US military may get access to strategic Somaliland port, airfield

Wed, May 18, 2022

The US military could gain access to the self-declared state of Somaliland's strategically positioned port and airfield at Berbera, to counter the Islamic extremist rebel group al-Shabab in Somalia.

This is after US President Joe Biden signed an order on Monday to redeploy hundreds of American troops to Somalia, days after top Pentagon officials visited the Somaliland capital Hargeisa and met President Muse Bihi Abdi.

At the end of his term in 2021, Biden's predecessor Donald Trump withdrew some 700 troops from Somalia as part of America's policy of pulling out of global military missions abroad - a move Biden promised to reverse.

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The US is reportedly courting Somaliland to use its Berbera port as an alternative to its Djibouti military base.

China, meanwhile, has appointed a special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Xue Bing, and plans to hold the first peace conference in the ­conflict-ridden region. Beijing advocates for Africa to be left to chart its own course out of problems ­without "external" interference.

The US troop redeployment came a day after Somalia re-elected former leader Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Sunday. Beijing welcomed his re-election, saying: "China stands ready to work with the international community to continue to play a constructive role in helping Somalia realise lasting peace and national reconstruction."

Al-shabab has been waging a deadly insurgency against Somalia's fragile central government for more than a decade.

Last week, General Stephen J. Townsend, head of the US Africa Command (Africom), became the highest-ranking US military official to visit Somaliland since 1991. Townsend, US ambassador to Somalia Larry Andre and other US officials travelled to Berbera where they toured the newly renovated port and airport that US Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa assessed last year. US defence department officials also surveyed the facilities in August.

"That assessment and this visit are a part of routine efforts to assess potential operating locations to be able to prepare for contingencies, exercise readiness or adjust force posture as needed," according to a readout from Africom at the end of the trip.

President Bihi said the visit "reflects a new chapter in our relations", and that Somaliland's coastguard contributed to the protection of vital sea routes that benefit all countries.

The visit came less than two months after Bihi's trip to the United States, when he met government, Congress and Senate members and "requested the US government to recognise Somaliland and have maritime and security cooperation to deter China's influence".

US Army General Stephen J. Townsend meets President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi on Monday. 

Photo: Handout 

Townsend also visited Kenya - a key American ally in the fight against al-Shabab that has been targeted by the group's terror attacks - and met President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi on Monday. Kenyatta's discussion with Townsend centred on peace and security in the Horn of Africa region with a special focus on Somalia.

David Shinn, an American diplomat and professor, said the US was "clearly interested in investigating the prospects for some kind of military use of the port and large airfield at Berbera on Somaliland's coast" following the decision to return troops to Somalia.

But the situation is complicated. "Washington has good relations with Mogadishu, which says Somaliland is part of Somalia, and the government in Hargeisa might insist on US recognition before it agrees to any kind of military arrangement," Shinn said.

"I believe the primary goal is to find a more effective way to counter terrorism in the region, especially al-Shabab in Somalia. Berbera's airfield would be especially useful for this purpose," Shinn said.

"China is more concerned about the impact of US-Somaliland relations on Hargeisa's growing ties with Taiwan," he added.

Guled Ahmed, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, said: "Townsend's visit may be a sign that talks of security cooperation are moving along and may be entering their operational phase of actually seeking a base in Somaliland."

Ahmed said the US game plan was to use the Berbera port as an alternative to the Djibouti military base to adjust its posture in the Horn of Africa region by partnering with the Somaliland government.

That would give the US a key geostrategic location to counter Chinese influence, protect trading routes, and deter human trafficking, terrorism and piracy, he said.

Camp Lemonnier, a military naval base in Djibouti, is the only permanent US military base in Africa with more than 4,500 military and civilian personnel.

A few miles from there, China in 2017 set up its first overseas military base - a facility that continues to cause unease in Washington. China has between 1,000 and 2,000 military personnel at its base, according to various reports.

In 2018, the US accused China of pointing lasers at its pilots from Djibouti base, but Beijing dismissed the reports as "inconsistent with facts". The US alleged the military-grade lasers originated from the Chinese naval base.

In addition, a move by Taiwan - which Beijing sees as part of its territory - to open a representative office in Hargeisa in August 2020, and Somaliland's move to have a similar office in Taipei in 2020, has annoyed Beijing. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in February said the Taiwanese-Somaliland relationship threatened "the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity" of China and Somalia.

John Calabrese, head of the Middle East-Asia Project at American University, said the US was in a "tight spot" in trying to build constructive relations with Somaliland, which is seeking independence.

