‘Most feared disease’: Indonesian farmers’ foot and mouth misery

Southeast Asian nation is grappling with its first outbreak of foot and mouth disease in nearly 40 years.

[File: Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters]

By Aisyah Llewellyn
Published On 12 Jul 2022

Medan, Indonesia – When dairy farmer Bagoes Cahyo noticed saliva pouring from the mouths of his cows, his heart sank.

Cahyo immediately suspected that his 70-strong herd of Friesian Holstein milkers were the latest victims of a vicious outbreak of foot and mouth disease that has swept Indonesia since May.

Within days, lesions and sores appeared around the cows’ mouths and noses. By the end of the week, all 70 of his herd were sick.

“When they got sick, their milk production drastically declined to about 10 percent,” Cahyo, who is based in the city of Malang, East Java, told Al Jazeera.

Stricken by illness, the cows struggled to eat, Cahyo said, drastically affecting their usual milk supply of 15 litres (4 gallons) per animal per day.

Even if their milk had been plentiful, Cahyo would not have been able to sell it, as his cows had to be put on antibiotics to aid their recovery.

Indonesia is currently in the grip of its first major outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in nearly 40 years. The Southeast Asian country successfully eradicated the virus behind the disease in 1986 and was declared FMD-free by the World Organisation for Animal Health in 1990. The disease affects hoofed animals such as cows, sheep, goats, pigs and deer, and is highly contagious.

Since May, more than 300,000 cases have been recorded across 21 provinces, prompting the Indonesian government to roll out a vaccine programme aimed at inoculating healthy cattle against the disease.

“This is the most feared disease in the world for the livestock industry,” Deddy Kurniawan, the head of the East Java II Indonesian Veterinary Association, told Al Jazeera. “No other virus is so horrific both economically and socially.”

Kurniawan said one of the reasons the virus is so ferocious is that it spreads quickly, causing symptoms within two to four days of infection, and can be passed easily in saliva, droplets, faeces, and milk and meat products.

“The viral shedding of the virus is so high that it is very difficult to avoid transmission unless you have really tight biosecurity measures in place,” he said.

Deddy Kurniawan says foot and mouth disease is a huge worry for Indonesia’s livestock industry [File: Aisyah Llewellyn]

As a result, the spectre of the virus stalks Joko Iriantono and his herd of 7,000 cows in Lampung on the island of Sumatra – although he has been able to avoid it until now.

Iriantono imports 2-year-old Brahman Cross cows from Australia every month and fattens them for 120 days on his farm before selling them for their meat.

Iriantono said there is a 6 percent increase year on year for beef in Indonesia due to a rising middle class “who want to eat steak”.

If a foot and mouth outbreak were to rip through the herd, Iriantono’s business would be devastated, so he has had to pay out of pocket to put in place strict measures to keep the disease at bay.

“We paid ourselves to get the cows vaccinated privately,” Iriantono told Al Jazeera, “and we have beefed up our biosecurity measures.”

These include ensuring that all vehicles and personnel on the farm are sprayed with disinfectant before they enter, and making staff change their clothes and shoes before they interact with the livestock.

According to Iriantono, the outbreak could have been better contained if widespread culling had taken place as soon as the first cases were announced in Java and Aceh back in May.

Culling livestock, known as “stamping out,” is widely thought to be the best way to eradicate FMD outbreaks quickly. The Indonesian government opted against widespread culling due to concerns about insufficient funds to compensate farmers for lost livestock.

As a result, only about 3,000 animals have been culled in some parts of Indonesia such as Bali, with many provinces focusing on vaccination and other measures such as antibiotic treatment.

It is not clear how the virus took hold.

Indonesia imports about 1.2 million cows capable of producing 300,000 tonnes of meat per year, Iriantono said, as domestic supply is not enough to meet demand.

Government regulations mean that farmers are only allowed to import livestock from countries that are free from FMD such as Australia and New Zealand.

Tim Harcourt, chief economist at the University of Technology in Sydney, said neighbouring Australia has so far escaped the same fate as Indonesia.

“Fortunately Australia has been able to contain the outbreak with world-class quarantine standards,” Harcourt told Al Jazeera. “Australian exports are clean and green so they’ll be boosted [as a result of the outbreak], but Indonesia imports will be adversely affected.”

The outbreak also comes at an inopportune moment, following the Eid al-Adha holiday on July 9-10. Known as the “Festival of Sacrifice,” the holiday sees cows, goats and sheep slaughtered across the country and the meat distributed to the poor or cooked at home.

Livestock sellers reported losses as farmers were forced to cull their herds, or couldn’t sell animals that were ill. Some said that customers were hesitant to buy animals for fear of the disease.

Joko Iriantono is worried about his herd of 7,000 cows in Lampung on the island of Sumatra [Courtesy of Aisyah Llewellyn

Kurniawan, however, said that the wider problem is that exports of animal products have been halted while the outbreak continues, which could affect the whole agriculture industry if countries refuse to import more and more products for fear they may be contaminated.

Kurniawan said that he has heard anecdotally of farmers having trouble exporting other non-livestock products, such as wood, following the outbreak.

