EPA proposes protections for Alaska's salmon-rich Bristol Bay


The EPA announces new proposals to protect Alaska's salmon-rich Bristol Bay. 

Photo courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

May 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced plans Wednesday to protect Alaska's salmon-rich Bristol Bay with a move that would block construction of Pebble Mine.

The EPA's proposed ban, under the Clean Water Act, would restrict the use of the Bristol Bay watershed as disposal sites for dredge associated with mining gold and copper at the Pebble Deposit. The EPA will take comments on the proposal at public hearings next month.

Bristol Bay's rivers, streams and wetlands support the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery, along with Alaska Native communities. Its salmon resources generate 15,000 jobs and were estimated to be worth more than $2.2 billion in 2019.

"Where that mine is is the spawning beds of the greatest salmon-producing rivers in the world," Curyung tribal chief Tom Tilden said earlier this month at the U.S. Capitol.

RELATED EPA to restore protections for Alaska's Bristol Bay

Pebble Limited Partnership has lobbied for years to build the open-pit gold and copper mine, claiming it would enrich the region with high-paying jobs. The company also argued its state-of-the-art mine design would have no significant effect on Bristol Bay's fish run.

"Two decades of scientific study show us that mining the Pebble Deposit would cause permanent damage to an ecosystem that supports a renewable economic powerhouse and has sustained fishing cultures since time immemorial," said Casey Sixkiller, Regional Administrator for EPA Region 10. "Clearly, Bristol Bay and the thousands of people who rely on it deserve protection."

The Obama administration initially blocked the Pebble Mine project in 2014. Trump administration officials reversed the decision after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined the operation would have "no measurable effect" on fish populations. EPA reversed the mine decision again last September.

EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said Pebble Limited Partnership's Mine Plan would destroy 8.5 miles of streams, resulting in fish displacement, injury and death.

"EPA is committed to following the science, the law and a transparent public process to determine what is needed to ensure that this irreplaceable and invaluable resource is protected for current and future generations."

Lidar study reveals much more dense early urban Amazon settlements


Rio Branco in the Amazon rainforest of Roraima state, Brazil. 

May 25 (UPI) -- Evidence of early urbanism has been found in the Amazon through the first-time use of Light Detection and Ranging technology. The lidar study found evidence of much more dense urban settlements than were previously thought to exist.

According to research from the University of Bonn, lidar revealed remarkably large sites where urban settlements once existed.

The new study mapped a total of 200 square kilometers of the Casarabe cultural area in the Mojos Plains, a southwestern fringe of the Amazon region.

The Casarabe cultural area dates to the period between 500 and 1400 AD.

Excavations done there more than 20 years ago found two mounds and many visible traces of settlements in the time before Spanish colonization in the 16th century.

Conventional archeological surveys uncovered a terraced core area, canals and a ditch-wall enclosing the site. But deeper structural details were not revealed until now with the lidar tool.

"So the entire region was densely settled, a pattern that overturns all previous ideas," says Carla James Betancourt, who is a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area "Present Pasts" at the University of Bonn.

The study's conclusion said that this work has "put to rest arguments that western Amazonia was sparsely populated in pre-Hispanic times."

Instead the lidar findings show that the inhabitants of the Casarabe cultural area created a new social and public landscape through monumentality.

"The scale, monumentality, labor involved in the construction of the civic-ceremonial architecture and water-management infrastructure, and the spatial extent of settlement dispersal compare favorably to Andean cultures and are of a scale far beyond the sophisticated, interconnected settlements of southern Amazonia, which lack monumental civic-ceremonial architecture," the study said.

RELATED Florida professor predicts Amazon rainforest collapse by 2064

The researchers on this study said the real archeological work in this region of the Amazon is just beginning. They said the goal now is to understand how these large regional centers functioned.

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY

Texas court resentences 2 death row prisoners to life

 Both on their claims of intellectual disability

Steven Butler was sentenced to death in 1988 for the shooting death of Velma Clemons during the robbery of a Houston-area dry cleaning store where she worked in 1986. Photo courtesy of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice

May 25 (UPI) -- A Texas appellate court on Wednesday resentenced two death row prisoners to life in prison, both on their claims of intellectual disability.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals resentenced Steven Anthony Butler, 60, and Juan Ramon Meza Segundo, 59, after previously denying both of their intellectual disability claims, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Butler, originally from Natchez, Miss., was sentenced to death in 1988 for the shooting death of Velma Clemons during the robbery of a Houston-area dry cleaning store where she worked in 1986.