Calabrese said the US would be reluctant to extend recognition to Somaliland because it could strain ties with Somalia, whose cooperation Washington sees as useful in pursuing its counterterrorism agenda.

He added that Townsend's visit was "aimed at assessing the potential for Somaliland's port and airfield to be used for contingency operations rather than as a substitute for, or to pair with, Camp Lemonnier".


Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gunman targets Taiwanese faith with long pro-democracy link




Taiwan PresbyteriansFILE - In this photo released May 16, 2022, by the Orange County Sheriff's Department is David Chou. Authorities said Chou, the gunman in Sunday's deadly attack at a Southern California church, was a Chinese immigrant motivated by hate for Taiwanese people. Chou was booked on one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder.

 (Orange County Sheriff's Department via AP, File)


DEEPA BHARATH
Wed, May 18, 2022


LOS ANGELES (AP) — The recent deadly shooting at Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in California didn’t just violate a sacred space. Taiwanese Americans across the country say it ripped through their cultural bastion.

It is where the congregation in Laguna Woods worshipped. But it was also where their native language and support for a democratic Taiwan thrived. Sunday's mass shooting by man officials say was motivated by political hate of Taiwan has spotlighted the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan's close connections to the nation's democracy movement.

Jerry Chen, a church member who dialed 911 after fleeing the gunman, calls himself a “proud Presbyterian” and says the congregation, while avoiding politics in church, likes to talk about what is going on in Taiwan.

“We care deeply because we grew up in Taiwan,” he said.

Chen, 72, has been a congregant since the church's founding 28 years ago. He is puzzled why a man who has no apparent connection to the church would drive from Las Vegas to Laguna Woods, a town of 16,000 populated mostly by retirees, to carry out such an attack.

Members had gathered on Sunday for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic struck for a luncheon honoring their former pastor, Billy Chang, who was visiting from Taiwan.

Investigators are still piecing together information about the gunman, 68-year-old David Chou, who was born in Taiwan after his family was forced to leave China when the Communists took power. They said they obtained Chou's handwritten notes documenting his hatred of Taiwan. In addition to murder and attempted murder, Chou could also face hate crime charges.

The small, tight-knit congregation was a space where older Taiwanese immigrants supported each other, said Sandy Hsu, whose in-laws made a last-minute decision not to attend the luncheon. The shooting has sowed fear and anxiety in the Taiwanese community nationwide, she said.

“My in-laws are questioning if it's safe to get together in the future,” Hsu said. “We're asking ourselves if it's safe any more to talk about politics or freely express our views.”

Second-generation Taiwanese Americans like Leona Chen say their churches — Presbyterian or any other denomination — have been a “social haven.”

“I have very visceral memories of potlucks where aunties would cook traditional dishes and play matchmaker for the young adults,” said Chen, editor of Bay Area-based TaiwaneseAmerican.org, the website and nonprofit serving the Taiwanese American community.

“Uncles who were retired engineers would help kids with calculus and SAT prep. Church was also a place where everyone figured out life in a foreign country together – from jury duty and homeownership to their kids’ college applications.”

But, she also views the church as “a political space.”

“Especially in the (Taiwanese) Presbyterian Church, there is a theological commitment to activism, to fight against injustice,” she said. “Churches became sanctuaries for pro-democracy groups."

Taiwan is majority Buddhist and Taoist; Christians make up only 4% of the population.

The Presbyterian Church carved a niche and grew in political stature in the 1950s after the Kuomintang — or KMT party — came into power in Taiwan, said Christine Lin, who published a book in 1999 about the Presbyterian Church as a vital advocate of local autonomy in Taiwan. The party imposed what many perceive as an oppressive regime and targeted Presbyterians, even labeling them “terrorists,” she said.

On June 28, 1997 – three days before Hong Kong’s reversion to China – Lin recalls being at a rally with 60,000 people outside Taipei’s World Trade Center. She said nearly a third of those gathered were Presbyterians who arrived by bus from across the country.

Lin, who grew up going to a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in St. Louis, saw a Presbyterian minister leading the crowd in singing phrases in Taiwanese like “Make Taiwan Independent” to the tune of “Glory, Glory Hallelujah.”

Lin's uncle and aunt, who both attend the Laguna Woods church, stayed home on Sunday, she said. Even though she was left wondering why the attacker chose this particular congregation, Lin said she wasn't surprised that he chose a Taiwanese Presbyterian church. Her undergraduate thesis as an Asian Studies major in Dartmouth College was centered on this very topic.

“The Presbyterians not only succeeded in Romanizing the spoken Taiwanese language but also provided services such as education and healthcare that other churches did not provide,” she said.

