#SPACERACE2.0
Chinese Chang'e-5 space probe successfully lands on moon

Issued on: 01/12/2020 -

Lift-off of the Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang'e-5 lunar module, from the Wenchang space centre in southern China on November 24, 2020. © AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

A Chinese probe sent to the Moon to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades successfully landed on Tuesday, Beijing's space agency said.

China has poured billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022 and of eventually sending humans to the Moon.

The latest mission's goal is to shovel up lunar rocks and soil to help scientists learn about the Moon's origins, formation and volcanic activity on its surface.

The Chang'e-5 spacecraft -- named for the mythical Chinese moon goddess -- "landed on the near side of the Moon late Tuesday," state media agency Xinhua reported, citing the China National Space Administration.

If the return journey is successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved samples from the Moon, following the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

The probe entered the Moon's orbit on Saturday after a 112-hour journey from Earth, Xinhua said, after a rocket carried it into space from China's southern Hainan province last week.

'Space dream'

It is to collect two kilogrammes (4.5 pounds) of surface material in a previously unexplored area known as Oceanus Procellarum -- or "Ocean of Storms" -- which consist of a vast lava plain, according to the science journal Nature.

The collection will take place over the course of one lunar day -- equivalent to around 14 Earth days.

Its lunar samples will then be returned to Earth in a capsule programmed to land in northern China's Inner Mongolia region later in December, according to US space agency NASA.

The mission is technically challenging and involves several innovations not seen during previous attempts at collecting moon rocks, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics researcher Jonathan McDowell told AFP last month.

Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China's "space dream", as he calls it, have been put into overdrive.

The new superpower is looking to finally catch up with the US and Russia after years of belatedly matching their space milestones.

A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the Moon in January 2019 in a global first that boosted Beijing's aspirations to become a space superpower.

The latest probe is among a slew of ambitious targets set by Beijing, which include creating a super-powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those NASA and private rocket firm SpaceX can handle, a lunar base and a permanently crewed space station.

China's astronauts and scientists have also talked up manned missions to Mars.

(AFP)

'Sabre-toothed tiger' skeleton up for auction

Issued on: 01/12/2020 

A South Dakota rancher last year discovered this rare 37-million-year-old skeleton belonging to what is popularly known as a sabre-toothed tiger. It was found virtually intact and is expected to sell for tens of thousands of dollars

Fabrice COFFRINI AFP

Geneva (AFP)

A nearly 40-million-year-old skeleton belonging to what is popularly known as a sabre-toothed tiger is going under the hammer next week in Geneva a year after its discovery on a US ranch.

The skeleton, some 120 centimetres (nearly four feet) long, is expected to fetch between 60,000 and 80,000 Swiss francs ($66,560 to $88,750; 55,300 to 73,750 euros) at auction on December 8 in the Swiss city.

"This fossil is exceptional, above all for its conservation: it's 37 million years old, and it's 90 percent complete," Bernard Piguet, director of the Piguet auction house, told AFP on Tuesday.

"The few missing bones were remade with a 3D printer," he added, with the skeleton reconstructed around a black metal frame.

Piguet said he was fascinated by the merger of "the extremely old with modern technologies".

The original bones are those of a Hoplophoneus. Not strictly a true member of the cat family, they are an extinct genus of the Nimravidae family and stalked around North America.

"It was found in South Dakota during the last excavation season, towards the end of summer 2019," Swiss collector Yann Cuenin, who owns the dozens of paleontology lots on auction, told AFP.

"As in most finds, erosion had unearthed part of the skeleton. While walking around his property, the ranch owner saw bones sticking out of the ground."

While the skeleton is the star of the show, there are plenty of other treasures from the past up for grabs, including ammolite, an opal-like organic gemstone, in shades of red and orange.

Measuring 40 cm long by 36 cm wide, the fossil from the Cretaceous period is 75 million years old and hails from the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It is estimated to fetch between 20,000 and 30,000 Swiss francs.

Jurassic Park enthusiasts can also buy a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth (2,200 to 2,800 francs), or, for 5,000 to 7,000 francs, an impressive 85-cm long fin from a mosasaur -- a marine reptile that in the Cretaceous period was at the top of the submarine food chain.

© 2020 AFP

Elliot Page: star of Juno and X-Men announces he is transgender

Actor takes aim at transphobic politicians and ‘those with a massive platform who continue to spew hostility’, saying they ‘have blood on [their] hands’

‘My joy is real’ … Elliot Page. Photograph: Amanda Edwards/Wire Image


Catherine Shoard
@catherineshoard
Wed 2 Dec 2020 

Elliot Page, who rose to fame as the lead in teen pregnancy comedy Juno as Ellen Page, has announced he is transgender.

