It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Africa: 'Earthing' Not Yet All It's Cracked Up to Be - More Independent Research With Large Samples Needed On the Effects of Walking Barefoot and 'Grounding'
IN SHORT: Walking barefoot and "being in touch with Mother Nature" might have its benefits. But there is little scientific evidence that the concept of "earthing" can heal various diseases.
"Modern shoes making us sick?" asks the headline of a video circulating on social media in June 2023. The video has been viewed over 14,000 times.
It shows clips from a documentary - The Earthing Movie: The Remarkable Science of Grounding - and was also posted on a Facebook page advertising the film.
Similar posts have appeared on Facebook, while one Twitter user wrote: "Yet another way that the modern world is failing our health is the shoe."
In the video clip, someone holds up a synthetic-soled shoe and claims: "This was the single thing that probably caused the proliferation of inflammation-related health disorders far and above anything else."
The idea relates to "grounding" or "earthing", a practice that centres around supposed health benefits of being in direct contact with the ground. We looked into the evidence surrounding this popular wellness trend.
'Earthing' or 'grounding' theory and physics
According to the Earthing Institute, the practice of earthing can heal disease by transferring electrons from the earth's surface to the human body. The therapy falls under the umbrella of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAMs are treatments that generally do not have a scientific basis, and are either used in addition to or instead of conventional medicine.
CAMs often, but not always, claim to be supported by some theory and evidence. Proponents of earthing suggest the therapy works because direct physical contact with the earth's surface, like when walking barefoot, balances electrical charges in the body.
"It's like taking handfuls of antioxidants, but you're getting it through the feet," a narrator in the clip explains.
Chad Orzelwrote about the physics involved in the practice of earthing back in 2014. He's an associate professor in the physics and astronomy department at Union College in the US.
According to Orzel, the theory of grounding proposes that when we don't have contact with the ground, our bodies "pick up a positive charge relative to the Earth", causing illness. But connection to the ground, like being barefoot, equalises this potential difference.
This is important, according to the Earthing Institute, because this process neutralises the damaging "free radicals", unstable molecules in the body that could damage cells and trigger inflammation, causing a range of illnesses.
But Orzel criticised the physics underlying this idea. He said there was no difference between the electrons that come from the earth and electrons that come from a synthetic material you touch. "Electrons are electrons," he said, and if there was a difference, "chemistry would be a mess".
But proponents have responded to such criticisms by saying that "standard scientific models can't account for the details of this transfer". So maybe science just doesn't yet understand the mechanisms of how it works. What about if it works?
Grounding: concrete evidence?
Scientists have conducted limited research on the effects of grounding on human health, with some positive results. For example, some studies suggested earthing could help balance circadian rhythms, the cyclical 24-hour period of biological activity, or could help thin the blood, which might in turn lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.
But these studies have been small, and were not placebo-controlled or double-blinded. This means that the placebo effect or other factors could explain these results.
Other research has been more rigorous. Some studies with placebo conditions have suggested grounding could have positive effects including body relaxation, enhanced mood, or reduced muscle damage.
But before you ditch the shoes and buy expensive earthing mats and other products, it is important to note that this research might not be all that water-tight.
These studies have also been conducted on very small samples of people, and were largely funded and conducted by earthing companies and people affiliated with them.
For instance, Gaeten Chevalier, director of the Earthing Institute, authored many of the studies available. There is a need for independent studies, to reduce the chances of anything biassing the results.
There have also been mixed results when studies are replicated. Replication is an important part of scientific research - a study that yields the same results when it is repeated is much more trustworthy than a once-off investigation.
But, for example, a 2010 study found large differences in white blood cell count, signalling inflammation, and pain in earthing versus control groups, but a similar 2015 study found no significant differences.
All in all, there needs to be independent, rigorous research with large samples to test the idea before anything can be concluded about the effects of grounding on human health.
Inflammation, shoes and disease
Inflammation is part of the body's natural immune response to infection or injury. But sometimes inflammation can last for a long time or be triggered when there is no injury or infection. This is when it can be damaging, according to the US-based National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
This damaging inflammation is linked to a range of diseases, like asthma, inflammatory bowel diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, as well as some types of mental illnesses and cancers.
Inflammation can have a variety of causes. Chemicals in the environment, as well as diet, stress, exercise, microbiome imbalances and prenatal conditions all have links to inflammation, according to the NIEHS.
But there is no scientific evidence backing the idea that wearing synthetic-soled shoes, and so not being in direct contact with the ground, "caused the proliferation of inflammation-related health disorders", or is making us sick.