The church distinguished itself as a “native church” that represented Taiwanese, Hakka and Indigenous people, with a political vision rooted in democracy and self-determination – ideals many Taiwanese found attractive, Lin said.

The Presbyterian Church was also instrumental in bringing members of the Democratic Progressive Party into power, said Jufang Tseng, dean of the School of Theology at Charisma University, an online institution based in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Tseng worked in the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan’s media department from 2001 to 2003. Raised in a family that favored Taiwan’s reunification with China, Tseng said her mindset later changed thanks to the Presbyterians.

“The Presbyterian Church has always been more inclusive,” she said, adding that church leaders were adept at navigating secular spaces while not imposing their religious beliefs on others. “Their motivation was faith-based, but they didn’t push Christianity on anyone.”

In the U.S. most Taiwanese Presbyterian churches largely stayed away from politics, Lin said.

“The Presbyterian Church of Taiwan was certainly involved politically especially from the 1970s,” she said. “But, the churches here, while they promoted the Taiwanese language and supported self-determination and democracy in Taiwan, did not make overt political statements or engage in activism.”

It is common to find people with connections to mainland China in many U.S. Taiwanese churches, said Daisy Tsai, associate professor of the Old Testament at Logos Evangelical Seminary in El Monte, California.

The two groups may hold different political beliefs, but their Christian faith binds them, she said.

“People generally mingle and get along,” said Tsai, who is Taiwanese American. “In many churches, there is an unwritten rule that we don’t discuss politics. But sometimes, those discussions could spill over to social media and turn into debates.”

Al Hsu, a second-generation Taiwanese American who lives in the Chicago area, agrees that church is not necessarily a place where people talk politics.

“But it is a place where we foster a sense of our peoplehood, our heritage and national identity,” he said.

Hsu said his mother holds dual citizenship and travels to Taiwan to vote because she cares about the country’s future.

“The church has been a safe place for the older generation to talk with others who share those concerns,” he said. “For someone to come into such a sacred space and target our amahs and agongs (grandmothers and grandfathers) – to attack the elderly whom we hold in such reverence – is an attack on our entire community.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Laguna Woods shooting highlights growing tensions between Taiwan and China

Stephanie Yang
Wed, May 18, 2022,

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, center, attends her inauguration ceremony in Taipei on May 20, 2020. (Taiwan Presidential Office)

The man accused of opening fire inside a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods on Sunday is believed to have been driven by hatred for Taiwanese people and the political belief that Taiwan is a part of China, highlighting the increasingly fraught geopolitical situation in the Taiwan Strait.

David Wenwei Chou, a 68-year-old man from Las Vegas, is accused of shooting six people and killing one of them at the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church. Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said Monday that the attack appeared to be a "politically motivated hate incident," and that Chou had left notes in his car stating he did not believe Taiwan should be independent from China.

Cross-strait relations have grown strained in recent years, as Beijing has ramped up calls for unification, while more Taiwanese oppose the mainland's aggression and influence. Officials from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles — Taiwan's de facto consulate — said Chou was born in Taiwan and was a "second generation waishengren," meaning his parents were from mainland China.

Here's a look at the issues bedeviling the two rivals across the Taiwan Strait.

Is Taiwan a part of China?

China's claim on the island of 23 million people dates back to the Qing dynasty, though today's Communist Party has never ruled over Taiwan. The Republic of China, founded in 1912, took the island from Japanese forces at the end of World War II, in 1945, and the Kuomintang, China's Nationalist Party, fled there in 1949 after its defeat by Mao Zedong's Communists. Taiwan became a democracy in the 1990s, though the Kuomintang, or KMT, is still one of the island's dominant political parties.

Members of the KMT in Taiwan favor closer ties with mainland China and potential unification, while the ruling Democratic Progressive Party leans toward independence. Increasingly, Taiwanese people, particularly younger generations, oppose unification and consider their culture and identity as separate from China.

What is the threat from China?

For Chinese President Xi Jinping, reuniting Taiwan with the mainland is a priority of his rule. While he has called for reunification through peaceful means, he hasn't ruled out the use of force. Beijing sent record numbers of military jets into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone last year, and has used sand-dredging ships to wear down defenses on Taiwan's islands off the coast of mainland China.

Rising nationalism in China, encouraged by Xi and state propaganda, has spurred enthusiasm for reunification with Taiwan among Chinese citizens. China has embarked on a broad military buildup as part of Xi's vision for China's modernization and growing international might.

Dwarfed by China's People's Liberation Army, Taiwan's military has begun to bolster its defenses as well. Taiwan plans to spend another $8.6 billion in defense on top of a record $17-billion budget this year. Lawmakers are also considering increasing the duration of mandatory military service for Taiwanese men. Conscription used to be two years, but has since been pared down to four months.

