Gina McCarthy, Biden's top climate adviser, to step down

Gina McCarthy, the top White House climate adviser, delivers remarks during a visit to Brandywine, Maryland, on December 13, 2021. McCarthy announced she will be stepping down Sept. 16. 

Photo by Michael Reynolds/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Gina McCarthy, the top White House domestic climate adviser will step down on Sept. 16, completing a move that had been expected for months.

Her departure comes weeks after President Joe Biden signed the largest-ever U.S. law aimed at combatting climate change, Politico reported

According to the New York Times, McCarthy, 68, has told associates that the travel associated with her job was tiring and she never intended to stay for President Biden's full term.

McCarthy was tapped to head the newly created White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy as part of the climate and energy team Biden appointed upon taking office.

A native of Massachusetts, McCarthy previously led the Environmental Protection Agency for four years during former President Barack Obama's term. She also served as an environmental adviser to several Massachusetts governors and was Connecticut's commissioner of environmental protection.

Last month Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which will invest $369 billion to confront the climate crisis. It provides federal dollars to companies that invest in solar and wind power and help the U.S. transition away from fossil fuels. It also lays out a reduction in greenhouse gases in the United States by 40% by the end of the 2020s.

 Large waterspout caught on camera off Florida coast

Sept. 2 (UPI) -- A waterspout swirling water high up into the air off the Florida coast was caught on camera by a witness Friday morning.

Bryan Shepherd captured video when he spotted the weather phenomenon off the coast of New Smyrna Beach about 8:15 a.m. Friday.

The waterspout followed an early morning thunderstorm and comes amid several days of strong storms in Central Florida.

Weather forecasters said the storms are expected to continue through Friday

I BELIEVE THAT IT WAS A WATERSPOUT THAT TOOK DOWN FLIGHT MH370

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for MH370 

KRIMINAL KAPITALI$MUS

Bayer settles kickback and fraud allegations for $40 million

Bayer Corp. and related entities have agreed to pay $40 million to settle allegations of kickbacks and fraud in marketing the drugs Trasylol, Avelox and Baycol, the Justice Department said Friday. Photo by Sir Velpertex di Crantx/Wikimedia Commons

Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Bayer has agreed to pay $40 million to settle alleged violations of the False Claims Act, according to the Department of Justice. The settlement announced Friday arose from two lawsuits filed by a former Bayer employee.

Lauri Simpson's lawsuit charged that Bayer Corp. and related corporate entities paid kickbacks to hospitals and physicians to get them to use the drugs Trasylol and Avelox in treating patients.

Her suit alleged that Bayer caused false submissions to Medicare and Medicaid, breaking the law in 20 states and District of Columbia.

Simpson will receive some $11 million from settlement proceeds, according to the Justice Department.

"Simpson diligently pursued this matter for almost two decades," said Department of Justice' Civil Division head Brian M. Boynton in a statement. "Today's recovery highlights the critical role that whistleblowers play in the effective use of the False Claims Act to combat fraud in federal healthcare programs."

U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger said in the Justice Department statement that as alleged in the lawsuit, Bayer engaged in a series of unlawful acts, including kickbacks and marketing the drugs off-label while downplaying their safety risks.

Simpson's second suit against Bayer related to the statin drug Baycol. That civil action accused Bayer of downplaying the drug's risks and committing fraud by inducing the Defense Logistics Agency to renew contracts for Baycol.

Baycol and Trasylol were withdrawn from the market for safety reasons, according to the Justice Department.

FBI returns Ancient Roman mosaic of Medusa to Italy

Special Agents Elizabeth Rivas and Allen Grove traveled to Italy for 

the repatriation of the mosaic to its home in Rome. Photo courtesy of FBI

Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A mosaic of Medusa believed to have been made in the early days of the Roman Empire has been returned to Italy by the FBI.

The mosaic was shipped and arrived in Italy in April and experts are now working to clean and restore it, the FBI said in a news release on Friday.

The FBI said it first became aware of the mosaic in late 2020 when an art attorney had reached out on behalf of an anonymous client who possessed the historic art.

The client had no documentation on the provenance of the artwork, which would describe where the mosaic came from, and so was unable to sell it.

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The mosaic was cut up into 16 pieces and stored on termite-infested pallets, each weighing between 75 and 200 pounds, in a Los Angeles storage facility since the 1980s.

