Happiness might protect you from gastrointestinal distress

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS IS HEALTHY FOR YOU

by UT Southwestern Medical Center

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Serotonin, a chemical known for its role in producing feelings of well-being and happiness in the brain, can reduce the ability of some intestinal pathogens to cause deadly infections, new research by UT Southwestern scientists suggests. The findings, publishing online today in Cell Host & Microbe, could offer a new way to fight infections for which few truly effective treatments currently exist.

Although the vast majority of research on serotonin has centered on its effects in the brain, about 90 percent of this neurotransmitter—a chemical that nerve cells use to communicate with each other—is produced in the gastrointestinal tract, explains study leader Vanessa Sperandio, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology and biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. In humans, trillions of bacteria live within this space. Most of these gut bacteria are beneficial, but pathogenic bacteria can also colonize the gastrointestinal tract, causing serious and potentially fatal infections.

Because gut bacteria are significantly affected by their environment, Sperandio, along with UTSW doctoral student Aman Kumar, laboratory manager Regan Russell, and their colleagues, wondered whether the serotonin produced in the gut can affect the virulence of pathogenic bacteria that infect the gastrointestinal tract.

The researchers worked with Escherichia coli O157, a species of bacteria that causes periodic outbreaks of often deadly foodborne infection. The team grew these pathogenic bacteria in petri dishes in the lab, then exposed them to serotonin. Gene expression tests showed that serotonin significantly reduced the expression of a group of genes that these bacteria use to cause infections. Additional experiments using human cells showed that the bacteria could no longer cause infection-associated lesions on the cells if these bacteria were exposed to serotonin.

Next, the researchers examined how serotonin affected virulence in living hosts. Using mice, the researchers studied how serotonin might change the ability for Citrobacter rodentium - a mouse gut bacterium often used as an analog for E. coli in humans—to infect and sicken their hosts. These mice were genetically modified to either over- or underproduce serotonin in their gastrointestinal tracts. Those that overproduced this neurotransmitter were less likely to become colonized by C. rodentium after being exposed to this bacterium or had relatively minor courses of illness. Treating mice with fluoxetine (sold under the brand name Prozac) to increase serotonin levels prevented them from getting sick from C. rodentium exposure. However, the mice that underproduced serotonin became much sicker after bacterial exposure, often dying from their illness.

Further experiments identified the receptor for serotonin on the surfaces of both E. coli and C. rodentium, a protein known as CpxA. Because many species of gut bacteria also have CpxA, it's possible that serotonin could have wide-ranging effects on gut bacterial health, Sperandio says.

In the future, she adds, she and her colleagues plan to study the feasibility of manipulating serotonin levels as a way of fighting bacterial infections in the gastrointestinal tract. Currently, few available antibiotics can effectively fight E. coli O157—some antibiotics actually worsen the consequences of infection, causing the bacteria to release more damaging toxins.

"Treating bacterial infections, especially in the gut, can be very difficult," Sperandio says. "If we could repurpose Prozac or other drugs in the same class, it could give us a new weapon to fight these challenging infections."

Study shows how serotonin and a popular anti-depressant affect the gut's microbiota

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More information: Aman Kumar et al. The Serotonin Neurotransmitter Modulates Virulence of Enteric Pathogens, Cell Host & Microbe (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2020.05.004

Journal information: Cell Host & Microbe 

Provided by UT Southwestern Medical Center 

Meet the father of the hydrogen-boron laser fusion reactor
Hydrogen-Boron Dream, Part 6: 

Professor Heinrich Hora explains why a viable fusion reactor is close at hand

By JONATHAN TENNENBAUM 

MAY 12, 2020

Professor Heinrich Hora. Photo Illustration: Asia Times / Wikimedia


One of the world’s leading specialists in laser fusion, the Australian physicist Prof. Heinrich Hora, has proposed a new type of nuclear reactor which promises to provide highly-efficient, radioactivity-free generation of electric power, with virtually unlimited reserves of fuel. The design uses ultra-high-power, ultra-short-pulsed lasers to trigger fusion reactions between nuclei of hydrogen and boron. Hora believes that a prototype of his reactor could be running within the decade.

In the previous installments of this series, Jonathan Tennenbaum introduced readers to the new reactor concept and its fascinating scientific and technological background.

It is fitting to conclude this series with an interview Tennenbaum conducted in March this year with Heinrich Hora.

Jonathan Tennenbaum: The first experimental realization of fusion energy happened 70 years ago, with the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb. Why have we not yet learned how to use the energy of fusion in a controlled way, to produce energy for mankind? Today we have these gigantic experimental devices, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser fusion facility in the United States, and the International Torus Experimental Reactor (ITER) magnetic confinement fusion device under construction in France. ITER has an official price tag of $20 billion, but many expect it to rise to $50 billion by 2035 when ITER begins full-scale experiments with deuterium-tritium fuel. In 2040 it might be possible to start designing a prototype reactor. If that is supposed to be the right approach, then the practical generation of energy by fusion reactions is far away, indeed.

What makes you think it can be done much faster?

Heinrich Hora: Most experiments for fusion are based on the assumption, that one needs temperatures of several hundred million degrees Celsius. The question is, how can you get around having to use these high temperatures?

The equation for a laser acting on a target contains pressure, given by the density and temperature, but there is a second term for the ponderomotive force produced by the electric and magnetic fields of the laser. (Today with lasers) you can produce very high fields for extremely short times, of millionths of a millionth of a second, and one can produce petawatt (a million billion watts) or multiples of a petawatt of power. From this one can produce forces from the laser fields. One can generate higher pressures than the pressures from thermal mechanisms (i.e. heating). This is an essential difference to everything that was done before. As a matter of fact the idea to use lasers for fusion [has existed] since the early 1960s, but where the laser energy would go into the thermal energy of a spherical compressed plasma. This was still via temperature.

Now, the latest results – which were not measured by us but which we understand because we have been involved in all kinds of detailed research – is that now ignition can be done with extreme laser pulses. That sends a new message.

Tennenbaum: And this happens without heat?