Where does the U.S. fit in?

The U.S. maintains economic and political ties with Taiwan, but does not have formal diplomatic relations. The U.S. adheres to the "one China policy," under which it acknowledges that China considers Taiwan a part of its territory, but doesn't take its own explicit stance. The U.S. also sells arms to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act.

The balancing of different policies is part of an attempt to maintain stability in the region. The "strategic ambiguity" means that the U.S. has remained deliberately vague on whether it would interfere if China were to attempt to take Taiwan by force. A declaration that it would not come to Taiwan's aid could hearten Beijing, while an outright guarantee of support could provoke military action.

In recent years, the relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan has strengthened as U.S.-China relations have deteriorated. While the U.S. still maintains strategic ambiguity, it has shown support for Taipei through diplomatic envoys at times of heightened tension, defense discussions and assistance with military training.

Will there really be war in Taiwan?

As tensions between Taiwan and mainland China have increased, some defense experts have warned that a military conflict over the next decade has become more likely. Russia's attack on Ukraine has also ignited concerns that China could attempt a similar assault on Taiwan.

However, Beijing would face several challenges if it were to pursue an outright invasion. The Taiwan Strait acts as a natural barrier between the island and mainland China, forcing China to mount an amphibious attack to reach Taiwan's shores. While Taiwan is not internationally recognized as an independent country, it maintains close relations with other democracies, such as Japan and the U.S., which have a vested interest in its defense.

Taiwan also is a crucial link in the global electronics and semiconductor supply chain. Its chip industry, where nearly all of the world's most advanced chips are manufactured, has been referred to as its "silicon shield" and "the sacred mountain protecting the country." Any damage to those facilities could bring the broader supply chain to a grinding halt.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

China’s demographic crisis is reaching into the ranks of the Communist Party

REUTERS/ALY SONG          Not enough young blood.

By Mary Hui
Reporter
Published May 19, 2022

China is getting older. So is the Chinese Communist Party.

Beyond the broad societal effects of a demographic decline—including a shrinking workforce and an unstable pension system—the CCP also has to grapple with the reality of its rapidly aging membership. How is the party to keep up revolutionary fervor when its cadres are aging faster than new blood can be recruited?

Get working, old cadres

To that end, the CCP this week released a set of guidelines on “strengthening Party building work for retired officials.”

Recognizing that the ranks of its retired cadres will swell rapidly in the coming years, the CCP now aims to make the most of what it dubs the “valuable wealth” of the party and the state. In particular, it wants to ensure that retired cadres stay loyal and “continue to listen to the Party and follow the Party.”

The elder cadres probably shouldn’t expect too quiet of a retirement, either: the guidelines call for “organizing and guiding retired cadres to make new contributions” to the party.

It won’t be an easy task. Already, CCP membership is significantly older than the national population. While nearly 20% of China is now aged 60 and above, about a quarter of party cadres now fall into that age group. Meanwhile, the share of young cadres among party membership has shrunk over the past decade.

As a CCP official put it to state media (link in Chinese):“With the increasing number of retired cadres and party organizations nationwide, the task of party building work for retired cadres is getting heavier and more demanding.”

Retirement age, pensions, and childcare

A graying CCP is just one facet of China’s broader demographic crisis.

Beijing, which for years enforced a one-child policy, now wants couples to have up to three. The Chinese people aren’t so keen. A state-financed “fertility fund” that lowers the cost of raising children could help. But marriages are at a decades-low, and a more feminist nation is pushing back against the state’s reproductive goals. There’s also the problem of China’s underfunded pension system.

Meanwhile, the idea of raising China’s problematic retirement age isn’t being readily embraced. And even if it were, allowing people to retire later could discourage younger women from having children. That’s because young couples would find it harder to get childcare help from their parents and in-laws, who would now be working for more years.

It’s a knotty problem—and one that won’t be solved by pulling elderly party cadres out of retirement.

As feds stay quiet on state’s largest-ever wildfire, theories circulate about its cause

Patrick Lohmann
Wed, May 18, 2022

This story was originally published by Source New Mexico.

The United States Forest Service on Monday again declined to provide any more details about the prescribed burn that caused the Hermits Peak fire or the sequence of events leading to the nearby Calf Canyon fire, saying it would be “premature” due to ongoing investigations.

Meanwhile, Twitter chatter is alight, and state leaders are asking, too: Did Hermits Peak embers spark the Calf Canyon blaze?