“The disease can potentially be spread by agricultural products, workers, machinery and transportation, all of which could affect exports, so the impact of this virus could be extremely widespread,” he said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Outrage as Biden Reportedly Considers Lifting Ban on ‘Offensive’ Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia

"Saudi Arabia and the UAE are fabulously wealthy oil states and do not need any aid," noted one progressive. "U.S. weapons transfers are intended to throw our money to American arms corporations."

by Brett Wilkins Posted onJuly 12, 2022

As President Joe Biden prepares to visit Saudi Arabia this week, peace and human rights campaigners on Monday decried a report that his administration is considering lifting its amorphous ban on the sale of “offensive” US weaponry to the repressive monarchy.

According to Reuters, the US administration has come under pressure from Saudi officials to end its policy of selling only defensive arms to the kingdom, which Biden is scheduled to visit later this week as part of a wider Middle East tour with stops in Israel and the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine.

“Biden is headed to Israel and Saudi Arabia this week, where he will sing the praises of an apartheid government and a council of oil dictators,” tweeted Sunjeev Bery, executive director of Freedom Forward, which seeks to end US support for dictatorships.

“And now, Biden is considering resuming offensive weapon sales to one of the most brutal dictators on the planet: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince MBS,” he added, a reference to de facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman.

Jasmine Krotkov, a Democratic candidate for the Montana House of Representatives, tweeted that “Saudi Arabia and the UAE are fabulously wealthy oil states and do not need any aid from the US”

“US weapons transfers are intended to throw our money to American arms corporations,” she added.

People familiar with the matter told Reuters that any final decision on a Biden administration arms policy shift depends upon whether the Saudis make progress toward ending the war in neighboring Yemen:

The internal US deliberations are informal and at an early stage, with no decision imminent, two sources said, and a US official told Reuters there were no discussions on offensive weapons under way with the Saudis “at this time.”

But as Biden prepares for a diplomatically sensitive trip, he has signaled that he is looking to reset strained relations with Saudi Arabia at a time when he wants increased Gulf oil supplies along with closer Arab security ties with Israel to counter Iran.

A week after taking office in January 2021, Biden – who while campaigning for president vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” – temporarily froze arms sales to the kingdom and the United Arab Emirates pending a review of weapons deals with repressive regimes approved during the presidency of Donald Trump. The following month, the president announced his administration would end US support for “offensive operations” in the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

However, Biden was accused of breaking his promise following his administration’s approval of a $500 million maintenance and support services contract for Saudi military helicopters and a $650 million air-to-air missile sale to the Royal Saudi Air Force, whose airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians.

As Juan Cole notes at Informed Comment:

Since Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and their allies launched a war on Yemen in 2015, some quarter of a million people have been killed (most by disease and hunger caused by the war), and half the population has been made food insecure. Of those killed in air strikes, about 17,000 are known to have been civilian non-combatants, according to the U.N.

In late January of this year alone, Saudi and UAE fighter-jets, supplied by the US, hit three primarily civilian sites, including a hospital and a Houthi a telecommunications corporation. The strikes killed 80 civilians and caused 156 injuries. And that was just one two-week period.

Last month, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report acknowledging difficulties in determining whether Saudi forces are using U.S.-supplied weapons in a “defensive” manner.

Jason Bair, GAO’s director of international affairs and trade, told the Washington Post that while US State Department officials “told us that they attempt to distinguish between ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ weapons, they have no specific definitions of ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive.'”

“Without clear definitions of ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ weapons, it can be difficult for the State Department to implement the president’s wishes” to end offensive arms sales, Bair noted, adding that “State’s assessment is based on the intended use of the weapons, which may or may not match the actual use.”

Biden is defending his renewed engagement with the Saudis.

In an opinion piece published Saturday in the Washington Post, the president acknowledged that “there are many who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia” before explaining why he is seeking closer engagement with one of the most repressive governments on the planet and the perpetrator of what has been widely called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

“As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure. We have to counter Russia’s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to out-compete China, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world,” Biden wrote.

“To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes,” he explained. “Saudi Arabia is one of them, and when I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that’s based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values.”

Since the end of World War II, the United States has supported most right-wing dictatorships around the world in service of US government and business interests.

Biden’s op-ed points to US sanctions imposed on members of the elite Saudi “Tiger Squad” involved in the grisly October 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as visa bans targeting scores of Saudis “involved in harassing dissidents.”

However, the piece does not mention bin Salman, who according to American intelligence agencies ordered the murder of Khashoggi – a legal US resident – with no punitive action by the Biden administration. Nor does it mention Saudi Arabia’s abysmal human rights record or alleged involvement in the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the United States.

Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace. This originally appeared at CommonDreams and is reprinted with the author’s permission.

 UN to monitor Russia-Ukraine war for violations against children

11 Jul, 2022 
By Edith M. Lederer

The United Nations announced it will start monitoring the war in Ukraine and conflicts in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Africa's central Sahel region for violations against children – including killings, injuries, recruitment, rape and other forms of sexual violence.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his annual report to the Security Council on children and armed conflict that those four new conflicts have been added to 21 conflicts that the UN already is monitoring for violations of the rights of children. He said the latter conflicts saw "a high number of grave violations" in 2021.

