US Could Have Done More To Limit Civilian Toll In Raqqa Battle: Study

By AFP News
04/01/22

The US military could have done more to limit civilian casualties and damage during the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa that marked the Islamic State's fall in 2017, according to a report commissioned by the Pentagon.

At the end of the nearly five-month battle to free the city from IS, "60 to 80 percent" of it was "uninhabitable" and resentment of the population was directed at the liberators, said a report by the research center RAND Corporation.

"Raqqa endured the most structural damage by density of any city in Syria," said the report released Thursday.

"The level of structural damage and the lack of US support for Raqqa's reconstruction led many Raqqa residents to resent the method of their city's liberation," it added.

A Syrian family from Raqqa inside a tent in a camp for people displaced by the war against the Islamic State (IS) group, in Ain Issa, after the US battle to liberate Raqqa, which saw massive damage to civilians Photo: Save the Children via AFP / Sam Tarling

So-called "targeted" air strikes and artillery fire by coalition forces on Raqqa caused numerous civilian casualties between June 6 and October 30, 2017: from 744 to 1,600 dead, according to counts by the coalition, Amnesty International or the specialized site Airwars, the RAND report said.

But the battle of Raqqa also caused the destruction of a large number of buildings and civil infrastructure, which "undermined... long-term US interests" in the region, the 130-page document said.

According to UN figures cited by RAND, 11,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged between February and October 2017, including eight hospitals, 29 mosques, more than 40 schools, five universities and the city's irrigation system.

The US military, which conducted 95 percent of the airstrikes and 100 percent of the artillery fire during the battle, did not commit war crimes during the battle because it tried to respect international laws on the protection of civilians in wartime, but RAND said there was "room for improvement."

Instead of focusing on airstrikes to spare the lives of its soldiers, the US military should be prepared to send more troops into the field to gain better situational awareness and take on more risk.

© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.

Activists slam Europe for dumping on Africa

Activists in Africa are concerned about how fast the continent has become a dumpsite for Europe — for everything from electronic waste to used clothing. It's a toxic nuisance that poses a huge environmental threat.


Environmental activists say EU countries should deal with their toxic waste at home rather than flooding Africa with it

David Kumordzi is a composer and musician based in Ghana's capital Accra. He spends a lot of his time mobilizing people to clean up his country's beaches.

The waste Kumordzi and his team collect includes plastics and discarded clothing.

"Most of the waste is coming from Europe because we are connected to the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the waste we are seeing around our beaches is not from Ghana," he told DW from Accra.

He blamed Europe for the tons of waste constantly being washed ashore.

Environmental activists in Africa have for years raised concerns about how fast the continent is becoming a dumpsite for Europe.

WASTE PICKERS OF DAKAR
On the hunt for plastic and metals
About 2,000 waste pickers work at the Mbeubeuss landfill outside the Senegalese capital, Dakar. With an iron hook, they scour the waste for recyclable plastic, or burn the trash to find valuable metals.
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More rags than riches

The continent receives an almost continuous stream of incoming containers filled with discarded items — from electronic waste to used clothing. It's not just a nuisance, it also poses a threat to both human health and the environment.

West Africa's hub for used clothing from abroad is Accra's Kantamanto Market.

Piles of imported clothes are sorted by traders looking for quality items but there are usually more rags than riches.

Every week, about 15 million individual items of used clothing arrive in Ghana, according to the Or Foundation, a human rights and environmental NGO from the United States.

Old clothes from Europe

Forty percent of these items end up discarded due to their poor quality. They find their way to landfills from where they are often washed into the ocean.

Liz Ricketts, the co-founder of the Or Foundation, told DW that some of the clothes are just trash from households in Europe.

"Six percent of the clothing that comes in [to Africa] is already trash and that number has actually gone up from what we have found out previously — and that could be a shirt that somebody painted their house in and they wiped their hands all over, and then they end up over here [in Ghana]," Ricketts lamented.

She said that some of the items were intentionally destroyed and should never have ended up in Africa.

THE UGLY FACE OF PLASTIC POLLUTION

The age of plastic

Plastic is lightweight, durable — and wildly popular. We've produced 8.3 billion metric tons of the material since mass production began in the 1950s. Because it doesn't easily biodegrade, much of what we've made now lives in landfills like this one on Nairobi's outskirts. Rubbish pickers there hunt for recyclable plastics to earn a living. But a lot of plastic also ends up in the ocean ...