Butler's lawyers argued he was intellectually disabled and that his execution would violate Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. They said he may not have been competent to stand trial since he blamed imaginary people for his crimes.

Segundo, meanwhile, was sentenced to death for the 1986 rape and murder of Vanessa Villa, an 11-year-old girl, at her home in Fort Worth. Her mother had left her home alone to run errands and the girl was found strangled to death in her bed.

DNA evidence linked Segundo to the crime in 2006, and prosecutors accused him of two other rapes and murders, The Texas Tribune reported.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted Segundo's scheduled execution in October 2018 based on his lawyers' questions about his intellectual disability. His IQ was tested to be 75, and his brother testified that he had fallen down the stairs as a baby and seemed to be "always in a daze."

I WOULD HOPE SO

Hyundai recalls 239,00 vehicles over exploding seat belts


Hyundai said it would contact owners of the recalled vehicles by July 15.

 File Photo by James Atoa/UPI | License Photo


May 25 (UPI) -- Hyundai has recalled some 239,000 vehicles over reports that seat belts may explode "abnormally" during a crash.

The Seoul-based automaker said the pyrotechnic-type seat belt pretensioners may deploy, sending metal fragments into the interior compartment of the vehicle, possibly injuring occupants.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said two people in the United States and one person in Singapore was injured by the seat belt problem.

The recall includes 2019-22 Hyundai Accents, 2021-23 Hyundai Elantras and 2021-22 Hyundai Elantra HEVs. The company said owners of the vehicle will be notified by mail to bring their vehicles to a Hyundai dealer to have repairs made at no cost.

The repair consists of attaching a cap to the seat belts' pretensioners, which tighten the seat belts into place in the event of a crash.

Berlin museum returns artifacts to Namibia

More than 20 looted objects from Namibia — including jewelry, tools, fashion and dolls — are being sent back to the country. The loan is the latest move by Germany to address its colonial past.


The artifacts include an ancient three-headed drinking vessel, a doll wearing traditional dress and various spears, hair pieces and other fashion accessories

Twenty-three museum pieces were loaned back to Namibia on Friday from Germany as part of a commitment by Berlin to repair ties with its former African colony.

The loan is the latest in a series of moves by Germany toward making up for its colonial-era past.

Artifacts not expected to return

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), which runs the Berlin museum, did not say why the objects were not simply repatriated to Namibia, rather than put on long-term loan.

Local media reported that the SPK does not expect the objects to be returned to Germany.

The items, including an ancient three-headed drinking vessel, a doll wearing a traditional dress and various spears, hairpieces and other fashion accessories, were sent from the Ethnological Museum in Berlin to the National Museum of Namibia.

They were picked by a panel of experts in Namibia for their particular historical, cultural and aesthetic significance and will be made available to local artists and academics for research.

The repatriation and research project costs almost €300,000 ($322,000), most of which will be used in Namibia, according to a news release from the SPK.

Watch video 07:22 Germany's colonial chapter and its effects on the present

"Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures" is funded by Germany's Gerda Henkel Foundation. The first phase saw the National Museum of Namibia renovated and a restorer and a museologist hired.

A new Museum of Namibian Fashion in Otjiwarongo is due to open on June 1. Both projects cost €400,000.

Berlin's Ethnological Museum said it has been working with counterparts in Namibia for three years to discuss the future of the hundreds of objects from the southern African country that remain in its collections.
Germany confronts colonial past

Last year, Berlin officially recognized that it committed genocide in Namibia, then known as German South West Africa.

German colonial settlers killed tens of thousands of indigenous Herero and Nama people in the 1904-1908 massacres — labeled by historians as the first genocide of the 20th century.

The atrocities have poisoned relations between Namibia and Germany for decades.

Over the last years, Germany has returned skulls and other human remains to Namibia that it had sent to Berlin during the period for "scientific" experiments.

The Ethnological Museum also reached an agreement last year to begin returning its collection of Benin Bronzes, ancient sculptures from the Kingdom of Benin, to Nigeria.

Watch video 26:01 Africa's stolen treasures: Time to give them back?

The 16th to 18th century objects are now scattered around European museums after being looted by the British at the end of the 19th century.