The UN chief said the protection of children was severely affected by escalating conflicts, the multiplication of armed groups, land mines and improvised explosive devices, explosive weapons in populated areas, intensified humanitarian crises, and violations of humanitarian and human rights law.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Photo / AP

Virginia Gamba, the UN special envoy for children and armed conflict, said at a news conference that "forays of extremely violent armed groups, military coups and instability, and violent electoral processes in fragile states, left 19,100 child victims of grave violations during 2021 in the 21 country and regional situations we monitored".

The UN said it verified nearly 24,000 "grave violations" against children in 2021, including more than 1300 committed previously.

The highest numbers of violations last year were the 2515 killings and 5555 injuries involving children, followed by the recruitment and use of 6310 youngsters in conflicts, the report said.

Last year, it said, the number of child abductions rose by over 20 per cent and cases of sexual violence against children continued to rise, also by over 20 per cent.

The highest number of "grave violations" verified by the UN were in Afghanistan, Congo, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, it said.

The basement of a Ukrainian school was used as a bomb shelter for children and their parents, as their village was bombarded by Russian strikes. Photo / AP

While 70 per cent of grave violations were against boys, that number decreased and "the number of girls who were casualties of killing and maiming, or subjected to abduction and sexual violence, increased, particularly in the Lake Chad Basin", the report said.

Guterres said in the report that Ukraine was being added to the monitoring effort "because of the high intensity of this conflict" and in view of the violations against civilians, including children. He asked Gamba to urgently engage with all parties to address the protection of children and prevention of violations against them.
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He said Mozambique was being added because of "the gravity and number of violations reported", including recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence, attacks on schools and abductions.

The UN chief said Ethiopia was being added in view of "the gravity of clashes in 2021" between government forces and police, the Tigray People's Liberation Front and other parties including militias and regional forces. He cited violence against children including killings, rapes, sexual attacks, abductions and attacks on schools.

Gamba said the central Sahel region covering parts of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger was being added to the monitoring and reporting list for grave violations against children.

Human Rights Watch and the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a coalition of non-governmental groups, both criticised Guterres for failing to provide any significant information on violations against children in Ukraine, Ethiopia and Mozambique.

Human Rights Watch's Jo Becker also criticised the secretary-general for failing to include any perpetrators in the armed conflicts in the three countries on the UN blacklist of those committing grave violations against children. The Watchlist's director, Adrianne Lapar, said Guterres squandered "an opportunity to shed light on abuses and hold parties accountable".

Both organisations also strongly criticised the UN chief for omitting Israel from the "list of shame" for the deaths of 78 Palestinian children and injuries to 982 in 2021.

In the report, Guterres said that if the high numbers of violations by Israel in 2021 are repeated in 2022, it should be added to the list. He also said if a significant increase in the number of cases of violence against Israeli children last year is repeated this year that Palestinian armed groups including Hamas' al-Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad's al-Quds Brigades should be listed.

Becker called the failure to list Israel "another missed opportunity for accountability", saying "other armed forces or groups have been listed for far fewer violations". Lapar said "year after year Israeli government forces have gotten away with committing serious crimes against children, with virtual impunity" and "the secretary-general needs to hold the Israeli Government to the same standard as any other warring party".

The UN sanctions blacklist in the report's annex adds some new armed groups, including the dissident Colombian group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army for recruiting and using children and Burkina Faso's militant group Jama Nusrat Ul-Islam wa Al-Muslimin for grave violations.

Online Learning Products Enabled Surveillance of Children

48 Governments Recommended Unsafe Products During Pandemic, Evidence Shows


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© Andrea Devia Nuño, Hero Studios

(New York) – The overwhelming majority of education technology (EdTech) products endorsed by 49 governments of the world’s most populous countries and analyzed by Human Rights Watch appear to have surveilled or had the capacity to surveil children in ways that risked or infringed on their rights, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch released technical evidence and easy-to-view privacy profiles for 163 EdTech products recommended for children’s learning during the pandemic.

Of the 163 products reviewed, 145 (89 percent) surveilled or had the capacity to surveil children, outside school hours, and deep into their private lives. Many products were found to harvest information about children such as who they are, where they are, what they do in the classroom, who their family and friends are, and what kind of device their families could afford for them to use for online learning. This evidence underpins the May 25, 2022 report, 

“‘How Dare They Peep into My Private Life?’: Children’s Rights Violations by Governments that Endorsed Online Learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

Students Not Products

We think our kids are safe in school online. But many of them are being surveilled, and parents have often been kept in the dark. Kids are priceless, not products.ACT NOW

“Children, parents, and teachers were largely kept in the dark about the data surveillance practices we uncovered in children’s online classrooms,” said Hye Jung Han, children’s rights and technology researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch. “By understanding how these online learning tools handled their child’s privacy, people can more effectively demand protection for children online.”

