Cloud study demystifies impact of aerosols

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Aerosol particles in the atmosphere have a bigger impact on cloud cover – but less effect on cloud brightness – than previously thought, new research shows.

Aerosols are tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere, and they play a key role in the formation of clouds.

With aerosols increasing due to human activities, numerous assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have suggested they could have an important impact on climate change because clouds reflect sunlight and therefore keep temperatures cooler.

However, this cooling impact of aerosols on clouds is difficult to measure, and this has led to significant uncertainty climate change projections.

The new study – led by the University of Exeter, with national and international academic partners and the UK’s Met Office – used the 2014 Icelandic volcano eruption to investigate this.

"This massive aerosol plume in an otherwise near-pristine environment provided an ideal natural experiment to quantify cloud responses to aerosol changes, namely the aerosol’s fingerprint on clouds" said lead author Dr Ying Chen.

"Our analysis shows that aerosols from the eruption increased cloud cover by approximately 10%.

"Based on these findings, we can see that more than 60% of the climate cooling effect of cloud-aerosol interactions is caused by increased cloud cover.

"Volcanic aerosols also brightened clouds by reducing water droplet size, but this had a significantly smaller impact than cloud-cover changes in reflecting solar radiation."

Previous models and observations suggested this brightening accounted for the majority of the cooling caused by cloud-aerosol interactions.

Water droplets usually form in the atmosphere around aerosol particles, so a higher concentration of these particles makes it easier for cloud droplets to form.

However, as these cloud droplets are smaller and more numerous, the resulting clouds can hold more water before rainfall occurs – so, more aerosols in the atmosphere can lead to more cloud cover but less rain.

The study used satellite data and computer learning to study cloud cover and brightness.

It used 20 years of satellite cloud images from two different satellite platforms from the region to compare the periods before and after the volcano eruption.

The findings will provide observational evidence of aerosols' climate impacts to improve the models used by scientists to predict climate change.

Jim Haywood, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Exeter and part of the Global Systems Institute, and a Met Office Research Fellow, said: "Our earlier work had showed that model simulations could be used to disentangle the relative contribution of aerosol-cloud-climate impacts and potentially confounding meteorological variability.

"This work is radically different as it does not rely on models; it uses state-of-the-art machine learning techniques applied to satellite observations to simulate what the cloud would look like in the absence of the aerosols.

"Clear differences are observed between the predicted and observed cloud properties which can be used to assess aerosol-cloud-climate impacts."

The study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through the ADVANCE project, and the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the CONSTRAIN grant.

The paper, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, is entitled: "Machine-learning reveals climate forcing from aerosols is dominated by increased cloud cover."

---

JOURNAL

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-022-00991-6 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Machine-learning reveals climate forcing from aerosols is dominated by increased cloud cover."

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Aug-2022

WHITE MALE MD RACISM & MISOGYNY

When heart-assisting implants could save a life, patients who are Black or female don’t get them as often

Providers’ differential decision-making must be addressed to equalize chance of survival for heart failure patients, researchers say

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Black people and women with severe heart failure who might be good candidates for surgery to implant a heart-assisting device have a lower chance of actually getting that operation than white patients, or male patients, a new study finds.

The differences for Black patients cropped up mainly in patients whose chances of benefiting from a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) were less clear-cut, usually because they had less severe heart failure. That meant it was up to their health care team and the patient to decide if they wanted to have the operation or continue with non-surgical treatment.

The patterns of LVAD use in women, meanwhile, suggests lower access no matter how severe their heart failure.

Differences by race and gender persisted even after the researchers took into account a raft of factors, from patients’ incomes and distance from the hospital to what their neighborhood population mix was like.

That raises the strong possibility that for these patients, the chance of getting an LVAD was influenced by conscious or unconscious race and gender bias on the part of health care providers, the researchers conclude.

And that means hospitals and heart failure teams need to take steps to ensure more equal access to LVAD care for all patients who might benefit, the authors say.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open by a team from the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, is based on data from more than 12,300 patients with traditional Medicare coverage. All had heart failure severe enough to send them to the hospital at least once in the eight-year study period.