Cultural officials welcome return of artifacts

This is a step towards reassessing "the long, complex history that Namibia and Germans have", Esther Moombolah, director of the National Museum of Namibia, told journalists in Berlin.

"We urge all future partners to follow suit like this institution," she said, stressing that Namibians should not "have to get on a plane to see our cultural treasures which are kept in boxes in foreign institutions."

South African museum expert Ciraj Rassool also welcomed the return in an interview with the Catholic News Agency (KNA).

"This is the beginning of a new phase and hopefully these repatriations will manage to further intensify the restitution issue," the historian said.

Rassool denied the loan, rather than permanent return, amounted to "gift-giving" by Europeans, but is about Africans laying claim to the objects. "Ultimately, it's a project that has restitution at the end of it," he said.

mm/rc (AFP, KNA)

Discrimination against Roma 'is an echo from back then'

Mehmet Daimagüler is Germany's first commissioner for combating discrimination against Sinti and Roma. He says ending such discrimination is a task for all Germans.


Daimagüler is leading Germany's efforts to combat discrimination against Sinti and Roma

The German lawyer Mehmet Daimagüler has long examined the historical legacies of racism and discrimination in Germany and their influence on present state institutions. Born to Turkish parents in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1968, Daimagüler has been dealing with racism for decades. He was a victims advocate during the trial of members of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi terror group that killed at least 10 people, almost all of them targeted for their perceived foreign roots.

In May, Daimagüler became Germany's first commissioner on antiziganism, or discrimination against Sinti and Roma. He told DW that many of the issues he plans to tackle are a result of Germans' failure to come to terms with their country's history, specifically the Holocaust.

Sinti and Roma flags fly on April 8, the unofficial day of commemoration of Nazi genocide of the Roma and Sinti people

"What was suppressed was that the perpetrators were not just Nazis," Daimagüler said. "They were also Germans. Our grandparents had their grandparents murdered — or murdered them themselves. That's why, even after 1945, everything was done so that the perpetrators from that time remained clean. That's why the dead were criminalized. And that narrative, about the inherent criminality of Sinti and Roma people, is an echo from back then."

The stereotype still informs the work of police, prosecutors and judges, Daimagüler said. It is his job to change the mindset of the next generation of officials through recruitment and the teaching, training and professional development of civil servants.
Better education for authorities

Sinti and Roma who have had negative experiences with the police are often less likely to report crimes committed against them. "Many of them have little trust in the police or the public prosecutor — and justifiably so," Daimagüler said. "And it's exactly these invisible cases that politics should, and must, pay more attention to."

"Police officers must regularly attend shooting training, but they should also regularly attend training in human rights," Daimagüler said, calling for Sinti and Roma to be included in the development of the curriculum. "People from the community should be involved in this as an important resource and as equal partners."

A picture on display at Auschwitz showing Roma children in Slovakia before World War II

A new center known as the MIA will permit victims to make complaints without having to go to a police station. "The MIA is going to be an important tool for recording how many such cases there actually are," Daimagüler said. "And this won't just be about criminal cases that could be prosecuted in a court, but also related assaults."

An oft-used racist narrative about "clan criminality" — or perceived mafia-style groups said to be run by gangsters of Arabic or Turkish descent — in Germany also applies to media representations of Sinti and Roma people, Daimagüler said. He said sensationalist media attempted to increase their readership through so-called investigative articles intended to stoke fear and outrage.

"They take frightening crimes committed by individuals and use them to draw conclusions about the behavior of an entire community," Daimagüler said. The reports "like to claim that the cause of such criminal behavior must be cultural and an alleged inability to accept rules."

The Berlin Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism

Such articles demonstrate "a fundamental lack of respect for the craft of journalism" and "irresponsible sensationalism just for the sake of ratings," Daimagüler said. He added that Roma who arrive to Germany as refugees are frequently treated with even more suspicion.

"In general, Roma — especially those from the Balkans, some of whom have been here for decades with uncertain residency status — should be categorized as worthy of protection," Daimagüler said. "It's not safe for Roma there. It's immoral and indecent to send these people back to the danger that awaits them there. At the moment, Roma people who are fleeing Ukraine are being selected at train stations — I am using that word deliberately — and being treated worse than other people."
Decadeslong discrimination

Daimagüler's new role will be heavily informed by an 800-page report issued by an independent expert commission on discrimination against Sinti and Roma that was ordered by the German government. The report documents the continuing injustices against Sinti and Roma people and explains how they have been excluded from the education system and many professions long after Germany's Nazi era ended.