Few governments checked whether the EdTech products they rapidly endorsed during the Covid-19 pandemic were safe for children to use. Many governments put at risk or violated children’s rights directly. Of the 42 governments that provided online education to children by building and offering their own EdTech products for use, 39 governments made products that handled children’s personal data in ways that risked or infringed on their rights.

Human Rights Watch found that the data surveillance took place in educational settings where children could not reasonably object to such surveillance. Most companies did not allow students to decline to be tracked, and most of this monitoring happened secretly, without the child or their family’s knowledge or consent. In most instances, it was impossible for children to opt out of such surveillance without giving up on their formal education during the pandemic.

May 25, 2022

“How Dare They Peep into My Private Life?”

Children’s Rights Violations by Governments that Endorsed Online Learning During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Download the full report in English

The evidence includes easy-to-view privacy profiles, which are designed for parents, teachers, and others to help them understand how government-recommended EdTech products may have handled children’s data and their privacy at the time of analysis. Human Rights Watch invites experts, journalists, policymakers, and readers to test and engage with the data and technical evidence.

Human Rights Watch has initiated a global campaign, #StudentsNotProducts, which brings together parents, teachers, children, and allies to demand protections for children online.

“Children are priceless, not products,” Han said. “Governments should adopt and enforce modern child data protection laws to stop the surveillance of children by actors who don’t have children’s best interests at heart.”

A Greater Yellowstone National Park Proposal

BY GEORGE WUERTHNERFacebook

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Pilot Peak, Beartooth Range, Greater Yellowstone. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Yellowstone National Park was established 150 years ago in 1872. The park’s creation marked a significant departure from public land policies of the time. Instead of promoting settlement, mining, logging, ranching, or other development, the park was designated to protect natural features like thermal features.

Yellowstone was also set aside to protect all citizens’ public access, an act of democracy. In the post-Civil War era, where the country fought a fierce battle about civil rights for all citizens, Yellowstone was open to entry by all Americans. It was a significant step toward recognizing that all people had certain “inalienable rights,” including access to natural landscapes. In retrospect, Yellowstone also became a place where the “inalienable rights” of non-humans are considered and given protection.

In recognition of its significance to planetary heritage, Yellowstone is a designated World Heritage Site and International Biological Reserve. But whether these attributes will continue to function is questionable unless we recognize that Yellowstone’s boundaries are insufficient to preserve its ecological integrity into the future.

One of the lessons we have learned from studies around the globe is that parks and wildland reserves if appropriately funded, and large enough are the best conservation strategy for protecting biodiversity. We know from Island Biogeography principles that species residing on larger “islands” of habitat are less likely to suffer inbreeding or go extinct.

It may be time to consider expanding Yellowstone to incorporate much of the surrounding public land under one agency– the National Park Service.

From its inception, park advocates recognized the legislatively created boundaries to Yellowstone Park were inadequate to protect all the wildlife and other natural values.

In the 1880s, General Philip Sheridan advocated the expansion of Yellowstone to the east and south to protect migrating wildlife like elk and bison that, in winter, sought out lower elevation lands. Today we recognize that animal migrate from Yellowstone to other public and private lands outside of the park.

When he was president of the Boone and Crockett Club, the future President Teddy Roosevelt also championed the expansion of Yellowstone. These efforts led to the creation in 1891 of the Yellowstone Forest Reserve, the first forest reserve (forerunners of today’s national forests). In addition, other national forests were created to surround Yellowstone and provide protection from excessive resource exploitation and prohibitions against settlement.

Yellowstone Park (dark green) is the center of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. 

By the 1970s, it was apparent that as well-intended as the creation of national forests and other public land designations (like wildlife refuges) were towards protecting the natural values of the Yellowstone region, they were inadequate to the challenge of growing development pressures. Biologists Frank and John Craighead, studying grizzly bears in the park, noted that many bears wander beyond the protective borders of Yellowstone. They began to refer to the larger landscape as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Conservationist Rick Reese further developed this broader concept when he published a book with that title.

An analysis by myself and several colleagues identified the most threatened biological hot spots of the ecosystem– all of them were outside Yellowstone Park.

However well-intended the idea of a Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was in terms of getting people to think about more extensive conservation efforts, in reality, it has not changed the management of public lands outside of the park.

Wolves and other predators are regularly killed beyond Yellowstone’s borders. Bison are slaughtered by hunters when they wander from the park. Forests are roaded and logged for “forest health” or “fuel reduction. Increasing recreation, especially from mechanical vehicles from mountain bikes to more powerful snowmobiles, are shrinking the security areas for wildlife. Livestock on national forest and BLM lands outside the park are grazed in critical winter ranges, consume forage that would support native herbivores, and trample riparian areas. New mines are occasionally proposed that can threaten watersheds with pollution. Wildlife migration corridors are compromised by new subdivisions.

Conservationists are continuously fighting these resource extraction proposals and their impacts on the wildlife outside the park boundaries. Perhaps it’s time to consider expanding Yellowstone’s boundaries to terminate this endless rear guard action to preserve Greater Yellowstone’s ecological integrity.

With the Biden administration’s goal of protecting 30 percent of the American landscape by 2030, a positive vision and contribution to this goal would be to expand Yellowstone National Park to include much of what we call the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. In effect, we should have a Greater Yellowstone National Park.

While some bemoan that Yellowstone is being “loved to death” most of this criticism is based on social, not ecological views. Most of all human use is concentrated on 1% of the park landscape accessible to vehicles and occupied by lodges.

Sometimes you can’t find a parking space at Old Faithful, or you might be stuck in a bison jam for a long time. However, most of the park (about 99%) is essentially managed as wilderness, with limited human intrusions. There are few places in the United States with such large areas under such strict management.

In truth, Yellowstone is some of the best protected landscape in the lower 48 states even with millions of visitors.

Most of the park (about 99%) is essentially managed as wilderness, with limited human intrusions. There are few places in the United States with such large areas under strict management.

Yellowstone still is home to every species of wildlife that existed at the time of its establishment and, in some cases, has been the focus of species recovery, such as the reintroduction of wolves, emphasis on native fish restoration, and greater protection for grizzly bears.

A significant amount of Yellowstone Park is seasonsally closed to human use as Bear Management Units to provide bears and other wildlfie relief from human intrusion. 

Part of the rationale for this concerns the agency’s mission. The Park Service is generally inclined towards the protection of natural values. An example of this policy is the Bear Management Units within the park that are closed to human entry to protect grizzly bears, the limit of backcountry camping to specific sites to reduce impacts, the strict enforcement of food storage in campgrounds, and the hardening (i.e., paved pathways) of heavily used areas like the Old Faithful geyser basin.

Of course, there is no livestock grazing, logging, hunting, trapping, and mechanical intrusions in the backcountry. As a result, compared to even large wilderness areas, Yellowstone is–ecologically speaking– one of the most protected ecosystems outside of Alaska in the United States. For instance, 21 wolves from Yellowstone National Park packs were killed this past year, mostly within designated wilderness adjacent to the park where hunting and trapping is permitted.

A Greater Yellowstone National Park could counter some of the numerous threats, gradually diminishing the ecological integrity of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The current park boundaries should be expanded to include most of the adjacent national forests, including the lands part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. For instance, the borders would be expanded to include the Upper Green River, Gros Vente Range, Mount Leidy Highlands, Absaroka Mountains, Beartooth Mountains, Gallatin Range, Madison Range, west slope of the Teton, Palisades, Centennial Valley, and so forth.

All roadless lands not currently within a designated wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act would be covered with a wilderness overlay, including the 99% of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks that currently lack wilderness designation.

Extractive uses like livestock grazing, logging, oil and gas, mining, and other activities compromising the landscape’s ecological function would be prohibited. Grazing permit buyouts would be used to remove livestock grazing from the landscape. Recovery areas with an extensive logging road system like the Targhee National Forest adjacent to Yellowstone could be restored. Some of the lands could be designated as National Preserves as exists in Alaska and elsewhere to permit limited but strictly controlled hunting as currently in Grand Teton National Park.

Communities and private lands within the boundaries of the expanded national park would be encouraged to follow the land use model we find in places like New York’s Adirondack State Park and be provided with the financial funds to implement such planning and enforcement. In addition, funding to acquire private lands with critical habitat would be available.

The creation of a Greater Yellowstone National Park would preserve under National Park Service protection the region’s wild and scenic waters, help to maintain migration corridors such as the Path of the Pronghorn in Wyoming, expand the areas where native species have priority in the landscape, such as bison migration on to other public lands, and put protection of biological hot spot.

In addition, Park expansion by eliminating oil and gas development, logging and livestock grazing on adjacent public lands would increase carbon sequestration.

A Greater Yellowstone National Park would likely encompass 20 million acres or more (about the size of the state of Maine) depending on the exact boundaries and would easily be one of the largest temperate ecosystems preserves in the world. Such a large preserve would be our best protection against species extinction due to climate change. In addition, it would ensure that biodiversity and ecosystem function have their best chance of being maintained into the future.

If a Greater Yellowstone National Park were combined with the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) which would protect much of the rest of the northern Rockies region as designated wilderness, the United States could go a long ways towards ensuring the long term ecological health of the Northern Rockies.

A Greater Yellowstone National Park would continue the park’s reputation as a model for ecosystem integrity and protection and its role as part the planet’s global heritage.

George Wuerthner has published 36 books including Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy. 

Cryptoverse: Shrimps and whales keep bitcoin afloat

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Medha Singh - Yesterday 

© Reuters/BENOIT TESSIERFILE PHOTO: A bitcoin representation is seen in an illustration picture taken at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris

(Reuters) - The shrimps of the crypto world have joined the whales in a glorious last stand to banish the bleak bitcoin winter.

These two contrasting groups are both HODLers - investors in bitcoin as a long-term proposition who refuse to sell their holdings - and they are determined to drive back the bears, despite their portfolios being deep in the red.

Shrimps, investors that hold less than 1 bitcoin, are collectively adding to their balance at a rate of 60,460 bitcoin per month, the most aggressive rate in history, according to an analysis by data firm Glassnode.

Whales, those with more than 1,000 bitcoin, were adding 140,000 coins per month, the highest rate since January 2021.

"The market is approaching a HODLer-led regime," Glassnode said in a note, referring to the cohort whose name emerged years ago from a trader misspelling "hold" on an online forum.

After bitcoin's worst month in 11 years in June, the decline appears to have abated as transaction demand seemed to be moving sideways, according to Glassnode, indicating a stagnation of new entrants and a probable retention of a base-load of users, ie HODLers.

Bitcoin has been hovering around $19,000 to $21,000 over the past four weeks, less than a third of its $69,000 peak in 2021.

"There is a saying in crypto markets - diamond hands. You've not really lost the money, if you've not pulled out. There may be a day it might come back up," said Neo, the online alias of a 26-year old graphic designer at a fintech company in Bangalore.

As the crypto bear market enters its eighth month, his crypto portfolio was down by 70% - though he said it was money he was "okay with losing". He does not intend to sell, holding out for a possible rebound in the coming years.

Like Neo, most HODLer portfolios are under water, yet many are refusing to bail.

Some 55% of U.S.-based crypto retail investors held their investments in response to the recent selloff, while around 16% of investors globally increased their crypto exposure in June, according a survey of retail investors by eToro.

"Crypto is an asset class disproportionately held by younger investors who are more risk tolerant since they have, say, 30 more years to earn it all back," said Ben Laidler, eToro's global markets strategist.

MINERS' PAINS

Another class of staunch crypto HODLers - bitcoin miners - is increasingly under pressure as they face the double whammy of cratering prices and high electricity costs. The cost of mining a bitcoin is higher than the digital assets' price for some miners, Citi analyst Joseph Ayoub said.

The unfavorable environment for many of these miners, who have loans against their mining systems, has forced them to pull from their stash.

Core Scientific sold 7,202 bitcoin last month to pay for its mining rigs and fund operations, bringing its total holdings down to 1,959 bitcoin.

While Marathon Digital Holdings said it had not sold any bitcoin since October 2020, the firm said it may sell a portion of its monthly production to cover costs.

The Valkyrie bitcoin miners ETF slumped 65% last quarter, outpacing bitcoin's 56% fall.

Lessons from the crypto winter in 2018 were that the miners who survived were the ones that kept producing even if they were under water. That approach is unlikely to work this time round though, said Chris Bae, CEO of Enhanced Digital Group, which designs hedging strategies for crypto miners.

For the bosses of mining firms', Bae added, the focus is now on the "need to think through the next crypto winter and have that game plan before it happens rather than during it."

(Reporting by Medha Singh and Lisa Pauline Mattackal in Bengaluru; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Pravin Char)

Tunisian President Kais Saied vows 'zero tolerance' of referendum opposition

Those against a proposed new constitution renew their call for a boycott of a July 25 vote

Opponents say President Kais Saied is seeking to reinstall an autocracy in the birthplace of the 2011 Arab uprisings. 

Photo: AP

The National
Jul 11, 2022

Tunisian President Kais Saied has said there will be “zero tolerance” for anyone who tries to derail a referendum on a controversial new constitution later this month.

Mr Saied said on Monday all parties should adhere to "neutrality" and must pay attention to "multiple attempts to infiltrate registration processes".

"There is no room for tolerance with those who want to thwart the referendum," he said during a meeting with Farouk Bouaskar, head of the Independent High Authority for Elections, at the Carthage Palace.

READ MORE
Tunisia's Kais Saied amends 'errors' in draft constitution

Mr Saied has warned of attempted electoral fraud in the upcoming vote, claiming authorities have detected manipulation as voters register at polling centres ahead of the referendum.

It comes after the Tunisian opposition renewed calls on Monday for a boycott of the July 25 referendum, despite the publication of an amended draft of the proposed constitution.

The draft constitution is the centrepiece of Mr Saied's programme to overhaul Tunisia's political system.

Rivals say the text confirms fears he is seeking to reinstall an autocracy in the birthplace of the 2011 Arab uprisings.

"We call on Tunisians to boycott this illegal, unconstitutional process that aims to legitimise a coup d'etat," veteran opposition figure Ahmed Nejib Chebbi told AFP.

Mr Chebbi said rights and freedoms would be threatened if the charter was approved.

"For me it's the quintessential bad constitution," he said.

Veteran opposition figure Ahmed Nejib Chebbi has called for a boycott of an 'illegal, unconstitutional process'. Photo: AFP

Mr Chebbi's National Salvation Front includes five political parties, among them Mr Saied's nemesis the Ennahdha party, along with five civil society groups involving independent political figures.

It was formed in April, months after Mr Saied, a former law professor elected in 2019 amid public anger against the political class, sacked the government and suspended parliament, later seizing far-reaching legislative and judicial powers.

Mr Saied's initial power grab was welcomed by many Tunisians sick of the often-deadlocked post-revolution political system.

But critics have said his moves risk a return to autocracy, a decade after the 2011 overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a popular revolt.







Protesters try to break through security barriers to reach the entrance to the headquarters of the Independent High Authority for Elections in Tunis. EPA

The process of writing the constitution has also come under fire.

The legal expert who oversaw the constitution's drafting has disavowed it, saying it was "completely different" from what his committee had submitted and warning that some articles could "pave the way for a dictatorial regime".

Last week, Mr Saied published an amended draft, apparently attempting to ward off criticism after the original was criticised for the nearly unlimited power it gave his office.

On Monday, Jawhar Ben Mbarek, leader of Citizens Against the Coup, urged Tunisians to "massively reject this referendum".

"We reject the entire process," he told AFP. "We are committed to the 2014 constitution, which we consider to be the only legal constitution, representative of the will of the Tunisian people."

The EU called Monday for an "inclusive national dialogue", saying it would be "a cornerstone of any credible constitutional process and long-term stability".

"It is essential to bring together the widest possible spectrum of political and societal actors in addressing the political, economic and social challenges the country is facing," said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell's office.
Updated: July 11, 2022, 11:07 PM

TAX CUTS = SERVICE CUTS & AUSTERITY
Tax cut pledges by Tory leadership hopefuls ‘risk stoking inflation and inequality’

Economists and Conservative opponents say proposals would blow hole in public finances

George Dibb of the IPPR thinktank says the tax plans do not match the needs of families struggling with the soaring cost of living. 

Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Richard Partington and Peter Walker
Tue 12 Jul 2022

The scale of tax cuts promised by Conservative leadership hopefuls would blow a hole in the public finances and could lead to rampant inflation, Tory opponents and economists have warned.

Nadhim Zahawi, who took over as chancellor last week, used a leadership speech on Monday to announce tax policies that would cost an estimated £50bn a year, almost as much as the combined budgets of the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office.


Sajid Javid, the former health secretary, who also served as chancellor, launched his leadership bid with tax cuts he said would cost about £40bn a year, including a reduction to income tax, scrapping the recent rise in national insurance, and a temporary 10p a litre extra cut in fuel tax.

Of the 11 candidates vying to become the new prime minister, almost all have made lavish pledges to reduce the tax rate and shrink the state, with costings generally left vague.

The pound has fallen to the lowest level in two years in recent weeks amid growing concern over the strength of the British economy and political instability during an intense squeeze on households and businesses.

Economists said the proposals would risk stoking inflation and inequality, while adding to government borrowing or requiring sweeping spending cuts. Rishi Sunak’s camp believes some of the promises would lead to a fiscal black hole amounting to tens of billions of pounds.

Nick Macpherson, the former top Treasury mandarin, said the candidates were showing themselves to be “less the heirs to Margaret Thatcher; more the disciples of Recep Erdoğan”, referring to the Turkish president’s economic policies, which have been blamed for contributing to inflation hitting almost 80%.

Gavin Barwell, a Conservative peer who was Theresa May’s chief aide, said the leadership candidates risked telling the Conservative party “what it wants to hear”, and not the truth.

“You can’t have Thatcher levels of taxation and Johnson levels of public spending – particularly given the damage Brexit has done to economy and increased demand for public services post-Covid,” Barwell tweeted.

Labour said multibillion-pound pledges had been “casually tossed on to the pages of the newspapers” in a matter of days.

Pat McFadden, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Tax cuts have to be sustainable. They can’t just be plucked out of the air. They claim to be able to fund these through efficiencies or cuts in civil servants. Next it will be the tooth fairy. If Labour were making promises like this, we’d be getting killed for it.”

A series of candidates have said they would scrap a planned increase in corporation tax due next April from 19% to 25%, with Javid promising to cut the headline rate to 15% over time.

According to HMRC’s ready reckoner tables, which provide rough estimates for the cost of tax changes, a 10-percentage-point reduction would cost £32bn a year by the end of the current parliament in 2024-25.

Another candidate, the attorney general, Suella Braverman, used her speech on Monday to say much public spending could be replaced by a greater role for families and communities.

Zahawi promised to cut income tax by 2p by 2024, scrap the corporation tax rise and scrap VAT and green levies on fuel for two years. The former education secretary said his plans could be paid for by cutting the number of civil servants by 20%, although this is estimated to save less than a tenth of the cost of his proposed tax cuts.

On Zahawi’s pledges, Torsten Bell, the head of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, calculated that the changes to income tax, energy bills and corporation tax would total £50bn a year by 2024. This is only £5bn less than the budget for the defence ministry and Foreign Office.

Jeremy Hunt, another former health secretary, has promised tax cuts worth more than £30bn, including a reduction in corporation tax to 15%. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has also pledged to “cut taxes from day one” by reversing the national insurance rise and promising to “keep corporation tax competitive”.

It comes Sunak, the former chancellor and early frontrunner, launched a coded attack on rivals offering unrealistic tax and spending plans, describing them as “comforting fairy tales” that would ultimately burden future generations.

George Dibb, head of the Centre for Economic Justice at the centre-left IPPR thinktank, said the plans did not match the needs of families struggling with the soaring cost of living.

“These tax cuts are no longer being promised as a way of addressing cost of living. It’s more of an arms race to win over Conservative party members and its totally divorced from reality.”

If the government wants to avoid higher borrowing levels, steep spending cuts would probably be made despite public support for ending austerity and fresh investment in public services, he said.

“My concern would be we’re seeing a significant shrinkage of the state already over the past 12 years of Conservative government through austerity. I don’t think there’s much efficiency to squeeze out of the system,” he said.

Rare-earths developer Arafura inks supply deal with GE unit

(Reuters) - Arafura Resources said on Tuesday it will supply neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) to France-based turbine manufacturing division of General Electric Co amid a global push to transition to clean energy.

Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), GE Renewable Energy will purchase NdPr from the miner's flagship Nolans project in central Australia to manufacture offshore wind turbines.

The deal was unveiled during the Sydney Energy Forum earlier in the day, where Australia joined the Mineral Security Partnership, along with a host of nations including the United States in a bid to secure global supply chains for critical minerals such as NdPr, which are crucial for the transition to clean energy technology. (https://bit.ly/3PjoFwv)

Australia hosts vast reserves of critical minerals, such as lithium and cobalt, which are crucial for clean energy technologies such as batteries and electric vehicles, as well as mobile phones and computers.

Demand for NdPr soared in recent years as countries and companies pivot towards cleaner energy to tackle climate change.

The deal also outlines a potential strategic equity investment by GE in Arafura that will be considered and negotiated in due course.

(Reporting by Tejaswi Marthi in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

Britons dispose of nearly 100bn pieces of plastic packaging a year, survey finds

UK households recycle just 12% of single-use plastic, says Greenpeace

Plastic packaging and waste 

Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images


Sandra Laville

Environment correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 12 Jul 2022 


UK households throw away nearly 100bn pieces of plastic packaging a year, according to a survey by Greenpeace.

The results of one of the largest voluntary research projects into the scale of plastic waste show that only 12% of the single-use packaging used by households is sent for recycling.


Greenpeace asked households to count their plastic waste during one week in May. Nearly 250,000 people from almost 100,000 households took part and sent their results to Greenpeace and fellow NGO Everyday Plastic.

By far the largest proportion of plastic waste was from food and drink packaging – 83% – with the most common item being fruit and vegetable packaging.
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While the UK government publishes data on the weight of plastic waste being collected from households, there are no official figures about the number of plastic items being thrown away. So the research, known as the Big Plastic Count, is being seen as providing a significant insight into the scale of single use plastic packaging waste.


California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plastic

The Big Plastic Count found that 97,948 households across the UK counted 6,437,813 pieces of plastic packaging waste. On average, each household threw away 66 pieces of plastic packaging in one week, which amounts to an estimated 3,432 pieces when applied over a year.

Assuming the weekly average is typical of every household in the UK, the researchers said it could be reasonably estimated that households throw away 1.85bn pieces of plastic packaging a week, equating to 96.6bn pieces a year in the UK alone.

A landmark study in 2019 found that the proliferation of single-use plastic around the world is accelerating the climate emergency and needs to be urgently halted. Nearly all plastic is made from fossil fuels, the research by the Center for International Environmental Law found, and the plastic contributes to greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of its lifecycle, from its production to its refining and the way it is managed as a waste product.

“This is a jaw-dropping amount of plastic waste and should give ministers pause for thought,” said Chris Thorne, plastics campaigner at Greenpeace UK.

“Just 12% of all this plastic is likely to end up being recycled in the UK, despite the public’s alarm about the issue and efforts to recycle. The rest becomes pollution, whether through landfilling, incineration or export to countries all around the world, gradually contaminating everything – our water, our food, even the air we breathe.”
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Daniel Webb, founder of Everyday Plastic, said a quarter of a million people had been galvanised to take part in what was an incredible piece of citizen science. He said: “[It] has allowed us to build a unique picture of the plastic problem and gather never-before-seen data … These new figures lay bare the responsibility of the government, big brands and supermarkets to tackle this crisis, and they must rise to the challenge right now – there is no time to waste.”

The NGOs are calling on government to set legally binding targets to almost entirely eliminate single-use plastic, starting with a target of a 50% cut in single-use plastic by 2025. They want a ban on plastic waste exports by 2025, initially starting with an immediate ban on all exports to non-OECD member countries and mixed plastic waste to OECD member countries. They are also calling for the immediate creation of a deposit return scheme.

The government has promised such a scheme for years, with Michael Gove as environment secretary first putting it forward in 2018. But the scheme has been delayed by consultations and apparent inertia in government.

“Pretending we can sort this with recycling is just industry greenwash,” said Thorne. “We’re creating a hundred billion bits of waste plastic a year, and recycling is hardly making a dent. What else do the government need to know before they act?”

A spokesperson for the government said: “We want to introduce extended producer responsibility (EPR), a deposit return scheme (DRS) and consistent collections in England as soon as is practical and have sought feedback on proposed timelines through consultation. We have published the government response to the packaging EPR consultation in March, and will publish our response to the DRS and consistency consultations shortly.”