The question comes as local leaders seek to hand the federal government the whole bill for the state’s largest-ever wildfire. Hermits Peak was ignited by the U.S. Forest Service as a prescribed burn in early April, but the crew lost control of it. If an ember from the resulting wildfire drifted on to ignite Calf Canyon, a liability question gets all buttoned up: The massive blaze in northern New Mexico would be entirely the feds’ fault.

More: New Mexico wildfire — one-quarter the size of Delaware — now largest in state's history

The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire burns on a recent night. The fire is now the biggest in New Mexico's history.

Dave Bales, incident commander in charge of fighting the fire, said winds the day of the Calf Canyon fire did not lead from Hermits Peak to the site of Calf Canyon ignition site, so he doesn’t think it’s possible. But, he added, it’s plausible for embers to travel the roughly 3-mile distance, especially with the winds we’ve had lately.

New Mexico State Forester Laura McCarthy declined to comment on the question last week, saying it’s under investigation. But she said containing and understanding the blazes is increasingly complex, complicated by the historic wind surges we’ve seen in recent weeks.

“Part of what makes both fires so difficult to contain when you have wind events like we did… is that a spark, an ember, can move carried by the wind a mile or more,” she told Source New Mexico early last week. “And in fact yesterday, I learned that on the north side of the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon fire, an ember blew two miles.”

“So how do you predict where that ember is going to go?” McCarthy asked.

Another layer of mystery is that the Calf Canyon fire’s cause has not yet been determined. That’ll likely take a forensic investigation, similar to a crime scene, experts said.

More: Cost of fighting New Mexico wildfires reaches $65M

Even without knowing Calf Canyon’s cause, elected officials in New Mexico place responsibility with the federal government, saying the United States should take responsibility for at least a good chunk of present and future costs to fight the fire, rebuild communities and replenish forests. Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon are enmeshed, regardless of whether one started the other, they say, and teasing out which damages were caused by what fire is impossible.

Matthew Hurteau, a forest management expert at the University of New Mexico, said it is possible to build a computer model to evaluate the effects both fires independently, though he noted the fires have also interacted in complicated ways as they’ve spread over more than 400 square miles.

“​​It would be really hard to truly untangle it,” Hurteau said. “But I think you could get a decent estimate for attribution.”

Date of origin

In addition, dispatch records and an email obtained by Source New Mexico from the days after the Hermits Peak fire began to raise new questions about the origins of the Calf Canyon fire.

The Santa Fe Interagency Dispatch Center records various callouts and wildfire events in the area of the Santa Fe National Forest.

Even though they haven’t named a cause, officials have identified the start date for the Calf Canyon fire as April 19. However, the dispatch records show that a fire in Calf Canyon was reported April 9.

A resident nearby spotted the smoke and sent an email to a public affairs official for the Santa Fe National Forest Service, who responded to confirm that crews had responded to a fire there April 9. (Source New Mexico has agreed not to name the official or the resident, who cited fears of retaliation.)

“We too have seen a pattern in smoke reports from that area, “ the forest official wrote April 21. “Just in the last couple of weeks, we had a smoke report on Saturday, April 9. Crews responded immediately and found the fire.”

“They built fire line around it and did not leave the scene until they thought it had been put out. At that time, it was about an acre. And then of course, this week, the same fire lookout reported smoke from the same area. Crews again responded and found some pretty active fire behavior due to the extreme winds and dry conditions.”

Hurteau said it’s entirely possible that a fire could smolder without anyone being aware of it for a week and a half, which is how much time elapsed between April 9 and April 19, or even longer.

“There’s a number of examples of things like that where you can have an ignition that people are even unaware of, and it sits there and does nothing until conditions change,” he said.

The dormant ember theory also has a proponent in Bill Gabbert, who runs the Wildfire Today website. He speculates that the offending ember could have been there for as long as four months, tucked away in a pile of debris burned as part of Las Gallinas prescribed burn in early January. Some observers think that’s way too long, though.

The site of the Calf Canyon fire from April 9 is about 4 miles from where the Hermits Peak was at that time — quite a haul for a live ember carried by the wind.

On Monday, Michelle Burnett, a spokesperson for the United States Forest Service, declined to comment on whether investigators are looking into whether the Calf Canyon fire started earlier than April 19. The service also did not answer how it arrived at April 19 as a start date.

“The comprehensive internal Declared Wildfire Review of the Las Dispensas prescribed fire is still ongoing, and the cause of the Calf Canyon fire remains under investigation. It would be premature to comment until either of those is complete,” she said.

There are now two investigations unfolding while the merged Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire grows: One into Calf Canyon’s origins and another as to how the prescribed burn escaped to become Hermits Peak.