As experts have pointed out, there isn't any convincing theoretical basis for the idea either.
Victory in Peru as corporations denied right to exploit Indigenous lands
PEOPLES WORLD Ashaninka Indigenous men, armed with shotguns and bows and arrows, force a truck transporting logs cut down in the Amazon forest to turn back around.
| Franklin Briceno / AP
Activists welcomed on Saturday the decision by lawmakers to drop plans for a new law labelled a “Genocide Bill” by Peru’s Indigenous people. The bill would have opened up Indigenous lands for industrial exploitation by domestic and foreign capital—particularly for the extraction of lithium, copper, and other precious minerals.
In a dramatic reversal of fortune on Friday, the country’s Decentralization Committee blocked the law, which had been drafted by politicians with close ties to the powerful oil and gas industry.
Teresa Mayo of Survival International described this as “a huge victory for Peru’s Indigenous peoples, their organizations, and for thousands of ordinary people around the world who had joined the campaign against the proposals.”
Indigenous organizations in Peru, such as the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP) and the Regional Organisation of the Indigenous Peoples of the East (ORPIO), had lobbied intensively to stop the bill, and more than 13,000 Survival supporters had written to the committee, urging them to block it.
Tabea Casique of AIDESEP said: “The scrapping of the draft bill protects our uncontacted relatives, their rights, and their lives, and avoids the genocide and ecocide that it would have unleashed.”
Roberto Tafur of ORPIO said his organization intended to “continue fighting for our brothers and sisters in the jungle, who don’t know that we’re fighting for them.”
Morning Star
Haiti power broker sanctioned by Canada says his blacklisting will cost thousands of jobs Jacqueline Charles Tue, June 27, 2023 DANIEL MOREL/AP
A prominent Haitian power broker says a decision by Canada to impose sanctions on him “is a serious blow” to his efforts to help bring jobs and social development to one of Haiti’s more neglected regions.
Andre “Andy” Apaid also said it’s incomprehensible that he would be placed “on a list of sanctioned individuals accused of ‘human rights violations, including sexual violence.’ ”
Last week, while attending the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Washington, Joly announced that Ottawa had imposed sanctions against Apaid and three well-known gang leaders, two of whom were involved in the abductions of 17 American and Canadian Christian missionaries in the fall of 2021. As with previous sanctions, she did not give specifics on why the people were blacklisted. The sanctions bans an individual from traveling to Canada and freezes any assets one may hold in the country.
Haitian banks, fearful of losing correspondent banking relationships with U.S. and Canadian banks, have responded to sanctions by closing accounts, making it difficult for individuals to do business in Haiti.
Apaid, a U.S. citizen who has enjoyed both warm and contentious relations with various Haitian leaders over the years, said the decision by Canada has serious repercussions on his business dealings, including an ambitious agricultural project he’s launching in Haiti’s Central Plateau region with foreign partners.
“I am a dedicated Haitian-American citizen who strongly supports a peaceful resolution to the serious crisis our country is facing. This is well known among political and civil society members,” he said.
Apaid is the latest member of Haiti’s business and political elite to push back on the sanctions designations, which so far have been issued by Canada, the United States and the Dominican Republic after the United Nations last year voted unanimously to clamp down on illicit arms sales and violent criminal armed groups in Haiti.
While the sanctions policies have elicited fear in Haiti, they have also raised questions about how far foreign governments are willing to go to target members of Haitian society and where are they willing to draw the line in a country where businesses have survived because of extortion payments and ties to gangs. Questions have also been raised about how countries choose who they sanction.
For example, a sanctions list put out by the Dominican Republic is controversial because of who is included and who is not, and privately some diplomats don’t give it much credence.
In the case of Canada, the lack of details about what individuals are accused of, has raised concerns in diplomatic circles. The Canadian government has been asked to provide more details but so far has rejected the request.
Instead, Ottawa has criticized other countries, including the United States, for not following its aggressive approach to target individuals involved in corruption and fanning instability in Haiti.
U.S. State Department officials, who have been criticized for the lack of business people on the American list, have said they remain committed to issuing tough financial sanctions.
A longtime industrialist, Apaid rose to prominence in the early 2000s as the leader of the civil society organization known as Group 184, which launched a social movement and organized in opposition to Jean-Bertrand Aristide when he was president.
“As a team, including human rights advocates, religious leaders, and credible and courageous individuals from civil society, we have made four attempts to persuade gangs to participate in a disarmament process,” he said.