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A tsunami of European electronic waste

Many African countries — such as Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Republic of Benin, among others — receive huge containers filled with used electronic devices such as phones, kitchen appliances and even automobiles that are no longer road worthy for European streets.

The cars — often in disrepair — have frequently been involved in ghastly accidents in Europe before being shipped to Africa.

Most items that land here have been rejected as unusable in Europe but are sent to Africa with the excuse that they are somehow useful to the people there.

According to a UN report, the world produced over 53 million tons of electronic waste in 2019 alone — up by 21% in just five years.

The UN's Global E-waste Monitor 2020 has also predicted that global e-waste — discarded products with a battery or plug — will reach 74 metric tons by 2030; almost a doubling of e-waste in just 16 years.

The trend makes e-waste the world's fastest-growing domestic waste stream, one fueled mainly by the higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, their short life cycles, and the fact that they are not made to be repaired.

Watch video07:11 Ghana: Where Europe's e-waste goes

Burdened with toxic e-waste

E-waste can be highly toxic and damaging to people's health and although Africa is not necessarily responsible it ends up on the continent anyhow — especially in West Africa.

African environmental expert Nnimmo Bassey spoke with DW from Nigeria, saying, "the trend is not just worrying but consistent with what has been going on for a long time."

Bassey said Africa is becoming a dumpsite for all kinds of waste because the rest of the world is rejecting the West's garbage.

"Other nations are getting more conscious about waste in their territories and they are rejecting toxic waste from polluting countries and suddenly Africa has become an attractive location," he said.

For Bassey, Africa lacks strong laws that deal with the shipping of waste from the West into its territories.

"Our politicians, our governments are not taking a serious position on this phenomenon because they are also probably looking for payments for toxic waste to be dumped on the continent," Bassey explained.

Watch video 03:54 Tackling e-waste in Cameroon

Slowing climate change

Ghana's Agbogbloshie enclave is notorious for its toxic waste pollution — largely from electronic waste. Young Ghanaians risk their health to extract aluminium and copper among others items from the waste products.

Bassey said Africa is already suffering from high levels of pollution from the e-waste menace as it "experiences the unprecedented impact of global warming, adding to that is pollution from the extractive industry."

The UN's Sustainable Development Goals as relate to the environment are aimed at getting the world to work hard at reducing the impact of climate change.

Africa is already experiencing the drastic effects of climate change and with many of its countries becoming dumpsites for Europe, analysts fear the continent will not be able to meet its targets.

"You cannot have a clean environment when you are accepting waste to be dumped in your environment, so clearly those targets of cleanliness cannot be met," Bassey said.

'THE FRAGILE PARADISE': PLANET EARTH'S TURBULENT TIMES

Threatened planet

"The Fragile Paradise" is an exhibition of award-winning photographs and video installations showing how humans have impacted the environment — and the climate — over millennia. Its highlight is a 20-meter sculpture of the Earth onto which 3D high-resolution satellite images are projected. The view from space highlights not only the beauty of the blue planet — but also its vulnerability.

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Europe must pay for dumping waste in Africa

For many environmental activists it seems clear that Europe should compensate African countries for the waste it dumps on the continent. Such compensation, according to campaigners like Kumordzi, should be channelled into making Africa safer for its people.

He suggested, "people that are not contributing towards protecting our environment must make budget provisions for that. Any company in Europe that is producing waste — plastics, electronic waste and clothing must source funding into African countries."

Bassey said Europe cannot deny responsibility for the level of waste it is generating and shipping to Africa.

"They [European countries] can't deny" being responsible for the waste found on the African continent," declares Bassey.

Each nation must begin to own their waste, he says.

"Each nation must take care of their waste. Consume less, produce less waste and when you produce the waste, recycle it or take care of that waste on your own territories," Bassey said.

"It is criminal for any country to dump toxic waste in another territory, because they clearly know the health implications."

It appears this menace can only be resolved by the countries producing the waste and the African nations accepting it.

But the continent — and the world — is running out of time.

Edited by: Keith Walker

AIMING HIGH: THE GOALS IN PICTURES

Goal 1: A world without poverty

The first goal calls for the eradication of poverty "in all its forms everywhere". This is an extension of the old Millennium goal that set out to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Opinions are divided on the feasibility of the target.