The study shows no racial differences in LVAD use among the sickest heart failure patients, those who are the most clear-cut candidates.

Instead, the differences in LVAD use for Black patients clustered among those with a less clear-cut need for the device. That need, based on specific clinical characteristics, is measured with what’s called an LVAD propensity score. In the group whose scores were “on the bubble”, Black patients had much lower chances of getting an LVAD than white or male patients.

The researchers also looked at what happened after patients received an LVAD. Overall, patients survived for at least a year at equal rates, no matter what their race or gender.  Black patients in the “on the bubble” group actually had a higher chance of surviving at least a year than white patients (84% vs. 77%), even though they had a slightly higher chance of needing another hospital stay.

“These data show clear racial disparities in cases where there is ‘wiggle room’ for clinicians to decide which patients are most likely to benefit from an LVAD,” says lead author Thomas Cascino, M.D., M.S., a cardiologist and health equity researcher at Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center. “There is less aggressive use of this life-saving therapy among a subgroup of Black patients and all women with heart failure. While we also need to study the role of patient preference in LVAD decision-making for this group of patients, heart failure providers need to be cognizant of their potential for bias and how it might influence the recommendations we make to patients.”

Cascino and colleagues recently looked at another aspect of heart failure device care – the use of short-term mechanical circulatory support in patients who are candidates for a heart transplant. This analysis also suggested that center-level variation in use plays a major role in this type of care, which could in turn create inequality in a patient’s likelihood of being chosen for a heart transplant when an organ becomes available.  The team published the paper in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

 

 

Racial and Sex Inequities in the Use of and Outcomes After Left Ventricular Assist Device Implantation Among Medicare Beneficiaries, JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(7):e2223080. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.23080 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2794707

---

JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.23080 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Racial and Sex Inequities in the Use of and Outcomes After Left Ventricular Assist Device Implantation Among Medicare Beneficiaries

South Korea looks to tackle global vaccine inequality
By Thomas Maresca

1/7

South Korea is training government and industry professionals from a dozen low- and middle-income countries to manufacture vaccines under a program launched with the WHO. 

Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI

SEOUL, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- While more than 12 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have gone into arms around the world and two-thirds of the global population has received at least one shot, the inequity between richer and poorer countries remains wide.

Just 20% of people in low-income countries have received even a single dose -- an imbalance that is not only a "catastrophic moral failure," as World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned last year, but one that is prolonging the pandemic and increasing the risk of new and possibly more dangerous variants.

South Korea, a rising power on the world health stage, is trying to bridge the inequality gap with a special focus: teaching people from less-developed countries to make vaccines on their own as the WHO's global biomanufacturing training hub.

"We felt the need to tackle this imbalance and chose fostering the workforce as a means to address the problem," South Korean Deputy Health Minister Lee Kang-ho, who is leading the vaccine hub program, told UPI.

"The issue of vaccine inequity goes beyond just a matter of fairness," he said. "It ultimately serves as a barrier to end the pandemic."

The project's first pilot training course kicked off in early June with 30 international students from 12 low- and middle-income Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Philippines, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The students, who come from a mix of government, manufacturing and academic backgrounds, are learning classroom and hands-on skills in an eight-week program that covers everything from making vaccines to packaging, storing and shipping them.

All major vaccine platforms are included in the training, including Messenger RNA, or mRNA, the cutting-edge technology behind the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.

Many of the trainees said the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for self-sufficiency as their countries struggled desperately to access vaccines.

"Although we had money, we suffered a lot due to non-availability of COVID vaccines for our people," Muhammed Shahabuddin, a production manager at a state-owned pharmaceutical company in Bangladesh, said.

His government is working to set up a biomanufacturing company and research institute but Shahabuddin said there is an enormous need for practical training of the sort he is receiving in South Korea.

"We still don't have enough people with the required biotechnology education, skills and experience," he said.

Muzaffar Muminov, a microbiology researcher from Uzbekistan, said his government also realized that producing vaccines locally would be crucial in dealing with future pandemics but soon ran into barriers when trying to set up its own manufacturing project.

"Since most of us were involved in biotechnology at the research level and lacked in-depth manufacturing experience, designing bioprocesses was quite challenging," he said.