Romani Rose (left), the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, discusses a landmark report on discrimination

The report found that more than half of the incidents of discrimination that Sinti and Roma deal with happen during interactions with public authorities and state institutions. Daimagüler said dialogue with, and feedback and criticism from, Sinti and Roma would be the basis of his work. If he has his way, it will be community members themselves who guide transformation.

Daimagüler is conscious of the fact that he is not Sinti or Roma. He said his job was not to represent Sinti and Roma, but to provide the structure that ensures that the community has a say in political decision-making.

"I know I have to earn the community's trust," Daimagüler said. "The structural inclusion of Sinti and Roma in advisory bodies — and a substantive exchange with organizations and representatives — is enormously important to me and for the quality of our work."

In the end, it will be about the German state and society taking responsibility and ending discrimination against Sinti and Roma — and ensuring that the community is not isolated when combating racism. "Antiziganism is a problem for those who are impacted, but, above all, it's a problem for our society," Daimagüler said, "because antiziganism betrays our own values."

This story was originally written in German.

Watch video02:11 Anxiety over Berlin memorial to murdered Sinti and Roma

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Sri Lanka: Police and protesters clash again as Russian oil docks

Sri Lankan authorities used tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters on their 50th day demanding the president's resignation. Meanwhile, a Russian oil shipment docked in the cash-strapped country's capital.

Fuel has been in short supply for weeks, with huge queues near filling stations

Thousands of Sri Lankans took to the streets of the capital on Saturday on their 50th day of demonstrations demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa step down.

Police used tear gas and water cannon as the protesters tried to approach the president's office. They broke up the rally and briefly detained three people before releasing them.

Sri Lanka is nearly bankrupt, has defaulted on its foreign loans, and is battling acute shortages of goods like cooking gas, fuel and medicines.

People have been waiting for hours in line for gasoline, kerosene and other core products. Lengthy daily power blackouts have also become commonplace.

President Rajapaksa has tried on several occasions to quell more than a month of protests accompanying the economic turmoil.

He has even dismissed a series of his close relatives from core political positions, including but not limited to his brothers, who until recently were his prime minister and finance minister. However, he has so far sought to stop short of stepping down himself.

Russian oil docks after long wait

The country's foreign currency reserves have also dwindled to such low levels that it can only import materials for a short period, roughly two weeks.

A Russian shipment of oil, ordered via a consortium, had been waiting offshore off the capital Colombo's port for over a month because the country was unable to raise the $75 million (roughly €70 million) to pay for it, Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekerra said. The oil finally docked on Saturday, according to Wijesekerra.

Despite US and Western sanctions, Sri Lanka is also trying to arrange crude, coal, diesel and gasoline/petroleum deliveries directly from Russia.

"I have made an official request to the Russian ambassador for direct supplies of Russian oil," Wijesekerra said. "Crude alone will not fulfill our requirement, we need other refined [petroleum] products as well."
Sri Lanka's only oil refinery ceases to operate

The country's only oil refinery stopped operating in late March, with Sri Lanka no longer able to import crude oil. Fuel prices were raised drastically earlier this week, and rationing is still in effect for purchasers.

Sri Lanka's Ceylon Petroleum Company is in arrears of more than $735 million to suppliers, and Wijesekerra said that no one came forward to even bid for the country's oil tenders.

While the Siberian grade crude was not an ideal match for the country's refinery, which is optimized for Iranian light crude, Wijesekerra said no other supplier was willing to extend credit. Colombo would nevertheless call for fresh supply tenders in two weeks, he said.

msh/wd (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Japan's Ukraine refugee policy criticized for putting politics over human rights

Japan has quickly opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees, but the country has a long history of denying entry to people seeking safety from conflicts. Human rights activists hope that will now change.

Ukrainian evacuees wear kimono as part of a Japanese culture training day in Fukuoka City


The Japanese government has been quick to publicize its acceptance of more than 1,000 refugees from war-torn Ukraine.

But critics point out that Japanese immigration authorities have been far less willing to open the nation's doors to people fleeing violence and persecution in developing states much closer to Japan.

Human rights groups say those double standards need to end and that Japan needs to live up to its international obligations on extending assistance to refugees from other war zones.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, nearly 6.6 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland since the Russian invasion began on February 24.

