procedures to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and to adhere to more transparent and mandatory reporting rules.

However, despite such pledges, the world is still no closer to attaining the 1.5 degree Celsius target. The proposed measures are also not designed to attain the Paris Agreement targets. Even if we presume countries commit to their pledges to reach their emissions targets by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050, the best they will be able to attain is an average of 1.8 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. The more likely result will be 2.4 degrees combined with a significant increase in the number and severity of the storms, floods and other climate-related disasters the world has recently experienced.

The joint US-Chinese announcement on 10 November marked a possible breakthrough towards accelerating steps to comply with the Paris Agreement, given that these two countries are among the world’s largest emitters. At the time of writing, it appeared that the climate would be on the list of priorities to be discussed during the virtual summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden this week.

Despite the difficulties involved, I believe the two men are within a closer reach of an understanding in areas related to this subject than on other matters on their agenda, especially those related to geopolitics or the economic and technological rivalry between the two countries.

 

WHEN NUMBERS LOSE THEIR MEANING: The Chinese philosopher Confucius said that “when words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.” If so, this thought may also apply to numbers, especially on data reporting.

If numbers lose their meaning, they do not comply with accuracy and transparency, and this may be no less dangerous than a failure to comply with agreed pledges and measures to protect the planet and its inhabitants. Without the application of internationally standardised indicators and methods for assessment reviewing and tracking progress, misleading information proliferates.

This situation led some among the crowds gathered outside the COP26 Conference in Glasgow to refer to the proceedings as simply so much idle chat.  

People have good reason to fear that the declarations from governments, companies and financial institutions about pledges and commitments are little more than “greenwashing.” For this reason, the UN secretary-general decided to establish a “group of experts to propose clear standards to measure and analyse the net zero commitments of non-state actors.” I do suggest that similar committees be created at national level to follow through on the application of these standards and the implementation of pledges at the country level.

FINANCING AND THE 80/20 DILEMMA: In a speech I delivered to one COP26 proceedings, I explained that the figures for funding were no better than the figures for bringing emissions under control in keeping with the pledges made.

Referring to the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, I said in the paper that the G20 group of countries represented 80 per cent of the global economy and were responsible for 80 per cent of climate-damaging emissions, but that they were not collectively contributing the same amount to remedying the problems arising from the emissions.

Since the pledge made at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009 to mobilise $100 billion a year to help the developing countries meet their climate goals, only three out of the 23 countries that committed to the pledge have proven true to their word. These countries are Germany, Norway and Sweden. While the international NGO Oxfam has announced an 80 per cent shortfall in the amount raised to meet the above-mentioned pledge, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced in 2019 (i.e., before the Covid-19 pandemic) that $79.6 billion had been collected for this purpose and that the shortfall was only around 20 per cent.

In fact, the figures show that in 2019 the developing nations received around $20 billion of the funds allocated for climate adaptation. To this we can add that the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development recently confirmed that in its attempts to monitor how much has actually been spent on climate mitigation in 46 low-income countries it could only trace $6 billion.

The preceding illustrates the need for rules and standards for monitoring climate financing, whether for the purposes of mitigation or to help developing nations remedy the damages and losses they have sustained from the consequences of crises they did nothing to cause. The countries that are the least responsible for harmful emissions are the ones that are harmed the most.

Meanwhile, as heartening as we might find the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) announcement that over $130 trillion in private financial assets has been committed to transforming the global economy to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, this does not automatically translate into effective investment flows. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an estimated $4 trillion a year needs to be invested in energy alone to meet the 2050 net zero target.

Moreover, while this is a vital component, it is not the only one needed to reach the climate goals, and the climate component is only one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The world needs a reliable financial observatory to follow through on commitments to financial pledges, and it needs financial oversight institutions to monitor adherence to reporting rules, procedures and standards.

FROM GLASGOW TO SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Last week it was announced in Glasgow that Egypt would be chairing the next UN climate summit and hosting the COP27 Conference in 2022. With this announcement the countdown has begun on work at four levels:

- Global: Between now and next year, the clock will be ticking on the implementation of commitments to emissions reductions, climate adaptation and the management of the energy transition, as well as on funding which should take priority because every measure needs to consider costs and returns.

I believe the focus should be on investments rather than loans as a means of climate funding. The poorest developing nations should not be driven deeper into debt, and they should be helped to remedy damage caused in the past and present by the industrialised and developing nations. There should be investment, not debts, and there should be sufficient compensation for harm, not handouts. There should be suitable technological cooperation and transfer. These should be the mottos guiding the international work on the climate in the future.

 - Regional: COP27 will be also an African COP for a regional perspective. This means starting the search for projects that will pay off for the whole continent. Again, the focus should be on investment in areas vital to climate change that simultaneously contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

South Africa set a good example of this with the Just Energy Transition Partnership Agreement it launched at COP26 in Glasgow. The agreement, which gives South Africa access to $8.5 billion of funding over five years, sets three goals: ending the use of coal; providing clean alternative energy and supporting coal-dependent communities by creating new job opportunities. Such initiatives can be drawn on in formulating others, albeit to suit the particular priorities, needs and circumstances of each country.

- National: Preparations for the COP27 Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh should be used as a means to advance development policies, structural reforms and digital transformation, as well as to attract investments in areas that stimulate productivity, competitiveness, innovation and development.

- Local: In the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the ways in which the climate and the environment fit in with them, we should encourage participation in Egypt’s Decent Life Initiative. This is one of the world’s largest and most ambitious development projects that seeks to domesticate sustainable ideas and technologies and to serve directly 60 per cent of the population of rural Egypt.

This initiative can serve as a practical model for other developing nations and show that a solid win for climate efforts, as opposed to a fragile one, entails incorporating and funding projects carried out in the holistic approach  of sustainable development and that benefit the larger public both now and for generations to come.

Death toll of Sudan anti-coup protests rises to 40: medics

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
20 November, 2021

Protests erupted in Sudan following a military coup at the end of October [Getty]


The death toll in Sudan from anti-coup protests since last month's military takeover has risen to at least 40, medics said Saturday after a teenager shot in the head days earlier died.

Sudan's top general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on 25 October declared a state of emergency, ousted the government and detained the civilian leadership.

The military takeover upended a two-year transition to civilian rule, drew wide international condemnation and punitive measures, as well as provoking people to take to the streets.

Protests on Wednesday provoked the deadliest day so far, with the toll of those killed now standing at 16, according to medics.

"One martyr passed away... after he succumbed to severe wounds after being hit by live rounds to the head and the leg on 17 November," the independent Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said. He was aged 16, it added.

Most of those killed on Wednesday were in North Khartoum, which lies across the Nile river from the capital, medics said.

Police officials deny using any live ammunition and insist they have used "minimum force" to disperse the protests. They have recorded only one death, among demonstrators in North Khartoum.

'Abuses and violations'

On Friday, small groups of protesters rallied in several neighbourhoods after prayers against the military coup, especially in North Khartoum, where people were seen building barricades across the roads. Security forces sporadically fired teargas to disperse them.

The United States on Friday condemned the deadly crackdown.

"We call for those responsible for human rights abuses and violations, including the excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, to be held accountable," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

Washington said Sudanese should "be free to voice their opinions without fear of violence", and called for those arrested since the takeover to be freed.

"In advance of upcoming protests, we call on Sudanese authorities to use restraint and allow peaceful demonstrations," the US added.

Internet shutdowns are being weaponised by Sudan's regime
Perspectives
Jillian C. York

The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) have urged protesters to keep up their campaign, reporting Friday that security forces had "stormed homes and mosques" in North Khartoum.

The SPA is an umbrella of unions which were instrumental in the months-long demonstrations that ousted president Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.

Sudan has a long history of military coups, enjoying only rare interludes of democratic rule since independence in 1956.

Burhan, the top general, insists the military's move "was not a coup" but a step "to rectify the transition" as factional infighting and splits deepened between civilians and the military under the now-deposed government.

He has since announced a new civilian-military ruling council in which he kept his position as head, along with a powerful paramilitary commander, three senior military figures, three ex-rebel leaders and one civilian.

But the other four civilian members were replaced with lesser known figures.

Sudan PM Hamdok to return to lead government after deal with General Burhan: Report

AFP , Sunday 21 Nov 2021

Sudan's General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok have reached a deal for his return and the release the civilian leadership detained since last month's military takeover, mediators said Sunday.

File Photo: Sudan s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok chairs a cabinet meeting in the capital Khartoum. AFPShare

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Burhan on October 25 declared a state of emergency, ousted the government and detained the civilian leadership.

Related

 No Sudan solution in sight

 An unprecedented situation in Sudan

 Sudan's top general says he won't run for office in new govt

The military takeover upended a two-year transition to civilian rule, drew international condemnation and punitive measures, and provoked large protests.

A group Sudanese mediators -- including academics, journalists and politicians -- who have been locked in talks to mediate a deal since the outbreak of the crisis, released a statement outlining the main points of the deal.

It includes the restoration of Hamdok as prime minister, the release of all detainees, and what it said was the resumption of the constitutional, legal and political consensus governing the transitional period.

A statement from the mediators said the deal was reached following an agreement among political factions, ex-rebel groups, and military figures.

"The agreement will be officially announced later today (Sunday), after the signing of its terms and the accompanying political declaration," the statement said.

The deal was announced ahead of planned mass protests against the military takeover, the latest in a string of rallies that have left at least 40 people killed, according to medics.

Wednesday was the deadliest day with 16 people killed.

On Saturday, Sudanese authorities said an investigation into the killings would be launched.

Since the military takeover, Burhan has insisted that the military's move "was not a military takeover" but a step "to rectify the transition" as factional infighting and splits deepened between civilians and the military under the now-deposed government.

Earlier this month, he announced a new ruling council in which he kept his position as head, along with a powerful paramilitary commander, three senior military figures, three ex-rebel leaders and one civilian.

But the other four civilian members were replaced with lesser known figures.

The return of Hamdok, a British-educated economist who worked for the United Nations and African organisations, was a key demand of international community.

Hamas blasts Britain's plans to designate it a 'terror' group

MENA3 min read
The New Arab Staff
20 November, 2021

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has called Britain’s plan to designate it as a terrorist group “supporting the aggressor at the expense of the victim”

Hamas and other Palestinian factions condemned Priti Patel's 'terrorism' designation [Getty]

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has responded to British Home Secretary Priti Patel's plans to designate it as a "terrorist group", saying that Britain was "supporting the aggressor at the expense of the victim".

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas also condemned the move.

"Instead of apologising for and correcting its historic injustices against the Palestinian people, both in the disastrous Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate… Britain is supporting the aggressor at the expense of the victim," a statement from Hamas said.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration, issued by then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, promised Jews a "national home" in Palestine. Israel was later established in 1948 after Zionist militias expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.

Britain currently designates Hamas's military wing, the Izzedin Al-Qassam Brigades, as a terrorist organisation, but has not yet banned the movement’s political wing.

Under Patel's plans, Hamas' political wing will also be considered a terrorist organisation.

Parliament is set to vote on the proposals next week, with the legislation possibly taking effect from next Friday.

Any display of support for Hamas, including arranging to meet its members, flying its flag or wearing clothing displaying its slogans could be punishable by a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

Patel has justified her decision by calling Hamas a "rabidly anti-Semitic" organisation, although Hamas has denied accusations of anti-Semitism in the past.

"Britain must stop adopting the Zionist narrative and betting on the Zionist project, and instead make up for its past injustices against the Palestinian people in the Balfour Declaration, by supporting their struggle for freedom, independence, and return [to their land]," the Hamas statement said, adding that it was Israel’s actions which amounted to "terrorism".

“Occupation is terrorism, killing the original inhabitants [of Palestine], forcibly displacing them, destroying their houses, and detaining them is terrorism. Besieging two million Palestinians, most of them children, in Gaza for over 15 years is terrorism."

Palestinian Authority, Iranian condemnation

On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority, which is led by Hamas's rival Palestinian movement Fatah, also condemned the UK move.

The planned designation is "an unjustified attack on the Palestinian people, who are subjected to the most heinous forms of occupation, and historical injustice established by the Balfour Declaration", a statement from the PA's foreign ministry said.

It added that the move puts "obstacles in the way of achieving peace, and obstacles in the way of ongoing efforts to consolidate the truce and rebuild the Gaza Strip", saying that Britain had "acquiesced to Israeli pressure".

The PA statement said that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had asked his UK counterpart Boris Johnson to designate the entirety of Hamas as a terrorist group on the sidelines of the recent COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Bennett has welcomed the British move against Hamas, calling the movement "a radical Islamic group that targets innocent Israelis and seeks Israel's destruction" on Twitter.

Iran late on Friday also denounced the UK plans.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted: "We condemn the UK's decision to declare the popular resistance movement of HAMAS a terrorist organization. Rights of Palestinians cannot be trampled on by distorting facts."

Los Angeles Times review praises ‘remarkable’ performance in Welsh language horror film

19 Nov 2021 

Annes Elwy, who stars as Cadi in The Feast / Gwledd

A review in the Los Angeles Times has praised a “remarkable” performance in a Welsh language horror film.

Film critic Noel Murray, who reviewed The Feast, or Gwledd in Welsh, for the California-based newspaper, had warm words for Annes Elwy, who stars as Cadi in the production.

It opens in theatres in the US today and is also being released on video on demand (VOD).

The movie, which was directed by Lee Haven Jones, written by Roger Williams and funded by Ffilm Cymru, was filmed in Welsh and has English subtitles.

It unfolds over the course of one evening as a wealthy family gathers for a sumptuous dinner in their ostentatious house in the Welsh mountains.

The guests are a local businessman and a neighbouring farmer, and the intent is to secure a business deal to mine in the surrounding countryside.

When a mysterious young woman (Cadi) arrives to be their waitress for the evening, the family’s beliefs and values are challenged as her quiet, yet disturbing presence begins to unravel their lives, slowly, deliberately and with the most terrifying consequences.

Noel Murray said: “As horror movies go, ‘The Feast’ is one for the gourmands, the kind of genre fans who like their thrills and kills to skew more avant-garde.”

‘Avenging spirit’ 

He added: “And Cadi is like an avenging spirit, sent by the land itself to show who’s really at the top of the food chain.

“The movie’s last act gets splashed with gore, as the dinner goes awry. But even here, there’s an elegance to ‘The Feast’ that makes its most disgusting images more palatable.

“The film takes its cues from Elwy’s remarkable performance as Cadi, who is at once seductive and terrifying. This is a story from the monster’s point of view as she walks into a nest of parasites and starts slowly, gleefully gobbling them up.”

The film features a cast of Welsh stars, including Nia Roberts, Sion Alun Davies, Steffan Cennydd, Julian Lewis Jones and Rhodri Meilir.

It has gathered awards and acclaim, after being shown at film festivals around the world including Fantasia in Canada, BiFan in South Korea, and Motel X in Portugal, where it won the Méliès d´argent award for Best European Fantastic Feature Film.

 OPINION

There’s no denying global warming – but we’re still in denial about the scale of the challenge of tackling it

Picture by No 10 Downing Street (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

John Ball, former lecturer in economics at Swansea University

In case you missed it, COP26 is being held in Glasgow, with lots of commitments to save the planet before delegates fly away in their private jets.

The is no denying the problem of global warming. But we still seem to be in denial about the scale of the task of tackling it.

The planet is getting warmer and we need more than grand plans and buckets of greenwash. But the reality is that the massive practicalities and challenges are simply not being faced.

Take materials. Products and services that reduce carbon emissions have an eye-watering cost. The price of minerals used in car batteries has risen 139% in the past year, lithium has risen by 200%, copper by 70% and there are concerns over the supply of nickel and balsa wood for wind turbine blades. To meet demand, the annual production of critical metals used in carbon reducing products is forecast to rise by 500% per annum.

We need to heat our homes. The twenty-three million gas boilers in the UK (of which 1.3 million are in Wales) must go and, in their place, air source and ground sources pumps. They are unproven, expensive, require building alterations and are not ready for mass roll out. They cost between £14,000 and £19,000 to install, take time to warm up, operate at lower temperatures and invariably require larger radiators or solar panels to compensate

The pumps run through horizontal trenches but properties with small gardens require a bore hole of over one hundred metres. Quite how this will work in the thousands of terraced houses in Wales with a small or no garden is anyone’s guess. In addition, the requited specialist installation and maintenance skills are simply not available.

Congestion

Much is being made of alternative ways to generate electricity. But wind farms, solar panel farms and other forms of green electricity generation are smaller and more numerous than conventional power stations and so require substantial distribution infrastructure. Therefore, more steel, concrete and copper are required, serious disruption to communities during construction and yet more ugly power lines afterward.

Off-shore turbines are seen as part of the answer. Aside from the materials involved in their manufacture and negative effect on the seascape, they are limited in where they can be placed. They are restricted to depths of less than 60 metres. Unfortunately, four-fifths of the most powerful winds blow over deeper waters.

The latest research indicates that for sufficient electricity to drive our cars and light our streets and homes will require ten times the present generating capacity. Quite how this demand is to be met with intermittent and often non-existent wind and sunshine remains to be explained.

How much food producing farmland is to be lost for wind and solar panel farms?

Of course, one way to save the planet is to scrap our petrol driven cars and purchase an electric car – if we can afford one. Currently the best total distance possible is about three hundred miles, excellent for the school run but a drive from Swansea to Bangor is not on.

Charging takes time and if away from home and after a search hopefully a charger can be found. To meet projected demand, the number of chargers required will have to rise by thirty-one times the present number.

Appropriate mechanic skills are in limited supply and did you know that in the event of an accident, the rescue service must wait for the fire service to endure that the body or parts are not “live”.

Current plans to save the planet will also have an adverse effect the wider environment. Putting aside the wind farms, solar panel farms and endless pylons, has anyone thought about congestion? Electric care will save the planet so why bother to walk out in the pouring rain and stand on a draughty station platform or leaky bus shelter when we are saving the planet with our electric car? Electric cars will simply encourage far more car ownership, more commuting, more out of town development and more congestion.

There are currently 1.6 million cars in Wales alone. The construction of electric cars in the numbers required will use up enormous natural resources, already in short supply, not forgetting the carbon generation used in their manufacture. Electric cars are heavier than petrol cars weighing over a ton, hastening road surface wear generating more carbon emissions from resurfacing.

Real challenge

Meanwhile, the Welsh Government has published grand plans outlining our bid to save the world whilst ignoring real and immediate practical steps within its power. Take the plans for three thousand new houses in north Swansea. Planning consent was refused on a number of grounds, not least local services, structure and traffic congestion. The developer appealed and a Welsh government inspector overturned the refusal.

Limited services mean accessing schools and shops will require a car, at least one per household and thus three thousand or more cars. One of the selling points – surprise surprise – is nearness to the M4; already a car park for much of the day. Congestion, even with electric cars, will lead to more environmental degradation with eventual widening of the M4.

Business parks continue to be developed in out-of-town sites; a nice new Lidl store outside Llanelli boasts 250 free car parking spaces. Do not expect to catch a bus.

There is no denying the problem of global warming. I am doing my bit, walking to the local shop, travelling by bus and using the car as little as possible.

But whilst I am being exhorted to do my bit, who is facing up to the real challenge?

A version of this article first appeared in The Welsh Agenda.

 

UK Government taking ‘deliberate decisions’ that plunge Welsh children into poverty says First Minister

16 Nov 2021 

Mark Drakeford speaking in the Senedd

Wales’ First Minister has accused the UK Government of taking “deliberate decisions” that ensured that more children in Wales would live in poverty.

Answering a question in the Senedd about the cuts to universal credit and the rising cost of living, Mark Drakeford rejected the idea by another Senedd Member that the UK Government’s handling of the economy was down to “incompetence”.

“I think he’s generous to describe the policies of the Conservative Government as the result of incompetence,” Mark Drakeford said.

“My view is that they are very often the deliberate decisions of a Government that knows what it is doing, knows that there will be thousands more children in poverty in Wales because of their cuts to universal credit, but simply don’t care.”

He made the comments after saying that Welsh households on universal credit and other working-age benefits would be offered a £100 one-off payment this winter to help with fuel bills.

The Welsh government said it expected 350,000 households to benefit from the £38m winter fuel support scheme.

Mark Drakeford contrasted the UK Government which “decided to rip up the social fund, the final safety net of the welfare state” with the Welsh Government which had “decided to invest in a Welsh scheme that is the same across the whole of Wales,”.

His comments came after the latest UK Government figures showed that 168,600 children in Wales were in families who received Universal Credit and therefore hit by the £20 cut announced by UK Government Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

Welsh Conservative finance spokesman Peter Fox said said that it was not their fault that so many people in Wales lived in poverty.

“Labour have been in power for the past 22 years and sadly it’s left Wales with the lowest take home pay in Britain, and the most people living in poverty in the UK,” he said.

“The Conservative government is helping families meet the cost of living and supporting vulnerable households by reducing the universal credit taper rate from 63p to 55p, as well as raising the national living wage to £9.50.”

Do you hear the sound of change? Wales is outlawing the physical punishment of children

20 Nov 2021 

A screengrab from the Welsh Government’s smacking ban advert

World Children’s Day is observed annually on 20 November to commemorate the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly.

Earlier today the Welsh Government marked the occasion by releasing a video of a girl sending out a firm message that from March next year, any physical punishment of children in Wales will be illegal.

The new law will give children the same protection from assault as adults have, and it will apply to everyone, parents and caregivers – anyone who is responsible for the care of a child – and it will also apply to anyone visiting Wales.

Physical punishment is already illegal in schools, children’s homes, local authority foster care homes and childcare settings.

Tweeting the video today, the Welsh Government said “Do you hear the sound of change? This amazing young lady has a very important message for you all this World Children’s Day. We want the world to know: Wales is outlawing the physical punishment of children”

The new law will clarify what has been a ‘grey’ area for some time.

As the law stands in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, it’s illegal for a parent to smack their own child, except where the smacking is “reasonable punishment”.

But without a legal definition of “reasonable punishment” the decision about whether a smack is reasonable or common assault depends on the individual circumstances of each “punishment”.

Under current laws, factors that would be considered include the age of the child and the nature or force of the smack and that “reasonable punishment” would not include anything that left a child with swelling, bruises, cuts or grazes, reddening of the skin, abrasions or a black eye.

No defence

Scotland outlawed any type of physical punishment against the child in 2020, declaring: “There is NO legal justification for hitting your child. The defence of ‘reasonable punishment’ that exists in England, Northern Ireland and Wales no longer counts in Scotland.”

Under Scottish law physical punishment was defined as slapping and smacking with a hand or an implement, kicking, shaking or throwing, scratching, pinching, biting, pulling hair or boxing ears,forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions, burning, scalding or forced ingestion.

From 21 March 2022, the defence of ‘reasonable punishment’ will no longer be available in Wales; all types of physical punishment will be illegal.

Information, advice and support is available for anyone who needs it, to help them find positive ways to manage children’s behaviour and to help avoid such a situation ever happening.

• Parenting. Give it time offers positive parenting practical hints, tips and expert advice to encourage good behaviour from children and alternatives to physical punishment. Their parenting support page offers links to further support and helplines.
• Universal parenting support and advice is provided by midwives, health visitors, GPs and Family Information Services.
• Early help programmes such as Flying Start (if you live in a Flying Start area) and Families First.