Hora: Indeed. (The pulse) produces the ignition, and from then on (heat) develops in the hydrogen-boron fuel at moderate density and produces reactions, which then have to be confined by ultra-high magnetic fields. These fields are now available. In Japan, Fujioka has produced kilo-tesla and higher fields (using laser pulses). These fields are more than 100 times those used in the systems operating without lasers.

Tennenbaum: Such as the ITER?

Hora: Yes. A new situation.

Tennenbaum: How has it become possible to produce laser pulses of such huge powers, that you can succeed with a non-thermal ignition of the hydrogen-boron fuel?

Hora: This has a fascinating history. The scheme of so-called chirped pulse amplification (CPA) of laser pulses was discovered in 1985 by Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland. After that, the laser intensities went up like a rocket.

Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland (inset). Photos: Wikimedia

Tennenbaum: It reminds me of the famous Moore’s law in microelectronics.

Hora: It was more dramatic.

Tennenbaum: Up to now when fusion is discussed, people always think of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium. And as far as I know practically all the experimental reactors use DT fuel. Tritium is radioactive and DT reactions produce a lot of neutrons. Your proposal, on the other hand, would use boron together with hydrogen as a “clean” nuclear fuel. Why was this not considered before?

Hora: The reaction of deuterium and tritium is the easiest and fastest way to fusion, even for the ITER experiment with magnetic field confinement. [It was thought to be] the only way to realize fusion.

The hydrogen-boron reaction is well known, but it is about five orders of magnitude more difficult when going through the usual procedure of compression and heating. The reaction rate is so low that this reaction was usually neglected.

Diagram of a hydrogen-boron reaction (left). An early experiment with the production of alpha particles by the bombardment of boron by hydrogen (protons). Images: Wikimedia

But using lasers with chirped pulse amplification, for which the Nobel Prize was awarded, experiments have now been made which gave a billion times higher hydrogen boron reactions, than the very frustrating low values [obtained earlier].

You get directly three alpha particles with no radioactive ash. And the alpha particles are no environmental problem at all. Carrying the energy of the nuclear reaction, they can be slowed down by electric fields so that the energy can be directly converted into electric power, without heat exchangers and turbines.

It is simple to make a spherical (reaction) chamber, charge it to a high voltage and have the alpha particles run into this high voltage and change their energy into electricity.

Ninety percent of the nuclear energy would be converted directly into electricity.

Tennenbaum: But how would the fusion reactions be produced in the reactor?

Hora: For five or six years we did calculations, to [realize hydrogen-boron fusion] the same way as in all the other (laser fusion) experiments: to make a spherical compression, heating with extreme laser pulses. And it turns out that one needs not a petawatt but an exawatt – a thousand thousand times higher powers, and this is too far away. And then came the simple idea, to make it not spherically but to trap the reaction in a cylindrical geometry. And just at this time to produce the highest magnetic fields using another laser, kilo-tesla fields. These fields are enough, for a short time, to trap this cylindrical volume with the reaction.

Tennenbaum: How is the reaction triggered?

Hora: By one laser pulse rather than 192 laser pulses [as is done in the NIF]. We need only one pulse, and all the complicated apparatus is not necessary; only a single pulse which is extremely short and of extremely high power. A petawatt is about as much power as all power stations on the Earth, however only for a time of one-millionth of a millionth of a second. And this has been developed over the years since the discovery by Donna Strickland and Gérald Mourou.

Tennenbaum: You have emphasized the role of accelerated plasma blocks in the ignition process. Can you explain how that works?

Hora: This is a very interesting question. We can refer to computations by Jean Louis Bobin in Paris and C. K. Chu from Columbia University in New York. If you have a plane geometry [as in the end-on irradiation of a cylindrical target], how short must laser pulses be in order to start the ignition? I was involved very early in pulse theory and numerical calculations. Computations resulted in the following: for ignition in this plane geometry, the energy input has to be in an extremely short pulse, in the range of millionths of millionths of a second. And in this plane – not spherical – geometry it ignites a self-sustained reaction which indeed then does produce high temperatures, but by itself, in the fuel. The interaction of the laser field and the plasma generates, so-to-say a piece of neutralized plasma block, getting energy from the light, and moving into the fusion fuel, igniting the fusion reactions.

Courtesy Heinrich Hora

Tennenbaum: How fast is this plasma block moving?

Hora: About 1,000 km per second. It is interesting that these are also the velocities given in the Google article for the processes in H-bombs. [The Wikipedia article “Thermonuclear Weapon” gives the implosion velocity of the fusion secondary of the first hydrogen bomb, the Ivy Mike device, as around 400 km per second – JT.] It is disclosed there, and one can compare the numbers. And it is interesting, that the plasma block generation [in the hydrogen-boron reactor] is obviously of a similar kind, but in a fully controlled way, for a power station. Nothing can explode, nothing can meltdown like in a uranium [fission] reactor. This is safe and controlled in an easy and inexpensive way.

Tennenbaum: How big would such a power plant have to be? Could the plant be made relatively small? Or would it have to be as large as a present-day nuclear power plant?

Hora: No, instead of the gigawatts power stations it could go down to 100 megawatts, perhaps 50 or even smaller. We have a whole design, for which we have patents granted in the US, Japan, and China.

Tennenbaum: And the laser?

Hora: These types of lasers are fortunately just now available from companies, you can buy them, but indeed then they need to be specifically developed to be much cheaper and cost not $50 million but much less through standardized production. This is all possible.

Control room of POLARIS petawatt laser in Jena, Germany (left). POLARIS oscillator and CPA pulse stretcher. Photos: Wikimedia

Tennenbaum: In other words, the technical parameters needed for the lasers are essentially already in the commercial sphere?

Hora: Exactly on the same level. One leading company is in France but the main leaders are at the University of Austin, Texas. They can generate one pulse per minute. Whereas in Livermore [with NIF] they can make two pulses per day.

Tennenbaum: But for the reactor would you need a much higher pulse rate?

Hora: A higher pulse frequency going down to one per second or two seconds, five seconds. This can be optimized according to what is desired.

Tennenbaum: Can you say anything about the economics?

Hora: Provided that the scientific efforts on this track do not encounter unknown difficulties, then these reactors can be on the market in eight years altogether.