"The pieces of the mosaic were largely intact thanks to the climate-controlled facility they'd been kept in," FBI officials said in the news release.

Allen Grove and Elizabeth Rivas, special agents with the FBI Art Crime Team, worked to determine where the mosaic belonged so that the agency could return it.

The agents first reached out to a local art expert, who said the mosaic was likely from Italy or north Africa, then contacted the Carabiniere -- the Italian counterpart of the FBI.

Officials with the Carabiniere told the FBI a few months later that the mosaic had been entered into cultural property records in 1909.

"The only modern record of the mosaic's existence was a 1959 newspaper ad that appeared to show it for sale in the Los Angeles area," according to the FBI.

RELATEDAncient Egyptian artifact seized in Memphis, Tenn.

NOT MEMPHIS EGYPT

The person who had possessed the mosaic agreed to pay for it to be sent to Italy in specialized shipping crates so that the pieces would arrive undamaged.

"We worked with the owner and made sure we documented the condition and had everything we needed to ship it back to Italy," Grove said.

"We then worked with the Italian consulate here in Los Angeles. This is something of great interest to Italy; they came and inspected the mosaic and helped us facilitate the logistics of actually getting it back to Italy."

Rivas added that the FBI was "very happy" that the lawyer and their client had contacted them.

"If they hadn't, it could've been in storage for another hundred years," Rivas said. "It's a successful example of how we can work together to get pieces back to where they belong."

Diesel exhaust may harm health of women more than men, study says

 File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Breathing diesel exhaust fumes may be more harmful for females than males, prompting more changes in women's blood components related to inflammation, infection and cardiovascular disease.

That's according to preliminary findings from a small study scheduled to be presented Sunday at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The findings, while preliminary, "show that exposure to diesel exhaust has different effects in female bodies compared to male and that could indicate that air pollution is more dangerous for females than males," Neeloffer Mookherjee, a professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, said in a Thursday news release.

Her research team collaborated on the new research with a team led by Chris Carlsten, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Mookherjee said that a better understanding is important because respiratory diseases such as asthma are known to effect females and males differently, with females more likely to have severe asthma that does not respond to treatments.

"Therefore," she said, " we need to know a lot more about how females and males respond to air pollution and what this means for preventing, diagnosing and treating their respiratory disease."

According to previous collaborative work by researchers at the two Canadian universities, breathing diesel exhaust has been shown to create inflammation in the lungs and affect how the body deals with respiratory infections.

RELATED Nano-particles in air pollution linked to brain cancer risk

The new research involved looking for any effects in the blood from diesel exhaust and exploring how these effects differ in females and males.

The study's scheduled presenter at the European conference, Dr. Hemshekhar Mahadevappa, is a research associate of Mookherjee's at the University of Manitoba.

The small study involved 10 healthy participants, all non-smokers, five female and five male. Each person spent four hours breathing filtered air, and four hours breathing air containing diesel exhaust fumes at three concentrations: 20, 50 and 150 micrograms of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, per cubic meter. They had a four-week break in between each exposure.

RELATED Air pollution killed 400,000 in Europe, environmental study says

The current European Union annual limit value for PM2.5 is 25 micrograms per cubic meter, but much higher peaks are common in many cities, the release said.

Twenty-four hours after each exposure, the participants donated blood samples.

Researchers used a technology called liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze the blood plasma: the blood's liquid component transporting blood cells and hundreds of proteins and other molecules around the body, the release said.

Comparing blood samples, the scientists found levels of 90 proteins that were "distinctly different" between female and male volunteers following exposure to diesel exhaust, the release said.

These proteins included some known to play a role in inflammation, damage repair, blood clotting, cardiovascular disease and the immune system.

The next step, researchers said, is further study of the functions of these blood proteins to better understand their role in the difference between female and male immune responses.

Exposure to air pollution, especially diesel exhaust, is a major risk factor in diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Zorana Andersen, a professor from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, noted in the release, offering outside commentary on the study.

Andersen, chair of the European Respiratory Society's Environment and Health Committee, urged governments globally to respond by setting and enforcing limits on air pollutants.