As a businessman, Apaid said, he has worked tirelessly to create tens of thousands of jobs in Haiti despite the challenges. He and his family, which operates a factory, adhere “to a strict and courageous policy” of not providing money or goods to armed groups, he said. “This commitment came with enormous risks for our collaborators and my sons.”
The project includes donations of land to farmers, a high school and a public market financed by the World Bank in Saint-Michel-de-l’Attalaye. The plan also includes a construction school with scholarships for 250 individuals.
“The announcement of this incomprehensible measure by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada will harm the development of this project, of expected jobs and will deepen the suffering of the most vulnerable,” Apaid said. “Unfortunately, this is a serious blow to the job creation and social efforts that motivate us.”
Myanmar military kills 17 People's Defense Force members
Troops also killed 3 civilians and burned homes in the Sagaing region raid, locals said.
By RFA Burmese 2023.06.27
The People’s Defense Force camp near Kin Taw village, Sagaing township, Sagaing region that was raided by junta troops on June 25, 2023.
Citizen journalist
Junta troops killed 20 people in a raid on a People’s Defense Force camp in Sagaing region and neighboring villages, locals and a militia official told RFA Tuesday.
A column of around 50 troops raided the camp east of Kin Taw village in Sagaing township on Sunday morning.
They killed 17 defense force members, according to a leader of the local PDF.
“The junta troops came by boat and raided the camp early in the morning … when there were no guards, and all the PDF members were killed,” the leader, who declined to be named, told RFA.
He added that the 14 men and three women aged between 20 and 30 had been tortured, with their faces disfigured.
A Sagaing resident, who did not want to be named for security reasons, confirmed to RFA that the temporary camp was raided and 17 bodies were found near the camp and on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River.
He said three civilians were also shot dead at their homes when the junta raided nearby villages in the township.
The three men killed were 37-year-old Myint Kyaw Thu and 50-year-old Maung San from Kin Taw village, and 69-year-old Pauk Sa from Myin Se village.
The local said that Pauk Sa’s wife is also missing and a 50-year-old man is suffering from gunshot wounds.
Nearly 100 houses were burned down when neighboring Let Pan Taw village was also raided on Sunday, according to locals.
Calls to the junta spokesperson for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, went unanswered.
On Tuesday junta-controlled newspapers confirmed the raid on PDF camps near Kin Taw and U Yin villages, saying15 guns and ammunition were seized.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Air pollution: Environment Committee MEPs push for tougher rules
Stricter 2030 limits for several pollutants compared to Commission proposal
Air quality indices across Europe to be harmonised
EU countries must prepare air quality roadmaps
Around 300.000 premature deaths per year in the EU due to air pollution
Parliament’s Environment Committee today adopted its position to improve air quality in the EU to create a cleaner and healthier environment.
The report, adopted with 46 votes in favour, 41 against and 1 abstention, sets stricter 2030 limit and target values for several pollutants including particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10), NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), SO2 (sulphur dioxide) and O3 (ozone) to ensure that air quality in the EU is not harmful to human health, natural ecosystems and biodiversity (CA 1, 1). MEPs also say that upcoming reviews of this directive shall ensure full and continuous alignment with the most recent World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines.
More air quality sampling points
The Environment Committee underlines the need to increase the number of air quality sampling points. In locations where high ultrafine particles (UFP), black carbon, mercury and ammonia (NH3) concentrations are likely to occur there should be one sampling point per one million inhabitants, higher than the Commission’s originally proposed one per five million and then only for UFP. (CA6) In urban areas, there should be at least one monitoring supersite representative of the exposure of the general urban population per two million inhabitants compared to the one per 10 million proposed by the Commission. (CA9)
Better information to citizens
MEPs want to harmonise currently-fragmented and unintuitive air quality indices covering sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and ozone across the EU.
Indices must be clear, publically available and with hourly updates so citizens can protect themselves during high levels of air pollution (and before alert thresholds are reached). (CA13) They shall be accompanied by information about symptoms associated with air pollution peaks (page 99) and the associated health risks for each pollutant, including information tailored to vulnerable groups.
Air quality plans and roadmaps
MEPs propose that in addition to air quality plans, which are required when EU countries exceed limits, all member states would also have to create air quality roadmaps that set out short- and long-term measures in order to comply with the new limit values.
Quote
After the vote, rapporteur Javi López (S&D, ES) said: “Addressing air pollution in Europe demands immediate action. This slow-motion pandemic takes a devastating toll in our society, leading to premature deaths and a multitude of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. We must follow science and align our air quality standards with WHO guidelines and re-inforce some of the provisions in this directive. We need to be ambitious to safeguard the well-being of our citizens and create a cleaner, healthier environment.”