The pilot course is being held in the classrooms and labs of the Korea National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training center at Yonsei University's international campus in Incheon, the port city and international airport site west of Seoul. Funding for the program is coming largely from the Asian Development Bank.

The trainees have also been able to visit local biopharmaceutical companies, including vaccine developer EuBiologics, as well as multinationals such Janssen and Merck.

South Korea is looking to biotech as one of its key future growth industries and has emerged as a major COVID-19 vaccine contract producer during the pandemic, with giants such as Samsung Biologic producing Moderna vaccines and SK Bioscience making AstraZeneca and Novavax jabs.

At the end of June, health authorities gave final approval for use of the country's first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine, SK Bioscence's SKYCovione.

Jeong Jin-hyun, director the K-NIBRT education center at Yonsei, said South Korea is the ideal country to bridge the gap between the world's vaccine haves and have-nots.

"We were very poor but became a developed country quite fast," Jeong said. "So I think Korea has a really big advantage because we understand what some of these other countries are dealing with. We can be in the middle between developing and developed countries."

The K-NIBRT program will train a total of 120 students in pilot programs this year and next before expanding its operations further in 2024, Jeong said.

Another training course under the WHO partnership was launched in July, a two-week introductory vaccine manufacturing program for 106 participants from 24 countries conducted by the Seoul-based International Vaccine Institute. In October, a second IVI-led course will host 200 international trainees, Lee said.

South Korea ultimately plans to "provide end-to-end training that covers the entire cycle of vaccines and biologics manufacturing process," Lee said. "It can be put onto the shop floor immediately when [trainees] go back to their home countries."

The ongoing spread of COVID-19 through the highly contagious BA.5 variant alongside the scarcity of vaccines for monkeypox, designated a global health emergency by the WHO last week, only highlights the need for greater equality.

"It is critical that key biologics manufacturing capacity, such as that of vaccines, should not be a privilege of richer countries," Lee said. "For that, a skilled bio-workforce is a must."

Earth spun faster June 29, causing shortest day since 1960s


Earth's spin has actually been slowing down over time,

 causing days to get longer rather than shorter.

 Photo courtesy of NASA

Aug. 1 (UPI) -- The Earth spun faster around its axis on June 29, making it the shortest day since the planet's rotation began being measured with atomic clocks in the 1960s.

Earth completed one spin in 1.59 milliseconds shy of the typical 24 hours on June 29, according to Time and Date and The Guardian. The record comes as Earth has seen consistently shorter days in the past few years.

Earth's spin has actually been slowing down over time, causing days to get longer rather than shorter. A single day would pass in less than 19 hours around 1.4 billion years ago.

The United Nations' International Telecommunication Union will occasionally add seconds to the world clock in June or December to make up for the longer days, most recently in 2016.

It may now be unlikely that the ITU will add time during the next opportunity to do so this December, The Guardian reported.

Leonid Zotov, a professor of mathematics, is expected to suggest that the recent trend of shorter days could be explained by a phenomenon known as the "Chandler wobble" at annual meeting of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society next week.

The Chandler wobble was first spotted in the late 1880s when astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler noticed the poles wobbled over a 14-month period.

"The normal amplitude of the Chandler wobble is about three to four meters at Earth's surface but from 2017 to 2020 it disappeared," Zotov told Time and Date.

Natural disasters and weather effects such as El Nino can also influence the speed of the Earth's spin, The Guardian reported. An earthquake in the Indian Ocean in 2004 shortened the length of the day by nearly three microseconds.

What led to the downfall of the Roman Empire?

Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire was at the zenith of its power. How could such a big empire collapse? An exhibition in Trier looks for answers in the turmoil of late antiquity.

The Roman Empire declined over the course of several centuries

"Romam salvete": Welcome to the Roman Empire. The ancient kingdom stretched from Britain to the Black Sea and from Spain to Egypt. Its military capabilities and technical and cultural achievements had no contemporary comparison. Its residents profited from sanitation and fresh water transported through aqueducts and lived in houses with heated flooring. Even in distant regions of the provinces, there were proper roads, and trade flourished. The public refreshed itself through thermal springs and enjoyed exquisite food, while being entertained in theaters and circus arenas.

Even today, there is proof around the globe of the numerous legacies of the once-booming empire. Trier, founded in 17 B.C. and the oldest city in Germany, is one such example. Known as "Augusta Trevorum" in the fourth century, it was the seat of the Roman Empire for many decades. The Porta Nigra (Latin for black gate), which can be seen even today, has been a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site since 1986 and is a testimony to the legacy of the Roman Empire north of the Alps.

Trier is, therefore, the perfect choice for the exhibition "The Fall of the Roman Empire." Three museums in the city deal with the interesting question of how the enormous kingdom faded into oblivion.

 

HOW ROMANS LIVED IN XANTEN ON THE RHINE RIVER 

Temple devoted to an unknown deity

The port temple is one of the highlights of the Xanten Archaeological Park. Selected pieces have been reconstructed on a three-meter-high panel, which had once risen 27 meters into the sky. It is still unknown which deity the luxurious lime and marble building was devoted to. The original wall from the 2nd century can be admired beneath the panel 

123456789

Leaving a political void

The Rheinisches Landesmuseum has several archaeological exhibits in its display, including objects borrowed from the Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi in Florence and from the Musee Public National des Antiques in Algiers. The exhibition shows how the church entered into the political void left by the Romans, and the Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier shows the legacy of the Roman Empire in art and cultural history.

One thing is clear: There was no flash of thunder that destroyed the empire. "If it were so easy, then we wouldn't have this big exhibition, and researchers would not have been engaging with the topic for centuries," art historian and project manager Anne Kurtze of the Landesmuseum Trier said, adding that the downfall was a "chain of events."

Image from the exhibition 'The Fall of the Roman Empire'

Did Rome collapse because of its size?

"Obviously, the sheer size of the Roman Empire was always an insane challenge," Kurtze says. Roman generals annexed more and more countries, which became the empire's provinces. High military expenditure was the order of the day, so that the outer borders of the kingdom that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates with a length of around 15,000 km (9,321 miles) could be secured. In the north, Hadrian's Wall, and in central Europe, Limes, were created to protect the kingdom from Germanic tribes. Construction and upkeep swallowed huge sums of money, as did paying the Roman legions.

Wild Germanic peoples, Goths and uncivilized vandals: Often, the image of barbarians breaking in and hollowing out Roman territories through migration was conjured up. But museum curators are wary of the idea. It is a fact that there were refugees running from the invading Huns, but the Romans were also unable to protect their borders by themselves, because their numbers were falling: the well-being of people in the kingdom had led to a sinking birth rate and there was a need to fill up places in the military.

Foreign soldiers were recruited from the ranks of the "barbarians" in order to strengthen Roman armies. But the newcomers did not really become "Romans." In their hearts, they remained Germanic or Gothic and did not always follow the orders of their Roman legionnaires. They even started civil wars, mostly about payment or their status within the Roman Empire. These internal conflicts greatly weakened the empire.

What about high taxes and the decadent upper classes?

From 2 CE onwards, the empire did not expand. That meant that the state treasury did not fill up with war loot, nor did new slaves enrich the labor market. Between 429 and 439 CE, vandals gained victory over the most important province of the Roman Empire: North Africa, the breadbasket of the Romans. The income from this rich province was lost, and the rulers substituted for their expenditure from elsewhere.

No interest in the dignitaries: Emperor Honorius

This meant Rome kept increasing taxes, which brought many residents to the brink of starvation. At the same time, the decadent upper class lived in plenty and had little or no interest in politics. A famous example of the eccentricities of the ruling classes is the emperor Caligula. According to historiographers Sueton and Cassius Dio, Caligula named his horse "Consul" and presented him with his own palace and slaves.

The exhibition in Trier also features the famous painting, "The Favorites of Emperor Honorius," by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). "It shows that the kings were not interested in their tasks as statesmen. But does such a painting depict reality or is it only a cliché that posterity is making of this empire?" Kurtze asks.

Christianity and the division of the empire

For many centuries, Romans believed in different gods and ascribed values. Under Emperor Theodosius, however, Christianity was proclaimed as the sole religion of the state in 380 CE, weakening Roman ideas.

Time's up: The Roman goddess of love, Venus, with a cross carved on her face

"The young institution of the church took over many tasks that were being done by the administration of the Roman Empire," Anne Kurtze explains. "However, that was not the reason for the collapse, but a process of change in the crumbling Roman Empire."

In 395 CE, after the death of Emperor Theodosius the Great, the empire was divided among his sons: into western and eastern Rome. In the east, Constantinople became the emperor's residence; in the west, Milan, then Ravenna and sometimes Rome. It was still considered a kingdom but was governed by two emperors. But Eastern Rome went down only in 1453 after Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople; the western part was seized from emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476 by the Germanic tribe leader Odoaker.

The leftovers

According to Kurtze, initially little of the crisis was visible in the kingdom in the fourth century. Even in late antiquity, there were many trade relations that helped the city to flourish.

The division of the empire: Two enthroned emperors hold the globe as a sign of joint rule

But instead of the Roman Empire, there were smaller kingdoms, governed by Franks, Burgundians or Goths. The Roman Empire neither had an effective administration nor any maintenance mechanism for the infrastructure. Slowly, changes became visible, especially in the cities. The aqueducts fell into disrepair because no one knew how to maintain them. Instead of decorative gardens, the Germanic tribes planted vegetables; marble statues were destroyed because the material was needed to build houses. Step by step, Roman culture also began to disappear.

The exhibition "The Fall of the Roman Empire" will continue in Trier until November 27. The event also seeks to link to the present, because climate change with disappearing harvests and starvation could also have influenced Rome's fate and created incentives to migrate in late antiquity, Anne Kurtze says. And just like COVID has ravaged us, there may have been similar diseases that attacked the Romans.

This article was originally written in German.

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@jan_kamensky is on a mission to show people what cities could look like if they were "human-friendly places again." By removing cars and adding greenery, he allows people to see their cities in a whole new light

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1554447206438129664

6:41 AM · Aug 2, 2022

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 ONCE HOME TO PIRATES & BANDITS

Calabria tourism: Not just a gangster's paradise

More famous for organized crime than culture, the southern Italian region isn't a popular destination for holidaymakers. But a growing demand for slow and experiential tourism could change that.

Might slow tourism concepts help to advertise Calabria better to international guests?

On the beach at Badolato Marina, along the pine-tree-lined Ionian coast of Calabria, Mario Gallelli is leisurely preparing his lido for summer. It's a sunny Friday morning, and a group of school children carrying bin bags, led by their teachers, are picking up litter from the empty shore.

Its reputation long tainted by associations with organized crime, Italy's southernmost mainland region of Calabria remains one of the country's least popular destinations with international travelers. According to research by Demoskopika, 1.9 million tourists visited Calabria in 2019, of which 20% were foreign. That's only 0.5% of the 65 million foreigners who visited Italy that year.

Yet with almost 800 kilometers of beautiful beaches, lush national parks, impressive historic villages, and ancient ruins, not to mention mouthwatering culinary riches and surprising cultural diversity — Calabria certainly has no shortage of attractions.

Still empty — the beach at Badolato

From challenge to opportunity

"Tourists today are looking for a more experiential holiday, and pay attention to local resources such as agriculture, food and wine, and everything a community has to offer. They want to get to know the place they visit," says professor Tullio Romita, who heads the University of Calabria's Tourism degree program. "This represents a huge opportunity for growth especially in Calabria."

The regional tourism board seeks to develop a tourism strategy that is sustainable and showcases Calabrian culture. "We have a unique heritage, with things that exist here and nowhere else," says regional work, economic development and tourism councillor Fausto Orsomarso. 

Terra dei Padri, meaning Land of the Fathers, is one project that highlights the region's history, tapping into the growing phenomenon of roots tourism. This sees the descendants of migrants returning to their family's homeland. "Of the 50, 60 million estimated descendants of Italians all over the world, many of them are Calabrian," says professor Romita. "They want to feel part of the community and reconstruct a missing piece of their identity."

Quaint villages, stunning nature and an interesting culture — Calabria has much to offer for tourists

Albanian minority

Elsewhere, citizens have been making the most of local resources and painting local history in a new light. In the panoramic town of Pallagorio, one of several in the region where Albanian communities — known as Arbreshe — fleeing the Ottomans settled in the 15th century, is the office of Instaruga. It connects small local tourism operators with larger travel agencies, tour companies, and resellers, especially in Germany and France, helping them reach a wider audience, says co-founder Fabio Spadafora.

One of Instaruga's most appreciated experiences is the Arberia tour, which brings together the food, culture and traditions of the Albanian-speaking minority in the towns of Pallagorio, Carfizzi and San Nicola dell'Alto. Among other things, it gives people the opportunity to witness the traditional maga round dance, taste Arbreshe cuisine and learn about traditional textiles.

Experiencing the real Calabria

Among the crumbling grand palazzos of Cosenza's old town, in the shadow of the 12th-century Swabian-Norman castle, local guide Carmela Bilotto organizes tours to "experience the everyday life of the place, without sugarcoating." This area of the city, dense with history and hidden treasures, is also the poorest and least well-maintained: makeshift structural improvements to hold up the ancient buildings can be seen everywhere.

A view of Cosenza’s old town from the Crati river

"Calabria is full of contradictions," says Bilotto. "Think of the incredible linguistic diversity we have between the Pollino mountains, the areas of the Aspromonte where they still speak Greek, and the Arbreshe communities. We should communicate what we really are. Of course there's still a lot of problems in Calabria, but this is all part of the experience."

Authentic rural life

Another great way to experience authentic Calabria is to take the Cammino Basiliano hike. Overlooking the sea, the medieval village of Badolato is one of the stops along the route. In total, the 1,400-kilometer (870 mi) trail connects 140 towns in the footsteps of the Basilian monks, a Greek-Italian order that followed the teachings of Saint Basil. Passing through rugged peaks and dramatic valleys, not only promotes discovery of often neglected inland areas, but it also gives work to 40 local guides and literally puts local businesses, such as places to eat and sleep, on the map — this map incidentally can be downloaded for free by anyone who wants to embark on the hike.

The Cammino Basiliano hiking trail leads through the Serre mountains where you can enjoy stunning views

According to ethnobotanist Carmine Lupia, who is one of the founders of the Cammino Basiliano, this type of tourism is "the only way" forward for Calabria. The rugged geography of the region, much of which is covered by mountains with difficult access, calls for a slower pace.

By promoting Calabria's unique cultural heritage and a more slow-paced tourism in order to experience it, this part of Italy could soon be attracting more international guests.

Edited by: Benjamin Restle

 Guatemala: Arrest of prominent journalist sparks outrage

Jose Ruben Zamora Marroquin's elPeriodico newspaper is famous for investigations that have revealed several cases of government corruption.

Zamora Marroquin is the founder and president of elPeriodico newspaper

Human rights activists, press freedom organizations and politicians expressed condemnation on Saturday after prominent Guatemalan journalist Jose Ruben Zamora Marroquin was arrested by police. 

Zamora Marroquin was arrested on charges of money laundering and blackmail. He was detained overnight, said Rafael Curruchiche, head of the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity (FECI) on social media, after police raided his home and office earlier.

"I want to make it clear that the arrest has no relation to his quality as a journalist, but to a possible act of money laundering in his capacity as a businessman," Curruchiche said.

Zamora Marroquin, 65, founded the newspaper elPeriodico in 1996, an outlet famous for investigations that have revealed several cases of government corruption.

Speaking from a cell in a video posted to Twitter by a local journalist, Zamora Marroquin said he was beginning a hunger strike. "I haven't eaten anything nor drunk any water in 36 hours."

Journalists protested against the detention of Zamora Marroquin on Saturday, at the center of Guatemala city.

"Guatemalan authorities should immediately release and drop any criminal charges against journalist Jose Ruben Zamora, president of elPeriodico," said Committee to Protect Journalists' Advocacy Director Gypsy Guillen Kaiser in a statement. 

Human rights violations in Guatemala

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in June added Guatemala to its list of countries committing serious human rights violations. Other countries on the list include Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. 

"We're going through one of the worst moments" with respect to corruption, Jordan Rodas, the country's ombudsman told AFP news agency. 

Corruption in Guatemala is at unprecedented levels under an "authoritarian" government that punishes prosecutors and judges investigating organized crime, he added.

At least five Guatemalan journalists from different media outlets are currently in exile. More than a dozen former FECI prosecutors, judges and human rights activists have fled Guatemala over complaints and arrest warrants issued against them by the FECI.

The administration of President Alejandro Giammattei has not commented on the case.

tg/sri  (AP, Reuters)

Arrest of prominent Guatemalan

 

journalist draws condemnation

SONIA PÉREZ D.

July 30, 2022

1 of 6

Guatemalan journalist Jose Ruben Zamora, president of newspaper El Periodico, arrives at court in Guatemala City, Friday, July 29, 2022. Security forces raided the home of renowned Guatemalan journalist Zamora, winner in 2021 of one of the King of Spain International Journalism Awards, who was arrested for the alleged crimes of blackmail, influence peddling and money laundering. (AP Photo/Oliver De Ros)


GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A prominent Guatemalan newspaper editor who has overseen investigations into corruption has been arrested, prompting denunciations Saturday by politicians, anticorruption activists and civic groups.

Prosecution agents arrested José Ruben Zamora Marroquín at his home on Friday night, searching his home, seizing telephones and accusing him of money laundering. Zamora Marroquín is a prize-winning journalist who heads the newspaper El Periodico.

“This is an orchestrated plan, where the aim now is not to pursue those who are corrupt, but rather opponents,” said human rights activist Eleonora Muralles. “The strategy is to coopt the whole system and have judges — with serious doubts about their impartiality — put together cases and evidence against opponents.”

Journalists protested Saturday outside a courthouse where the case is being heard.

U.S. Congressman James P. McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote that he was “deeply concerned” by the detention.

McGovern wrote in his Twitter account, “The judiciary is already decimated, is the Free Press next? Journalism is not a crime!”

Zamora Marroquín has declared a hunger strike. Speaking before a court hearing, he said, “I haven’t eaten anything nor drunk any water in 36 hours.”

The U.S. government has sharply criticized the weakening of anti-corruption efforts in Guatemala and last year cancelled the U.S. visa of Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras, who has been pursuing former prosecutors who had been conducting corruption investigations against officials..

More than former anti-corruption officials have fled the country. Now that effort appears to have extended to journalists.

Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei has been dismissive of U.S. officials’ criticism of his attorney general and what they see as a backsliding in Guatemala on battling corruption. The country’s new special prosecutor against impunity has been placed on a U.S. list of people suspected of corruption or undermining democracy. He is accused of obstructing corruption investigations.

Giammattei’s government and prosecutors accelerated efforts begun by his predecessor to undo a U.N.-backed anti-corruption campaign that put several top officials, including former presidents, behind bars. They say those prosecutions themselves were irregular.

Moreover, a number of the Guatemalans, including two Supreme Court magistrates, were allegedly involved in a scheme to stack the Supreme and Appellate Courts with corrupt judges, according to the State Department report.

CDU leader pulls out of right-wing US-German political forum following criticism

Keynote speaker Friedrich Merz dropped out of the right-wing "Transatlantic Forum" following criticism of the guest list, which includes a gun lobbyist, members of the German far right, and Trump ally Lindsay Graham.

The CDU's Friedrich Merz had come under fire after signing up for a right-wing event

Christian Democrat (CDU) opposition leader Friedrich Merz dropped out as keynote speaker of a right-wing US-German political forum due to take place in Berlin at the end of August after receiving criticism for sharing space with far-right figures invited to the event.

The "Transatlantic Forum" was due to be hosted in Berlin by the representative office of the German state of Baden Wurttemberg.

However, the office said on Tuesday after further reviewing the guest list that it would not be hosting the event.

In a tweet, the office said some of the speakers showed a "close proximity" to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.

"The event is therefore likely to damage the reputation of the state representation," the office said.

Merz's office did not give an explicit reason why the opposition leader pulled out, citing only a "change in the program."

It is unclear if the forum will go on after the keynote speaker and venue dropped out. 

Merz and Lindsey Graham were headliners

The event is being organized by German right-wing media organization The Republic and the US-based Tholos Foundation, which bills itself as an "advocate for free-market, low-tax and pro-competitive policies."

The keynote at the forum was to be a talk between the CDU's Merz and US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on transatlantic relations.

After announcing his pullout, Merz's office said he still does intend to speak to Lindsay Graham in August, just not at the event.

Lindsey Graham is an outspoken political supporter of Donald Trump

Graham is known as a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, including after the 2020 election during which Trump refused to concede defeat.

The South Carolina senator is currently fighting a subpoena to testify in a grand jury investigation in the state of Georgia over his knowledge of "a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere."

Social Democrat (SPD) General Secretary Kevin Kühnert told Germany's t-online news website that it was striking for Merz to speak with Graham about "saving conservative values" given the "radicalization" of the Republican Party and Trump supporters who are "actively working to erode basic democratic rights."

Controversial right-wing guests

Another US conservative on the guest list is Grover Norquist, a longtime Republican political operative and gun lobbyist who sits on the board of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and is a vocal opponent of gun control in the US.

Norquist also rallies against any government spending and in 2015 said his goal is to "cut the government down to a size where we can drown it in a bathtub."

On the German side of the guest list, is Joachim Steinhöfel, a former attorney for the AfD, who represented the party's co-chief Alice Weidel in a 2018 defamation lawsuit against Facebook.

Also invited is polemicist and publicist Henryk Broder who, among other things, has argued Germany's Middle East policy appeases Islamists.

Green party deputy parliamentary group chairman Konstanin von Notz told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) group of newspapers that it was a politically untenable for a high-ranking politician like Merz to participate in such events. 

Von Notz added Merz needed to "recover his political compass." 

German journalist Miriam Lau reported that Merz had been unaware of the complete guest list, which ended up including included figures like Steinhöfel and Broder, when he first agreed to attend. 

EU fallout grows over Orban's 'openly racist' words

Days after Hungary's Viktor Orban decried a "mixed-race" world, EU parliament leaders issued a strong rebuke.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban's "mixed race" remarks prompted EU backlash

Leaders of the European Parliament's main parties on Saturday condemned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for "openly racist" remarks he made recently.

In a speech in Romania, Orban argued that Europeans should not "become peoples of mixed race."

"Such unacceptable statements, which clearly constitute a breach of our values, also enshrined in the EU treaties, have no place in our societies," the Conference of Presidents of the EU Parliament said Saturday in a strong rebuke of the far-right leader.

It comes a week after Orban, who was critical of EU plans to call for a reduction of 15% in gas consumption, also made a backhanded reference to Nazi Germany's use of gas chambers as a tool of mass murder.

"I do not see how it will be enforced — although, as I understand it, the past shows us German know-how on that," he said.

The EU parliament leaders urged the European Commission and the European Council to condemn Orban's statements "in the strongest terms."

Von der Leyen says racism a blow to EU mutual values

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed on Saturday that "all EU member states, including Hungary, have subscribed to global common values" which are "non-negotiable."

"To discriminate on the basis of race, is trampling on these values. The European Union is built on equality, tolerance, fairness, and justice," von der Leyen said in an interview with the Slovak news site aktuality.sk.

Without ever specifically mentioning the Hungarian prime minister,

 the European Commission President Ursula said racism is a blow against EU values

Orban adviser resigns in protest

A longtime Orban adviser, Zsuzsa Hegedus, resigned on Tuesday in the aftermath of the fallout from the prime minister's words, calling the speech "a pure Nazi text."

In response to her resignation and years of service to his government, Orban said: "You cannot seriously accuse me of racism after 20 years of collaboration."

Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu also denounced the comments.

The International Auschwitz Committee labeled Orban's speech "hateful and dangerous" and called on the European Union "to make it clear to the world that a Mr. Orban has no future in Europe."

That organization's vice president, Christoph Heubner, called on Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer to take a stand against such hate speech when Orban is on an official visit to Vienna Thursday.

Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs said Orban's speech was "misinterpreted," and its racist implications were far more narrowly focused than his critics' charge.