Tennenbaum: In eight years?

Hora: To have a prototype available from which you can then produce for the market. There are mountains of boron, we could power mankind for thousands of years.

Tennenbaum: What would be the order of magnitude of the investment required to build a prototype hydrogen-boron power plant?

Hora: A prototype would cost 100 million or so. That is so little money, that it is suspicious! But it will be in this order of magnitude. But then there are many components which can be made much cheaper in volume and so on. One can definitely say that one kilowatt-hour will cost a fifth to a tenth of the present lowest price.

Part 1: Hydrogen-boron fusion could be a dream come true
Part 2: Nuclear power’s ray of hope: hydrogen-boron fusion
Part 3: Nuclear power: Lessons from the hydrogen bomb
Part 4: Fusion power enters world of ‘extreme light’
Part 5: Lighting the nuclear fusion fire
Part 6: How to build a hydrogen-boron fusion reactor

Tennenbaum: Over the last 10 years you have published many scientific papers about hydrogen-boron fusion and I can see that you have a very impressive list of co-authors, from the US, China, Germany, France, Israel, the Czech Republic, and they include the Nobel Prize winner Gérard Mourou. How strong is the interest and support of the scientific community for your idea, now? Or are some people saying, this is crazy?

Hora: Well, I mentioned the measurements in Prague. Before that, a similar experiment with hydrogen-boron was performed at the École Polytechnique in Paris. The first good experiment producing hydrogen-boron reactions was done by Belyaev and his colleagues in 2005 near Moscow. Christine Labaune made, with her experiment in Paris, a big step forward and then came the results from Prague. We could then ask a number of former students and established physicists to follow up the computations which we published in papers with a large number of people from around the world, to confirm our progress step-by-step.

Tennenbaum: So you have a kind of international community around you which would be pulled into the project or which is available to answer various questions and to participate in this effort?

Hora: Yes, definitely.

Tennenbaum: What is the next step, from your standpoint?

Hora: Knowing what the difficulties would be if we would go to the government and say, please give us the money to do the research – we would need a year of discussions, and people who are not fully qualified would have the power to say, this is nonsense. The other way is to find investors and to use the existing, high-level laboratories around the world and give them tasks in an outsourcing way. We will have to pay for this. We have a number of very well-known advisors, to optimize this outsourced research. That is how we will try to proceed. Hopefully, it will go ahead. For the last three years, we have had good news. In recent weeks we have had good publicity in the media. I hope that despite all the other world problems, we will really get support from investors, and outsource experiments. The recent results from Prague make me even more optimistic than before. [See “High-current stream of energetic α particles from laser-driven proton-boron fusion” by Lorenzo Giuffrida et al., Physical Review E 101 (2020) 013204, specifically the last paragraph of Section 1 and Figure 9]

(More information on the proposed hydrogen-boron reactor, including scientific references, can be found on the website. A good summary with an extensive bibliography is also provided by the 2018 paper “Extreme laser pulses for non-thermal fusion ignition of hydrogen–boron for clean and low-cost energy” by H. Hora et al. published in the journal Laser and Particle Beams, Volume 36, Issue 3, September 2018, available on the internet; and “Pressure of picosecond CPA laser pulses substitute ultrahigh thermal pressures to ignite fusion,” by H. Hora et al, High Energy Density Physics 35, 2020, Article 100739).

Jonathan Tennenbaum received his PhD in mathematics from the University of California in 1973 at age 22. Also a physicist, linguist and pianist, he’s a former editor of FUSION magazine. He lives in Berlin and travels frequently to Asia and elsewhere, consulting on economics, science and technology

ORIGIN OF THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE FOP

THE FOP 

IS A WHITE ONLY FRATERNAL ORDER NOT A UNION

Flaunting Korea’s tattoo taboo

Unable to enter conformist white-collar ranks, more young people embrace an alternative culture of inked skin

By TOM COYNER MAY 23, 2020

In Korea, extensive tattoos flaunt conservative social conventions. Photo: Tom Coyner

Millennial South Koreans talk a great deal about generational change and the related changes in attitudes and behaviors. One visible and physical aspect of this in recent years has been a rise in tattoos.

While 0n-skin artwork has surged with a vengeance into fashion among hipsters in the wider world, the trend is arguably more notable in Korea, where for hundreds of years tattoos were virtually taboo.

The skill of Korean tattoo pros is luring non-Korean clients. Photo: Tom Coyner

While the practice has been with Koreans for at least some 1,500 years, the neo-Confucian culture of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) put the kibosh on it.

Under prevailing cultural beliefs, bodies were gifts from parents, and out of filial piety, bodies are not to be purposely mutilated or otherwise decorated. Moreover, some criminals were tattooed with their crimes being engraved upon their skins, and some slaves had the names of their masters inscribed on their flesh.

This negative attitude toward tattoos continued up to the 2000s.

What is behind the ongoing change?

Obviously, globalization is partly responsible. With Koreans being among the Top 10 groups of international travelers in 2018, there is widespread exposure to global trends. Likewise, more young foreigners are visiting and residing in Korea.

But the real reason may be deeper, closer to home – and less about attraction and more about rebellion against social norms.

Anger on Korean skin, in ink. Photo: Tom Coyner

Millions of Koreans in their 20s and 30s have done all the right things to live the “Korean dream”– study hard at school, attend a good college, graduate and land a safe, steady white-collar job.

But the “job for life” social contract was destroyed after the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The Korean economy has matured in recent years and globalization has led the conglomerates that dominate the economy to find business offshore.

This means that not only have the ultra-high growth rates of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s slowed, but the formerly abundant supply of white-collar jobs has also dried up.

Meanwhile, the percentage of college graduates, limited to the top fifth of predominately male high school seniors during the 1970s, has widened to roughly 90% of high school graduates of both genders. The result is increased competition for jobs with career potential. Today, a coveted occupation for young people is government work – something unheard of among college grads 50 years ago.

Tattoos have traditionally been seen in a harsh spotlight in Korea. Photo: Tom Coyner

A new generation of young people now lives at home or shares tiny flats while working part-time or short-term jobs with little future potential. Many feel shame and frustration: The sacrifices made by their families and their own efforts have come to naught. A once dominant sense that “things are getting better” has evaporated.

One side effect is the emergence of a nascent alternative culture, visible in the adoption of less conventional and freer attire and body decoration, such as small (and often faux, removable) tattoos.

While an increasing number of young persons are exhibiting more flamboyant tattoos, young men have to wait until after their military obligations as large tattoos are not permitted in the Korean military. Young men who go ahead with obtrusive tattoos prior to their mandatory conscription are required to do non-military national service. 

Love of art. Photo: Tom Coyner

Young women are usually more reserved, or more particular where they place their artwork. Nonetheless, one can now see the rare Korean young woman with extensive tattoos. Two years ago, I was surprised to see a young female office worker sporting an exposed upper chest tattoo in a Seoul government facility. This was unseen a decade or so ago.

While hardly commonplace, tattoos are no longer rare, and in even more limited areas, body piercing is also being seen. Tattooing makes an indelible statement: The possessor of the tattoo is not of the mainstream.

Still, there may be an inbuilt prejudice against those with tattoos – one I recognized in myself.

As a photographer engaged in photo essays on the topic, I was struck by how polite and courteous my subjects were. Yet I sensed a quiet desperation: Most of the subjects did not see where their lives were going.

My overall sense was that I was documenting more of an economic than a social or cultural phenomenon.

Asia Times thanks the following for the location shoots: Gentle Monster Showroom of Gyedong (Bukchon); Skunk Works (Seoul); The Vinyl Underground (Busan); and Gyeongbok Palace, Seoul.

Alternative culture means traditional culture: Tattoos on display at Seoul’s Gyeongbok Palace. Photo: Tom Coyner

Wuhan calling and the clash of punk culture

The Chinese city that triggered the Covid-19 epidemic has seen its alternative music scene battered by the crisis

By LAN LIANCHAO JUNE 2, 2020

Queen Sea Big Shark were planning a live-stream performance for Wuhan fans but the event was called off. Photo: Unknown
Wuhan is arguably China’s punk capital, its historically feisty reputation reflected in the writhing mosh pits and live venues of a vibrant music scene.

Or at least it was before coronavirus, which has tattooed a new outcast image on the city of 11 million and at the same time pulled the plug on the high-decibel subculture.

The city that gave the world Covid-19 remains fearful of new outbreaks, forbidding live shows, forcing performances online, and clouding the future.

“The eventual impact on us remains unknown,” said Zhu Ning, founding member of a landmark Wuhan punk band and proprietor of indie live house VOX. “The most important thing is to keep (the music scene) alive.”

Wuhan’s 11-week coronavirus lockdown was finally lifted in April as new infections abated, reawakening the city, but live shows remain banned. “No performance means no customers and that means no revenue,” Zhu, 48, said inside his empty club, hours after police ordered him to call off an event.

Vox had planned to live-stream a show by Beijing-based rockers Queen Sea Big Shark. “We were all ready and had to suddenly put a stop to it. What’s wrong with the world?” Zhu sighed.

Punk rock band Demerit made a splash in China in 2016. Photo: Facebook

Located at China’s center, Wuhan is an ancient crossroads and site of a 1911 uprising that led to the collapse of thousands of years of imperial rule.

Home to several universities and their students, and the expat staff of multinational manufacturers, it is known for its openness to new ideas, while a massive industrial sector adds a blue-collar air.

Its reputation for straight talk and quick tempers was captured on video when a top national official arrived in March to inspect epidemic-control efforts.

Communist authorities have endured unprecedented criticism after Wuhan officials initially suppressed news of the outbreak and fumbled the initial response, and the official was jeered by locals sequestered in their apartment blocks.

Zhu is the former drummer for pioneering Wuhan punk band SMZB, which emerged in the late 1990s with several other local groups, earning Wuhan a reputation as one of China’s punk crucibles, along with Beijing.

SMZB’s frontman, Wuhan-born guitarist Wu Wei, is recognised as the godfather of Chinese punk, penning provocative lyrics that sometimes criticise authorities. He also founded Wuhan Prison, another punk landmark, a decade ago.

“This is a place where many people gather together and pass on their energy,” Ingmar Liu, 21, a vocalist for a local band and a Wuhan Prison employee, said.

But Liu, with green hair and a series of surreal arm tattoos, said the club has struggled to pay its rent without customers

.

Punk culture is still alive and well in China despite the coronavirus crisis. Photo: AFP
GOD SAVE XI! IS NOT AN ALBUM TITLE

A mid-May attempt to reopen was quickly aborted by police due to Covid-19 transmission fears. “The epidemic has impacted the entire bar and concert industry, not just us,” she said.

It has also scattered musicians for local bands, including foreigners, according to members of reggae/ska band Sky King Jack.

Unable to perform, they gather in private for loose rehearsals, waiting to take the stage again.

“The band can’t make money and now we play music just for fun,” bassist Liu Jia said after assembling for practice at a rented cottage.

It remains to be seen whether Wuhan’s famed frankness will be reflected in future songs referencing the pandemic.

“I was very angry with the government’s handling of the coronavirus at first, but now I have digested it,” Ingmar Liu said.

“Anger alone is not punk.”

YES IT IS 

SID VICIOUS 

– AFP

Antarctic projects trimmed over virus fears

According to reports, the number of projects was being cut from 36 to 13 across the upcoming research season

By DAVE MAKICHUK JUNE 10, 2020

Antarctica New Zealand is committed to maintaining and enhancing the quality of New Zealand's Antarctic scientific research. Credit: Handout.

It may be the most desolate and uninhabitable place on the planet, but New Zealand is taking steps to ensure that Antarctica stays free of the deadly virus, Covid-19.

Antarctica New Zealand, the government agency that does environmental research on the desolate landmass and the Southern Ocean, said Tuesday it would reduce its scientific projects in Antarctica to keep the continent free from Covid-19, CGTN.com reported.

Limiting the number of people visiting was key to stopping the spread of the coronavirus, the agency said, addding it had decided to support “only long-term science monitoring, essential operational activity and planned maintenance this season” at its Scott Base.