Next steps
Parliament is scheduled to adopt its mandate during the 10-13 July 2023 plenary session. Once Council has adopted its position, negotiations on the final shape of the law can start.
Background
Air pollution continues to be the number one environmental cause of early death in the EU with around 300.000 premature deaths per year with the most harmful being particulate matter, NO₂ and ozone (O₃), according to the EEA. In October 2022, the Commission proposed a revision of the EU air quality rules with more ambitious targets for 2030 to achieve the zero pollution objective by 2050 in line with the Zero Pollution Action Plan.
Lula Faces Powerful Opposition as He Seeks To Protect the Amazon and Recognize Indigenous Rights
Brazil’s president is determined to save his country’s rainforest but agribusiness and its political supporters stand in his way
Farai Shawn MatiasheFarai Shawn Matiashe is an award-winning journalist based in Mutare, Zimbabwe
Brazil’s President Lula (right) and Indigenous Peoples Minister Sonia Guajajara (left) attend a ceremony in Brasilia on April 28, 2023. (Andressa Anholete/Getty Images)
Surrounded by thousands of supporters, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known simply as “Lula”) was sworn into office on Jan. 1, 2023, at a colorful inauguration ceremony held at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. It was not Lula’s first time assuming the highest office of Latin America’s largest country. He was first sworn in two decades ago and served two terms as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010. The 67-year-old is a true veteran of Brazilian politics: He was the presidential candidate of the leftist Workers’ Party in 1989, 1994 and 1998, losing each time. In the October 2022 elections, he narrowly defeated the right-wing populist incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, with 50.9% of the vote.
In his third term as president, Lula faces the formidable task of uniting a deeply polarized Brazilian society. Bolsonaro, a close ally of Donald Trump, did not attend the traditional handover of the presidential sash to his successor. Instead, he repaired to Florida after his defeat and sat out the inauguration. Just a week after Lula assumed the presidency, pro-Bolsonaro militants stormed the Congress in Brasilia in a manner reminiscent of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
During his campaign, Lula promised to combat deforestation in the Amazon, which worsened under Bolsonaro’s presidency. Brazil is home to nearly 60% of the Amazon, the largest tropical rainforest on the planet. (The remainder is shared by eight other South American nations, principally Peru and Colombia.) Bolsonaro, a consistent defender of Brazil’s powerful agricultural industry, backed farm and ranching expansion in the Amazon.
Lula hit the ground running by appointing the longtime environmentalist Marina Silva as his environment and climate change minister. Silva’s mission is to rebuild Brazil’s environmental protection agencies and stanch the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Lula also appointed the first-ever Indigenous woman elected to Brazil’s Congress, Joenia Wapichana, as leader of the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples, popularly known as FUNAI.
This is a landmark achievement for Brazil’s Indigenous communities, which Bolsonaro went out of his way to antagonize — slashing FUNAI’s budget, cutting its staff and crippling its authority after he assumed the presidency in 2019. Vanda Witoto, an Indigenous leader and activist who in 2022 ran for federal deputy for the state of Amazonas (as a candidate of the Sustainability Network, an environmentalist party in Brazil), took to Twitter to voice her joy. FUNAI will be “chaired by an Indigenous woman for the first time in history,” she tweeted. “We trust you, [Wapichana].”
The Bolsonaro administration’s policies threatened the existence of many Indigenous communities within Brazil’s Amazon region. One youth activist fled his home in an Amazonian Indigenous community out of fear for his life, following his tribe’s resistance to the incursion of an agribusiness firm. “They killed two of my friends. I had to run away,” he tells New Lines, speaking in Portuguese through a translator.
The Indigenous activist, who preferred not to be named for security reasons, is now seeking refuge in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, where he is continuing his university education. “Our territory is wanted by the government. They want it for timber logging and cattle ranching. My people have been receiving threats,” he says. “I am fighting to protect our land. I am here on the front line. I am in fear. I don’t even know if I am going back there or not.” He says all the companies threatening his community and exporting timber should be investigated and held accountable for the crimes they are committing.
The lives of Indigenous community activists and leaders have been under threat throughout the Amazon. In 2020 alone, more than 260 human rights defenders were murdered in Latin America, 202 of them in countries of the Amazon Basin, with Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia representing 77% of the cases, according to a report by the Confederation of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, known as COICA. Roughly 69% of those murders were against leaders working to defend the territory, environment and rights of Indigenous peoples.