More than 3.5 million have crossed the border into Poland, while others have found sanctuary in other neighboring countries, including Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.

Six days after the invasion, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that Japan would take in evacuees from Poland to help ease the pressures on Warsaw. Flights carrying refugees — mostly women with children — have been arriving in Japan since late March.
Settling into Japan

Japan is granting new arrivals from Ukraine 90-day visas and the opportunity to switch to a visa for a year once they find employment.

Support services are also being provided, including information on jobs, accommodation, language classes, schools for children and websites where they are able to obtain clothing, furniture and home appliances.

Evacuees are also eligible for a one-off payment of €1,200 ($1,300) per person and a daily living expense of over €17.

"We believe this is a good approach and we support the government's actions," said Daisuke Sugimoto, secretary-general of the Tokyo-based Japan Lawyers Network for Refugees.

"We are seeing that Ukrainians are being welcomed into communities across Japan and people here are doing everything they can to help them," he told DW.

"It is just unfortunate that the Japanese government has not done the same for asylum-seekers and refugees from other countries, people who are trying to get away from civil war or conflict in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria and other places."
'A political decision'

Sugimoto said granting access to Ukrainians is a "political decision linked to Japan's foreign policy on Ukraine, rather than a decision based on humanitarian considerations and needs."

In 2021, Japan recognized 74 displaced persons from around the world as refugees, Sugimoto said.

Refugee support groups in Japan say the requirements for a person to be granted refugee status are difficult to meet, particularly that to present documents proving persecution in their homeland as well as written testimony from witnesses.

As a result, most asylum-seekers are treated as economic migrants and held in detention centers until they can be deported, a process that can take several years as applicants file appeals against the government's decision.

Sugimoto said life can be "very difficult" for refugees in Japan, even those who are permitted to leave detention centers — pending a ruling in their case — as they are not permitted to work.

The Ministry of Justice, which oversees Japan's immigration policy, declined to comment on the regulations surrounding refugees.

Eri Ishikawa, chair of the Japan Association for Refugees, said the Japanese government too often fails to see refugees and asylum-seekers as people who have been the target of torture or abuse or as individuals whose lives are in danger, preferring instead to see them as a group "that needs to be controlled."

"It is a policy of immigration control rather than finding ways to help these people, and that is very different to other countries," she said, adding that Japan does not have legal provisions that expressly outlaw xenophobia or racial discrimination, which makes it difficult for human rights groups to push for better treatment of foreign refugees.


Changing attitudes

Ishikawa said she feels encouraged, however, by the way in which ordinary Japanese people have gone out of their way to help Ukrainians settle into their new lives.

She hopes that now Japanese civil society has witnessed, through extensive media coverage, what the refugees have endured, they might be more open to the survivors of other conflicts coming to Japan.

"A lot of Japanese have now seen what has happened in Ukraine … so they really understand the plight of these people," she said.

She added that research has indicated that a majority of people in Japan are now in favor of more Ukrainians being permitted to enter the country.

"It is up to organizations such as ours to explain to Japanese people that many more people are living in situations that are just as dangerous in other parts of the world and that more must be done to help them," she said.

"What is happening in many places is heartbreaking, but I’m hopeful that what has happened in Ukraine can help to change attitudes among ordinary Japanese towards refugees," she added.

Edited by: Sou-Jie van Brunnersum

THE LAST BIRD YOU WANT EXTINCT
Many SC vultures found dead with bird flu, health officials warn. Here’s what we know


Tracy Glantz/tglantz@thestate.com


Patrick McCreless
Fri, May 27, 2022, 11:01 AM·1 min read


A mass die-off of wild vultures, some of which tested positive for avian influenza, was recently found in Charleston County.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control is urging the public to make sure their pets and domestic animals avoid contact with dead or sick vultures, other birds and wild animals. DHEC also recommends that residents avoid areas where dead birds have been found.

While the risk of bird flu transmission to people or pets and tame animals is thought to be low, the risk is also not well known and is best avoided by not having contact with dead birds, the DHEC states. The virus causing the bird flu can be spread through feathers and fecal material or areas and items contaminated by infected birds.

Handling dead birds without recommended protective measures increases the risk of transmission. DHEC says the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources will continue monitoring and surveillance and encourages members of the public to report unusual bird mortality events.

If you come into contact with a dead vulture or other dead bird in the area, please seek medical attention if you become ill with symptoms of fevers, cough, fatigue, body aches, etc., and report your potential exposure to your health care provider and local health department. DHEC recommends monitoring for symptoms for 10 days after the last exposure to a bird with avian flu.

Deadly nose-bleed fever shocks Iraq as cases surge

Spraying  with pesticides, health workers target blood-sucking ticks at the heart of Iraq's worst detected outbreak of a fever that causes people to bleed to death.

A health worker in Dhi Qar province holds a vial containing ticks that cause Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic illness (AFP/Asaad NIAZI)

Asaad NIAZI with Qassem al-KAABI in Najaf
Sat, May 28, 2022,

Spraying a cow with pesticides, health workers target blood-sucking ticks at the heart of Iraq's worst detected outbreak of a fever that causes people to bleed to death.

The sight of the health workers, dressed in full protective kit, is one that has become common in the Iraqi countryside, as the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever spreads, jumping from animals to humans.

This year Iraq has recorded 19 deaths among 111 CCHF cases in humans, according to the Word Health Organization.

The virus has no vaccine and onset can be swift, causing severe bleeding both internally and externally and especially from the nose. It causes death in as many as two-fifths of cases, according to medics.


"The number of cases recorded is unprecedented," said Haidar Hantouche, a health official in Dhi Qar province.

A poor farming region in southern Iraq, the province accounts for nearly half of Iraq's cases.

In previous years, cases could be counted "on the fingers of one hand", he added.

Transmitted by ticks, hosts of the virus include both wild and farmed animals such as buffalo, cattle, goats and sheep, all of which are common in Dhi Qar.

- Tick bites -

In the village of Al-Bujari, a team disinfects animals in a stable next to a house where a woman was infected. Wearing masks, goggles and overalls, the workers spray a cow and her two calves with pesticides.

A worker displays ticks that have fallen from the cow and been gathered into a container.

"Animals become infected by the bite of infected ticks," according to the World Health Organization.

"The CCHF virus is transmitted to people either by tick bites or through contact with infected animal blood or tissues during and immediately after slaughter," it adds.

The surge of cases this year has shocked officials, since numbers far exceed recorded cases in the 43 years since the virus was first documented in Iraq in 1979.

In his province, only 16 cases resulting in seven deaths had been recorded in 2021, Hantouche said. But this year Dhi Qar has recorded 43 cases, including eight deaths.

The numbers are still tiny compared with the Covid-19 pandemic -- where Iraq has registered over 25,200 deaths and 2.3 million recorded cases, according to WHO figures -- but health workers are worried.

Endemic in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans, CCHF's fatality rate is between 10 and 40 percent, the WHO says.

The WHO's representative in Iraq, Ahmed Zouiten, said there were several "hypotheses" for the country's outbreak.

They included the spread of ticks in the absence of livestock spraying campaigns during Covid in 2020 and 2021.

And "very cautiously, we attribute part of this outbreak to global warming, which has lengthened the period of multiplication of ticks," he said.

But "mortality seems to be declining", he added, as Iraq had mounted a spraying campaign while new hospital treatments had shown "good results".

- Slaughterhouses under scrutiny -

Since the virus is "primarily transmitted" to people via ticks on livestock, most cases are among farmers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians, the WHO says.

"Human-to-human transmission can occur resulting from close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons," it adds.

Alongside uncontrolled bleeding, the virus causes intense fever and vomiting.

Medics fear there may be an explosion of cases following the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in July, when families traditionally slaughter an animal to feed guests.

"With the increase in the slaughter of animals, and more contact with meat, there are fears of an increase in cases during Eid," said Azhar al-Assadi, a doctor specialising in haematological diseases in a hospital in Nasiriya.

Most of those infected were "around 33 years old", he said, although their age ranges from 12 to 75.

Authorities have put in place disinfection campaigns and are cracking down on abattoirs that do not follow hygiene protocols. Several provinces have also banned livestock movement across their borders.

Near Najaf, a city in the south, slaughterhouses are monitored by the authorities.

The virus has adversely hit meat consumption, according to workers and officials there.

"I used to slaughter 15 or 16 animals a day -- now it is more like seven or eight," said butcher Hamid Mohsen.

Fares Mansour, director of Najaf Veterinary Hospital, which oversees the abattoirs, meanwhile noted that the number of cattle arriving for slaughter had fallen to around half normal levels.

"People are afraid of red meat and think it can transmit infection," he said.

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