According to reports, the number of projects was being cut from 36 to 13 across the upcoming research season from October to March, CGTN.com reported.

Antarctica New Zealand is committed to maintaining and enhancing the quality of Antarctic scientific research, chief executive Sarah Williamson stated.

However, current circumstances meant their ability to support science was extremely limited this season, she added.

Antarctica New Zealand said it was developing a managed isolation plan with multiple government agencies to ensure COVID-19 does not reach the continent, CGTN.com reported.

Scott Base is New Zealand’s only Antarctic research station and is 3,800 kilometres (2,360 miles) south of Christchurch and 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) from the South Pole, according to Antarctica New Zealand.

Usually, up to 86 scientists, staff and visitors can stay there at any one time, CGTN.com reported.

New Zealand has recorded a total of 1,504 confirmed and 22 deaths.

Meanwhile, more than 7.13 million people have been reported to be infected with the new coronavirus globally and 406,913 have died, according to latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

New Zealand cuts research to keep Antarctica virus free

Antarctica New Zealand said it was developing a managed isolation plan with multiple government agencies to ensure COVID-19 does not reach the continent

New Zealand said Tuesday it will reduce its scientific projects in Antarctica to keep the virtually uninhabited continent free from COVID-19.

Antarctica New Zealand, the government agency that does environmental research on the desolate landmass and the Southern Ocean, said limiting the number of people visiting was key to stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

The agency said it had decided to support "only long-term science monitoring, essential operational activity and planned maintenance this season" at its Scott Base after consulting other research programmes in the region.

According to reports, the number of projects was being cut from 36 to 13 across the upcoming research season from October to March.

"Antarctica New Zealand is committed to maintaining and enhancing the quality of New Zealand's Antarctic scientific research," Chief Executive Sarah Williamson said.

"However, current circumstances dictate that our ability to support science is extremely limited this season."

Antarctica New Zealand said it was developing a managed isolation plan with multiple government agencies to ensure COVID-19 does not reach the continent.

Scott Base is New Zealand's only Antarctic research station and is 3,800 kilometres (2,360 miles) south of Christchurch and 1350 km (840 miles) from the South Pole, according to Antarctica New Zealand.

Up to 86 scientists, staff and visitors can usually stay there at any one time

Antarctica's splendid isolation keeps coronavirus at bay

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© 2020 AF

China’s Haidou-1 sets deep dive record

Unmanned submersible collected samples and took high-def images at a depth of 10,907 metres in the Mariana Trench

By DAVE MAKICHUK JUNE 10, 2020

One of the residents of the Mariana Trench, the Deep Sea Anglerfish. Credit: Handout.

“Haidou-1” has set a new Chinese record for the world’s deepest dive, reaching a depth of 10,907 metres under the Pacific Ocean surface of the Mariana Trench, the deepest area in the world.

The unmanned submersible also collected samples from the deep sea and took high-definition images of the geological environment, India TV News reported.

Members of the expedition team from the Shenyang Institute of Automation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that the vehicle exceeded 10,000 meters four times at the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench during the trip, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The team left for the expedition on April 23 and returned to the northeast China province of Liaoning on Monday.

During the deep-sea diving operation, researchers tested high-precision depth detection, machine hand operation, acoustic detection and positioning, and high-definition video transmission.

The submersible collected samples from the deep sea and captured high-definition images of the geological environment, the report said.

China in recent years has stepped up efforts to develop deep sea technology to explore mining of rich natural resources from the sea bed.

During a four-hour exploration of the Mariana Trench in April of 2019, retired naval officer Victor Vescovo piloted his submarine to 10,927 meters (35,849 feet) below the sea’s surface, making it the deepest dive on record.

While Vescovo potentially discovered four new species, he also found a plastic bag and candy wrappers.

About 8 million tons of plastic are thrown into the ocean every year, mostly washed into the sea by rivers. There will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 if current trends continue, according to the United Nations.

China’s unnamed submersible Haidou-1 reportedly dived to a depth of 10,907 meters at the world’s deepest ocean point. Credit: Handout.

Why Duterte wants to extend his Covid-19 emergency
Philippine leader aims to expand and extend emergency powers in move that is as much about politics as health

By JASON CASTANEDA JUNE 9, 2020

Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte takes questions while wearing surgical mask on April 8, 2020. Photo: Facebook

MANILA – The Covid-19 pandemic has been a boon for authoritarian leaders in Southeast Asia who have leveraged emergency rule provisions for their own political ends.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Philippines, where President Rodrigo Duterte has fully exploited the ongoing public health crisis to consolidate more power.

With a soldier-backed nationwide lockdown and bans on protests in the name of social distancing, critic say the Filipino leader is arguably trying to impose a permanent state of emergency in the democratic nation.

For years, the tough-taking president has warned for various reasons he would impose martial law in Manila and other major cities, similar to the hard curbs on civil liberties he imposed on the southern island of Mindanao in the name of fighting terrorism.

Since gaining emergency powers to combat the Covid-19 crisis in March, Duterte has presided over a broad crackdown on critical voices, shut down the country’s largest news broadcaster and is now railroading through Congress a sweeping anti-terror bill which would allow for warrantless arrests and curb free speech.

With the Philippine legislature now in recess, Duterte is angling to extend his emergency powers for the foreseeable future.

The Philippines has recorded nearly 23,000 Covid-19 infections and just over 1,000 deaths, putting its outbreak in the middle of the pack in Southeast Asia in terms of severity.

As the Philippines moves closer to 2022 presidential elections, the Filipino leader is in an ever-stronger position to hammer and harass the opposition and install a successor to his liking, including possibly his daughter or son in a dynastic handover.

Under the Covid-19 combating Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, Duterte was handed unprecedented powers to “move, decide and act freely for the best interest of the Filipino people during this health crisis.” 

Workers in hazmat suits disinfect a road in San Juan City, Philippines on March 19, 2020. Photo: NurPhoto via AFP Forum/Lisa Marie David

Section 6(6) of the new law greenlighted heavy penalties, including two months imprisonment and up to US$20,0000 (1 million peso) fines, for anyone who dared to “create, perpetuate, or spread false information” without clearly defining the term.

A wave of warrantless arrests has followed, with as many as 41,000 Filipinos facing various punishments Some have even been forced into animal cages and others forced to sit under a scorching sun for allegedly violating the lockdown regulations.

Dozens of netizens have also faced subpoenas by intelligence and other state agencies for supposedly spreading false information, which has increasingly come to cover mere criticism of the president and his government’s policies.

Duterte’s extraordinary special powers were supposed to last for only three months under the emergency law. Despite easing lockdowns in Metro Manila and other major cities, his government is seeking to extend emergency measures set to expire on June 24.

“It’s not a preference. But I think it definitely is necessary to give us at least 90 days,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque told the media in late May, arguing that the virus crisis will persist without the discovery and distribution of a vaccine.

“Of course, extraordinary power is something that is reserved for extraordinary circumstances. But the problem here with Covid-19 is without the vaccine, we’ll never go back to normal and it’s still extraordinary,” Duterte’s spokesman added.

The presidential palace has claimed that without emergency powers and additional funds it will struggle to provide economic assistance to distressed communities, compensate and protect health workers, and step up its public health campaign.

Security personnel hold up placards reminding people to stay at home amid concerns of the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Manila on March 31, 2020. Photo: AFP/Maria Tan

As such, Duterte’s legislative allies have pushed for various bills which would not only extend emergency rule but also expand the president’s powers.

In the Senate, the Bayanihan to Recover as One bill is set to augment up to 30 special powers already granted to the president, as well as allocate an additional $2.8 billion (140 billion pesos) to support his government’s policies.

The senators, however, have made it clear that new powers will be conditional upon improvements in public health policies, most especially the need for mass virus testing to be “conducted immediately” in priority areas.

The proposed legislation also calls on the government to improve and expand its performance in at least 15 different areas, including economic assistance to small and medium enterprises, students and teachers, as well as health workers.

Crucially, however, senators also want punitive provisions contained in the existing emergency measures to be struck from the books. Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, for one, has accused the government of abusing its special powers.

“The Bayanihan Act is not a penal statute per se, the principal purpose of the law is to address an emergency and not punish a crime,” Drilon said while decrying the surge in warrantless arrests and excessive punishment against alleged violators.

“They are violating the quarantine rules by looking for food, they are looking for jobs. The quarantine violators are motivated and driven by reasons of hunger and by reasons of income and not because they are criminals,” he added.

A woman waiting for relief goods to be placed on chairs designated for households in a low income community in Metro-Manila. Photo: EPA via AFP Forum

The Senate adjourned on June 4 after a second reading of the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act’s second bill, meaning it’s passage will have to wait at least until Congress reconvenes in July.

That raises questions about whether Duterte’s emergency rule can legally continue after June 24. His supporters argue that the government can temporarily extend his special powers until legislators reconvene next month in the name of containing the virus.

Constitutional experts have questioned that rationale, however.

Leading legal scholar Dan Gatmaytan, for one, has argued that the Philippine Constitution “does not provide for an [automatic] extension of powers” and that if “an emergency measure is still needed, Congress can always re-enact such a law when [it] reconvenes.”

OPINION

How Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis took Washington

A monumental lobbying battle over US foreign policy

By MORGAN PALUMBO And JESSICA DRAPER JUNE 10, 2020

(FILES) A file picture taken on July 9, 2019 shows US President Donald Trump meeting with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on July 9, 2019. -A bitter feud between Qatar and a Saudi-led alliance began three years ago this month. Photo: AFP / Nicholas Kamm
It was a bare-knuckle brawl of the first order. It took place in Washington, DC, and it resulted in a KO. The winners? Lobbyists and the defense industry. The loser? The United States. And, odds on, you didn’t even know that it happened.

Few Americans did, which is why it’s worth telling the story of how Saudi, Emirati and Qatari money flooded the nation’s capital and, in the process, American policy went down for the count.

The fight began three years ago this month. Sure, the pugilists hadn’t really liked each other that much before then, but what happened was the foreign-policy equivalent of a sucker punch.

On the morning of June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain announced they were severing diplomatic ties with Qatar, the small but wealthy emirate in the Persian Gulf, and establishing a land, air and sea blockade of their regional rival, purportedly because of its ties to terrorism.

The move stunned the Qataris, who responded in ways that would later become familiar during the Covid-19 pandemic – by emptying supermarket shelves and hoarding essentials they worried would quickly run out. Their initial fears were not unwarranted, as their neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, were even reported to be planning to launch a military invasion of Qatar in the weeks to come, one that would be thwarted only by the strong objections of the US secretary of state at the time, Rex Tillerson.

To make sense of this now three-year-old conflict, which made political footballs out of aspects of US policy in the Middle East ranging from the war in Yemen to the more than 10,000 American military personnel stationed in Qatar, means refocusing on Washington and the extraordinary influence operations the Saudis, Emiratis and Qataris ran there.

That, in turn, means analyzing Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) documents filed by firms representing all three countries since the spat began.

Do that and you’ll come across a no-punches-barred bout of lobbying in the US capital that would have made Rocky envious.
The Saudis come out swinging

The stage had been set for the blockade of Qatar seven months before it began when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Just as his victory shocked the American public, so it caught many foreign governments off guard.

In response, they quickly sought out the services of anyone with ties to the incoming administration and the Republican-controlled Congress.

The Saudis and Emiratis were no exception. In 2016, both countries had reported spending a little more than US$10 million on FARA-registered lobbying firms. By the end of 2017, UAE spending had nearly doubled to $19.5 million, while the Saudis’ had soared to $27.3 million.

In the months following Donald Trump’s November election triumph, the Saudis, for instance, added several firms with ties to him or the Republicans to an already sizable list of companies registered under FARA as representing their interests.

For example, they brought on the CGCN Group, whose president and chief policy officer, Michael Catanzaro, was on Trump’s transition team and then served in his administration.

To court the Republican Congress, they hired the McKeon Group, run by former Republican congressman Buck McKeon, who had previously served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

And that was just registered foreign agents. A number of actors who had not registered under FARA were actively pushing the Saudi and Emirati agendas, chief among them Elliott Broidy and George Nader.

Broidy, a top fundraiser for Trump’s campaign, and Nader, his business partner, already had a wide range of interests in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. To help secure them, the two men embarked on a campaign to turn the new president and the Republican establishment against Qatar.

One result was a Broidy-inspired, UAE-funded anti-Qatar conference hosted in May 2017 by a prominent Washington think-tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It conveniently offered Republican congressman Ed Royce a platform to discuss his plans to introduce a bill, HR 2712, that would label Qatar a state sponsor of terrorism. It was to be introduced in the House of Representatives only two days after the conference ended.

Qatar, mind you, had been a US ally in the Middle East and was the home of Al Udeid Air Base, where more than 10,000 American soldiers are still stationed. So that bill represented a striking development in American-Qatari relations and was a clearly traceable result of Saudi and UAE lobbying efforts.

The unregistered influence of players like Broidy and Nader was evidently backed by other FARA-registered Saudi and UAE foreign agents actively pushing the bill.

For example, Qorvis Communications, a longtime public relations mouthpiece for the Saudis, circulated a document titled “Qatar’s History of Funding Terrorism and Extremism,” claiming that country was funding al-Nusra, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups. (Not surprisingly, it included a supportive quote from David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.)

While that anti-Qatar crusade was ramping up in Washington, the president was being wooed by the Saudi royals in Riyadh on his first official trip abroad. They gave him the literal royal treatment and their efforts appeared to pay off when, just a day after the blockade began, Trump tweeted: “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!”

A week after the imposition of the blockade, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for Al Udeid Air Base to be moved to the UAE, a development the Qataris feared could open the door for an eventual invasion of their country.

However, this Saudi and Emirati onslaught did not go unanswered.
Qatar strikes back

Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, was caught flat-footed by the influence operations of the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates.

The year before Donald Trump became president, the Qataris had spent just $2.7 million on lobbying and public relations firms, less than a third of what the Saudis and UAE paid out, according to FARA records. But they now moved swiftly to shore up their country’s image as a crucial American ally.

They went on an instant hiring spree, scooping up lobbying and public-relations firms with close ties to Trump and congressional Republicans. Only two days after the blockade began, for instance, they signed a deal with the law firm of former US attorney general John Ashcroft, paying $2.5 million for just its first 90 days of work.

They also quickly obtained the services of Stonington Strategies. Headed by Nick Muzin, who had worked on Trump’s election campaign, the firm promptly set out to court 250 Trump “influencers,” as Julie Bykowicz of the Wall Street Journal reported.

Among others, Stonington’s campaign sought to woo prominent Fox News personalities Trump paid special attention to like former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. He was paid $50,000 to travel to Qatar just months later.

In September 2017, the Qataris also hired Bluefront Strategies to craft a comprehensive multimedia operation, which was to include commercials on all the major US news networks, as well as digital and printed ads in an array of prominent publications, and a “Lift the Blockade” campaign on social media.

Meanwhile, ads on Google and YouTube were to highlight the illegality of the blockade and the country’s contributions to fighting terrorism.

Bluefront Strategies was to influence public opinion before the next session of the UN General Assembly that month. Qatar and its proxies then used the campaign “to target key decision-makers attending the General Assembly, including Trump” to gain support on that most global of stages.

Its agents weren’t just playing defense, either. They actively attacked the Saudi lobby. For example, Barry Bennett of Avenue Strategies, a PR firm they hired, sent a letter to the assistant attorney general for national security accusing Saudi Arabia and the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC) of FARA violations in their funding of an expensive media campaign meant to connect Qatar’s leaders with violent extremism and acts of terror.

Such counterpunches proved remarkably successful. SAPRAC eventually felt obliged to register with FARA. Meanwhile, Huckabee tweeted: “Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable Doha, Qatar.”

Finally, at that UN meeting, President Trump actually sat down with Emir Tamim of Qatar and said: “We’ve been friends a long time … I have a very strong feeling [the Qatar diplomatic crisis] will be solved quickly.” They both then emphasized the “tremendous” and “strong” relationship between their countries.

The Qataris next mounted a concerted defense against HR 2712. Lobbying firms they hired, particularly Avenue Strategies and Husch Blackwell, launched a multifaceted campaign to prevent that legislation from passing. Elliott Broidy even claimed in a lawsuit that the Qatari government and several of its lobbyists had hacked his email account and distributed private emails of his to members of Congress in an attempt to discredit his work for the Saudis.

In November 2017, Barry Bennett of Avenue Strategies went on the attack, using a powerful weapon in Washington politics: Israel. He distributed a letter to members of Congress written by a former high-ranking official in the Israeli national-security establishment explicitly stating that Qatar had not provided military support to Hamas, as HR 2712 claimed it had.

Three months later, Husch Blackwell all but threatened Congress and the Trump administration with the cancellation of a $6.2 billion Boeing contract to sell F-15 fighters to the Qatari military (and the potential loss of thousands of associated jobs) if the bill passed and sanctions were imposed on that country.

All of this was linked to a concerted effort by Qatari agents to contact “nearly two dozen House offices, including then House majority leader Kevin McCarthy,” to prevent the bill’s passage, according to a report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy where the writers of this article work.

Ultimately, HR 2712 died a slow death in Congress and never became law.
The Saudi war in Yemen

Just as Qatar started to turn the tide in the fight for influence in Washington, the Saudis and their allies faced another problem: Congress began moving to sever support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. On February 28, 2018, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a joint resolution to withdraw US support for that war.

According to FARA filings, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, representing the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contacted several members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, particularly Democrats, presumably to persuade them to vote against the measure.

That March, the firm sent out dozens of emails to members of Congress, inviting them to a gala dinner with the key Saudi royal, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

According to the invitation from the CGCN Group, another FARA-registered firm representing the Saudis, the “KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]-USA Partnership Gala Dinner,” was to emphasize the “enduring defense and counter-terrorism cooperation” and “historic alliance” between the two countries. It would end up taking place just two days after the Senate voted to table Sanders’ bill.