Brazil and Bolivia are responsible for close to 90% of deforestation and degradation in the Amazon, according to “Amazonia Against the Clock,” a September 2022 report by scientists from the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information, in collaboration with COICA. According to the report, agribusiness is responsible for 84% of deforestation in the region, and the amount of land given over to farming has tripled since 1985. Indigenous organizations are calling for a global pact for the permanent protection of 80% of the Amazon rainforest by 2025.
The rainforest plays a significant role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which reduces the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from around the world. There are over 390 billion trees in the Amazon, helping it to retain some 123 billion tons of carbon dioxide. But over the years, increasing deforestation and land degradation have impeded the forest’s absorption of carbon dioxide and contributed to global warming through both human-caused and natural fires.
The Amazon has also been experiencing droughts and floods. In thick, untouched forests like the one where Camp 41 (a unit of the Thomas Lovejoy Amazon Biodiversity Center) is located, scientists are noticing changes, such as the decline of insect and bird species. Mario Cohn-Haft, a researcher from the National Institute of Amazonian Research, which is funded by Brazil’s federal government, says that on his patrols in the forest he is observing the decline of some sensitive species, and climate change cannot be ruled out as a cause. Cohn-Haft is a research ornithologist and curator of birds who has spent decades conducting studies in this part of the Amazon, which has not yet been devastated by human activities such as mining, agriculture or logging.
Another activist based in Manaus, whose life is in danger from powerful people and who preferred not to be named for security reasons, says that deforestation in the Amazon worsened under Bolsonaro. “He reduced the number of protected areas in the Amazon. He weakened the laws that protect the forest.” During Bolsonaro’s presidency, this activist explains, the rates of deforestation and biodiversity loss increased, while incursions into Indigenous communities in the Amazon rose. Agribusinesses and extractive industries also used pesticides and chemicals that have contaminated bodies of water in the rainforest, putting the lives of many people and animals in danger.
Rafael Ioris, a historian of modern Brazil who teaches at the University of Denver, tells New Lines that, while the Amazon rainforest has been under attack for a long time, Bolsonaro exacerbated the process and reversed the progress made during Lula’s presidency in the 2000s. “The process of exploitative occupation of the Amazon regions dates back decades, but it was accelerated from the 1970s and 1980s, all the way into the agriculture expansion of the last 25 years,” says Ioris, who is also a co-editor of the recent book “Frontiers of Development in the Amazon: Riches, Risks, and Resistances.”
“Under Lula’s first time in power,” Ioris says, “significant rates of reduction of deforestation were seen, but this trend was reversed dramatically under Bolsonaro, who incentivized illegal logging and mining even into protected areas of Indigenous lands.”
Indigenous leader and activist Vanda Witoto at her home in Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, in October 2022. (Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation)
Ioris says this motivated Indigenous leaders, including many women in public positions, to resist by calling the attention of domestic and international audiences to the crimes being committed by loggers, miners and farmers under Bolsonaro’s push for massive and unregulated occupation of the Amazon. Vanda Witoto, the Indigenous leader, says that multinational companies and agribusinesses were funding illegal operations such as logging in the Amazon during the Bolsonaro era.
“I visited some communities in the Amazon. There was illegal gold mining. Sadly there is less reporting because the locals are being threatened. Big companies are investing a lot in illegal mining and deforestation in the southern part of the Amazon,” says Witoto, lowering her voice and holding back her tears during an interview at her home in the neighborhood of Parque das Tribos just outside Manaus.
“I saw this with my own eyes,” Witoto continues, noting that poverty and unemployment push many Indigenous people into working for these companies. “We are against this. We have always been fighting to stop it.”
Adriano Karipuna, who represents the Karipuna people, an Indigenous group that has inhabited the Amazon rainforest for centuries, explains that law enforcement agents in the Bolsonaro administration did nothing to stop loggers and miners from committing crimes against his community. “Our people have been struggling with deforestation. We have been reporting for the past years. But it worsened under Bolsonaro,” he says.
“We have been receiving threats. Bolsonaro’s government [took] our land and [donated] it to the invaders. We reported this to Geneva and the United Nations General Assembly. Environmental criminals are going unpunished,” he continues. Karipuna says the group even filed a petition at the German Embassy in Brazil to help push Bolsonaro’s government to protect the Amazon forest.
Witoto says Bolsonaro’s Amazon policies turned the clock back to the 1970s. “It was nothing but promises. Many Indigenous people lost their lives; they were killed because they were simply Indigenous people,” she says.