Some answers to the second question lie in the past, said Tom Ribe, a wildland firefighter and author of “Inferno by Committee.” Just look at the last time we were in this mess — 22 years ago.

Patrick Lohmann reports for Source New Mexico.

'Polluted' babies, millions dead: Scientists sound alarm on global pollution

Kyle Bagenstose, USA TODAY
Wed, May 18, 2022

By many measures, modern science has greatly improved the American way of life. Advances in chemistry and other technologies over the past century have made food more affordable and transportation more convenient and paved the way for a plethora of consumer goods. About 4 in 5 U.S. households own a computer and smartphone.

But science is revealing the human costs of these advances.

The production and consumption of the foods, fuels and materials that dominate daily life are leading to large-scale environmental pollution that can impact the health of Americans and people across the globe.

In early May, a groundbreaking study from the University of California, San Francisco of 171 pregnant women in the USA found more than 9 in 10 had measurable amounts of 19 different chemicals and pesticides in their bodies. Researchers said many of those substances pass through the placenta and into developing fetuses, adding evidence to a National Institutes of Health report that warned babies are born “pre-polluted” with chemicals.

The full extent of health effects from such exposures is unknown, but scientists worry they could contribute to rising U.S. rates of autoimmune diseases, developmental disorders such as autism and reproductive harms, such as the mysterious decline of sperm counts in men.

Tracey Woodruff, a director of the Reproductive Health and Environment Program at the University of California, San Francisco and co-author of the study, said the work only scratches the surface of what Americans are exposed to and the potential health effects.

“Pregnancy is such an important time for susceptibility to environmental chemicals, both for the fetus and the pregnant person,” Woodruff said. “Our understanding of exposures is not keeping up. ... What are these chemicals doing?”

Tuesday, a study published in the journal The Lancet expanded on pollution concerns globally, revealing that air and water pollution causes 1 in 6 deaths worldwide. At more than 9 million deaths per year, such pollution kills more people than malnutrition, roadway injuries and drug and alcohol use combined, the study found.

Most harmed are developing nations in East and Southeast Asia, where historically low levels of environmental protections have led to dangerous and runaway pollution. The report laid out the interconnected nature of the threat.

Richard Fuller, president of the environmental nonprofit Pure Earth, said Americans can be exposed to the pollutants through imported products such as spices and baby food, or as harmful particulates in air traveling across oceans. Air emissions from worldwide manufacturing and transportation contribute to global warming, meaning that no nation escapes the harm they create.

“A good percentage of the air quality in San Francisco is actually from coal-fired burning in China that’s crossed the entire Pacific,” Fuller said. “These particles will move and cause damage many thousands of miles away from where they started.”

Indian fashion students, wearing anti-pollution masks, gather for a march through a marketplace to create awareness on air pollution in New Delhi on Nov. 2, 2018.

Air pollution originating in the USA is still a problem, particularly for “fenceline” communities near industrial facilities.

A report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project this month found that nearly half of 118 U.S. oil refineries, crucial to the production of gasoline and plastics used in consumer goods, emit the carcinogenic chemical benzene at levels potentially unsafe to residents downwind. Twelve plants, ranging from Pennsylvania to Indiana to Texas, further exceed a safety limit established by the Environmental Protection Agency, the report found.

“EPA and the oil refining industry really need to do more to crack down on these benzene emissions, because the fenceline concentrations at too many refineries are high enough to pose a potential threat to neighborhoods that are close by,” said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the nonprofit.

Industry pushed back on the notion that common chemicals are linked to health effects.

The American Chemistry Council, a trade association, wrote in an email to USA TODAY that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said mere exposure to a chemical "does not by itself mean" it will cause harm. The ACC noted the new study on pregnant women drew no such conclusions. Companies are "serious" about chemical safety as well as performance, the council said.

"Our members undertake extensive scientific analyses to evaluate potential risk of their chemicals, from development through use and safe disposal," the group wrote. "We work with regulators, retailers and manufacturers to provide them with information about our chemicals."

Pollution a planetary threat

Though the changing climate is often viewed as the most pressing global environmental threat, researchers warned that on-the-ground pollution poses ecological and humanitarian catastrophes of its own.

Roland Geyer, an industrial ecology researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the pollution threat is a crisis akin to climate change and the loss of biodiversity.

In 2017, Geyer found that since the mass production of plastics began in the 1950s, more than 8.3 billion tons of plastics have been produced, 79% of which ended up in the environment or landfills. That comes out to about 2,300 pounds for every person on the planet. Half was generated just in the prior 13 years, and the amount is set to double by 2050.

“We were just blown away by how much plastic we've made and how incredibly careless or incompetent we are at managing that material,” Geyer said.

Once plastics are in the environment, they can take thousands of years to break down. Larger pieces degrade into “microplastics,” which studies have found littered throughout food products and the human body, where they can disrupt hormones, harm the immune system and increase risk of chronic disease.

A blue rectangular piece of microplastic was found in debris collected in 2010 from the Thea Foss Waterway in Tacoma, Wash. Tiny bits of broken-down plastic smaller than a fraction of a grain of rice are turning up in oceans, from the water to the guts of fish and the excrement of sea otters and giant killer whales.

Experts liken the exposure of humans to plastics and chemicals to past problems with the toxic metal lead, and said it offers a cautionary tale.

After research linked lead to kidney and cardiovascular damage in adults, as well as brain and nervous systems in children, the United States banned its use in paint in 1978 and in gasoline in 1996. Though lead poisoning from old paint and water pipes remains a concern in many parts of the USA, particularly in marginalized communities with older housing stock, the median blood level of children has fallen more than 15-fold.

Geyer noted it took decades for enough scientific evidence to accumulate before the phaseouts were made, a timeline that troubles him as plastics proliferate across our planet.

“It’s a bit like running a giant global experiment,” Geyer said.

Lead shows how wealthy nations often offload chemical risks to other nations, Fuller noted. The Lancet study found lead still contributes to nearly a million deaths a year across the globe, primarily in India and Central and Western Africa. Much of it can be attributed to the improper recycling of lead-acid batteries and "e-waste" (outdated electronics) originating from wealthier nations.

The United States was the second biggest contributor to e-waste in 2019, behind China and ahead of India.

“It’s done in backyards, and a lot of the lead is released into the land and poisons local kids and floats down to their pastures and gets picked up by (agricultural) products,” Fuller said.

Air pollution, which kills about 6.5 million every year and contributes to global warming, often comes from factories in developing nations that export goods to wealthy trading partners, according to The Lancet report.

There are growing dangers for Americans. Though environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act have decreased the amount of many toxins in the environment over the past 50 years, experts said regulators remain far behind in catching up to the threats of the modern era, particularly in newer chemicals.

Of the more than 40,000 chemicals in commerce, only a fraction have been robustly studied for potential human health effects, Woodruff said.

Some of the most concerning are PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which are commonly used in water-resistant products and nonstick pans. Studies show more than 96% of Americans have at least one PFAS in their blood, some of which have been linked to cancer, high cholesterol, reproductive harm and other health effects.

Woodruff places responsibility with the EPA’s chemical safety program. Employees of the agency told USA TODAY it has not been able to thoroughly evaluate new chemicals before companies place them into commerce. Woodruff said even when chemicals are found to be hazardous and phased out, her study of 171 American women shows replacement chemicals are often utilized before being fully evaluated.

“Chemicals that had been a focus of regulatory or market-based campaigns, they seem to be either remaining stable or going down” in women, Woodruff said. “But their replacements are going up.”

In response, the American Chemistry Council said it interacts with six regulatory agencies under 12 different laws meant to ensure the safety of products, and it supported the overhaul in 2016 of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the nation's primary chemical safety law.

"We continue to work with EPA, FDA and other federal agencies to strengthen our regulatory system and help ensure that policies are made using the best-available science and the weight of the evidence to make decisions," the group wrote.

In a statement, the EPA said although the change to the chemicals law in 2016 gave the agency unprecedented authority to analyze the safety of chemicals, Congress has not appropriated additional funding. That led to a doubling of the workload without new staff and caused the agency to miss deadlines for 90% of an initial set of chemical reviews, it said.

"EPA ... will continue to struggle to review the safety of new chemicals quickly absent additional resources," the agency said, adding that the White House asked Congress for an additional $64 million and 200 employees.
Pollution solutions exist but don’t come easy

Geyer, the plastics researcher, is among experts across various disciplines who say modern pollution risks call for new solutions.

Efforts to cut down on pollution have often focused on the “end fate” of materials, such as recycling plastics or repurposing materials. Research has shown such solutions to be mostly futile. Geyer's study found that just 9% of all plastic created has been successfully recycled.

The figure is lower in the USA – about 6% – and even European nations that invest deeply in recycling top out at about 40%, Geyer said. Globally, the majority of plastic still ends up in the environment or landfills, and smaller fractions are incinerated.

Stephanie Wein, a clean water advocate with the nonprofit PennEnvironment, said that such solutions misplace responsibility. Though the group has successfully advocated for plastic bag bans in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to help clean up neighborhoods, Wein noted such efforts “don't solve the plastics crisis.” Even well-intentioned consumers find it difficult to cut down on plastics in a world where nearly every product is encased in it, she said.

“The onus should not be on local governments or consumers to deal with the waste,” Wein said. “The onus should instead be on the companies that create it.”

Geyer said the magnitude of the problem requires that governments determine a sustainable annual amount of plastic and chemical production, then work to ratchet industry down to those levels.

“There will always be plastic ... it's such a cheap and incredibly useful material,” Geyer said. “But we need to agree that this is too much, and we need to bring it down.”

Other experts said solutions need to come from bolstered federal agencies such as the EPA, with help from Congress through more funding and new authorities.

John Beard, executive director of the Port Arthur Community Action Network in Port Arthur, Texas, is among those who say the agency could be doing more now.

In Port Arthur, a French-owned Total Energies oil refinery is one of 12 facilities the Environmental Integrity Project calculated was emitting benzene at levels above EPA limits. Beard said the city is rife with cancer, but little is being done to understand and address hazards.

“We need more monitoring along the fenceline communities, and also beyond the fenceline, because the effects are carried downwind,” Beard said. “We have to regulate how these refineries go about their business.”

The sun begins to set over an oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, in this May 17, 2007 file photo.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New studies highlight health risks of modern chemicals and pollution

PHOTO ESSAY

The Wider Image: In Mexico, a decade of images shows Mennonites' traditions frozen in time

Thu, May 19, 2022,
By Jose Luis Gonzalez and Cassandra Garrison

ASCENCION, Mexico (Reuters) - The Mennonite community in Chihuahua, Mexico, can trace its roots as far back as a century ago, when the first such settlers came seeking ideal farming land, isolation from the outside world and the preservation of their religion.

Here, their way of life is simple, with virtually no use of electricity or the internet. The community supports itself through its centuries-old tradition of farming: corn, chili peppers, cotton, onions.

But life can be difficult for them as modern technology creeps closer to their doorstep. It's not as easy to maintain their isolation as it was a hundred years ago.

From low water reserves due to drought worsened by climate change to the rising cost of diesel to run farming pumps, the community has its own set of challenges as it seeks to thrive and grow.

For the last 100 years, Mexico has been home to Mennonite farmers, who migrated from Canada, where many still live.

Descendants of 16th-century Protestant Anabaptist radicals from Germany, the Low Countries and Switzerland, Mennonites rejected military service and the concept of a church hierarchy, suffering years of persecution and making them reliant on the patronage of rulers eager to exploit their belief that agriculture and faith are intertwined.

The community of El Sabinal - Spanish for "The Juniper" - was founded nearly 30 years ago in the dry, desert-like terrain of Chihuahua in northern Mexico. Today, Mennonite farmers have transformed it into fruitful farmland, often using antique farm equipment. They live in simple brick houses they build themselves, usually consisting of one open room.

As the Mennonites expanded their farmland in drought-prone Chihuahua, where they have several communities, the demand for water increased. Over the years, they have faced allegations of sinking illegal wells from local farmers who complain the government gives them preferential treatment.

"It is very expensive to pump diesel here. There is still water, but they have to sink more wells," said Guillermo Andres, a Mennonite who arrived in El Sabinal as a teenager. His devout family eschews the use of electricity and pumps well water using diesel fuel, an increasingly costly practice.

The Mennonites' native language is typically Plautdietsch, a unique blend of Low German, Prussian dialects and Dutch. Many Mennonites, especially men who interact with local laborers, also speak Spanish.

From schools to general stores, almost everything the Mennonites need they have built for themselves within the confines of their own communities.

Mennonites generally finish school by the age of 12. Boys and girls sit separately in classrooms, just as men and women do in church pews on Sundays.

It is not uncommon to see a child younger than 10 operating a tractor or driving a horse-drawn buggy on the white, dusty roads within the community.

These blue-eyed, blond-haired people marry young and focus on expanding their families. Many farmers said they had more than 10 children.

In this way, they practice their religion through their everyday life. Men tend to the fields while women maintain the gardens at home and care for the children.

The Mennonites' interaction with the outside world is mostly restricted to their relationships with local people who work for them as laborers in the community or to trips into town to buy goods.

"The traditions are living quietly in a neighborhood without trucks, without rubber tires, without electricity," Andres said. "Our traditions come from Russia, from Russia to Canada and from Canada to Mexico.

"I don't know about it (technology); that's how I was born and that's how I've been all my life; that's how I like to continue," he added.

(Reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez in Chihuahua and Cassandra Garrison in Mexico City; editing by Jonathan Oatis)