Emirati lobbyists similarly reached out to Congress to maintain support for their role in that war. Hagir Elawad & Associates, for example, distributed an op-ed written by the UAE minister of state for foreign affairs justifying the war, as well as a letter written by that country’s ambassador, Yousef Al Otaiba, to 50 congressional contacts defending the Saudi-led coalition’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties and arguing that “the United States has a clear stake in the coalition’s success in Yemen.”

When that conflict began, Qatar was still a member of the coalition, but the imposition of the blockade led it to withdraw its forces from Yemen. Qatari officials then used the country’s media empire, centered on the broadcaster Al Jazeera, to highlight the disastrous aspects of the ongoing war.

In doing so, they provided the Saudis and Emiratis with yet another reason to focus their own influence machines on both Qatar’s and Al Jazeera’s destruction. (That network’s closure was, in fact, one of the original 13 demands the Saudis and Emiratis had made for lifting the blockade.)

From the moment it was founded in 1996, Al Jazeera had been an instrument of Qatari soft power, so it was hardly surprising that the UAE had long pressured members of the US Congress to force the network to register under FARA as a foreign agent. And Emirati lobbying efforts were not in vain.


In early March 2018, 19 members of Congress signed and sent a letter to then-attorney general Jeff Sessions urging the Justice Department to demand that Al Jazeera be registered under FARA. Another such letter sent to the Justice Department in June 2019 by six senators and two representatives asked “why Al Jazeera and its employees have not been required to register.”

According to FARA filings, all but one of those congressional representatives had either received campaign contributions from or been contacted by a Saudi or Emirati lobbying firm. Al Jazeera, however, has yet to register.
The murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Despite the efforts of Saudi and Emirati lobbyists in the early months of 2018, the emir of Qatar still managed to land an invitation to the Oval Office. At their meeting that April 10, Trump again described Tamim as a “friend” and a “great gentleman” as well. The emir, in turn, thanked Trump for “supporting us during this blockade.”

If Trump’s cozying up to him was a setback for the Saudis, the murder of critic and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi nearly did in the Saudi lobbying juggernaut as well. The US Central Intelligence Agency later confirmed that the crown prince himself had ordered that Saudi citizen’s assassination at the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

As a result, some lobbying firms cut ties with the kingdom and its influence on Capitol Hill waned, as did positive public opinion about Saudi Arabia. In December 2018, the Senate passed the Sanders bill to end support for the war in Yemen.

Both houses of Congress also passed a War Powers resolution to end involvement in that conflict, a historic congressional move in this century, even if later vetoed by President Trump (as were a series of attempts to block his treasured arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).

Given Trump’s unyielding support for the Saudis and Emiratis as especially lucrative customers for America’s defense industry, the Qataris have clearly decided to crib the Saudi playbook.

In May, that country purchased 24 Apache helicopters for $3 billion and, a few months later, agreed to pay for and manage a $1.8 billion expansion of Al Udeid Air Base to ensure the American military’s continued presence for the foreseeable future. In doing so, Qatar was visibly at work co-opting two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington: the military and the weapons makers.
And the winners are …

Though Qatar faced a near-existential threat to its survival when the blockade began, three years later it’s not only surviving, but thriving thanks significantly to its influence operations in Washington. The Qataris have helped immeasurably to deepen economic, diplomatic and military relations between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the emir’s rivals in Riyadh not only failed to make their blockade a success, but saw their influence wane appreciably in the US as they stumbled from one public relations fiasco to the next. Even their staunchest defender, Donald Trump, recently threatened to sever US military support for the kingdom if the Saudi royals didn’t end their oil war with Russia (which they promptly did).

In truth, however, the real loser in this struggle for influence hasn’t been Saudi Arabia or the Emiratis, it has been the United States. After all, the efforts of both sides to deepen their ties with the military-industrial complex (reinforcing the hyper-militarization of US foreign policy) and increase their sway in Congress have ensured that the real interests of the US played second fiddle to those of Middle Eastern despots.

Certainly, their acts helped ensure near historic levels of arms sales to the region, while prolonging the wars in Yemen and Syria, and so contributing to death and devastation on an almost unimaginable scale.

None of this had anything to do with the real interests of Americans, unless you mean the arms industry and K Street lobbyists who have been the only clear American winners in this never-ending PR war in Washington. In the process, those three Persian Gulf states have delivered a genuine knockout blow to the very idea that US foreign policy should be driven by national – not special – interests.

This article appeared previously at TomDispatch. Read the original here.

Copyright 2020 Morgan Palumbo and Jessica Draper

UN warns pandemic could spark global food crisis

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls for immediate action to address expanding nutrition insecurity

ALL REVOLUTIONS HAVE BEGUN AS BREAD RIOTS

A FOOD CRISIS IS THE GROUNDS FOR A WORLD REVOLUTION

By AT CONTRIBUTOR JUNE 10, 2020

Volunteers of the Lagos Food Bank offload packed boxes of food and other relief materials upon their arrival at the venue for distribution for those in need at Ikotun Egbe, in Alimosho Community area of Nigeria's Lagos State on June 7, 2020. Photo: NurPhoto

The world is facing an “impending global food emergency” that could impact hundreds of millions of people as the coronavirus pandemic threatens already strained supply chains, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday.

“Our food systems are failing, and the Covid-19 pandemic is making things worse,” the UN chief said in a statement accompanying a report by the world body.

“More than 820 million people are hungry,” he said. “Some 144 million children under the age of five are stunted – more than one in five children worldwide.”

He warned that “this year, some 49 million extra people may fall into extreme poverty due to the Covid-19 crisis.

“The number of people who are acutely food or nutrition insecure will rapidly expand,” he said.

“Unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that there is an impending global food emergency that could have long-term impacts on hundreds of millions of children and adults.”

Guterres called for better protection for workers in the food sector, for humanitarian aid deliveries to be safeguarded and for support for food producers and distributors to avoid interruptions to the supply chain.

He also wanted more emphasis placed on nutritional programs, including aid to children who lack access to school meals.


The UN chief said it was possible to develop healthy and nutritional food to help eradicate world hunger.


In April, the UN raised the alarm about a potential explosion in the number of people at severe risk of hunger because of the coronavirus pandemic.

– AFP