Indigenous people have a central role to play in safeguarding the Amazon rainforest. According to the “Amazonia Against the Clock” report, Indigenous territories and protected areas represent nearly half the Amazon. About 86% of deforestation has taken place outside these areas. Amazonia is home to at least 16,000 tree species and Indigenous peoples safeguard 80% of the world’s biodiversity, according to data cited in Australia’s newly released “State of the Environment” report.
Lula made environmental issues central to his campaign against Bolsonaro. In June 2022, he published a political plan outlining how his government would preserve the environment through his commitment to the “relentless fight against illegal deforestation” and the restoration of degraded areas to achieve “net zero deforestation.”
Lula pledged to revive the Amazon Fund set up in 2008, a project that is critical to the protection of the rainforest but that Bolsonaro set aside during his four years as president. On his first day in office in January, Lula reinstated the $1.2 billion fund. Norway and Germany, the biggest donors to the fund, had pulled out in 2019, citing Bolsonaro’s rampant deforestation policies.
Ioris says the challenge of turning things around in the Amazon is immense, but Lula has appointed knowledgeable people to important positions, such as Marina Silva as his environment and climate change minister and Sonia Guajajara, an Indigenous and environmental activist, who was named the head of the newly established Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. This body was created on the same day Lula declared a public health emergency for the Yanomami Indigenous peoples. Reports show that, under Bolosonaro’s government, there was a rise in the number of children dying of diseases caused by toxic chemicals from illegal mining in the Yanomami rainforest reserve in northern Brazil, which stretches across the states of Roraima and Amazonas and is home to about 30,000 Indigenous people.
“They will need to rebuild the government’s environmental protection agencies that were dismantled under Bolsonaro. And in this task, they will also need support from international actors, such as the Amazon Fund from European countries that promised to help fund new protective initiatives,” Ioris says. He adds that Lula’s government will need to be bold to face powerful economic interests that favor continuing to explore the Amazon forest in an unsustainable way.
Witoto says she is hopeful that the predicament of Indigenous people will change under Lula’s regime. “Our hopes are in Lula. He supports the rights of Indigenous peoples. I believe he will put in place policies that protect us,” the activist tells New Lines. According to a joint study by researchers at the University of Oxford, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the National Institute for Space Research, deforestation could fall by 89% by 2030 if Lula reinstates the policies introduced during his first term in office, which would save 28,957 square miles of the Amazon rainforest. Yet he faces an enormous challenge: to empower environmental agencies and Indigenous communities that safeguard the Amazon, while resisting powerful multinational companies operating in the tropical rainforest.
In March, lawmakers approved Bill 490, which limits the recognition of new Indigenous territories and threatens to reverse Lula’s measures to protect the environment. To pass, the bill still needs the approval of the Senate (the upper house of Congress) and the president.
The new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is also being threatened and its powers weakened. Under new measures passed by the Senate in May, land decisions are being transferred instead to the Justice Ministry, which was previously in charge. But Indigenous peoples — many of them now in positions of power, thanks to Lula’s efforts — are fighting back. The opposition to Lula’s environmental agenda is spearheaded by the pro-agribusiness faction of Brazil’s Congress, which numbers 347 of the body’s 594 total members. Some are farmers themselves, and some are Bolsonaro allies. They are keen to return to the modus operandi under Bolsonaro, which served their economic interests.
Given the role the Amazon plays in absorbing greenhouse gas emissions from around the planet and thus in reducing the effects of climate change, the battle over the fate of the rainforest is not only national but global.
Reporting for this story was supported by the United Nations Foundation.
Northern Ireland: Police must end 'appalling' practice of strip searching children immediately
In response to the Policing Board’s human rights review of the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI) practice of strip searching children, published today (Tuesday), Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland Director, said:
“It’s shocking that children as young as 14 are being strip searched by the PSNI. This appalling practice is a serious violation of children’s dignity and human rights - it must end once and for all.
“The Policing Board’s review seriously calls into question the PSNI’s commitment to upholding the rights of children.
“The review must now be used as a catalyst for an end to this practice and all children who have been strip-searched must have access to effective help and support.”
The Policing Board review came after an investigationrevealed that members of the board have serious concerns about the practice and have criticised the PSNI’s response.
Violating children’s rights Strip searches violate a child’s basic human rights and involves the removal of clothing and can include the exposure of intimate body parts.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly states that: “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”
It goes on to say: “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Google execs admit users are ‘not quite happy’ with search experience after Reddit blackouts
Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s head of search, admitted users are unhappy when employees asked about the Reddit blackouts and their impact on results.
