Where do high-energy particles that endanger satellites, astronauts and airplanes come from?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

For decades, scientists have been trying to solve a vexing problem about the weather in outer space: At unpredictable times, high-energy particles bombard the earth and objects outside the earth’s atmosphere with radiation that can endanger the lives of astronauts and destroy satellites’ electronic equipment. These flare-ups can even trigger showers of radiation strong enough to reach passengers in airplanes flying over the North Pole. Despite scientists’ best efforts, a clear pattern of how and when flare-ups will occur has remained enduringly difficult to identify.

This week, in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, authors Luca Comisso and Lorenzo Sironi of Columbia’s Department of Astronomy and the Astrophysics Laboratory, have for the first time used supercomputers to simulate when and how high-energy particles are born in turbulent environments like that on the atmosphere of the sun. This new research paves the way for more accurate predictions of when dangerous bursts of these particles will occur.

“This exciting new research will allow us to better predict the origin of solar energetic particles and improve forecasting models of space weather events, a key goal of NASA and other space agencies and governments around the globe,” Comisso said. Within the next couple of years, he added, NASA's Parker Solar Probe, the closest spacecraft to the sun, may be able to validate the paper’s findings by directly observing the predicted distribution of high-energy particles that are generated in the sun's outer atmosphere.

In their paper, “Ion and Electron Acceleration in Fully Kinetic Plasma Turbulence,” Comisso and Sironi demonstrate that magnetic fields in the outer atmosphere of the sun can accelerate ions and electrons up to velocities close to the speed of light. The sun and other stars’ outer atmosphere consist of particles in a plasma state, a highly turbulent state distinct from liquid, gas, and solid states. Scientists have long believed that the sun’s plasma generates high-energy particles. But particles in plasma move so erratically and unpredictably that they have until now not been able to fully demonstrate how and when this occurs.

Using supercomputers at Columbia, NASA, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Comisso and Sironi created computer simulations that show the exact movements of electrons and ions in the sun’s plasma. These simulations mimic the atmospheric conditions on the sun, and provide the most extensive data gathered to-date on how and when high-energy particles will form.

The research provides answers to questions that scientists have been investigating for at least 70 years: In 1949, the physicist Enrico Fermi began to investigate magnetic fields in outer space  as a potential source of the high-energy particles (which he called cosmic rays) that were observed entering the earth’s atmosphere. Since then, scientists have suspected that the sun’s plasma is a major source of these particles, but definitively proving it has been difficult.

Comisso and Sironi’s research, which was conducted with support from NASA and the National Science Foundation, has implications far beyond our own solar system. The vast majority of the observable matter in the universe is in a plasma state. Understanding how some of the particles that constitute plasma can be accelerated to high-energy levels is an important new research area since energetic particles are routinely observed not just around the sun but also in other environments across the universe, including the surroundings of black holes and neutron stars.

While Comisso and Sironi’s new paper focuses on the sun, further simulations could be run in other contexts to understand how and when distant stars, black holes, and other entities in the universe will generate their own bursts of energy.

“Our results center on the sun but can also be seen as a starting point to better understanding how high-energy particles are produced in more distant stars and around black holes,” Comisso said. “We’ve only scratched the surface of what supercomputer simulations can tell us about how these particles are born across the universe.”

 

---

JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal Letters

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Ion and Electron Acceleration in Fully Kinetic Plasma Turbulence

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Sep-2022

The gene to which we owe our big brain

Brain organoids provide insights into the evolution of the human brain

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DEUTSCHES PRIMATENZENTRUM (DPZ)/GERMAN PRIMATE CENTER

 

IMAGE: A BRAIN ORGANOID ABOUT 3 MILLIMETERS IN SIZE MADE FROM STEM CELLS OF A CHIMPANZEE. THE BRAIN STEM CELLS ARE STAINED RED; BRAIN STEM CELLS THAT RECEIVED THE ARHGAP11B GENE ARE SHOWN IN GREEN. PHOTO: JAN FISCHER view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO: JAN FISCHER

Animal studies on great apes have long been banned in Europe for ethical reasons. For the question pursued here, so-called organoids, i.e. three-dimensional cell structures a few millimeters in size that are grown in the laboratory, are an alternative to animal experiments. These organoids can be produced from pluripotent stem cells, which then differentiate into specific cell types, such as nerve cells. In this way, the research team was able to produce both chimpanzee brain organoids and human brain organoids. "These brain organoids allowed us to investigate a central question concerning ARHGAP11B," says Wieland Huttner of the MPI-CBG, one of the three lead authors of the study.

"In a previous study we were able to show that ARHGAP11B can enlarge a primate brain. However, it was previously unclear whether ARHGAP11B had a major or minor role in the evolutionary enlargement of the human neocortex," says Wieland Huttner. To clarify this, the ARGHAP11B gene was first inserted into brain ventricle-like structures of chimpanzee organoids. Would the ARGHAP11B gene lead to the proliferation of those brain stem cells in the chimpanzee brain that are necessary for the enlargement of the neocortex? "Our study shows that the gene in chimpanzee organoids causes an increase in relevant brain stem cells and an increase in those neurons that play a crucial role in the extraordinary mental abilities of humans," said Michael Heide, the study's lead author, who is head of the Junior Research Group Brain Development and Evolution at the DPZ and employee at the MPI-CBG. When the ARGHAP11B gene was knocked out in human brain organoids or the function of the ARHGAP11B protein was inhibited, the amount of these brain stem cells decreased to the level of a chimpanzee. "We were thus able to show that ARHGAP11B plays a crucial role in neocortex development during human evolution," says Michael Heide. Julia Ladewig of HITBR, the third of the lead authors, adds: "Given this important role of ARHGAP11B, it is furthermore conceivable that certain maldevelopments of the neocortex may be caused by mutations in this gene."

A section of a brain organoid made from stem cells of a human. In magenta are actively proliferating brain stem cells, in yellow a subset of brain stem cells. Photo: Jan Fischer

CREDIT

Photo: Jan Fischer

JOURNAL

EMBO Reports

DOI

10.15252/embr.202254728 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Lab-produced tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

Human-specific ARHGAP11B ensures human-like basal progenitor levels in hominid cerebral organoids

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Sep-2022

Why a woman's doctor warned her not to get pregnant in Texas

Elizabeth Cohen - Saturday - CNN


Nine years ago, Cade DeSpain messaged a friend about a cute girl he saw on her Facebook feed.

Duration 3:50
Why a woman's doctor warned her not to get pregnant in Texas
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The friend introduced him to Kailee Lingo, her sorority sister at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. Kailee remembers that when she and Cade met, it was “a connection at first sight.”

A month after college graduation, Kailee and Cade married in Marble Falls, Texas. They’re both proud to be native Texans: Kailee’s family has lived there for generations, and Cade’s ancestors are among Texas’ “Old Three Hundred,” the original families that joined Stephen F. Austin to settle the area in the 1800s.

At the time, the DeSpains were both passionately anti-abortion.

“I was just your quintessential pro-life Texan,” Kailee, 29, told CNN in a recent interview.

“I was raised in central Texas by extremely Republican parents and grandparents,” Cade, 31, said. “One hundred percent pro-life.”

Kailee and Cade have supported abortion rights since 2016, when she had a miscarriage at 16 weeks and was hospitalized for severe complications, including blood clots and infection. It was one of three miscarriages she had in the early years of marriage.

“It made me realize that pregnancy can be dangerous,” she said. “It made me think of my little sisters, and I wanted them to be able to have a choice if they ever had to go through something like that.”

Last September, when a restrictive anti-abortion law took effect in Texas, Kailee pleaded on Facebook for people to contact their elected representatives to protect abortion rights.

In November, Kailee and Cade were overjoyed to learn that she was pregnant. Full of hope, they posted ultrasound pictures and a gender reveal video of a cannon shooting out blue confetti. They named their baby boy Finley.

Then, about three months later, they learned that Finley had heart, lung, brain, kidney and genetic defects and would either be stillborn or die within minutes of birth. Carrying him to term put Kailee at high risk for severe pregnancy complications, including blood clots, preeclampsia and cancer.

Even so, they could not get an abortion in Texas and fled to New Mexico.

“I’ve never felt more betrayed by a place I was once so proud to be from,” Kailee said through tears.

“How could you be so cruel as to pass a law that you know will hurt women and that you know will cause babies to be born in pain?” she added. “How is that humane? How is that saving anybody?”

CNN emailed Texas lawmakers who authored or sponsored the state’s anti-abortion laws. None of them responded to CNN’s questions.

A grim prognosis for their baby

When Kailee and Cade found out she was pregnant, they desperately hoped for a “sticky baby” – a pregnancy that would stick – after her three miscarriages.

But after multiple ultrasounds, the doctors’ prognosis was grim: His heart, lung, kidney and brain problems were severe, and his genetic disorder, called triploidy, meant he had an extra set of chromosomes. The doctors said that either Finley would die before birth, or if he did make it to term, he would die a few minutes or at most an hour after birth.

One of their doctors told them, “Some of these things could be fixed, but all of these things together – this cannot be fixed,” Kailee remembers.

She says the doctor told them that before Texas’ six-week abortion ban went into effect in September of last year, she would have advised abortion as “the safest course for you [and] the most humane course of action for him.”

But the doctor said she could not offer them an abortion in Texas. She said the only option to get one was to travel out of state.

Risk to Kailee’s life

Staying pregnant with Finley could have put Kailee’s life in danger.

She has two blood clotting disorders, which put her at a higher risk for having dangerous blood clots during pregnancy. Plus, mothers of babies with triploidy are more likely to get preeclampsia, a potentially deadly pregnancy disorder. Also, there was an increased risk for a placental abnormality associated with cancer.

Kailee said she considered risking her own life to carry Finley to term.

“I [wanted] to say goodbye,” she said. “I [wanted] a chance to hold him.”

But then she thought about how Finley would suffer as he struggled to breathe.

“He’s going to suffocate, he’s going to die, and I’m going to watch him do it,” she said.

For Cade, there was only one option: It made no sense to him to risk his wife’s life to have a baby who was certain to die quickly.

Cade told Kailee, ” ‘I will support you whatever decision that you make, but I really don’t want to lose both of you, ’ ” Kailee remembers.

The couple opted for abortion, driving 10 hours to a clinic in New Mexico. The procedure and travel cost $3,500. They hoped their insurance would cover the procedure, but Texas law strictly limits abortion coverage, and the clinic told them their insurance company declined to pay.

The DeSpains didn’t have enough money – Kailee said she was docked pay at work because she’d had too many sick days – so Cade asked a relative he describes as “the epitome of the Trump fanboy” to give them the $3,500. The relative relented when Cade said that without the abortion, he could end up a widower at age 30.

Cade said he didn’t like asking for the money, but “my job as a husband is to protect and love my wife. If I’m not fighting to keep her here, then I failed.”

Kailee had the abortion in March, when she was 19 weeks pregnant.

‘I’m still so angry and hurt’

While legislators did not respond to CNN’s questions about Kailee’s case, the president of Texas Right to Life did.

John Seago said that “Texas law is very clear about what circumstances that an abortion could be performed” and that “what happened to [Kailee] and the response of her physicians was absolutely a misrepresentation of the law. And this should never have happened.”

But Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University Law Center, said Texas’ abortion laws – the one that took effect last year and another one that went into effect last month – are not at all clear and are “designed to be purposely vague and broad.”

The more recent law, for example, says an abortion can be performed if the mother “has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

“They don’t spell out exactly the situations when an abortion can be provided,” Keith said.

Kailee said her doctors told her they could give her an abortion only if she were at imminent risk of dying – essentially, if she were ” ‘dying on the table.’ ”

If a physician is found in violation of the law, the punishments can be severe: heavy fines, loss of their medical license and a possible life sentence in prison.

Plus, citizens can file lawsuits against physicians they think have performed an illegal abortion, and if they win, they can get a $10,000 reward. If the citizen is wrong and the doctor wins the lawsuit, the doctor still has to pay their own legal fees, as Texas law specifically forbids doctors from recouping fees from plaintiffs.

“Facing the potential to become a felon and face life in prison for simply trying to take care of patients has been horrifying, and I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t considered leaving the state,” said Dr. Leah Tatum, a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who practices in Austin, Texas, and has treated patients in similar situations to Kailee’s since the Texas anti-abortion laws passed.

The Texas law that went into effect last year barred most abortions at the onset of fetal cardiac activity, which can occur as early as six weeks into pregnancy and before many people know they are pregnant. It was one of the earliest and most restrictive abortion laws. Laws that ban abortion or severely restrict the procedure have gone into effect in about a dozen states after the US Supreme Court ended a constitutional right to abortion on June 24.

Kailee says that the last time she saw her obstetrician, she advised her not to get pregnant in Texas.

“She said ‘this is not safe,’ ” Kailee remembers. ” She said, ‘I need you to look at me. I need you to understand that if you get pregnant in Texas and that if you have complications, that I cannot intervene until I can prove that you’re going to die.’ ”

The DeSpains say they are thinking about leaving Texas, but it would be difficult to leave their work and their families.

Kailee said they’re sharing their story in hopes of increasing awareness so “that stories like mine can change enough voters’ perspectives.”

“I’m still so angry and hurt about it that I can hardly see straight,” she wrote on Facebook the day after the abortion. “Finley and I were simply collateral damage in a much bigger picture. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the thought process of lawmakers that would rather a full-term baby suffocate to death than allow a mother to make a decision that spares her child that pain.”

CNN’s Nadia Kounang and John Bonifield contributed to this report.

Indiana abortion ban challenged under religious freedom law



- Abortion protesters attempt to hand out literature as they stand in the driveway of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Indianapolis, Aug. 16, 2019. Hospitals and abortion clinics in Indiana are preparing for the state's abortion ban to go into effect on Sept. 15, 2022. Starting Sept. 15, abortions will be permitted only in cases of rape and incest, before 10-weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the patient; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly. The law also prohibits abortion clinics from providing any abortion care. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

TOM DAVIES
Thu, September 8, 2022


INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Opponents of Indiana’s abortion ban set to take effect next week filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing it would violate a state religious-freedom law that Republican lawmakers approved in 2015.

The lawsuit follows another one filed last week also challenging the abortion ban that the GOP-dominated Legislature and Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb approved last month.

The lawsuit filed in Marion County court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of five anonymous residents and the group Hoosier Jews for Choice argues that the ban would violate their religious rights on when they believe abortion is acceptable. They are citing a state law that then-Gov. Mike Pence signed over the objections of critics who said it allows discrimination against gay people.

Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, said in a statement that the religious-freedom law protects “all Hoosiers, not just those who practice Christianity.”

“The ban on abortion will substantially burden the exercise of religion by many Hoosiers who, under the new law, would be prevented from obtaining abortions, in conflict with their sincere religious beliefs,” Falk said.

Indiana was the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June. The ban that is set to take effect Sept. 15 includes exceptions allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly. Current Indiana law generally prohibits abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricts it after the 13th week.

The ACLU's lawsuit contends that the new abortion ban would violate Jewish teaching that “a fetus attains the status of a living person only at birth” and that “Jewish law stresses the necessity of protecting the life and physical and mental health of the mother prior to birth as the fetus is not yet deemed to be a person.” It also cites theological teachings allowing abortion in at least some circumstances by Islamic, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and Pagan faiths.

Indiana abortion clinic operators argued in a lawsuit filed last week that the ban would violate the state constitution. No court rulings have been issued in that lawsuit.

Republican state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray and Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita both issued statements Thursday saying they believe the abortion ban is proper under the state constitution, but they did not address arguments that it violates the religious freedom law.

No faith is monolithic on the abortion issue. Yet many followers of faiths that do not prohibit abortion have lamented that tighter abortion laws could supersede their individual rights and religious beliefs, such as the position of Judaism as outlined in the lawsuit.

A similar lawsuit has been filed in at least one other state. A synagogue argued in June that Florida's abortion restrictions violates religious freedom rights of Jews. That case is still working its way through the courts.

Daniel Conkle, an Indiana University law professor who testified in support of the state’s religious freedom law during the 2015 legislative debate, said it will be difficult to use that law to argue against the abortion ban. He said the ACLU will have to show that a person “would be relying upon their religious beliefs in a substantial way” in seeking an abortion.

“I don’t think it’s enough simply that their religion does not recognize a prohibition on abortion,” Conkle said. “I think it has to be more in the way of a substantial motivation than that.”

 

The United Nations General Assembly meets this week in New York and has to take an important decision: should the military dictators in Myanmar be seated?  The global unions are saying "no" - and demanding recognition of the National Unity Government instead.  They're also demanding accountability for the many crimes being committed by the regime -- and calling for an arms embargo and economic sanctions. Please support the campaign by adding your name here.  And please share this message with your friends, family and fellow union members. Finally, here's a reminder of something we sent to you earlier this month:  I am writing to ask for your help to keep LabourStart going.  I realise that this is the worst possible time to ask, with so many of us facing a disastrous cost-of-living crisis.  It's hard to give -- and it's hard to ask people to give.   But there has never been a greater need for a powerful labour movement than now.  And the only way we are going to get a more powerful labour movement is if we all work together, across borders, for global solidarity. That's at the heart of what LabourStart does.   It's what those workers in Iran, Poland, Georgia and Cambodia have thanked us for.   It's what we do. Please give generously.  And please encourage your union to make a substantial donation too.   Click here to donate. Thank you very much.     Eric Lee

Twitter whistleblower testifies in Senate over claims of security failures

By A.L. Lee

Peter Zatko spent a little more than a year as the head of Twitter's security operation before he was fired in January for speaking out about issues of concern to him. 

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo


Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The man at the center of a whistleblower case against Twitter testified before Congress on Tuesday as part of an investigation into what he said were "egregious deficiencies" within the social media company.

Former Twitter security chief Peter "Mudge" Zatko appeared before the Senate judiciary committee, which is concerned that there might be national security issues.

Zatko has said that Twitter's vulnerabilities when he was there compromised users' personal data and potentially exposed operational technology to espionage by hiring workers who could have been foreign agents.

Zatko also said Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal had covered up security failures from federal regulators and the company's board.

RELATEDTwitter says whistleblower case has no bearing on deal with Elon Musk

Zatko spent a little more than a year as the head of Twitter's security operation before he was fired in January for speaking out about the issues.

Twitter has denied the accusations and noted that Zatko was fired following a below-average performance review. The company has said that Zatko's claims are "riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies."

Zatko's testimony on Tuesday could eventually lead to other congressional investigations into the matter, with possible criminal implications.

The whistleblower case has been a centerpiece in Twitter's lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk, which is seeking to hold Musk to his agreement to buy the social platform for $44 billion.

Musk said in April he was buying the company -- but abandoned the deal weeks later in July because he says Twitter won't give him data on monetizable accounts that are phony or "bot" accounts. Twitter has also denied that accusation.

The trial between Twitter and Musk is scheduled to begin next month.

RELATEDMusk sends second termination letter to Twitter

Last week, the judge presiding over the case allowed Musk to present evidence pertaining to the whistleblower at the trial in Delaware to settle the matter.

Musk cites the whistleblower case as proof that Twitter misled him and shareholders about security shortfalls at the company.

Twitter shareholders were scheduled to take a vote on Tuesday on whether to approve the sale to Musk.

Democratic senators urge ICE to stop use of surveillance technology

By Matt Bernardini

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., pictured here, along with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., 

called on ICE to stop its use of surveillance technology on Monday. 

File photo by Alex Brandon/UPI. | License Photo

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Two Democratic senators on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to discontinue its use of surveillance technologies after a report that the organization is building a dragnet security system.

Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told ICE acting Director Tae Johnson that the agency's use of facial recognition technology and other surveillance tools threatens the privacy rights of individuals across the country.

"This surveillance network has exploited privacy-protection gaps and has enormous civil rights implications," Markey and Wyden said. "ICE should immediately shut down its Orwellian data gathering efforts that indiscriminately collect far too much data on far too many individuals."

The letter referenced a report from the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology that concluded that ICE acts as a "domestic surveillance agency."

The Georgetown Law center's report found that ICE has used facial recognition technology on the driver's license photographs of 32% of all adults in the United States.

The report also found that ICE has used databases from private data brokers and state and local bureaucracies to gain access to information like call, child welfare, employment and health care records as well as social media posts.

According to the letter, the Georgetown Law Center's report also noted that ICE uses data given to state and local agencies for its own purposes.

"ICE often accesses that data without the permission or even awareness of the entity that originally collected the information," Markey and Wyden said, quoting the Georgetown Law Center's report. "These practices raise serious concerns and questions about how ICE surveils the public and avoids key accountability systems."

'It's a pending nightmare': Millions at risk of famine in Somalia

If nothing is done within days, people in Somalia will start dying, according to the Red Cross. Experts say that lessons from previous famines have to be learned to prevent mass casualties.

The Ukraine war might be the single biggest accelerator in Somalia's current food crisis situation

A humanitarian catastrophe is imminent in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. That's the joint assessment of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), following months of food security assessments.

The number of people in dire need of emergency humanitarian assistance in Somalia has increased from 4.1 million at the beginning of 2022 to 7.1 million, and is expected to continue to grow.

Francesco Rocca, president of the IFRC, highlighted at a press conference in Geneva that 22 million people living in the Horn of Africa are already in the clutches of a growing food crisis.

"The situation expected to deteriorate into 2023," Rocca stressed, adding that what is being done was "minimal compared to the huge needs" of the region.

Peter Maurer, the outgoing president of the ICRC, meanwhile warned that if the international community waits to take action until a famine is officially declared, "we know that it will already be too late."

"Tens of thousands of people will already have died by the time we declare a famine," Maurer said.

The Horn of Africa is currently witnessing its fifth consecutive failed rainy season. The war in Ukraine and its ensuing grain delivery shortages have further compounded the situation, as well as political upheaval across the region.

More than 200,000 are at risk of dying — potentially by the end of the year. About half of the country's population is likely to experience hunger and want in some shape during the same timescale unless aid is stepped up.

Maurer (l.) and Rocca agree that action must be taken immediately to

 prevent a humanitarian catastrophe

Uncertain future for children

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said that in Somalia alone, more than $1 billion (€1 billion) is needed to prevent the worst from happening.

Arriving in the Somalian capital Mogadishu last week, Griffiths underlined the fact that children are particularly at risk, saying that he had encountered children who were so malnourished that they could barely speak.

The number of children facing the effects of severe acute malnutrition in Somalia meanwhile has increased to over half a million, according to the UN.  James Elder, spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, said that this level of child famine had not been seen in any country yet this century, with more than 700 children already having lost their lives this year due to malnutrition.

Infectious diseases are rising among Somalia's children as their defenses 

are weakened amid the growing starvation crisis

Meanwhile, outbreaks of infectious diseases have also increased in Somalia, with around 8,400 suspected cases of cholera and nearly 13,000 suspected cases of measles.

"We've got more than half a million children facing preventable death. It's a pending nightmare," Elder stated, echoing Maurer's sentiments who said that children potentially dying of hunger "is the result of systemic failure."

In 2011, tens of thousands of children were reported to have died during the most recent famine in the region. The total number of famine victims that year are estimated to be roughly a quarter of a million lives, according to the UN.

Ukraine war — in Somalia

The war in Ukraine — unfolding some 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) north of Mogadishu — might be the single biggest accelerator in the current food crisis situation. Prior to the Russian invasion, Somalia imported 90% of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he would continue to prioritize the Horn of Africa in whatever shipments can occur in the future while the war still rages, but there are no absolute guarantees, especially since all exports take place under the watchful eye of the Russian military.

Even with grain deliveries from Ukraine continuing, Somalia faces grave food

 shortages amid the worst drought in 40 years

Lessons from the past

But there are other factors at play. Somalia's population is for the most part pastoral and nomadic, making it difficult to deliver aid where it is needed most.

However, Rocca stressed that the IFRC is working closely not only with other agencies but also with Somalia's nomadic communities. Rocca said that "world leaders should listen to act immediately" in order not only to prevent a massive humanitarian crisis but also to establish "longterm solutions in the Horn of Africa."

In addition to repeated drought decimating herds and crops, a locust invasion has also contributed to weakening the Horn of Africa since 2019. These are all primarily attributed to the effects of climate change.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths

 says he has never witnessed such destitution as the scenes unfolding in Somalia right now

The consequences of COVID-19 have also made the situation in Somalia more precarious for many, with supply chains being interrupted at the height of the pandemic.

Years of Islamist insurgency under the al-Shabab militant group in various parts of the country have also contributed to the lack of stability in Somalia and its neighbors, causing irregular migration patterns and displacing thousands from their homes.

Abubakar Dahir Osman, the UN's permanent representative in Somalia, however, emphasized that humanitarian aid alone cannot provide a lasting solution to the famine in Somalia. He said that the relationship between humanitarian aid and development needed to be strengthened to find sustainable solutions for those who are suffering.

Rocca meanwhile stressed that the international community must learn from the shortcomings of the past, adding that addressing "the root causes of the crisis" needed to be part of a comprehensive action plan. Maurer agreed with that assessment, saying that people could start dying "within days."

"The alarm bells are ringing loudly," Maurer added.

Mohd Awal Balarabe, Sylvia Mwehoyi and Mohammed Odowa contributed to this report

Edited by: Keith Walker

EU court backs EU antitrust decision against Google, trims fine

Wed, September 14, 2022

FILE PHOTO: Tour of Google's new Bay View Campus in Mountain View

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Europe's second-top court on Wednesday upheld an EU antitrust decision against Alphabet unit Google for using its Android mobile operating system to quash rivals but trimmed the record fine to 4.125 billion euros ($4.12 billion) from 4.34 billion.

"The General Court largely confirms the Commission's decision that Google imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and mobile network operators in order to consolidate the dominant position of its search engine," the court said.

"In order better to reflect the gravity and duration of the infringement, the General Court considers it appropriate however to impose a fine of €4.125 billion on Google, its reasoning differing in certain respects from that of the Commission," judges said.

The case is T-604/18 Google vs European Commission.

($1 = 1.0012 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Bart Meijers in Amsterdam)

MUSSOLINI'S HEIR

‘We’ve tried them all, except Meloni’: Far-right leader tipped to become Italy’s first female PM

Benjamin DODMAN -

As yet unaffected by the slings and arrows of governing, Giorgia Meloni is poised to carry her hard-right Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) party to victory in Italy’s general election on September 25, putting her in the running to become the country’s first female prime minister. FRANCE 24 reports from Italy’s economic capital Milan, where the new darling of the right has eclipsed former champions of the cause Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi.


 Flavio Lo Scalzo, Reuters

Locals enjoying a late-afternoon stroll, couples lapping at fast-melting ice cream cones and tourists angling for the best shot of Milan’s imposing Gothic cathedral – just another Sunday in piazza Duomo, one might say, were it not for the flag-waving crowd gathered around a fiery orator with a thick Roman accent.

The speaker, Giorgia Meloni, is the leader of Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia or FdI), a far-right outfit that has emerged from its south-central power base to become a dominant force all the way up to the Alps. At 45, she is the favourite to become Italy’s first female prime minister after the country’s general election on September 25.

Pollsters predict Meloni’s party will emerge as Italy’s largest, taking a quarter of the vote – a more than fivefold increase from its score at the last general election in 2018. She is set to leapfrog her better-known right-wing allies Matteo Salvini and the seemingly eternal Silvio Berlusconi, easily surpassing their combined tallies.

With Italy’s convoluted electoral law favouring broad coalitions, the three right-wing parties are on course to trounce the fractured centre-left, potentially handing a Meloni-led government a majority large enough to change Italy’s constitution.

“Come election time, the right always finds a way to pull together,” said Francesco Trevisi, a pensioner from faraway Lecce, in the heel of Italy, as he wound up his passeggiata in Milan’s central square.

He offered a simple explanation for the far-right leader’s astonishing surge: “She’s the only one we haven’t tried yet – which means she’s the only one yet to fail.”

Alone in opposition

Blame it on the unseasonal heat, a lacklustre campaign or the Formula One Grand Prix taking place in nearby Monza, but Meloni fell well short of “filling up piazza Duomo” as she had promised. Still, the crowd of several thousand supporters underscored the shifting balance of power on the right.

That shift is especially startling here in Milan, the capital of Lombardy, the country’s economic powerhouse, where Brothers of Italy took just 3.6 percent of the vote four years ago.

Italy’s main business hub, Milan is where Berlusconi built his housing, advertising and television empires and where he owned a football club and launched his political career. Salvini’s anti-immigrant Lega party once envisaged it as the capital of a prosperous and independent north, freed from the corruption and inefficiencies of Roma ladrona (Rome the thief).

In past election campaigns, both men would have vied to stage the biggest rally at the foot of the Duomo, the world’s third-largest cathedral. This time, however, they had little choice but to cede home turf to their former junior partner.

In the quicksand of Italian politics, where politicians seem to change stance, party or coalition almost every other day, Meloni has at least one clear advantage over her allies: a reputation for steadfastness and coherence.

Whereas Salvini and Berlusconi joined forces with the centre-left last year to form a unity government under Mario Draghi, she refused, describing the appointment of the former eurozone central banker as undemocratic.

“Like her or not, she’s stuck to her word and refused to enter unnatural alliances,” said local pensioner Grazia Valerin, chancing upon Meloni’s rally. “The same can’t be said of the likes of Salvini, who now pretends he was in the opposition when, in fact, he was in government,” added her partner Ruben, an insurance worker and one-time Lega voter who will be looking elsewhere this time.

Meloni’s decision to shun the national unity coalition has made her a natural recipient of Italy’s protest vote, says Maurizio Cotta, a professor of political science at the University of Siena.

“Meloni has skilfully exploited her position as the main opposition force,” Cotta explains. “She has capitalised on the resentment of a segment of the population towards Draghi’s government – a capable, efficient administration that also came across as severe and technocratic.”

The far-right leader has also benefited from the weakness and blunders of her allies-cum-rivals on the right, he adds, stealing support from the once-popular Salvini, whose standing has plummeted ever since a botched power grab in 2019.


“Salvini’s limitations have become all too obvious to most voters,” Cotta explains. As for the 85-year-old Berlusconi, “he’s now a spent force”.

“Berlusconi's decline has opened up a huge space among centre-right voters, who traditionally account for a decisive swathe of the electorate,” he says. “Salvini occupied part of that space for a while, now it's Meloni's turn.”

Message to Europe: Italy comes first

Disillusion with Salvini was a recurrent theme at the Milan rally, where many former Lega voters lamented its leader’s frequent U-turns.

“Meloni has learned from Salvini’s mistakes,” said 23-year-old student Massimo Boscia, who broke with Salvini over his decision to join a unity government with the left and his support for Covid-19 vaccination passes. “She has understood that in order to govern she will need to build her international credibility,” he said.

Boscia spoke enthusiastically of Meloni’s economic platform, a mix of business-friendly tax cuts, “Italy first” protectionism and industrial investment, unrestrained by what he described as the “often sterile injunctions of environmentalism”.

Meloni’s right-wing coalition has pledged extremely expensive solutions to the energy and cost of living crisis in the eurozone's third-biggest economy – without detailing how they will be paid for.

While Italy is saddled with the eurozone’s second-highest public debt, there’s also a lot of money up for grabs – the EU has earmarked almost €200 billion in post-pandemic recovery funds for the country. Meloni says she will renegotiate that deal, which is contingent on Italy carrying out a series of reforms.

“To the EU I say, ‘The free ride is over’,” she roared on Sunday, vowing to “start defending Italy’s national interests like every other EU member already does”. Away from the rallies, however, she has adopted a more conciliatory tone, pledging fiscal prudence and support for the EU’s sanctions against Russia – in stark contrast with Salvini, who is still struggling to shake off the fallout from his past fawning over Vladimir Putin.

On the campaign trail, she has been careful to avoid criticising Draghi, mindful of his standing both at home and abroad. Instead, she has relentlessly targeted the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), her main competitor, blaming it for every one of Italy’s woes.

In Milan, she accused the PD of attempting to demonise her party through a “violent” campaign of slander. “The left attacks us all day long because they have nothing else to offer,” she said. “They are trying to create a monster (…) calling me a fascist.”

The flame of discord

Meloni was 15 when she joined the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a far-right outfit created after the war by supporters of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. She won her first local election at age 21 and became Italy’s youngest-ever minister a decade later when she was given the youth portfolio in Berlusconi’s 2008 government.

After the collapse of Berlusconi’s last administration, she founded her own party with other MSI veterans, naming it after the opening lines of the national anthem. Since then, she has gradually succeeded in pushing Brothers of Italy into the mainstream, without ever fully repudiating its post-fascist roots.

She has notably rejected calls to remove from her party’s logo a tricolour flame that was an icon of the MSI.

“Meloni leads a party whose roots go back to the fascist tradition, including through the symbol of the flame,” says Paolo Berizzi, a journalist at Italian daily La Repubblica who has been under round-the-clock police protection for the past three years after receiving death threats from neo-fascist groups. “In interviews with the foreign press she tries to come across as moderate, but when she addresses right-wing crowds at rallies she shows her true colours,” he adds.

Meloni has cultivated a straight-talking, tough persona. She describes herself as conservative, even as much of the foreign press calls her far right. She champions patriotism and traditional family values, while excoriating political correctness and global elites. In a fiery speech in support of Spain’s far-right Vox party in June, she railed against “Islamic violence”, “gender ideology” and the “LGBT lobby”.

As its name suggests, her Brothers of Italy is no sisterhood. Other than Meloni, its prominent figures are all men – with the exception of Daniela Santanchè, a former Berlusconi ally with a long record of anti-feminist rants, who once said women’s greatest pleasure should be “serving their men”.

In conservative meritocratic fashion, Meloni is opposed to diversity quotas to boost female presence in parliament or the boardroom, saying women have to get to the top through merit, like she did. If her party has a priority regarding women, it’s to reverse Italy’s declining birth rate.

“As things stand, this nation is destined to disappear,” Meloni warned on Sunday, before adding: “The solution is not immigration, like the left would have you think.”

It’s a view shared by opera singer Rafaella D’Ascoli, who sang the national anthem on stage as the rally drew to a close.

“Women shouldn’t have to choose between career and maternity, like I did when I quit my job to have a baby,” she said. “The point is to ensure they are able to do both.”

D’Ascoli described herself as a “firm believer in meritocracy”, like Meloni. “Women shouldn’t get jobs just to fill quotas and then keep quiet, but because they deserve them,” she said.

Victory for the Brothers of Italy leaders “would be a victory for women”, added her younger sister Serena, a pharmacist, praising Meloni's “tenacity”.

Aside from Meloni’s natalist policies, Serena said she was particularly drawn to her stance on immigration, which includes pledges to set up African hot spots to process applications while pushing back illegal crossings – a promise Salvini made at the last election and failed to deliver on.

Meloni’s tough rhetoric on immigration drew some of the loudest cheers from the crowd in piazza Duomo, many of them former Lega voters accustomed to Salvini’s tirades on the subject.

In fact, Meloni’s programme is “much the same as Salvini’s”, said Claudio, a retired producer of the local digestif Amaro Ramazzotti. A nostalgic of the Lega of old, he said he would remain loyal to Salvini’s party, railing against southern “scroungers” who live off northern Italy’s wealth.

Italy must stop being “submissive towards Europe”, Claudio said, urging Meloni and Salvini to “stand up to other EU nations”.

“Italy has tried them all, now Meloni is the new package,” he added. “But as long as they govern together, it suits me fine.”