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East Africa faces worst hunger crisis in decades

Millions of people in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia face starvation due to delayed rains and a lackluster growing season. Aid organizations warn of a catastrophe if urgent action isn't taken.

Cattle in the East African region are dying in huge numbers due to the drought

The wind is dry and the heat is punishing in Kapetadie, a remote village in Turkana County in northern Kenya near the border with South Sudan.

Parched earth stretches as far as the eye can see, littered with the carcasses of dead cows, goats and other livestock who have died of thirst and hunger.

"Our animals have died. Goats, cows, camels and donkeys," ward administrator Elijah Musekidor laments.

The village's only water source is not clean, he says. People, along with their animals, who also drink here, run the risk of getting sick and dying.

Only 10% of expected rainfall fell in Turkana in the last six months of 2021.

The vegetation is withered and there's little for the traditional herders living here to graze their animals on.

The surface water is also almost gone  — 80% of water sources in Turkana have dried up, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA.

With livestock malnourished and dying, many here have no animals to sell at the market. And with harvests way below normal levels elsewhere in Kenya because of the lack of rain, food prices are skyrocking.

Kenya's Turkana County is one of the hardest hit regions

As a result, around two-thirds of Turkana's 900,000 people are facing starvation, Kenya's drought authority says.

The normally arid region has become even dryer as it experiences a years-long drought, says the head of Turkana's water service, Vincent Palor.

"We have not had rain for the last few years, and this is actually exacerbating the situation," he told DW.

To make matters worse, 40% of the county's boreholes that tap into groundwater reservoirs are not functional, a recent survey revealed, due to failure to provide routine maintenance.

Millions at risk of severe hunger

Many communities across East Africa are facing similar fates, with small-scale farmers and herders the hardest hit — and least able to cope.

The United Nations estimates that 13 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia are suffering severe hunger due to persistent drought, as the region is hit with the driest conditions recorded since 1981.

Aid organizations worry that the situation in East Africa will likely deteriorate further without urgent and scaled-up support.

International aid group Oxfam warned that the hunger crisis could quickly turn into a "catastrophe" if aid fails to reach the most vulnerable.

"The brutal truth is that at the moment, East Africa is not on the global agenda,'' Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher told the AP news agency.

Hundreds of thousands of people in East Africa could die this year due to the hunger crisis, she said.

Hunger forcing Somalis to flee

In Somalia, the drought emergency has intensified, with the number of people affected increasing to about 4.5 million people, up from 3.2 million in December 2021.

Many families in drought-ravaged rural areas are fleeing to major cities in search of food and water.

At the Al-Hidaya camp for internally displaced persons on the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu, Halimo Ali tries to console her four-year-old son. 

Her family traveled to the camp, which currently holds more than 800 families, from the south of Somalia.  

"We have lost our cows and goats because of the severe drought," Ali told DW. "We could not get food and water, so we decided to move."

Halimo Ali says she had to flee the devastating drought in southern Somalia

Malnourished children

Many of those arriving at the camp are malnourished and sick. 

"These drought-affected people suffer from a lack of enough food while the children also suffer from anemia, measles, and weak bones," community leader and camp chairman Nadifo Hussein said. 

He said that with more people traveling to the capital from drought-hit regions, the camp would soon be unable to help new arrivals. 

"We need lifesaving intervention," he told DW.

Aden Farah, Humanitarian Advisor for Save the Children in Somalia, said about 671,000 people had been displaced internally in the country due to the drought. 

In Somalia's 2011 famine, an estimated 250,000 people died, half of them children.

This time around, some 5 million Somalis already face acute food insecurity.

Drought-stricken Somali families are fleeing to the Al-Hidaya camp for internally displaced persons

Thelma Mwadzaya in Kenya and Mohamed Odowa in Somalia contributed to this article.

Edited by: Kate Hairsine

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The 1% Tax That Has India’s Crypto Industry Predicting Chaos

Sidhartha Shukla, Bloomberg News

A worker talks on his phone on the backdrop of the cryptocurrency symbol pasted on a glass partition at the 

entrance of a private office in Bangalore. 

Photographer: MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP 

(Bloomberg) -- When India’s government unveiled a plan to tax crypto assets in February, it was the 30% rate on income from digital-asset investments that grabbed headlines. But it’s a different levy that has the industry warning of a potentially destabilizing liquidity crunch. 