Raghavan said the company is testing a number of ways to improve search results for more authentic answers.
On Monday, Google introduced a new feature called Perspectives, which will surface discussion forums and videos from social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Reddit and Quora.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address at the Google I/O developers conference at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, May 10, 2023. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Google users have long been able to append their search queries with the term “Reddit” to find helpful resources on specific topics.
When thousands of Reddit forums went dark earlier this month, that tactic lost its effectiveness. Many pages in search results were suddenly inaccessible or unhelpful, because moderators of some of the most popular forums turned their pages to private as part of a widespread protest of Reddit’s decision to start charging developers for access to its data.
It’s an issue that Google executives say is at least partially resolved by a new feature called Perspectives that was unveiled on Monday. The Perspectives tab, available now on mobile web and the Google app in the U.S., promises to surface discussion forums and videos from social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Reddit and Quora.
At an all-hands meeting earlier this month, Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s senior vice president in charge of search, told employees that the company was working on ways for search to display helpful resources in results without requiring users to add “Reddit” to their searches. Raghavan acknowledged that users had grown frustrated with the experience.
“Many of you may wonder how we have a search team that’s iterating and building all this new stuff and yet somehow, users are still not quite happy,” Raghavan said. “We need to make users happy.”
Raghavan was responding to an employee comment about negative user feedback because of too many ads and irrelevant results. “What can we do to improve the user experience on the core product that made Google a household name?” the employee asked, according to audio of the meeting obtained by CNBC.
Google is in the process of trying to revamp search to keep pace with rivals in taking advantage of the latest advances in generative artificial intelligence, which involves providing more sophisticated and conversational answers to text-based queries.
At its annual developer conference in May, the company said it was experimenting with an effort called Search Generative Experience, which still isn’t available to everyone, showing more in-depth results powered by generative AI. Google also launched a ChatGPT competitor called Bard earlier this year. Bard remains separate from search and is still in experimental mode. Prabhakar Raghavan, of Google Inc., speaks during the company’s Cloud Next ’18 event in San Francisco, California, July 24, 2018. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Another employee question in the companywide meeting asked if Google can more easily surface “authentic discussion” since the “Reddit blackout” was making it harder to find such content.
CEO Sundar Pichai chimed in to to say that users don’t want “blue links” as much as they want “more comprehensive answers.” That’s why they add the name of forum sites like Reddit to their searches, he said.
HJ Kim, vice president of engineering in search, said at the meeting that users have been asking for more content from sites like Reddit. He said the Perspectives tab is one feature the company has been working on in response, but that it can do a better job.
“Over the last couple of years, search overall has developed these large, cross-functional teams to go after this kind of content,” Kim said, referring to Reddit. “We could do a better job. We realize that. And over the last couple of years, we’ve actually developed quite a bit.”
Raghavan said that Google would determine what’s “getting the best traction.”
“But the idea there is for these questions, where there are multiple opinions, instead of appending stuff, you actually go in there and get the answer right away and we’re actually seeing good early engagement on that,” Raghavan said.
He added that while the company is spending a lot of time in AI, it’s not the only answer to the problem.
“Generative AI is one aspect but it won’t fully solve this issue — I want to be clear,” he said. “We actually have teams that are running experiments,” with Perspectives as one example.
“We have to keep up and do a better job of addressing these new and emerging needs,” he said.
Lara Levin, a Google spokeswoman, told CNBC in a statement that search “satisfies the overwhelming majority of user needs, and we’re always improving Search to meet the evolving needs of every one of our users.”
“Features like the Perspectives filter are part of how we’re making sure people continue to find the most helpful info on Google from a wide range of sources and formats,” Levin said.
Tanzania: Baby Deaths in Tanzania - Being Born in a City No Longer Increases Their Chances of Survival
By Peter Macharia, Andrea Barnabas Pembe, Claudia Hanson and Lenka Benova
Five million children under five years old died in 2021. Of these, nearly half occurred within the first month - a time of high vulnerability. Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest death rate in the world: 27 in 1,000 newborn babies (1,067,000). This is 11 times higher than in countries with the lowest rates (2 deaths in 1,000), such as Australia and New Zealand.
Over the past decades, newborn mortality has been markedly lower in urban compared to rural settings in sub-Saharan Africa. This "urban advantage" has been linked to better socioeconomic and living conditions, higher literacy among women and better access to healthcare services.
In Tanzania, however, the newborn mortality rate was similar for urban and rural areas for almost two decades (1991 to 2015). Then, in 2016, a national household survey found that newborn babies in urban areas were dying at a higher rate than in rural areas.