“Hi friends,” he wrote on a variety of social media platforms, “I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot.”


I've been endlessly inspired by so many in trans community. Thank you for your courage

He continued: “I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life. I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey. I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self. I’ve been endlessly inspired by so many in the trans community. Thank you for your courage, your generosity and ceaselessly working to make this world a more inclusive and compassionate place. I will offer whatever support I can and continue to strive for a more loving and equal society.

The actor also spoke of his fear in coming out and highlighted the difficulties faced by less privileged people who have done the same. “I also ask for patience. My joy is real, but it is also fragile. The truth is, despite feeling profoundly happy right now and knowing how much privilege I carry, I am also scared. I’m scared of the invasiveness, the hate, the “jokes” and of violence. To be clear, I am not trying to dampen a moment that is joyous and one that I celebrate, but I want to address the full picture.

Acclaim … Page with Michael Cera in Juno.

“The statistics are staggering. The discrimination towards trans people is rife, insidious and cruel, resulting in horrific consequences. In 2020 alone it has been reported that at least 40 transgender people have been murdered, the majority of which were Black and Latinx trans women.”

The actor continued with a robust condemnation of what he perceived as cultural and institutional prejudice against trans people, saying those in positions of power or influence who use their platforms to “spew hostility” have “blood on your hands”.

“To the political leaders who work to criminalize trans healthcare and deny our right to exist and to all of those with a massive platform who continue to spew hostility towards the trans community: you have blood on your hands. You unleash a fury of vile and demeaning rage that lands on the shoulders of the trans community, a community in which 40% of trans adults report attempting suicide. Enough is enough. You aren’t being “cancelled,” you are hurting people. I am one of those people and we won’t be silent in the face of your attacks.”

Page concluded: “I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer. And the more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I dream, the more my heart grows and the more I thrive. To all the trans people who deal with harassment, self-loathing, abuse, and the threat of violence every day: I see you, I love you, and I will do everything I can to change this world for the better.”

Page, now 33, had his breakthrough in 2005 thriller Hard Candy before finding international acclaim in Juno, the hit comedy about a teenage girl who decides to proceed with her unwanted pregnancy and find adoptive parents for her unborn child.

Page won an Oscar nomination for his performance in the Diablo Cody-scripted film, directed by Jason Reitman.

Other key films include Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Drew Barrymore’s Whip It and a recurring role as Kitty Pryde in the X-Men series. More recently, Page played Vanya Hargreeves in Netflix series The Umbrella Academy.

On Tuesday, Netflix confirmed that the character would not change gender in future episodes, and that they were in the process of updating the credits and metadata of Page’s back catalogue of films which screen on the streaming service.

Page came out as gay in a speech on Valentine’s Day 2014 and two years later alleged that the film-maker Brett Ratner had outed him against his will aged 18 on the set of X-Men: The Last Stand – an allegation corroborated by the actor Anna Paquin, who was present at the time.

Page has been a vocal advocate for LGBT rights over the past decade and in January 2018 married the dancer and choreographer Emma Portner.

Nick Adams, GLAAD’s Director of Transgender Media, said “Elliot Page has given us fantastic characters on-screen, and has been an outspoken advocate for all LGBTQ people. He will now be an inspiration to countless trans and non-binary people. All transgender people deserve the chance to be ourselves and to be accepted for who we are. We celebrate the remarkable Elliot Page today.”

  

'Juno' star Elliot Page comes out as transgender

Issued on: 01/12/2020 - 

The Oscar-nominated star of "Juno" has come out as transgender, introducing himself in social media posts as Elliot Page Geoff Robins AFP/File

Los Angeles (AFP)

The Oscar-nominated star of "Juno" has come out as transgender, introducing himself as Elliot Page on Tuesday in social media posts that voiced joy at sharing the news -- but also fear over a possible backlash.

In a landmark move for a top Hollywood actor, the performer formerly known as Ellen Page thanked supporters in the trans community for helping him on his journey to "finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self."

"I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer," wrote the Canadian-born Page, who has recently starred in Netflix superhero series "The Umbrella Academy."

His statement identifying as trans won swift praise across Hollywood and beyond, with LGBTQ charity GLAAD calling Page "remarkable" and "an outspoken advocate for all LGBTQ people."

"He will now be an inspiration to countless trans and non-binary people," said the group's director of transgender media Nick Adams. "All transgender people deserve the chance to be ourselves and to be accepted for who we are."

Netflix tweeted: "So proud of our superhero! We love you Elliot!"

Page, 33, burst onto the Hollywood scene with an Oscar-nominated role as a pregnant teenager in 2007 sleeper hit "Juno."

The actor also appeared in the 2010 science fiction hit "Inception" opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, and the 2012 Woody Allen comedy "To Rome with Love."

Page came out as gay in 2014, quickly become a flagbearer for Hollywood's LGBTQ community, and married dancer Emma Portner in 2018.

While largely absent from big-budget Hollywood blockbusters since 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past," Page has repeatedly shrugged off suggestions of being typecast or shunned by Tinseltown.

Page joins a small group of prominent Hollywood transgender figures, alongside "The Matrix" series writer-directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski, "Transparent" creator Joey Soloway and actor Laverne Cox.

- 'I'm scared' -

On Monday, Cox described being the victim of a recent transphobic attack in Los Angeles, underlining the hostility facing many transgender individuals in the entertainment industry and beyond.

"The truth is, despite feeling profoundly happy right now... I'm scared of the invasiveness, the hate, the 'jokes' and of violence," wrote Page.

Page also railed against politicians who "criminalize trans health care and deny our right to exist," as well as influential public figures who use "a massive platform who continue to spew hostility towards the trans community."

"You have blood on your hands. You unleash a fury of vile and demeaning rage that lands on the shoulders of the trans community," added Page, noting high rates of attempted suicide among the community.

Alphonso David, president of LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, thanked Page for "sharing your truth with us, and for shining a bright light on the challenges too many in our community face."

Although Page did not name any specific individuals, President Donald Trump's administration has attempted to roll back Obama-era anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in the health care system, and also banned transgender Americans from serving in the military.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has been at the center of a firestorm in recent years over comments deemed insulting to transgender people.

Rowling sparked controversy in June for tweeting about the use of the phrase "people who menstruate" instead of women -- prompting some former fans and activists to call for a boycott of her works.

"You aren't being 'cancelled,' you are hurting people. I am one of those people and we won't be silent in the face of your attacks," wrote Page, addressing transphobia in general.

GLAAD provided a "tip sheet" for journalists covering Page's statement, advising reporters to "use he/they pronouns when referring to Elliot Page."

© 2020 AFP

Elliot Page

The Oscar-nominated star of "Juno" has come out as a transgender man, revealing his new name and pronouns — he/they — in a letter to fans posted on social media. He will keep playing a female character in the Netflix superhero series "The Umbrella Academy." Supporters of transgender rights celebrated Page's announcement, as it provides inspiration for trans and non-binary people around the world.

Leading poll boycott, Venezuela's Guaido seeks more sanctions on Maduro 

CIA AGENT CALLS FOR MORE STARVATION FOR VENEZUELA TILL THEY GIVE UP THEIR STRUGGLE FOR CONSTUIENT ASSEMBLY DEMOCRACY

Issued on: 01/12/2020 - 

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido says the international community still needs him to help oust President Nicolas Maduro ROFLMAO


Caracas (AFP)

Opposition leader Juan Guaido is leading a boycott of Venezuela's legislative elections on Sunday and, despite losing political momentum, has told AFP he is still the person the international community needs to oust Nicolas Maduro's regime.

To make that happen, he needs the continued support of the United States and President-elect Joe Biden, though Biden's advisors have said they will explore direct contacts with Maduro.

"It would be a tragedy," warned Guaido in the interview at his Caracas home Monday.


"Let's not be in any doubt that at times, the international community would fall into the temptation of getting along with the dictator.

"What's the incentive for the dictator (to leave) if he knows that he's going to be recognized? None!"

Guaido said he has yet to speak directly with Biden or his staff, but has made approaches through US lawmakers, as he hopes to maintain "bipartisan support" from Democrats and Republicans.

- 'Fraud' election -

Recognized for more than a year as interim president by dozens of countries -- including his chief backer, the United States -- Guaido has dismissed the December 6 polls as "a fraud" designed to strengthen Maduro's grip on power.

"It would be difficult to call that process an election," the 37-year-old opposition leader said.

Guaido's apartment has lost the warmth of a home, as it has been converted into a makeshift office with papers, books and computers on every table and a pile of boxes in a corner.

He moved his operation into his home after Maduro's feared Sebin intelligence service raided and trashed his office several months ago, one of several episodes aimed at intimidating Guaido and other opposition figures.

His desk, in what was his young daughter Miranda's room, is flanked by a Venezuelan flag and a photograph of one of the dozens of demonstrations he led in 2019, now increasingly rare.

- Popular support -

The poll boycott leaves the way open for Maduro's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to win a majority in the National Assembly, the only institution still in opposition hands.

"Maduro's objective isn't even to gain legitimacy," Guaido said, adding the goal was instead to "annihilate the democratic alternative in Venezuela."

Guaido and the mainstream opposition parties have instead organized an alternative five-day referendum next week to garner popular support for a plan to prolong the current Assembly.

The intention is that if the legislative elections are invalidated, then the current Assembly would remain in place.

Guaido is speaker of the Assembly, a position from which he proclaimed himself interim president in January 2019. However, his popularity has dropped dramatically since then.

Without the Assembly, Guaido would lose formal legitimacy, leaving governments that have backed him -- not least Biden's incoming administration -- in a difficult position.

- Targeting sanctions -

Guaido hopes Biden will ratify existing US sanctions and fine-tune a more effective Maduro policy with the European Union and other Latin American countries.

"We have to get the government in the US on the same page as Europe, and with the countries of Latin America... and standardize sanctions," he said.

"Not only should they be increased but they should be standardized to prevent the dictatorship from being able to circumvent them."

Guaido insists on "maintaining international pressure" while simultaneously rekindling "popular pressure," which ebbed away in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He also said Venezuela's powerful military should be offered "incentives" to withdraw their allegiance from Maduro.

Outgoing US President Donald Trump's sanctions strategy included a veiled threat of military force to topple Maduro, a hope that the most radical Venezuelans clung to, later blaming Guaido when it did not materialize.

Guaido distanced himself from any further talk of military intervention.

"No one is offering military action, neither as a first, nor as a second, nor a third option" Guaido said.

"But there was talk of the options on the table, understanding the criminal nature of Nicolas Maduro," he added, emphasizing Maduro's indictment in the US on federal drug trafficking charges.

© 2020 AFP

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon reaches 12-year high under Bolsonaro
Issued on: 30/11/2020 - 

FILE PHOTO: Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil, September 10, 2019. © REUTERS/Bruno Kelly/File Photo
Text by:NEWS WIRES|
Video by:Fraser JACKSON

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged again over the past year, hitting a 12-year high, according to official figures released Monday that drew a chorus of condemnation of President Jair Bolsonaro's government.

A total of 11,088 square kilometres (4,281 square miles) of forest was destroyed in Brazil's share of the world's biggest rainforest in the 12 months to August, according to the Brazilian space agency's PRODES monitoring program, which analyses satellite images to track deforestation.

That is equivalent to an area larger than Jamaica, and was a 9.5-percent increase from the previous year, when deforestation also hit a more than decade-long high.

"Because of such deforestation, Brazil is probably the only major greenhouse gas emitter that managed to increase its emissions in the year the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed the global economy," said the Brazilian Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental groups.

Forests such as the Amazon play a vital role in controlling climate change because they suck carbon from the atmosphere. However, when trees die or burn, they release their carbon back into the environment.

Bolsonaro, a far-right climate-change skeptic, has presided over rising deforestation and wildfires since taking office in January 2019.

His government is pushing to open protected lands to mining and agribusiness, and has slashed funding for environmental protection programs.

Environmentalists say those policies fuel the destruction of the Amazon, about 60 percent of which is in Brazil.

"The Bolsonaro government's vision of development for the Amazon is a throwback to the rampant deforestation of the past. It's a regressive vision that's far from the effort needed to deal with the climate crisis," Greenpeace spokeswoman Cristiane Mazzetti said in a statement.

Vice President Hamilton Mourao, who presented the figures in a press conference, defended the government's committment to fighting deforestation.

"The message I bring in the name of President Bolsonaro is that we will continue working with science and technology to support the work of environmental protection agencies," said Mourao, a retired army general who heads Bolsonaro's Amazon task force.

The latest annual deforestation figure was the highest since 2008, when 12,911 square kilometers of forest were destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon.

(AFP)

Nike Japan ad on teenage bullying and racism sparks debate

Justin McCurry in Tokyo THE GUARDIAN

A video made by Nike Japan that explores bullying and racism using three schoolgirl footballers has sparked praise and outrage online, including calls to boycott the company’s products.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters

A new Nike commercial in Japan has sparked a debate about racism and bullying.

The two-minute film, which was released on Monday, had racked up 14.2m views on Twitter by Wednesday afternoon and more than 63,000 likes. More than 16,000 people had commented. The YouTube version had been viewed almost 10m times.

Some social media users described the commercial as “amazing”, “powerful” and beautiful,” but others were less impressed.

While the film’s message clearly riled members of Japan’s online right – many of whom commented using pseudonyms – more measured critics said it misrepresented modern Japanese society.