Along with the capital gains charge, the finance ministry announced a 1% tax deductible at source, or TDS, on all digital-asset transfers above a certain size, starting July 1. No other country imposes such a tax on crypto, according to Anoush Bhasin, founder of crypto asset tax advisory firm Quagmire Consulting. 

Crypto-exchange executives, lawyers and tax analysts warn that the TDS will suck liquidity out of the market by forcing high-frequency traders to dramatically curtail their trading. Combined with the government’s decision not to permit offsetting of trading losses in digital assets, it threatens to accelerate an exodus of crypto companies and workers from India, they say.

India Bans Offsetting Loss on One Crypto With Gain From Another 

Nischal Shetty, chief executive officer of WazirX, India’s biggest crypto exchange, called the TDS “the worst-case scenario for the industry.”

“There will be no liquidity left in the markets,” said Manhar Garegrat, executive director of policy at crypto exchange CoinDCX. “Trades placed by buyers will not get executed as efficiently as they do today, and such inefficiency will eventually dwindle the whole ecosystem.” 

Bleeding Talent

The tax package and the ban on offsetting losses — which only applies to crypto — represents the latest salvo by a government that still hasn’t clearly stated that it will allow cryptocurrencies. India, with an estimated 15 million active crypto users, has been stuck in regulatory limbo since the Supreme Court in 2020 overturned a central bank directive banning regulated entities from working with digital-assets companies.

Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder of Indian blockchain startup Polygon, warned this month that thousands of developers, investors and entrepreneurs are decamping for more crypto-friendly destinations as a result of the uncertainty. 

Crypto Brain Drain Is ‘Crazy’ in India, Polygon Co-Founder Says

When the government first unveiled the crypto levies, the announcement was met with relief because it was interpreted as a sign that there wouldn’t be an outright ban on cryptocurrency trading. That changed as the industry digested the details of the TDS.  

Under the new regime, the buyer of a crypto asset must deduct the 1% TDS on behalf of the seller if a transaction exceeds 10,000 rupees (about $132). Smaller trades would also be taxed if they top a cumulative 50,000 rupees in a financial year, according to Bhasin.   

Investors will be entitled to a refund if the total amount set aside for TDS during a fiscal year exceeds their overall tax liability for the period.

Capital Gets Choked

When done over a centralized exchange, it’s the bourse’s responsibility to deduct the TDS for a trade, Bhasin said. On a decentralized trading platform where the buyer and seller interact without an intermediary, people typically trade anonymously, which makes collecting TDS complicated. 

While a capital gains tax reduces the appeal of crypto for investors, the TDS poses a threat to the very underpinnings of the market, critics say. India doesn’t impose such a levy on stock trading. 

The typical high-frequency trader could see 60% of their capital blocked for TDS payments after just 100 trades, estimates Garegrat, who is also a member of India’s Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council.

“The way the tax has been worked out will lead to people moving out of the country,” said Dinesh Kanabar, CEO of Dhruva Advisors, a tax and regulatory advisory firm.

Speaking in the Lower House of Parliament on March 25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the TDS will allow the government to track transactions and doesn’t represent an additional levy. But executives and experts counter that if that’s the sole intention, it could have been accomplished just as well with a much smaller rate without disrupting trading. 

Like with decentralized exchanges, enforcing the TDS system will be almost impossible when it comes to offshore trading platforms, Garegrat said. So the tax will mainly serve to push trading off the locally-based exchanges over which the Indian government has the most visibility, he added. 

The system gets even more onerous for traders in crypto pairs, like Bitcoin/Ether, according to Quagmire’s Bhasin. That’s because each trade involves two separate transactions — for example, buying Bitcoin from one counterparty, then selling it and purchasing Ether from another. 

“At one stage you will liable to lose 1% because you are selling BTC and at the next step you will be liable to deduct 1% TDS because you are buying ETH from another seller,” he said. “The accounting will be super crazy for this.” 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Iowa worker fired over Biden-USSR comparison is denied jobless benefits
Clark Kauffman,

 Iowa Captial Dispatch
April 01, 2022


An Iowa man who says he lost his job for comparing life under the Biden administration to living in the Soviet Union is not entitled to jobless benefits, a judge has ruled.

State records indicate Lee Hainey worked as a machinist for the Carver Pump Company from 2007 through September of last year when he was fired.

A few days before he was terminated, Hainey and his colleagues at Carver received a companywide email from the chief operating officer that included an update on the COVID-19 pandemic and the company’s response to it.

Hainey then sent out a companywide response to the message, writing, “Welcome to the USSR, comrades!”

A supervisor confronted Hainey, asking him what he was thinking by sending the email and stating that it came across as a “big middle finger” to the chief operating officer. “Yep,” Hainey allegedly replied, according to state records. “Glad my message was received.”

At a subsequent meeting with his superiors, Hainey expressed regret that company officials felt the email was disrespectful, but he did not express regret for having sent the email. Hainey was fired and the company then challenged his claim for unemployment benefits.

Recently, the matter went before Administrative Law Judge Darrin T. Hamilton, who ruled against Hainey and denied him benefits.

Hainey, Hamilton ruled, “was pleased with the middle-finger message to the COO,” and only later acknowledged that sending it was a mistake. The judge found that Hainey’s assertion that he did not intend to disrespect the company officials and was instead expressing his displeasure with the Biden administration was not credible – but that even if that was Hainey’s intent, he still would have been violating company rules by causing a disruption in the workplace.

More coronavirus-related unemployment decisions

Other recent unemployment decisions related to the pandemic include:

Randy Boose, who resigned last September from Tyson Fresh Meats, where he worked as a social-distancing monitor. At the time, Tyson employees were required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but Boose objected due to concerns he had with the vaccine’s safety. Without discussing the matter with company officials, and without requesting a waiver from the vaccine policy, Boose quit and then applied for unemployment benefits. At the time he quit, he was not necessarily facing termination, a judge ruled in denying Boose benefits.

Kelly Still, who was fired last August from Knapp Properties where he had worked for the past 21 years, most recently as a maintenance technician. Still worked exclusively for one homeowner’s association that was a customer of Knapp Properties.

At some point, the association’s board president asked Still if he had been vaccinated against COVID-19. Still said he hadn’t, and the board president told him he may be required to do so. Still objected, arguing a vaccine requirement might be illegal. Later, after the board decided everyone working in the building should be vaccinated, Still allegedly told the board president he was vaccinated, but told residents of the building he was not, according to state records. He then refused to provide the board with proof of his vaccination.

Knapp Properties fired Still for failing to comply with the association’s rules. Administrative Law Judge Daniel Zeno awarded Still unemployment benefits, noting that the association’s board president didn’t testify at the hearing as to the policies that were violated. Zeno noted in his decision that it wasn’t a condemnation of Knapp’s right to “take reasonable steps to protect its staff and customers from the ongoing, global COVID-19 pandemic,” and should not be seen as “an endorsement of Mr. Still not being vaccinated.”

Amber O’Donnell, who resigned last October from Medical Oncology Hematology where she worked as a full-time chemotherapy pharmacy technician. O’Donnell quit in lieu of being fired for her refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Citing the state law that took effect last October, which says Iowans discharged from employment for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine cannot be disqualified from collecting unemployment, an administrative law judge recently awarded O’Donnell benefits.

Tamara Gibney, who resigned last June from Marengo Memorial Hospital where she worked as a registered nurse. Gibney resigned in lieu of being terminated for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

In December 2020, the hospital’s CEO had sent an email to all employees alerting everyone that the vaccine “will be required of all team members” as a condition of their employment.

Gibney was initially granted a medical exemption because she was breastfeeding a newborn infant, but in June of last year she transitioned her child to a bottle and asked her employer whether she vaccination was still required. When she was told that it was, Gibney resigned in lieu of being fired.

Citing the new state law on benefits for workers forced out of jobs by COVID-19 vaccine requirements, an administrative law judge recently awarded Gibney benefits.

Donna Whaley, whose hours were reduced last fall at Wesley Life, where she works as Meals on Wheels driver and a home health care aide. Whaley refused to comply with her employer’s vaccine mandate and did not provide documentation to justify her refusal under medical or religious grounds.

In late October, a few days before Whaley was to be fired, Gov. Kim Reynolds eliminated the requirement for Iowans to provide medical documentation to their employer when refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. By that time, Wesley Life had already begun filling the positions of people it expected to fire due to vaccine refusals.

Although Whaley was not fired, her hours were reduced – which was an arrangement she agreed to. Noting that Whaley had wanted her hours reduced, a judge recently denied her request for unemployment benefits.

Kathy Langreck, who was fired last October from Palmer Lutheran Health Center, where she worked as a full-time environmental services technician. Palmer’s policy last fall was that all employees were required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 1, 2021, unless religious or medical exemptions applied. Langreck told her employer she did not intend to be vaccinated and also that she did not believe she qualified for an exemption.

Her refusal, she said, was based on data she had seen and the fact that she knew people who suffered side effects from the vaccine. She was fired on Nov. 9. Citing the new state law that says Iowans who are forced out of work for refusing the vaccine can’t be declared ineligible for unemployment, a judge recently awarded Langreck benefits.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.

Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene to push for federal anti-LGBT legislation

Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene. Photo: Marco Bello

IF YOU'RE NOT WOKE YOU ARE ASLEEP

Josh Marcos
April 02 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene is working on a federal version of Florida’s highly controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

The Georgia Republican told Infowars host Alex Jones on Wednesday she was launching an effort to copy the legislation, which bars teachers from providing information about sexual orientation and gender identity, because she wanted to “protect kids”.

“Are you going to introduce a bill because you’ve got the power to do it?” right-wing conspiracy theorist Jones asked the Congress member.

“We would all get behind a bill to pull federal funding out of any school that sexualises children.”

She responded: “Absolutely 100pc. I will meet with my team right after this interview and we will work on it, Alex, because I will do anything I can to protect kids.”

The Georgia Republican has a lengthy history of using her public platform to target LGBT+ people.

“The so called #EqualityAct is evil,” she tweeted in February. “Disguised as #LGBT rights, it expands governmental regulatory reach that destroys women’s rights, religious rights, and rights of the unborn. It is a direct attack on God’s creation.”

That same month, she taped a sign on the door of House of Representatives colleague Marie Newman of Illinois, whose daughter is trans. “There are two genders: male & female... Trust The Science!” the sign read.

Republicans nationwide are ushering in hundreds of proposed bills targeting LGBT+ youth and trans children in particular.

The legislation aims to “take away transgender youth support from their doctors, their parents, their teachers, their coaches, their teammates, their books,” according to the Human Rights Campaign’s senior counsel Cathryn Oakley. (© Independent News Service Ltd 2022)

Young Sami return to reindeer herding despite climate fears
Agence France-Presse
April 01, 2022

Joining the herd: Young Finnish Sami Antti Iisko Lansman (L) and his sister Anni-Sivia want to herd reindeer when they grow up

 Jonathan NACKSTRAND AFP

In the snowy Arctic darkness Suvi Kustula throws bundles of lichen to her excitable herd of reindeer, their antlers lit up by her van's headlights.

"I was just a few months old when I fed my first reindeer," the 24-year-old laughed, saying she "pretty much always knew" she would follow her father and grandfather into herding.

"I managed one and a half weeks living in a city before I switched to reindeer herding college," Kustula told AFP.

"It's a way of life. Reindeer before everything."

Twenty years ago the ancient tradition of herding reindeer for meat and fur appeared to be in decline in Lapland, the vast area of forest and tundra which spans northern Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia's Kola Peninsula.

Young people felt they had to move south "to make a good life", said Anne Ollila, head of Finland's Reindeer Herders' Association.

But nowadays nearly a quarter of Finland's 4,000 herders are under 25, as more young people choose to stay or return home to Lapland.

The number of women entering the traditionally male-dominated profession is also at its highest ever.

"People have learned to better appreciate freedom and nature and tradition," Ollila said. "Even if you can't make big money."

Instead herders get to live an outdoor life, dictated by the seasons and the weather in the often stunningly beautiful Arctic wilderness.

But the new generation faces an array of emerging challenges, including a warming climate and pressure from industries keen to exploit Lapland's resource-rich landscape.

Indigenous culture revival

A herder needs intimate knowledge of the landscape and how their animals behave to keep tabs on their reindeer, which roam freely across the plains and forests.

And asking how many animals a herder has is a big no-no.

"It's a bit like if I asked you how much you have in your bank account," Kustula laughed.

Most young herders are either born in or have married into a reindeer herding family, Ollila said.

Many belong to the indigenous Sami community, who have herded reindeer across northern Lapland for centuries.

Oppressed for years by Nordic governments, many Sami have in recent decades begun reclaiming their traditional culture and language.

"Some earlier generations were ashamed of being Sami," Ollila says. "But I think the young people choosing reindeer herding are very proud of it."

Long periods away

Herding has been passed down through generations of the Lansman family, who live on Finland's northern border with Norway.

In late November, with the sun setting at 1 pm -- not to rise again for seven weeks -- Anna Nakkalajarvi-Lansman and her two children climbed onto their snowmobile and drove to the enclosure where their children's two reindeer live.

"The lighter one's mine, called Golden Horn," said six-year-old Antti Iisko, as he and his sister scatter lichen for the animals to eat.

He wants to be a herder when he grows up, while Anni-Sivia, eight, would like to be a vet.

"I'll be able to give the reindeer their vaccinations," Anni-Sivia told AFP.

"Our daily routine depends on the season and whether we're helping out with the herding," explained their mother Anna Nakkalajarvi-Lansman, a Sami musician.

Two hours' drive away, father Asko Lansman had just spent a fortnight at a meat-packaging plant.

Demand is soaring, Lansman told AFP, standing in front of piles of boxes of vacuum-packed reindeer meat ready to be delivered across Finland.

"It's my greatest hope that the kids continue the work, just like it was my father's hope when I was young," he said.

New challenges

The job has changed a lot, Lansman said, with quad bikes, helicopters and now drones making gathering the reindeer much easier.

But with temperatures in the Arctic warming three times faster than the rest of the planet, climate change is bringing new challenges.

The shorter winters can turn snow into ice "and cause the reindeers' drinking holes to freeze over", Lansman said, as well as making their food inaccessible.

Numerous proposed mining and energy projects across Lapland also threaten the animals' pasture lands, herders warn.

"The more the land use changes, the less space we'll have for reindeer," Kustula said.

"I am hopeful about the future, she insisted, "but the government should listen to us more."

© 2022 AFP

Abigail Disney takes aim at the 'radical ideologues' attacking her family's company over LGBTQ rights

Travis Gettys
April 01, 2022

Abigail Disney (Screen Capture)

Abigail Disney said she was "delighted" by the right-wing attacks on the iconic entertainment company founded by her grandfather and his brother because the campaign might finally force businesses to confront their support for bigotry.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signaled support for ending the Walt Disney Company's special status as an independent government around its Orlando-area theme park, and the granddaughter of co-founder Roy Disney took aim at the "radical ideologues" attacking the company for its opposition to anti-LGBTQ legislation in the state.

"Like all radical ideologues, the right wing has finally run amok and is coming to devour the hand that feeds it: Business," tweeted Disney, a documentary filmmaker who has no connection to the family business. "For my part I am delighted. It is the business world that has been, either by act or omission, feeding the opportunist right wing to distract us with culture war nonsense while they rifle through the till and empty everyone's pockets. This 'anti-woke' right wing nonsense is unsupported by a large majority of Americans. In fact most Americans are offended by it and wish it would just go away."

Disney explained that minority rule required an always-riled base and lots of money, and to generate a new outrage, she said the right was now turning on the businesses who had been supporting their cause.

"Until now, business has been content to do just that," she tweeted. "Or they compartmentalized like sociopaths when they funded folks like Dennis Baxley who wrote the hateful Don't Say Gay bill because as the CEO claimed, he had no way of knowing he might vote for legislation like that. Or else they have chosen silence."

"Their silence brought us Donald Trump," Disney added. "Apparently the racism and the xenophobia and the misogyny weren't deal breakers. Their silence, or at least willingness to compartmentalize when it came to politicians who were willing to fight for their outrageous and multi-decade campaign to stack the deck against the American People brought us this whole raft of Trump wanna-be's now casting about for new and more insidious ways to tear the country apart."

Disney said she was hopeful the attacks on the company her family started might break that mutually beneficial relationship.

"Perhaps the right wing has finally bitten the hand that has been feeding it superfoods these last few decades," she tweeted. "This is a monster of corporate America's creation. Until now they've managed to dodge the worst of it by feigning 'neutrality' --even when decent human beings were being actively harmed by right wing activism. The only thing that will work for business now if they want to emerge in one piece, is to stand tall for authenticity, generosity, joy and decency."

"These things are [kryptonite] for the right wing agenda," Disney added. "So the cure for this isn't hard. And it also just so happens to be the heart and soul of the Disney brand."

First audio recorded on Mars reveals two speeds of sound 

FAST SLOW
Agence France-Presse
April 01, 2022

The planet Mars (AFP)

The first audio recordings on Mars reveal a quiet planet with occasional gusts of wind where two different speeds of sound would have a strange delayed effect on hearing, scientists said Friday.

After NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February last year, its two microphones started recording, allowing scientists to hear what it is like on the Red Planet for the first time.

In a study published in the Nature journal on Friday, the scientists gave their first analysis of the five hours of sound picked up by Perseverance's microphones.

The audio revealed previously unknown turbulence on Mars, said Sylvestre Maurice, the study's main author and scientific co-director of the shoebox-sized SuperCam mounted on the rover's mast which has the main microphone.

The international team listened to flights by the tiny Ingenuity helicopter, a sister craft to Perseverance, and heard the rover's laser zap rocks to study their chemical composition -- which made a "clack clack" sound, Maurice told AFP.

"We had a very localized sound source, between two and five meters (six to 16 meters) from its target, and we knew exactly when it was going to fire," he said.

The study confirmed for the first time that the speed of sound is slower on Mars, traveling at 240 meters per second, compared to Earth's 340 meters per second.

This had been expected because Mars' atmosphere is 95 percent carbon dioxide -- compared to Earth's 0.04 percent -- and is about 100 times thinner, making sound 20 decibels weaker, the study said.

'I panicked'

But the scientists were surprised when the sound made by the laser took 250 meters a second -- 10 meters faster than expected.

"I panicked a little," Maurice said. "I told myself that one of the two measurements was wrong because on Earth you only have one speed of sound."

They had discovered there are two speeds of sound on the surface of Mars -- one for high-pitched sounds like the zap of the laser, and another for lower frequencies like the whir of the helicopter rotor.

This means that human ears would hear high-pitched sounds slightly earlier.

"On Earth, the sounds from an orchestra reach you at the same speed, whether they are low or high. But imagine on Mars, if you are a little far from the stage, there will be a big delay," Maurice said.

"All of these factors would make it difficult for two people to have a conversation only five meters (16 feet) apart", the French CNRS research institute said in a statement.
'Scientific gamble' pays off

It was otherwise so quiet on Mars that the scientists repeatedly feared something was wrong, the CNRS said, possibly provoking memories of two failed previous attempts in 1999 and 2008 to record sound there.

"There are few natural sound sources with the exception of the wind," the scientists said in a statement linked to the study.

The microphones did pick up numerous "screech" and "clank" sounds as the rover's metal wheels interacted with rocks, the study said.

The recording could also warn about problems with the rover -- like how drivers sense something's wrong when their car starts making strange noises.

Maurice said he felt the "scientific gamble" of taking microphones to Mars was a success.

Thierry Fouchet of the Paris Observatory, who was also involved in the research, said that listening to turbulence, such as vertical winds known as convection plumes, will "allow us to refine our numerical models for predicting climate and weather".

Future missions to Venus or Saturn's moon Titan could also now come equipped with microphones.

And Perseverance is far from done eavesdropping. While its core mission lasts just over two years, it could remain operational well beyond that -- the Curiosity rover is still kicking nine years into a planned two-year stint.

© 2022 AFP

Greta Thunberg to publish comprehensive book on climate change

2022/3/31 
© Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg attends a press conference in Berlin. Thunberg has announced plans to publish a comprehensive book on climate change. Kay Nietfeld/dpa

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has announced plans to publish a comprehensive book on climate change.

"I've invited over 100 leading voices from around the world - scientists, experts, activists and authors to create a book that covers the climate - and ecological crisis from a holistic perspective," the 19-year-old tweeted on Thursday.

Climate change was just one of several symptoms of a larger sustainability crisis, Thunberg said, according to a report in The Guardian.

She said she hoped the volume would become a kind of reference work on the different, closely related crises.

According to the report, the authors include climate researchers Johan Rockström and Katharine Hayhoe, as well as economist Thomas Piketty and writer Margaret Atwood.

The book is due to be published in Britain in October.