This prompted a number of questions, which our work sought to answer. Was this true and, if so, which factors related to living in urban areas might be contributing to it? Given the rapid expansion of the urban population - particularly informal settlements - had urban areas become "the new rural" in terms of the vulnerability of newborns?
The answers are important because of the rapid ongoing urbanisation in Africa. The population is expected to nearly triple by 2050, reaching 1.5 billion urban dwellers.
Our results were clear. Babies faced a higher risk of dying in more urbanised areas. What's more, our research points to the fact that urban populations are diverse, and certain neighbourhoods or subgroups may be disproportionately affected by poor birth outcomes. Health policies must be designed to capture this reality. First things first
Our first task was to describe and demarcate what "urban" and "rural" really meant.
In the 2016 national household survey, the distinctions between rural and urban were made from historical and administrative boundaries. This may no longer reflect the lived reality since the boundaries do not correspond to the physical space where interactions between economic and social activities happen. With the advantage of satellite imagery, we could more precisely identify lived environments, including population, land use and cover, and extent of built-up areas.
Based on these inputs and statistical methods, we categorised mainland Tanzania into three lived environments: rural, semi-urban (outskirts and suburbs of cities and towns) and core urban (densely populated inner cities) (Figure 1).
Our second task was to reflect on what newborn mortality really meant. We know that complications during childbirth are among the most important causes of death among newborns. The same complications (for example, being premature or small) and poor quality of childbirth care also lead to deaths of babies in the womb (before they are born or in the process of being born), leading to stillbirths.
We included stillbirths in addition to newborn deaths in our analysis, a combined group of deaths which is called perinatal mortality. Both help us understand the reasons babies might be more likely to die in this critical period in urban settings - whether the death occurs in the process of being born or shortly afterwards.
Mortality
For every 1,000 pregnancies, 36 babies died in rural areas, 38 in semi-urban and 56 in core urban areas.
We found similar results when we looked only at newborn mortality (babies born alive). For every 1,000 live births, 22 newborn babies died in the first month of life in rural areas, 25 in semi-urban areas and 40 in core urban areas.
Previous research has shown that the leading causes of newborn deaths are prematurity, low birth weight, birth asphyxia and infectious diseases. These are mainly related to the quality of care during pregnancy, labour and childbirth - for example, whether the child was born in a facility and in the presence of a skilled birth attendant.
But explaining why proved harder. Based on previous research - work which does not classify the urban areas as we did - it's likely to be a combination of factors related to informal settlements in urban areas with limited access to clean water and sanitation, poor quality of healthcare, and traffic congestion limiting timely access to care for pregnant women and their babies. Poor air quality can also lead to babies being born prematurely.
Nevertheless, the reversal is not fully understood. Our findings could not be fully explained by factors such as poverty, maternal education, or the travel time to hospitals where childbirth and newborn care are provided.
However, certain factors were found to be associated with the risk of neonatal or perinatal deaths. These factors include the mother having low iron levels during the survey (maternal anaemia), a household with fewer members, having the baby being born as a twin or triplet, having a male child, a first-time pregnancy or a short time interval between pregnancies, and giving birth to a baby with either a low or a high birth weight.
Next steps
About a third of Tanzania's population of 62 million live in an urban area. A focus on the issues relevant to urban areas is now more critical than ever if the country wants to increase the number of children who survive beyond one month.
Policy areas for action should include:
Urbanisation: policies to address the expansion of urban informal settlements are a place to start. For example, in Dar es Salaam, an estimated 80% of the land or settlements is informal. This might hamper the quality of care provided for the reasons outlined quite apart from poor sanitation practices.
Differences in urban settings: our findings suggest that policymakers must resist the temptation to lump together urban areas because this will mask the high variation within them. Unmasking variation and inequalities will aid targeted interventions.
From this starting point, policymakers can then draw lessons from existing projects found to improve urban maternal and perinatal health. These include the maternal and neonatal project at multiple facilities in Dar es Salaam to uplift the level of care at childbirth.
The project resulted in the decongestion of overcrowded hospitals, an increase in quality of care and inter-facility referral, and a reduced number of maternal deaths and stillbirths.
A similar multi-partner approach has been successful in Kampala, Uganda, as well as Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in addressing other key determinants of urban health, such as housing, social protection, income, air pollution and vulnerability to extreme climate events.
Peter Macharia, Post-doc at Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp & visiting scientist, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme
Andrea Barnabas Pembe, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences