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Lula Voters Nostalgic For Social Gains In Brazil

09/05/22 

Messias Figueiredo, 56, is a well-known figure at left-wing protests -- instantly recognizable with his rectangular glasses and an ever-present red boom box emblazoned with Brazilian former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's picture AFP / Rafael Martins


Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's social programs helped lift tens of millions of people from poverty and chip away at deep-rooted inequality and discrimination in Brazil -- gains supporters hope will now resume.

AFP spoke to Lula voters about the October 2 election pitting the leftist ex-president (2003-2010) against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

Writer, producer and cultural commentator Jonathan Raymundo, 33, is fed up with Bolsonaro's Brazil.

"I can't take it anymore. Violence against women, blacks and the LGTB+ community has reached alarming levels in this country. We need love, affection, happiness... and Bolsonaro is the opposite of that," says Raymundo, a black history and philosophy teacher with bright pink hair.

Raymundo is the founder of an Afro-Brazilian cultural festival in Rio de Janeiro, "Wakanda in Madureira," inspired by the fictional kingdom of the Black Panther superhero.

Explaining his outrage, he cites some of Bolsonaro's most controversial remarks: saying a woman was "not worth raping" because she was "too ugly;" talking about weighing black people in "arrobas," a unit of measurement used for animals and, in centuries past, for slaves; saying he could not do anything about Brazil's soaring Covid-19 deaths because he was "not a gravedigger."

Raymundo is nostalgic for the "fundamental advances" for historically disadvantaged groups under Lula and his Workers' Party (PT), he says.

"Brazil is at a crossroads, with the chance to transform itself into a great country. But that will only happen if it knows how to include its racial diversity in the spheres of power," he says.

Raymundo wants to see a new generation of leaders emerge, but "for now, there's no alternative," he says.

Historian Jonathan Raymundo, supporter of Brazilian presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, says he is fed up with President Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil ANDRE BORGES AFP

"We need Lula as president again."

In the northeastern city of Salvador, computer science teacher Messias Figueiredo, 56, is a well-known figure at left-wing protests -- instantly recognizable with his rectangular glasses and an ever-present red boom box emblazoned with Lula's picture.

"It's an instrument of peaceful political struggle," says Figueiredo, who blasts campaign jingles and pro-Lula commentary from his sound system as he marches.

"He enabled millions of Brazilians to escape poverty. He led the best government in this country's history."

Above all, he loves Lula because he, too, is from the impoverished northeast, "a region that has always lagged behind the rest of the country," he says.

He praises the former president for bringing investment to the region, opening universities there and launching construction of a massive canal to bring water from the Sao Francisco river to the semi-arid Sertao region.

"We can't take this fascist, genocidal, inhuman government anymore," he says through his loudspeaker, accusing Bolsonaro of "decimating" the environment and "massacring" Brazil's indigenous peoples.

Public health worker and union leader Aline Xavier, 33, credits Lula with helping her "beat the statistics," get an education and make a career for herself, despite being a black woman from the poor suburbs of Sao Paulo.

The PT "opened the door for me to have a voice... and not be excluded because I was a woman and black," she says.

Xavier, head of a municipal employees' union, believes in "everything Lula does," she says.

A graduate of a public school that opened under the PT, she disdains the Bolsonaro administration for its "neoliberal policies, attacks on workers' rights and intolerance for minorities."

Lula, she hopes, will restore "a government that goes into marginal areas, that gives opportunities to blacks, to working and single moms, that recognizes you can't have meritocracy if you don't have equality."

"Lula is the only one who can get our country back," she says.

Divisive Campaign Clouds Party As Brazil Turns 200
By Louis GENOT
09/06/22 


Brazil celebrates the 200th anniversary of its independence Wednesday, with the festivities clouded by a divisive election race and accusations that President Jair Bolsonaro is using the festivities to bolster his campaign.

Trailing in the polls to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ahead of October's elections, Bolsonaro is planning a massive show of strength to mark the occasion, including military parades in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro and rallies by his supporters in cities across the country.

Last year on Brazil's national day, the far-right president triggered an outcry with a fiery speech saying "only God" could remove him from office and vowing to stop heeding rulings by Supreme Court Justice and top electoral official Alexandre de Moraes, whom Bolsonaro considers an enemy.

That year, Bolsonaro supporters broke through a security cordon in Brasilia on the eve of the festivities and threatened to invade the Supreme Court.

The race for the October 2 election has left Brazil deeply divided as it marks the anniversary of the date in 1822 that Dom Pedro I, then the sprawling South American colony's regent, declared its independence from Portugal.

Bolsonaro is trailing Lula in the polls heading into the first-round election, which will be followed by a runoff on October 30 if no candidate wins more than half the valid votes.

But the incumbent looks determined to flex his muscle on Independence Day.

"September 7 will be politicized by definition this year, coming in the home stretch of the campaign," said political scientist Paulo Baia of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

"It will be tense and potentially violent," he told AFP.

Bolsonaro will start the day presiding over an official military parade on Brasilia's Esplanade of Ministries.

Tens of thousands of spectators are expected, with a heavy security presence.

A pro-Bolsonaro rally is planned just after -- with critics accusing the president of blurring the line between his official duties and his campaign.

The incumbent will then fly to Rio de Janeiro, where his supporters are planning a motorcycle rally to the city's iconic Copacabana beach.

There, the military plans to put on another spectacle, with a cortage of navy ships tracing the coast, an air show and a paratroop display.

A group of pastors from Brazil's powerful Evangelical Christian community has rented a stage in Copacabana where the commander in chief could address the crowd.

Donations have also poured in from another largely pro-Bolsonaro group, Brazil's giant agribusiness sector, to help fund Independence Day events across the country.

The Bolsonaro camp has been highly active on social networks, urging supporters to turn out en masse for the day.

Bolsonaro's congressman son Eduardo raised eyebrows on Twitter Monday by calling on Brazilians "who have legally purchased guns" -- a contingent his father has sought to expand with aggressive gun-control rollbacks -- to enlist as "volunteers for Bolsonaro."

Such comments have added to fears of violence around the election if Bolsonaro, who regularly attacks Brazil's voting system as fraud-ridden -- without evidence -- follows in the footsteps of his political role model, former US president Donald Trump, and refuses to accept the result.

Lula, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, apparently plans to keep a low profile Wednesday, but has rallies scheduled for Thursday and a meeting with Evangelicals, a key voting bloc, on Friday.

Brazil's Bolsonaro Still The 'Bibles, Bullets And Beef' Candidate

By AFP News
09/05/22 

Former Military Police Major Elitusalem Gomes de Freitas, wearing a t-shirt bearing the name of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, poses for a picture carrying his guns and the Brazilian flag, in the city of Nova Iguacu

Four years after President Jair Bolsonaro rode to victory on a groundswell of support from Brazil's "Bibles, bullets and beef" coalition, that powerful trio of groups is still the core of his base.

AFP spoke to Bolsonaro backers from the "BBB" constituencies -- conservative Christians, security hardliners and farmers -- about the October 2 election pitting the far-right incumbent against leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010).

Former Rio de Janeiro police officer Elitusalem Gomes Freitas, 42, says his admiration for Bolsonaro began well before the ex-army captain's 2018 campaign, when the now-president was still a congressman for Rio.

"When officers were killed in the line of duty, other politicians never sent condolences. Bolsonaro did," says Freitas.

"He went to the funerals and paid tribute to our colleagues."

Freitas, a powerfully built man who spent two decades as a cop before getting into local politics, is now running to represent Rio in Congress, as Bolsonaro once did.

Pictures on his social networks show him with a stern face, a rifle, a Brazilian flag and a black T-shirt stamped with the word "Bolsonaro."

He calls himself a pro-gun father, conservative and "terror of the left."


Bolsonaro's win four years ago "generated huge expectations among conservatives," he says.

"But problems that have been dragging on for 30 years don't get solved in four."

Still, he loves Bolsonaro's "integrity," after what he calls the "robbery" of Lula and his Workers' Party.

Like Bolsonaro, he alleges nefarious powers are plotting a "secret vote count" to steal the election.

"The people accusing Bolsonaro of planning a coup are inverting the narrative. They're the real coup-mongers," he says.

Retired math teacher Mariza Russo Feres, 68, says she prays every day "for Brazil and the president God will choose."

The Evangelical pastor's wife fears Lula returning to power.

"I'm afraid of communism," she says, sitting in a pew at the church where her husband preaches in the upscale Sao Paulo neighborhood of Pinheiros.

She sees Bolsonaro as the defender of family values, and Lula as a threat.

"For example, abortion is anti-Christian, and we're worried about a candidate... imposing it on us," she says, referring to pro-abortion rights statements by Lula, who later back-tracked, facing negative reactions in a country that remains largely conservative on the issue.

Feres also cites the left's supposed imposition of "gender ideology" in schools.

Bible in hand, she kneels, closes her eyes and prays for the country.

Farmer Carlos Alberto Moresco, 47, says he is far from "idolizing" Bolsonaro. You won't find any campaign posters for the incumbent on his farm, Fazenda Onca.

But the facts speak for themselves, he says: Bolsonaro has been the best president in recent history for Brazil's agribusiness industry, opening new markets in Asia and investing in infrastructure that helped boost exports.

"He was very smart in choosing his ministers. Our (former) agriculture minister (Tereza Cristina) was an agricultural engineer," says Moresco, who grows corn and soybeans on the 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) he rents outside the central-western farm town of Luziania.

He is also a fan of the Bolsonaro administration's program to regularize land titles for more than 350,000 farmers who lacked legal deeds.

"He gave dignity to these people who were barely scraping by. Today, with titles to their land, they can take out loans and farm with dignity," he says.

"When someone's loyal to my values and principles, I'm loyal to them. Our president values rich and poor alike, that's why I say he deserves four more years."

Mariza Russo Feres, at the church where her husband preaches in Sao Paulo, Brazil, fears former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva returning to power

Brazilian farmer Carlos Moresco believes President Jair Bolsonaro has been the best leader in recent history for Brazil's agribusiness industry

Brazil celebrates the 200th anniversary of its independence Wednesday, with the festivities clouded by a divisive election race and accusations that President Jair Bolsonaro is using the festivities to bolster his campaign. FRANCE 24's International Affairs Armen Georgian tells us more.

Brazil judge suspends easing of gun laws, citing election violence fears

Author: AFP|

Update: 06.09.2022 

Gun enthusiasts at the Shot Fair Brazil in Joinville,

 in Santa Catarina state, Brazil, in August 2022 / © AFP

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge on Monday temporarily suspended several provisions implemented by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro that allowed people to buy weapons, citing a "risk of political violence" during the electoral campaign.

"The start of the election campaign exacerbates the risk of political violence," which "makes the need to restrict access to weapons and ammunition extremely and exceptionally urgent," Justice Edson Fachin wrote.

Fachin said he made the decision "in light of recent and unfortunate episodes of political violence."

He did not specify whether he was referring to local events, such as the July shooting of a Workers' Party (PT) treasurer by a Bolsonaro-supporting police officer, or the attempted assassination in neighboring Argentina Thursday of the Vice President Cristina Kirchner.

According to the court, Fachin's decision establishes that only "people who concretely demonstrate an effective need" can have weapons, one of the rules that Bolsonaro, an enthusiastic backer of gun ownership, had relaxed by decree.

It also determines that purchasing restricted-use firearms should only be allowed for reasons of "public security or national defense, not based on personal interest," as for hunters, sports shooters and collectors, who can buy assault rifles.

That category of gun buyers, which jumped from 117,000 registrations to more than 673,000 under the Bolsonaro administration, is of particular concern to security experts, who fear episodes of violence as the polarized election on October 2 approaches.

The vote pits Bolsonaro against leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro's constant questioning of the electronic voting system has raised fears that his followers will reject any eventual defeat, and could replicate scenes such as the assault on the US Capitol in 2021 after former president Donald Trump lost at the polls.

Monday's decision comes into immediate effect until the full federal Supreme Court concludes its deliberations on the constitutionality of the decrees, which have been suspended for the past year.

Lawyer Bruno Langeani, a member of the NGO Instituto Sou da Paz, told AFP the decision was an "important" one that "indicates an understanding on the part of the Supreme Court that weapons can be a destabilizing element in the elections."

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court last week restricted the carrying of weapons in polling stations, in another sign of concern about possible episodes of violence.

Live: Last reactor at Zaporizhzhia taken offline after renewed shelling

FRANCE 24 - 1h ago

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of risking nuclear disaster by shelling near Europe's largest nuclear plant, which officials said disrupted power lines on Monday and took the sole remaining reactor offline. Meanwhile, a US intelligence report indicated that Russia is buying ammunition from North Korea, which US officials said is an effect of the sanctions against Russia. Follow FRANCE 24’s liveblog for all the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).


Live: Last reactor at Zaporizhzhia taken offline after renewed shelling

© Maxar Technologies via AP

5:09am: IAEA says Zaporizhzhia plant has enough power to operate safely, will brief Security Council later today

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of risking nuclear disaster by shelling near Europe's largest nuclear plant, which officials said disrupted power lines on Monday and took the sole remaining reactor offline.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), citing information supplied from Ukraine, said the plant's backup power line had been cut to extinguish a fire but that the line itself was not damaged and would be reconnected.

The UN nuclear watchdog said the plant had enough electricity to operate safely and would be reconnected to the grid once backup power was restored.

The IAEA's presence at the plant was reduced to two staff members from six on Monday. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi will issue a report on Ukraine, including the plant, on Tuesday and then brief the UN Security Council, the IAEA said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday warned of a near "radiation catastrophe" and said the shelling showed Russia "does not care what the IAEA will say".

Shelling forces Ukraine nuclear plant off grid as Zelensky warns of 'disaster'

Mon, September 5, 2022 at 9:30 PM·4 min read


The last working reactor at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was disconnected from the grid after shelling caused a fire, with the UN's atomic watchdog due to brief the Security Council about the crisis on Tuesday.

Soon after it invaded in February, Moscow largely took control of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of southern Ukraine and is now aiming to absorb them into Russia through referendums -- as it did with Crimea in 2014.

Russia also blamed Western sanctions for its halting of gas supplies to Germany and on top of the crisis in Europe, there are fears of a nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia -- Europe's biggest atomic facility.

"Today the last power transmission line connecting the plant to the energy system of Ukraine was damaged due to another Russian provocative shelling," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address on Monday.


"Due to Russian provocation, the Zaporizhzhia plant is one step away from a radiation disaster."

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant (ZNPP) has been shelled in recent weeks, with Ukraine and Russia blaming each other for the attacks as fears grow of a possible nuclear incident.

Ukraine's state-run power company Energoatom said Monday that the last working reactor -- Power Unit No. 6 -- was disconnected from the grid because shelling had started a fire.

The IAEA said it was informed by Ukraine that the line would be reconnected when the fire is extinguished.


The atomic watchdog was due to release a report Tuesday on its mission to the plant last week, with its chief Rafael Grossi scheduled to also brief the UN Security Council on the situation.

In 1986, Ukraine -- a part of the Soviet Union at the time -- was the scene of the world's worst nuclear disaster, when a reactor at the Chernobyl plant exploded and spewed radiation into the atmosphere.

The attacks at ZNPP have prompted comparisons with that disaster, and the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday accused Russia of "reckless behaviour".

- Kherson referendum on hold -

After failing to capture Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, Russia has focused its attacks on the south and east of Ukraine.

Authorities installed by Moscow in the Kherson region of Ukraine on Monday suggested that plans for a referendum on joining Russia had been delayed.

Kirill Stremousov, a pro-Moscow official in Kherson, told Russian state TV that the referendum plans were on hold -- but later moderated his comments saying it was not a pause, without mentioning a date for the vote.

"The referendum will take place no matter what. No one will cancel it," Stremousov said in a video posted on Telegram.

Ukrainian forces have claimed gains in their counter-offensive in the south, saying they have recaptured several areas and destroyed targets including a warehouse containing referendum ballot papers.

Russia's defence ministry said meanwhile it continued to inflict heavy losses on the Ukrainian army.


At his vineyard in southern Ukraine, near the city of Mykolaiv, Pavlo Magalias oversaw the harvest of his grapes with the sound of artillery resonating behind him.

"I'm the winegrower closest to the frontline", said the 59-year-old, who is originally from Moldova.

Despite the bombs, Magalias said he has never thought of leaving.

"The war isn't going to kill everybody," he told AFP. "Life will win out."
- Europe's energy crisis -

Russia is a major energy exporter, and it has slashed gas supplies to Europe following Western sanctions over the invasion.

Power bills have soared across Europe, fuelling already rocketing inflation.

The Kremlin has blamed the "collective West -- in this case the European Union, Canada and Britain" for the halt of Russian gas supplies to Germany, after key infrastructure was closed indefinitely for repairs.

Fears are growing of crippling winter gas shortages in Europe.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Monday that it would keep two nuclear plants on standby beyond the end of the year "in case needed" for electricity -- partly delaying a nuclear exit planned under former chancellor Angela Merkel.

Germany has already moved to restart mothballed coal power plants and fill gas storage ahead of the winter to guard against an energy shortfall.

Earlier Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron, who said France was ready to deliver more gas to allow Germany to export more electricity.

burs-qan/dhc

Pakistan's brick workers need kilns reignited after floods


Kaneez FATIMA
Mon, September 5, 2022 


The brick kilns that dominate the small village of Aqilpur in Pakistan's Punjab province now lie abandoned, furnaces extinguished by weeks of torrential rain that have caused the worst floods in the country's history.

Though the floods that engulfed Aqilpur and its surrounding fields have receded from the highs of a week ago, the kilns are still surrounded by water.

Most of those who lived on-site -- part of the country's millions-strong workforce known as "daily wagers" because of their piecemeal salaries -- abandoned their homes for higher, dry ground.

"I come here daily on my bicycle and go from one kiln to another to look for work but find nothing," said Muhammad Ayub, an itinerant labourer.

Now, a road that runs through the village has become a kind of town square for the kiln workers, who find themselves both homeless and out of work.

Ayub, 40, has a sick mother and an eight-year-old daughter to provide for.

When his home was destroyed in the torrential rains that preceded the flood, he sent them to a relative's house close to the village.


But once the flood hit, his family was forced to take refuge at a makeshift campsite on higher ground outside the village.

More than 33 million people in Pakistan have been affected by the flooding, brought on by record monsoon rains that have swamped a third of the country, causing at least 1,300 deaths.

The floods have destroyed or badly damaged nearly two million homes or business premises, and for the rebuilding process to begin, kilns like those in Aqilpur will have to fire up again.
- Earning less than $3 a shift -

There are thousands of small brick factories and kilns scattered across much of Pakistan -- a vital supplier of building materials for the nation of 220 million.

For now, mounds of bricks that should be making their way to building sites across the country lie partially submerged in floodwater.

Ayub worked 12 hours a night making bricks, earning less than $3 (600 rupees) a shift for his labours.

He would spend the mornings working the fields surrounding the village, and was only able to sleep briefly in the afternoon before his shift began again.

With the kilns shut down and the fields submerged, his daily wage is gone.

"Where should a labourer go? he asked AFP.

"Wherever the workers go to look for work, they come back empty-handed."

Daily wagers make up one of the poorest segments of Pakistan's society and many in rural areas are exploited by unscrupulous large-scale farmers and factory owners who keep them in virtual servitude.

The brickworks in particular are notorious for hiring child labour -- illegal under Pakistan law.

One of the youngest among the 50 or so kiln workers camped near Aqilpur is Muhammad Ismail, who joined his father at the brickworks almost a year ago when he turned 12.

He helped mould the clay that makes the bricks before they went into the furnace, hoping his labours would help his parents feed his six younger siblings.

After fleeing their home in the flood, Ismail's father had to borrow money to buy flour and other necessities for his family.

"But now we are in debt," Ismail said.

"I have been searching for work with my father every day. We need to pay off our debt, but I'm losing hope."

It is not uncommon in parts of Pakistan for those who incur debt and fail to pay it back to be forced into bonded labour for years, as interest on the original sum keeps mounting.

This debt can often be handed down from one generation to another.

The kiln workers of Aqilpur have petitioned the owner to spark up the furnaces so they can resume work, but Ayub thinks they are asking for the impossible.

"The water collected here isn't going to dry up for at least three months," he said.

"And after the water dries, it will take another two or two-and-half months for the repairs."

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Pakistan floods: Pregnant women in urgent need of health care

Hundreds of thousands of pregnant women have been displaced by the unprecedented floods in Pakistan. They urgently need proper medical care to ensure a safe pregnancy and childbirth.

Vulnerable sections of the population such as pregnant women and children 

are particularly affected by the floods

Ameeran, a 29-year-old pregnant woman from a village in Sindh province's Qambar district, has been taking refuge in a relief camp set up in the provincial capital Karachi since record torrential rains caused massive floods in the country in recent days.