“Is Japan really such a country full of discrimination? It feels like you’re creating a false impression of Japan,” said one user quoted by Soranews24.com.

Another wrote: “Nowadays, you often see one or two people of different nationalities going to school perfectly peacefully. The one that’s prejudiced is Nike.”

“Is it so much fun to blame Japan?” another asked.

A scroll through the first 50 or so comments revealed several by people saying they would never buy Nike products again.

Japan is a relatively homogenous society, but the heroics of the country’s multiracial rugby team at last year’s world cup and the success of tennis star Naomi Osaka, who has a Japanese mother and Haitian father, are challenging old ideas about what it means to be Japanese.

The Nike ad, titled The Future Isn’t Waiting, depicts three football-playing teenage girls from different backgrounds: one is Japanese, another is Korean and the third has a black father and Japanese mother.

In one scene, the mixed-race girl is surrounded by a group of classmates who touch her hair.

The Korean girl is shown reading on her smartphone about the “zainichi problem” – a word used to describe ethnically Korean people who are “staying in Japan”.

The Japanese girl, meanwhile, is bullied at school and struggles to cope with parental pressure to achieve academically.

In the end, the three are united by a desire to confront their problems and prove themselves through their love of football.

Osaka, who was named the world’s highest-earning female athlete earlier this year, is celebrated in the country of her birth, but her rise to tennis stardom revealed problematic attitudes in some sections of Japanese society.

An animated ad by one of Osaka’s sponsors, the Cup Noodle maker Nissin, portrayed her with with pale skin, wavy brown hair and Caucasian facial features, while a standup comedy act said she “looked sunburned” and “needed some bleach”.

Nike has not commented on the controversy but said on its website it believed in the ability of sport to transform lives.

“We have long listened to minority voices, supported and spoken for causes that fit our values,” it said. “We believe sports have the power to show what a better world looks like, to bring people together and encourage action in their respective communities.”

'Worst work in the world': US park rangers grapple with tide of human waste

In Colorado, Rocky Mountain national park staff commissioned two new toilets in the Boulder Field area near Longs Peak. Photograph: Courtesy Rick Sommerfeld
With toilets in short supply, ordure can harm streams and wildlife. An entrepreneur has a nifty solution

Supported by


Grant Stringer
Wed 2 Dec 2020 

For 20 years, Richard Lechleitner had a grueling task at Mt Rainier national park: digging human waste out of backcountry toilets and carrying it down the mountains.

Staff at the park in Washington state grappled with an influx of visitors hiking far from roads, along with thousands of climbers attempting to reach the active volcano’s 14,000-foot summit each year. People heeded the call of nature on Mt. Rainier’s pristine glaciers, as well as in its unvarnished wilderness toilets.

“They’d put in these horrible toilets that just smelled terrible,” Lechleitner said. Maintaining them, he found, was appallingly dirty work.

At national parks across the US, from the peaks of Denali in Alaska to desert backpacking destinations in Utah and Arizona, managers have struggled to deal with this inevitable byproduct of people eager to get outdoors, a desire that continues amid the pandemic. Unlike a discarded Clif Bar wrapper, human waste carries a slew of bacteria and pathogens when left unbagged or otherwise unaddressed.

A backcountry toilet at Camp Muir, a climbing destination at 10,000ft on Washington’s Mt Rainier. Photograph: Kyle Roepke/Courtesy Geoff Hill

Colorado’s Rocky Mountain national park has been hit especially hard. There, a surge in visitors meant toilet paper became a more common sight in wilderness areas, rangers told the Guardian. But the park is now known nationally for pioneering a solution used at other sites, including Mt Rainier.

Between 2016 and 2019, the 265,000-acre park near Denver saw a 40% increase in visitors hiking and climbing its woods and jagged peaks. In 2019, it was the third-most visited national park in the U.S.

More hikers than ever were flocking to Longs Peak, a sheer 14,000ft mountain near the continental divide. The main trail attracts thousands of people each day during the summer, but around the mountain there are just four toilets, spread miles apart. That leaves hikers with limited options.

By 2015, rangers were trekking to the toilets and finding repulsive conditions. At its worst, the solid matter would freeze and thaw repeatedly and rise above the seat. Rangers would have to dig the material from the chamber and load it into a five-gallon bucket, place the cargo on to a pack animal and ride down.

“This is some of the worst work in the world,” said Geoff Hill, a toilet entrepreneur who worked with the park’s rangers as a doctoral student studying backcountry waste.

Because the toilets were in such a sordid state, many hikers probably refused to use them, opting instead to dig a shallow hole or cover their business with a rock.

Human pathogens can sully streams and harm high-altitude denizens, such as marmots. The beaver-like creatures would sometimes become stuck inside the toilet chambers and covered in waste, according to park staff.

Park chiefs poured time and resources into a solution. They settled on a nifty toilet product that Hill designed, called ToiletTech.

The system separates urine from solid waste, which creates cleaner excrement – and less work for rangers. Beneath the toilet seat, excrement lands on a small conveyor belt, while urine flows through a separate pipe and into a septic field. When a visitor presses a foot-powered pump inside the bathroom, ordure travels from the conveyor belt into its own chamber. There, it remains dry, lightweight and free of viruses usually present in a wet barrel of urine-soaked waste.

The new facilities, which replaced the four toilets near Longs Peak, have since helped cut down on solid matter in the area and made rangers’ lives much easier, although 200mph winds once blew the doors off a unit in the Boulder Field area.

Land managers have installed Hill’s toilets across the country to rave reviews, from Angel’s Landing in Utah’s Zion National Park to Terwilliger Hot Springs outside Portland, Oregon, as well as at Mt Rainier.

“If I was to win the lottery, I literally would go out … and buy enough toilets to work in all of the backcountry camps at Mt Rainier,” Lechleitner said of the new design.

But even Hill’s toilets come with drawbacks. Waste from remote areas is still flown out by helicopter, which is expensive. Lechleitner also said the ToiletTech units aren’t cheap, at $4,000 per unit, and National Park System maintenance upgrades are notoriously backlogged.

A helicopter delivers parts for new toilets installed near Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain national park, in 2018. Photograph: Courtesy Rick Sommerfeld

Mt Rainier is a petri dish for experiments in another, cheaper method of waste control: requiring climbers to carry their own excreta off the mountain when they’re not near bathrooms.

Land managers will either supply visitors with a kind of plastic bag – often containing an inner lining that seals and neutralizes some of the smell – or ask that they bring their own.
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Merely asking hikers to carry their waste has helped protect Coyote Gulch, a maze of narrow canyons swarmed with backpackers in Utah’s Glen Canyon national recreation area, and other popular canyons. The dry environment means waste won’t degrade easily there, and the remote region only has one toilet, said the ranger Steve Henry.

“People are really opening up to the idea,” Henry said.

Plastic bags aren’t a perfect fix – they have to be incinerated at a cost to already cash-strapped agencies, or tossed in a landfill. And people generally don’t want to carry their own feces for days on end.

If a bathroom is still miles away and hikers don’t have a carry-out bag, the best thing they can is tote a trowel to a spot far from streams and trails, said Ben Lawhorn, director of education and research for the outdoor ethics group Leave No Trace.

“Once you get eight miles into the backcountry, it’s up to you to dig a hole,” Lawhorn said.

Trump’s border wall construction threatens survival of jaguars in the US

Wall is going up in four sections in Arizona’s mountain ranges spanning the US-Mexico border where the cats had reappeared

El Jefe has been photographed repeatedly by remote sensor cameras in the Santa Rita mountains in Arizona over the past few years. Photograph: Reuters

Supported by


Samuel Gilbert in the Coronado national forest, Arizona

Tue 1 Dec 2020

By the 1960s, the North American jaguar had vanished from the southern US borderland after being hunted to extinction.

Yet in the mid-1990s, there was a remarkable discovery: the jaguar had reappeared in the Sky Islands of Arizona, a region of rugged linked mountain ranges spanning the US and Mexico border that boasts the highest biodiversity in inland North America. Since then, the large cats have been seen over a dozen times in the region, reviving hopes of a full return of the elusive predators to the US.

“They are coming back because the Sky Islands are their home,” said Dr Aletris Neils, the director of CATalyst, a wild cat conservation organization that runs the only jaguar monitoring project in the US. “All we have to do is let them.”

These hopes are threatened by Donald Trump’s border wall. In four years, his administration has built some 400 miles of the border wall in increasingly remote regions of the border. The barrier has severed wildlife corridors and fragmented crucial habitats for numerous endangered and threatened animals, including the wide-ranging jaguar.

Trump’s lame-duck period is no respite: the wall is currently going up in four sections in the Sky Islands, where “grizzly bears and grey wolves mix with tropical species like ocelots and jaguar”, said Neils. “There is no place like it on this planet. [The Sky Islands] are perfect for jaguars.”

“If all contracts are complete, 93% [of jaguar territory] will be blocked and walled off,” said Myles Traphagen, the borderlands program coordinator for Wildlands Network, who mapped the impact of current wall contracts in jaguar territory.

A Mexican jaguar dubbed ‘the Boss’ is seen in Tucson, Arizona, in a photo provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 2017. Photograph: USFWS/EPA

The wall cannot be completed in the next two months, but damage can still be done in remote areas. According to Traphagan, construction is occurring at nearly a mile a day along the entire border, and in some of the last remaining jaguar corridors in the Sky Islands, including a stretch of open border in the Pajarita wilderness as well as the Buenos Aires national wildlife refuge.

In recent years, signs of the jaguars and other endangered cats such as the ocelot have decreased as border wall construction has ramped up in the Sky Islands. “There have been fewer jaguar detections since border wall construction exploded than in any previous year since monitoring began,” said Neils.

Researchers say a permeable border allowing the jaguar and other animals to move freely is essential, yet narrow slats in the new wall prevent all but the smallest of creatures from climbing through it.

Coronado national forest, where ocelots and jaguars had once frequently been documented, is an area of concern. When the Guardian visited in early November, bulldozers were busily grading a steep road over the Huachuca mountains into the Coronado national forest.

“This is jaguar country,” said Emily Burns, standing atop Montezuma Pass, looking down at a stretch of still-unwalled border in the Coronado national forest where the future barrier is set to be built.

Burns is director of the Sky Island Alliance, a non-profit working to protect and restore the Sky Islands’ diversity. Eighty-four species have recently been documented by the alliance’s wildlife-monitoring project and its wildlife cameras, including bobcats, javelinas (a favorite jaguar snack), and recently a mountain lion with her two cubs.

Burns notes that three dozens laws, including the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Protection Act, have been waived to allow construction in the Sky Islands.

And construction carries its own dangers. On a visit to the wildlife camera at the perennial Yaqui spring, where the mountain lion family was recently photographed, the pools were dry. The likely culprit, according to Burns, was groundwater pumping by nearby border wall construction crews.

Neils, the director of CATalyst, and her husband, Chris Bugbee, would know. The two have spent the better part of two decades researching jaguars in the Sky Islands. Bugbee, an ecologist and senior researcher at CATalyst, has spent thousands of hours tracking the famous “El Jefe” jaguar with the help of his dog Mayke, who he trained to identify big-cat scat and bark to notify his owner.

“I always felt a very strong connection with El Jefe,” said Bugbee. The 210-pound cat had a taste for skunks (minus the odiferous end) and a telltale marking in the approximate shape of the state of Arizona.

But in an echo of the broader decline in jaguar numbers, El Jefe has not been seen for years.

UK to become first country in Europe to ban live animal exports

Environment secretary hails ‘Brexit success’ for animal welfare, but poultry to be excluded and Northern Ireland exempted

An estimated 6,400 animals were sent to Europe for slaughter in 2018. Photograph: Eyes on Animals 

Animals farmed is supported by


Sophie Kevany
Wed 2 Dec 2020 

Plans to ban the export of live animals for slaughter and fattening are to be unveiled by the UK’s environment secretary, George Eustice, on Thursday.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the plans were part of a renewed push to strengthen Britain’s position as a world leader on animal welfare.

An estimated 6,400 animals were sent to Europe for slaughter in 2018, according to Defra. Many of those left through the port of Ramsgate in Kent.

“Live animals commonly have to endure excessively long journeys during exports, causing distress and injury. Previously, EU rules prevented any changes to these journeys, but leaving the EU has enabled the UK government to pursue these plans,” Defra said.

The eventual ban would be considered a Brexit success, seeing Britain become the first country in Europe to end this practice.

The beginning of a joint eight-week consultation in England and Wales would mark “a major step forward in delivering on our manifesto commitment to end live exports for slaughter”, said Eustice. “Now that we have left the EU, we have an opportunity to end this unnecessary practice. We want to ensure that animals are spared stress prior to slaughter.”


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It is understood from a UK government source that the joint consultation will be used as the basis for discussions with Scotland. Those discussions, and the consultation findings, will then be used to examine ways of harmonising the ban.

However, live exports look set to continue in Northern Ireland which “will continue to follow EU legislation on animal welfare in transport for as long as the Northern Ireland protocol is in place”, according to Defra.

Poultry exports also appear set to continue, Defra added: “The measure on live exports will not impact on poultry exports or exports for breeding purposes.” The UK currently exports tens of millions of chicks a year in an industry that was worth £139m in 2018.


UK's trade in breeding chicks may not be covered by planned live export 'ban'

Asked if the eventual ban might be an achievement that could be credited to the prime minister Boris Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds, the source would not comment. Symonds is a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation (CAWF) which has long lobbied for an end to live exports.

“We are hoping this consultation will lead to an end to live exports for slaughter and fattening, which has caused such enormous suffering, by 2022 or even next year,” said CAWF’s founder, Lorraine Platt. The foundation sent its latest research report on ending live exports to the UK government several weeks ago.

Compassion in World Farming’s chief policy adviser, Peter Stevenson, said the organisation was “delighted that Defra plans to ban live exports for slaughter and fattening. We have campaigned for over 50 years against the massive suffering caused by this inhumane, archaic trade, so this unambiguous proposal is very welcome.”

The RSPCA’s CEO, Chris Sherwood, was equally welcoming and said he looked “forward to seeing this happen as the RSPCA has campaigned on this issue for more than 50 years”

Cuban leaders, artists, revive row over free speech

A promise of dialogue between the Cuban government and artists calling for greater freedom of expression seems to have stalled, after communist authorities blamed a protest on US interference.

© YAMIL LAGE Cuban government supporters take part in a rally to condemn the media campaign in support of the San Isidro movement in Havana, November 2020

Unprecedented discussions were expected to get underway this week between Culture Minister Alpidio Alonso and artist representatives, but no concrete meeting has been announced.

© YAMIL LAGE Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel (C) arrives at a concert rally to condemn the media campaign in support of the San Isidro movement in Havana, on November 29, 2020

Commitment to talks was one of the key agreements reached on Friday night after an extremely rare protest by about 300 artists outside the Culture Ministry building in Havana.

© YAMIL LAGE A group of young intellectuals and artists demonstrate outside the Culture Ministry in Havana, November 2020

Permission for such protests is rarely given in Cuba.

Rarer still, the ministry agreed to receive a delegation of 30 of the artists.

Their demands included freedom of creation and expression, the right to openly disagree with state authorities and an end to repression and harassment of independent artists on the communist-run island.

"It's a historic moment when the Culture Ministry in a one-party state receives a group of young people who disagree with it," said filmmaker Juan Pin Vilar, 58, who was part of the delegation. His main motivation in taking part was to "help these young people have a better future."

© YAMIL LAGE Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel accused the US of embarking on an "unconventional war strategy"

He described that initial meeting on Friday as "an example of how to build a country."

- 'Media circus' -

By Saturday, however, the government's tone had changed. The foreign ministry summoned the US Charge d'Affaires Timothy Zuniga-Brown, accusing him of "blatant and provocative interference" after the US State Department had tweeted its support.

© YAMIL LAGE Artists and intellectuals demonstrating outside Cuba's Culture Ministry in Havana in November 2020

On Sunday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel denounced "an unconventional war strategy to try to overthrow the revolution."

Dressed in a T-shirt in the colors of the Cuban flag, Diaz-Canel addressed a gathering of several hundred young people who took part in a "defense of the revolution" rally in a Havana park.

If there is a dialogue, it will only be about "everything that concerns socialism," he warned.

"You know they tried to trick us. They set up a media circus," he said, describing the Friday protest as "the last attempt" of the Trump administration to "overthrow the revolution".

Washington has long funded anti-Communist programs in Cuba, said Michael Bustamante of Florida International University.

"For a long time, the US government has been giving money for what they call the promotion of Cuban democracy," he said. "These are controversial programs."

"But it's far too simplistic to say that as soon as someone has demands related to civil society, it's orchestrated by Washington."

The demonstration followed the expulsion by police on Thursday night of members of a previously little known artists' collective from their premises in the historic center of Havana.

Members of the San Isidro Movement had been protesting for 10 days, with six of them on hunger strike, and their movement had gained significant attention.

- 'A better future' -

Prominent names from Cuba's cultural world have thrown their weight behind the movement, including actor Jorge Perugorria, director Fernando Perez and, via the internet, the singers Leoni Torres and Cimafunk.

"What's happened is unprecedented. A whole community of artists, including those close to the institutions, who've joined forces....it's an awakening of consciousness," said Camila Lobon, a 25-year-old plastic artist.

"What really motivated the demonstration was the community's demand that the harassment of artists, intellectuals, journalists and, in general, citizens who disapprove of the state's policies in Cuba be totally stopped, a demand for respect and recognition of freedom of expression."

Cuba's mobile 3G internet has played a key role in publicizing the San Isidro Movement's work, widely disseminated online, and urging hundreds of young artists to turn out at the ministry on Friday.

Social media has given critical voices greater visibility. However, many have criticized sudden outages to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp recently.

At the same time the powerful state media has slammed what it called the "San Isidro farce".

Lobon said the government's change of tone "is a strategy they have always used....to simply deny that they can give in under popular pressure."

"The public response in the government media is harsh and I don't agree with that," said Juan Pin Vilar.

Regardless, he said, "this dialogue must continue."

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