"The roads were completely wiped away by the rain and flood. It took my family three days to reach Karachi," she said.

The unprecedented rains and melting glaciers in Pakistan's northern mountainous regions have brought floods that have so far affected over 33 million people and submerged a third of the country.

The floods, which have destroyed homes, land, crops and livestock, have followed record-breaking summer temperatures. Pakistan's government and the United Nations have both blamed climate change for the extreme weather and the devastation it has brought.

At least 1,314 people, including 458 children, have lost their lives because of the environmental catastrophe, Pakistan's National Disaster Management Agency said.

Bad food and dirty washrooms?

Vulnerable sections of the population, such as pregnant women and children, are particularly affected.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said last week that almost 650,000 pregnant women in flood-hit areas require maternal health services to ensure a safe pregnancy and childbirth — with up to 73,000 expected to give birth in September.

The UN agency stressed that the women will need skilled birth attendants, newborn care and support. "In addition, many women and girls are at an increased risk of gender-based violence (GBV) as almost 1 million houses have been damaged," it said in a press release.

Floods in Pakistan have so far affected over 33 million people and submerged

 a third of the country

In Sindh province, which is among the worst-hit regions, authorities have set up tens of relief camps to provide shelter to those displaced by the floods.

But Ameeran said that the camps don't much to offer for pregnant women.

The food provided at the camp is also a problem, she said. "We are not used to eating such oily and spicy food, it bloats my stomach and causes acidity, I try to avoid it but then I have no other option," she said.

Eighteen-year-old Rubina, who is seven months pregnant, said she hasn't received proper food since reaching the camp two weeks ago.

"It has been a fortnight in this relief camp, and not even one day I have been able to eat something proper. I feel dizzy all the time. When I was at home I used to have milk, yogurt and fruits regularly but here all you get to eat are the spicy and oily rice which causes a lot of discomfort to me," she said.

"The washrooms are also very dirty."

Lack of female doctors and midwives

At campsites, many of them government schools turned into relief camps, stranded people and their livestock live side-by-side in cramped conditions without sanitation. And many women find it distressing to share living space with strangers, particularly men.

At one of the camps, 40-year-old Mansha said she remains awake all night as sleeping in a room in the presence of non-related men "makes me feel uncomfortable."

Mansha, from the town of Kandiaro in Sindh, is currently pregnant with her fourth child.

Pregnant women at the camps also complain of a lack of female doctors and midwives to help them.

Most of them have resisted being examined by visiting male doctors as in Pakistan's conservative society, it is often deemed inappropriate for women to consult male doctors, especially for gynecological issues.

"There is already a shortage of gynecologists and the floods have made the condition worse," said the Director General of Sindh's health services, Muhammad Juman.

Pointing out that the natural calamity has caused severe damage to the province's health infrastructure, he said authorities are setting up makeshift facilities to meet the urgent needs of the pregnant women.

"The health department of Sindh is devising a mechanism to deal with the destruction caused to health facilities and a special budget of 800 million rupees ($3.65 million or €3.67 million) will also be released for it in the next week," he underlined.

Sidra Basit, a gynecologist in Karachi who has been visiting the camps to treat pregnant women, said most of the women she has seen are extremely anemic.

That's the reason behind their unstable blood pressure, she noted, adding that iron deficiency could also create complications at the time of childbirth and increase the chances of post-partum hemorrhage, which is when women bleed heavily after giving birth.

"These women are also traumatized by the disaster they faced. Anxiety and depression in such mothers can adversely affect the mental health of the child too," she said.

The floods and their effects show how women are especially vulnerable to and hit hard by environmental disasters.

Struggling to avert danger

Even as flood waters are receding in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces, the situation remains alarming across Sindh.

Authorities there breached the nation's largest freshwater lake, displacing up to 100,000 people from their homes in the hope of draining enough water to stop the lake from bursting its banks and swamping more densely populated areas.

But water levels in the lake, to the west of the Indus river in Sindh, remain dangerously high.

The floods are also a huge burden for an economy already needing help from the International Monetary Fund.

The United Nations has called for $160 million in aid to help the victims of the floods but Pakistani officials say the cost of the damage is far higher than that.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru