BC 

Vessels return to Victoria after collecting 8 tonnes of trash from Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The Ocean Cleanup organization is based in Denmark but two of its vessels are docked at Ogden Point in Victoria. (Ocean Cleanup)

Eric Lloyd
CTV News Vancouver Island
Updated Sept. 9, 2021

VICTORIA -

A crew of sailors has returned to Victoria from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, hauling away more than eight tonnes of plastic pollution.

But their work is far from over.

“That’s not as much as we plan on bringing back in October,” said Ocean Cleanup spokesperson Joost Dubois.

Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit group established in 2014 with an ambitious goal of cleaning up the world’s ocean plastic.

“Out of the water, back on land and into recycling or waste management,” Dubois said.

The organization is based in the Netherlands but two of its vessels are docked at Ogden Point in Victoria. After a crew change and fresh supplies, they’ll venture back out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

That’s where Ocean Cleanup spent its last six weeks, testing its trash collecting system.

“The first trip of the campaign was very much a testing and optimization period, where we were using ‘Jenny’ as we call our system fondly, for the first time,” said Dubois.

“Really we’re at the tipping point of testing to really cleaning up. Right now we’ve never had the system in the water long enough to fill the retention zone.”

“Jenny” is the crew’s nickname for the massive horseshoe-shaped device, pulled behind two offshore supply ships. It collects ocean plastics and traps them in a rectangular retention zone the size of a school bus.

“The plastic is guided in through these long wings,” said Dubois. “The full retention zone will be about 10 to 12 tonnes of plastic in one haul.”

On Saturday, Ocean Cleanup’s new crew will set sail and by the end of September, the hope is to fill “Jenny” to the brim for the very first time.

“We have our first five-day continuous test scheduled,” said Dubois,

“So the first time they lift that entire retention zone as full as a pregnant whale… lift that on deck and empty it, that’s going to be a big moment for us because that will feel like OK, now we have really started to clean up the ocean – we’re no longer just testing.”

The goal is to return to Victoria on Oct. 20 with upwards of 30 to 40 tonnes of plastic debris.

“Don’t hold us to it. We still have to deliver, but that is what we are internally looking at,” said Dubois.

Ocean Cleanup will continue testing and improving its systems with the hope of introducing a second “Jenny” to its fleet next year.

“That should become the blueprint for real scale-up and then we can make multiple systems in one go and then the speed of operation is going to go up tremendously,” said Dubois

“We will need like, 10 ‘Jennies’ to cover the entire Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

Ocean Cleanup hopes to remove about 90 per cent of the world’s ocean plastics by 2040.


In this undated handout photo provided by The Ocean Clean Up, plastic is retained in front of an extended cork line in the Pacific Ocean. (The Ocean Cleanup via AP)

People's Party of Canada turfs riding president over Trudeau stone-throwing incident

Shane Marshall was the president of the Elgin Middlesex London riding association

Kate Dubinski · CBC News · Posted: Sep 09, 2021 

RCMP security detail put their hands up to protect Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau from rocks as protesters shout and threw gravel while leaving a campaign stop at a local micro brewery during the Canadian federal election campaign in London Ont., on Monday, September 6, 2021. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)


The People's Party of Canada removed the Elgin Middlesex London riding association president from his post after allegations that he threw gravel at Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau during a campaign stop in London, Ont.

Party spokesperson, Martin Masse confirmed in an email to CBC News that Shane Marshall has been removed because of the allegations.

No one from the party was available for interviews about the matter, Masse said. Email and phone requests to the candidate in the riding, Chelsea Hillier, were not returned.



Trudeau, security detail hit by gravel stones
3 days ago
A protester threw what appeared to be a handful of gravel stones at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau outside a campaign stop in London, Ont., on Monday, striking him and members of his security detail. 0:08

VIDEO Trudeau hit by gravel as protesters surround campaign bus in London, Ont.

Marshall is known in anti-lockdown and white-supremacist circles, said Peter Smith, an investigative journalist with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, an independent non-profit which researches hate groups and hate crimes.

"His online content mainly focuses on his political beliefs, which are fairly hard-line. This isn't someone who is just vaccine-hesitant or right-leaning," Smith said. "This is a person who expresses, through memes and videos as well as his appearances at multiple protests dressed in a balaclava waving a flag from Canada's colonial past, an explicitly white nationalist view."

London police have said they are investigating the stone-throwing incident.

CBC News has tried to reach out to Marshall for comment and will continue to do so.

 

Alberta's rising COVID-19 cases due to faulty modelling and government inaction, experts say

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'People are going to die and it is really tragic — but it is also infuriating'

Charles Rusnell · CBC News · Posted: Sep 09, 2021 7:00 AM MT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, is seen leaving the podium after a June 29 news conference. Hinshaw's next media availability, almost one month later, was the announcement that testing, contract tracing and mandatory isolation would be scaled back. (Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta)

Alberta's plan to lift all pandemic restrictions and precautions appears to have been based on a scenario rooted more in wishful optimism and political expediency than obvious scientific evidence, say experts in infectious diseases and pandemic modelling.

But they say the problem was compounded as Premier Jason Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the chief medical officer of health, failed to reimpose measures despite the steady rise of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations through the summer.

"At this point in the pandemic, there is no excuse for this sort of negligence at the government level," said Dr. Ilan Schwartz, an associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alberta.

"The bottom line is that people are going to die and it is really tragic — but it is also infuriating, because this was all entirely preventable."

In late May, Kenney promised the "best summer ever" for Albertans as he announced the government's three-part plan to be the first and most open province in Canada, with no restrictions by July 1. 

Then in late July, Hinshaw announced the province would end testing, contact tracing and mandatory isolation, a move that alarmed doctors and infectious disease experts across the country. 

Based on U.K. data

According to Kenney and Hinshaw, the moves were based on data from the United Kingdom showing that high vaccination rates had "decoupled" infections from severe outcomes, which in turn had resulted in much lower rates of hospitalization. 

• Alberta to remove most COVID-19 isolation, testing requirements by mid-August

But both Schwartz and Dean Karlen, a physics professor and expert in modelling at the University of Victoria, said Alberta's reliance on the U.K. experience made little sense.

"You don't just use one jurisdiction to base your best knowledge [on]. Especially you don't choose the one that has the most optimistic future," said Karlen, a member of British Columbia's independent COVID-19 Modelling Group, which has been publicly releasing modelling information about Alberta. 

"You really should be looking at multiple jurisdictions." 

You really should be looking at multiple jurisdictions.- Dean Karlen, University of Victoria modelling expert

Karlen said it was evident the U.K. was an outlier, because major outbreaks in Europe and the U.S. were being followed by predictable increases in hospitalizations.

"The preponderance of data was not supporting any kind of decoupling like that," Karlen said.

Hinshaw and Health Minister Tyler Shandro declined requests to be interviewed for this story. 

Perplexing failure to act

Karlen said Alberta's assumptions were based on the decline of the alpha variant of COVID-19, despite evidence that the more contagious delta variant was surging and would become dominant.

He also said the U.K. had a higher, more uniform rate of vaccination. Alberta, in contrast, had several pockets with very low vaccination rates.

Dr. Ilan Schwartz, assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alberta, said the government missed the signals to act. (CBC)

Because most of the new infections in Alberta would be among the unvaccinated — and because delta's effect on health is more severe — there was no reason to assume these people wouldn't be hospitalized, Karlen said.

Alberta's COVID-19 statistics bear that reasoning out.

As of July 1, there were 1,055 active COVID-19 cases, 165 people in hospital, a test positivity rate of 1.17 per cent and 2,301 total deaths.

On Aug. 1, just days after Hinshaw had announced plans to scale back testing, tracing and isolation, there were 1,655 active cases, 90 people in hospital and a positivity rate of 2.39 per cent

On Sept. 1, the numbers showed how the virus was spreading: 12,290 active cases, 465 people in hospital, a positivity rate of 10.8 per cent and 2,383 deaths.

Throughout the pandemic, the Kenney government consistently sought to limit what it viewed as unnecessary restrictions on the public and on businesses. 

But the delta variant, Schwartz said, "doesn't obey political wishes, which is essentially what this was."

Return to restrictions

On Sept. 3, with more than 1,000 new infections a day and the province's intensive care units at 95 per cent occupancy, Kenney, Shandro and Hinshaw announced the reimposition of restrictions, such as mandatory masking in all indoor spaces, and introduced a $100 gift card as an incentive for people to get vaccinated. 

• 'I wish we didn't have to do this': Alberta to offer $100 incentive to get vaccinated against COVID-19

The government has also stated that mandatory, versus recommended, isolation measures will continue for people who have tested positive.

Schwartz said the Alberta government should have been more responsive to the situation and acted sooner.

"I think that it is possible that [Hinshaw] made a really bad mistake, clearly under political pressure, in late July when pushing for the ending of testing, tracing and isolation," Schwartz said.

"But really, the critical failure was not changing course and not instituting public health interventions much earlier."

Big oil’s ‘wokewashing’ is the new climate science denialism

Academic researchers say the fossil fuel industry has a new tool to delay efforts to curb emissions – a social justice strategy

‘Discourses of delay’ by the fossil fuel companies. Left: Chevron; middle: BP and Shell; right: ExxonMobil. Photograph: Twitter


Supported by


Amy Westervelt
@amywestervelt
Thu 9 Sep 2021 11.00 BST

ExxonMobil has been touting its commitment to “reducing carbon emissions with innovative energy solutions”. Chevron would like to remind you it is keeping the lights on during this dark time. BP is going #NetZero, but is also very proud of the “digital innovations” on its new, enormous oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile Shell insists it really supports women in traditionally male-dominated jobs.

A casual social media user might get the impression the fossil fuel industry views itself as a social justice warrior, fighting on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, and women – at least based on its marketing material in recent years.

These campaigns fall into what a handful of sociologists and economists call “discourses of delay”. While oil and gas companies have a long track record of denying climate change, even after their own scientists repeatedly warned of the harm caused by burning fossil fuels, now the industry’s messaging is far more subtle and in many ways more effective than outright climate science denial.

By downplaying the urgency of the climate crisis, the industry has new tools to delay efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions. And worse yet: even industry critics haven’t fully caught up to this new approach.

“If you just focus on climate denial, then all of this other stuff is missed,” explains Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist and visiting professor at Brown University.

Brulle, who published a peer-reviewed study in 2019 that analyzed major oil corporations’ advertising spending over a 30-year period, says the “lion’s share” of ad dollars were directed not toward denial, or even toward the industry’s products, but toward pro-fossil fuel propaganda – campaigns that remind people over and over again about all the great things oil companies do, how dependent we are on fossil fuels, and how integral the industry is to society.

“They’re spending probably five or 10 times more on all this corporate promotion advertising,” he says. “And yet the climate movement seems to only focus on the science denial part.”ExxonMobil has used Twitter campaigns to emphasize progress on addressing climate change while also downplaying the urgency of the crisis. Source: Twitter

Oil companies stopped pushing overt climate denial more than a decade ago. And while conspiracy theories claiming climate change is a hoax may surface occasionally, they are no longer an effective strategy.

Instead, the fossil fuel industry, utilities and the various trade groups, politicians and think tanks that carry water for both, have pivoted to messages that acknowledge the problem, but downplay its severity and the urgency for solutions. Instead companies are overstating the industry’s progress toward addressing climate change.

In a paper published in the journal Global Sustainability last July, economist William Lamb and nearly a dozen co-authors catalogued the most common messaging from those who would prefer to see inaction on climate for as long as possible. According to Lamb’s team, the industry’s “discourses of delay” fall into four buckets: redirect responsibility (consumers are also to blame for fossil fuel emissions), push non-transformative solutions (disruptive change is not necessary), emphasize the downside of action (change will be disruptive), and surrender (it’s not possible to mitigate climate change).

“This was a paper that was born on Twitter, funnily enough,” Lamb says. Lamb and collaborators Giulio Mattoli and Julia Steinberger began compiling the fossil fuel messaging they saw repeatedly on social media. Then they asked other academics from various fields to add what they were seeing too, and patterns soon emerged.

Lamb says they explicitly left denial out of the equation. “What we tried to do was really examine delay as something distinct,” he says. “From our view, delay had not received the kind of attention it deserves.”

Of all the messaging geared toward delaying action on climate, or assurances that the fossil fuel industry has a grip on possible solutions, Lamb and other authors agreed that one theme was far more prevalent than the rest: “the social justice argument.”

This strategy generally takes one of two forms: either warnings that a transition away from fossil fuels will adversely impact poor and marginalized communities, or claims that oil and gas companies are aligned with those communities. Researchers call this practice “wokewashing”.

Twitter ads, like this video by ExxonMobil, reflect popular messaging around social justice, implying that the company is aligned with diverse communities. Researchers call this practice ‘wokewashing’.
Composite: Twitter

An email Chevron’s PR firm CRC Advisors sent to journalists last year is a perfect example. It urged journalists to look at how green groups were “claiming solidarity” with Black Lives Matter while “backing policies which would hurt minority communities”. Chevron later denied that it had anything to do with this email, although it regularly hires CRC and the bottom of the email in question read: “If you would rather not receive future communications from Chevron, let us know by clicking here.”

Another common industry talking point argues a transition away from fossil fuels will be unavoidably bad for impoverished communities. The argument is based on the assumption that these communities value fossil fuel energy more than concerns about all of its attendant problems (air and water pollution, in addition to climate change), and that there is no way to provide poor communities or countries with affordable renewable energy.

Chevron also claimed solidarity with Black Lives Matter last year, although it is also responsible for polluting the Black-majority city it’s headquartered in: Richmond, California, where Chevron also pays for a larger-than-average police force. Meanwhile the American Petroleum Institute, Big Oil’s largest trade group and lobbyist, funds diversity in stem programs, but it also declines to acknowledge the disproportionate impacts on communities of color.

Discourses of delay don’t just show up in advertising and marketing campaigns, but in policy conversations too.

“We’ve gone through thousands of pieces of testimony on climate and clean energy bills at the state level, and all of the industry arguments against this sort of legislation included these messages,” says J Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University, and a co-author on the “discourses of delay” paper.
People need a sort of field guide to these arguments so they’re not just duped.

In a recently published study focused on delay tactics in Massachusetts, for example, Roberts and his co-authors catalogued how fossil fuel interest groups and utility companies in particular used discourses of delay to try to defeat clean energy legislation. Another recent study found similar campaigns against clean energy and climate bills in Connecticut. “The social justice argument is the one we’re seeing used the most,” he says.

Lamb sees the same thing happening in Europe. “Often you do see those arguments come from right of center politicians, which suggests hypocrisy in a way because they’re not so interested in the social dimension on parallel issues of social justice like education policy or financial policy.”

While the social justice argument stands out as a favorite at the moment, Lamb says the others are in regular rotation too, from focusing on what individual consumers should be doing to reduce their own carbon footprints to promoting the ideas that technology will save us and that fossil fuels are a necessary part of the solution.

“These things are effective, they work,” Roberts says. “So what we need is inoculation – people need a sort of field guide to these arguments so they’re not just duped.”

This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story.

REFUSE TO GIVE UP THE GOVT TEAT

Biden admin ousts Trump appointees from military academy advisory boards

Kellyanne Conway, the former White House counselor to then-President Donald Trump, told the Biden administration on Wednesday that she would not resign from her position on the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Air Force Academy after she was among the 18 Trump appointees asked to step down.

File Pool Photo by Chip Somodevilla/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 8 (UPI) -- The Biden administration on Wednesday removed multiple appointees to military advisory boards by former President Donald Trump.

A total of 18 Trump appointees were ask to resign with Chris Meagher, a White House spokesman confirming in a statement to The New York Times that all had "either resigned or has been terminated from their position."


Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, earlier Wednesday confirmed to reporters during a press briefing that Catherine Russell, director of White House Office of Presidential Personnel, had sent letters to Trump allies on various military advisory boards, including those for West Point, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force, seeking their resignation.

"Yes, we have," she said.

President Joe Biden's objective, she said, is to ensure those serving on these boards "are qualified" and "are aligned with [Biden's] values."

"So, yes, that was an ask that was made," she said.

Kellyanne Conway, former Trump adviser; Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary during the Trump administration; and Russ Vought, Trump's White House budget director, were among those to confirm they received letters requesting their resignation prior to 6 p.m. Wednesday when their positions on their various boards would be terminated.

Conway, who was a member of the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Air Force Academy, called the decision "petty and political, if not personal."

"I'm not resigning, but you should," she wrote to Biden in a letter posted to Twitter.

Spicer, a member of the Board of Visitors to the U.S. Naval Academy, told right-leaning news organization Newsmax for which he works, that he will not resign and will file a lawsuit against the administration.

"At a time when the administration is dealing with, you know, COVID, Afghanistan, the effects of Hurricane Ida, what are their priorities? Apparently ... firing veterans from service academies," he said.

Military advisory boards provide the academies with advice with the U.S. Naval Academy saying the duty of the members, who serve a three-year term, is to "inquire into the state of morale and discipline, the curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters relating to the academy, which the board decides to consider."

Psaki rejected the notion that the Biden administration was politicizing the rather largely ceremonial positions by suggesting those asked to step down were not qualified to serve on the boards.

"The president's qualification requirements are not your party registration; they are whether you're qualified to serve and whether you're aligned with the values of this administration," she said.

The move comes after the Trump administration before leaving office appointed dozens of allies and former advisors to government boards, Politico reported.

Since taking office, the Biden administration has sought to undo that and in February, the Department in Defense launched a review of all of the Pentagon's advisory boards, which would make recommendations for each one concerning retention, realignment and termination by June 1.

Last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III approved for 16 of those advisory committees to resume operations.

Meaghan Mobbs, a military veteran, said all Trump-appointees to the West Point Board of Visitors Advisory Board including herself were asked to step down, and accused the board of being "hijacked by partisan action."

Johnathan Hiler, who was former Vice President Mike Pence's director of legislative affairs, tweeted he was among those who would not resign.

"As an alum and former naval officer, I believe developing leaders capable of defending our country's interests at sea -- U.S.N.A's mission -- is not something that should be consumed by partisan politics," he tweeted. "Apparently, President Biden feels differently."

Thousands suffer health effects of Ground Zero's toxic dust 20 years after 9/11 attacks


A volunteer worker wipes dust from his face as he carries an oxygen tank for firefighters after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. File Photo by Monika Graff/UPI | License Photo

NEW YORK, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- A new World Trade Center stands in lower Manhattan 20 years after Sept. 11, 2001, but thousands of people who were there that day -- from first responders hoping to save lives to people who were just on their daily commute -- continue to feel health effects linked to the terrorist attack.

More than 80,000 first responders are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program, a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health initiative created under the Zadroga 9/11 Health Act of 2010, which provides care at no cost to those with health conditions related to the attacks.


In addition, it oversees the care of more than 30,000 civilians who survived the events of that day, including those who lived and worked in the neighborhood and students at schools nearby.

Both numbers have increased over the past decade, with the number of first-responder enrollees rising by about 40% since 2011 and the population of survivors under care growing three-fold since 2016. Many have cancer.

These trends are likely to continue, as new cancer cases among survivors of the attacks are expected to emerge due to disease "latency," according to environmental and occupational medicine specialist Dr. Iris G. Udasin.

Solid tumor cancers related to toxic exposures take at least four years to develop, with most remaining latent for 15 to 20 years, Udasin said.

"Because of cancer latency and other health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease, developing with age, we're seeing survivors who had been healthy for years only now entering the program," Udasin, director of the WTC Center of Excellence at Rutgers University, told UPI in a phone interview.

As part of a WTC Center of Excellence, a designation awarded to several hospitals in the New York area, Udasin and her colleagues care for nearly 5,000 survivors.

"Only now are they getting sick," she said.

Although the number of first responders and survivors in the WTC Health Program continues to rise, its "outreach" efforts for the latter group have not been as effective, Udasin said.

More than 10% of patients treated at Rutgers said they lacked access to at least one needed healthcare service under the WTC program, Udasin and her colleagues found in a study published earlier this year.

More than cancer

Cancer may be the health problem most commonly associated with the attacks, given the dust and debris that rained down on lower Manhattan and the cloud that hung over the area for weeks afterward.

However, first responders and survivors suffer from myriad issues, many of which continue to affect their quality of life 20 years later, said Mark Farfel, director of the New York City Department of Health's WTC Health Registry.

The registry includes data on roughly 71,000 first responders and survivors, but estimates that as many as 400,000 people were exposed to toxic dust particles generated by the attacks in the five boroughs alone.

"The 9/11 disaster has had a long-lasting effect on the physical and mental health of thousands of survivors," Farfel told UPI in a phone interview.

In an analysis he and his colleagues published in 2019, among those in the registry, 15% reported asthma diagnosed after 9/11, while 22% had gastroesophageal reflux disease, or acid reflux, 14% had post-traumatic stress disorder and 15% reported depression.

Nearly half of those who reported these conditions suffered from more than one of them, and many indicated that their quality of life has been affected as a result, the data showed.

Hearing loss also is common among survivors, Farfel said.

Lila Newman, who was a senior at Stuyvesant High School, just north of the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks, has had chronic asthma and acid reflux, as well as rhinosinusitis -- sinus inflammation -- and PTSD in the years since.

These, along with various cancers, are among the most common conditions experienced by WTC Health Program enrollees, according to its data, which is available online.

Newman now works with others who were students at Stuyvesant on Sept. 11 to help connect them with healthcare.

"The World Trade Center Health Program has helped so many people, but many others find that they can't access its benefits because they suffer from conditions not covered under the program," she told UPI.

This includes autoimmune disorders that have been linked with PTSD, particularly in women, said Newman, who has written a book about their experiences called Some Kids Left Behind.

Many of her schoolmates continue to experience problems ranging from migraines to blood and thyroid cancers, Newman said.

"There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people -- survivors -- who are essentially left on their own," she said.

Helaina Hovitz Regal, who was in middle school in lower Manhattan 20 years ago and lived in the neighborhood, has had PTSD and still suffers from chronic migraine headaches.

"When we think about 9/11 survivors, we often think of those who are suffering from physical health issues, but alongside them are people who are also living with incredibly painful mental health issues," Hovitz Regal told UPI by email.

"Mental health and physical health are very strongly connected, and what can occur alongside the stress and anxiety of living with PTSD are physical issues ... that can have a serious impact on their quality of life," she said.

Hovitz Regal, who wrote a memoir called After 9/11: One Girl's Journey Through Darkness to a New Beginning, also works as an advocate for people struggling with their mental health after surviving the attacks. She does not, however, compare her health problems to those suffering from a life-threatening illnesses.

However, "we are all dealing with [the] aftermath [and] we are all worthy of recovery," she said.



Ongoing health challenges

Like Hovitz Regal, most of those enrolled in the WTC Health Program live in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, though all 50 states and Washington, D.C., are represented.

About 2% of the first responders covered under the WTC Health Program worked at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa., where other planes hijacked by the terrorists were crashed, killing all onboard.

However, data is not available on how many of the survivors receiving treatment under the program were at these locations at the time of the attacks.

The program covers various cancers and airway and respiratory diseases linked with exposure to toxins at the site, as well as mental health problems and, for first responders, musculoskeletal problems such as low back pain.

As of June 30, survivors age 35 and younger account for 1% of the program enrollees, while those age 35 to 44 make up 2%.

More than half of the enrollees are current or former first responders age 45 to 64, meaning they were 25 to 44 years old at the time of the attacks.

Nearly one-third of the survivors enrolled in the program have digestive disorders related to the attacks, while one-fourth of them have been diagnosed with linked cancers.

Up to 30% of the program enrollees suffer from multiple health conditions related to the attacks. The most common forms of cancer among the survivors include prostate, breast, skin, thyroid and lung, based on program data.

Combined, more than 3,000 of the first responders and survivors with these cancers and lung and digestive diseases enrolled in the program have died.

"The health effects of the 9/11 attacks are still very real for many, many people," Farfel, of New York City's WTC Health Registry, said.

"And, as the years pass, these health effects continue to have a great impact on their lives and their healthcare needs," he said.

20 years of mourning: 9/11 terrorist attacks on America


Jeanie Quest (L) and Phillip Jabour react to photographs of the terrorist attack on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, in a special edition of the Dallas Morning News. Photo by Ian Halperin/UPI | License Photo

Iran: The girls choosing education over tradition

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• Date 08.09.2021
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Climate change and construction spell disaster for the Himalayas

This summer flash floods and landslides in India left people bereaved and displaced. Activists say poor urban planning, driven by tourism and urban growth, is exacerbating the impact of the climate crisis.

    

Reena Bhalekar stands in the location where her house was before the 

floods swept it away. All that remains is her bed

At first, no one noticed the water lapping angrily at the riverbank. 

Reena Bhalekar's family slept soundly as the early morning rain drummed on the tarpaulin of their shelter. "The water was rising slowly," the 26-year old remembers. "My sister wasn't even aware that the water had come into her home." 

Then, from somewhere nearby, a piercing scream shattered the silence. Rushing outside, Reena discovered the river had risen dramatically overnight and now reached their slum in Chetru, a tiny village on the outskirts of Dharamshala in the Indian Himalayas. Settlements further down the hill were already a foot deep in water. With the road leading out of the settlement submerged, the family abandoned their belongings and scrambled up the densely forested hill to safety.

The path that the community used to escape after floodwaters cut off their

 escape out of the settlement

The flash flood in July wreaked havoc across the district, damaging properties and triggering a deadly landslide. It was one of 35 witnessed by the state of Himachal Pradesh in the first six weeks of India's monsoon season, a landslide incident increase of 116% compared to last year. 

Himalayan villages like Chetru are situated in a region known as the planet's "third pole" due to its vast ice sheet, which holds the largest amount of frozen water outside of the polar caps. Scientists warn that that the area is likely to witness rapidly melting glaciers and increasingly erratic rainfall patterns over the coming century due to climate change. 

Climate crisis meets poor urban planning 

However, activists say disasters like that in Chetru point to more than just climate change. They highlight how the impacts of the climate crisis are being compounded by unbridled development, driven by tourism and rapid urban growth. 

Houses built along the riverbank in Chetru were severely damaged by the floodwaters

"In the popular discourse climate change is very easy to blame," said Manshi Asher, an environmental activist and co-founder of local research collective Himdhara. This avoids addressing the issues of unplanned development, lack of regulation and rampant tourism, argues Asher. 

A 2015 study prepared for the state's own Disaster Management Cell cautioned against the risks of overdevelopment in Himachal Pradesh, finding the region at high risk of human-induced landslides as heavy construction and deforestation disturb the already fragile terrain. 

Reena's family and her neighbors experienced this first-hand. Not only did overdevelopment and the accompanying deforestation unsettle the local terrain, potentially intensifying the impact of the July floodwaters, it was also the reason they found themselves living there in the first place.

The families migrated decades ago from a neighboring state to find daily wage labor and settled in Charan Khad, a suburb of Dharamshala. In 2016, their slum was deemed a sanitation hazard and demolished, leaving around 290 families without shelter. 

Tourism and rapid population growth have created demand for building projects in the region

However, Asher believes that the land had become "prime property” and the community was displaced to make way for new construction as part of a central government urban development scheme known as theSmart City Mission, aimed at driving economic growth. 

"There was suddenly this whole plan of developing botanical gardens, parking, all kinds of things in the city," she says, adding there was no attempt to provide sanitation or legally recognize the slum, which would have entitled its residents to resettlement. Instead, the community was left to build flimsy tarpaulin structures beside a fast-flowing river — the only patch of land available to them.

Deforestation, building violations and flash floods

India's National Green Tribunal, which handles environmental issues, has strict laws on housing density and multi-story building construction, and in 2019 the Supreme Court imposed a complete ban on tree felling for development projects in forest areas of Himachal Pradesh. Despite this, illicit hill leveling and destruction of forest areas remain commonplace. 

McLeod Ganj, home to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government-in-exile, is popular 

with pilgrims and tourists

"The law is very good in India on paper — the problem is with the enforcement of it," says environmental lawyer Deven Khanna, appointed by the High Court of Shimla, the state capital, in 2018 to investigate environmental violations in the region. The number of structures in Dharamshala which are built in violation of building laws is, he says, "mind boggling."

Home to the Tibetan government-in-exile and a popular destination for pilgrims and foreign tourists, Dharamshala has experienced substantial urban growth in the last few decades, with the population more than doubling between 2011 and 2015.

In Bhagsu, a village popular with tourists in Upper Dharamshala, illegal building extensions constructed by hotel owners over the top of a stream obstructed the high flow of water during the flash flood this summer. With nowhere to go, the water burst out onto the main street, washing away cars and causing substantial damage to shops and houses. The illegal encroachments were demolished on the orders of state officials in the days following. 

Locals in Bhagsu claim that constructions had been blocking the path of the

 stream for years before the disaster

Could technology help? 

"The problem is starker in a place like Dharamshala, because it is a tourist place and there is a lot of opportunity to earn money from land, from buildings," Khanna explains. "People are okay with the risks, because they are thinking about the money."

Disillusioned with the inaction of local officials and the lack of resolution from the High Court case, Khanna now believes that long-term solutions lie with technology. He has advocated for the use of aerial drones and satellite mapping to monitor tree coverage and illegal felling. 

Floodwaters burst out from the stream running through Bhagsu village onto the road, 

causing widespread destruction

On his advice, the High Court ordered trials that involved tagging trees with GPS monitors and using drones to map areas around the state capital Shimla. Despite some initial success however, the schemes have been discontinued, due to what Khanna sees as a lack of political will and pressure from the public.  

Before the floods washed away their homes, Reena's community had been campaigning for years to be relocated to safer ground. They have now renewed their campaign for compensation and permanent resettlement. In the meantime, the government has provided temporary shelter nearby. 

For Reena, the memories of the flood still weigh heavily. "I have nightmares where the water comes again at night and all of my children, the whole community, is swept away in the floods," she says. "No-one escapes."

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

German Finance, Justice ministries searched in fraud probe

Germany's money laundering investigation unit is accused of covering up fraud committed by banks. The Finance Ministry has said it "fully supports" the raids.

The Finance Ministry said the raids were not directed at individual employees

Police raided Germany's Finance and Justice ministries on Thursday, as part of an investigation into whether the Finance Intelligence Unit (FIU) failed to pass on reports to the police and the judiciary about banks laundering money.

"An evaluation of documents secured during previous searches of the FIU has revealed that there was extensive communication between the FIU and the ministries now being searched," prosecutors in the city of Osnabrück, whose remit for corruption cases includes jurisdiction over the FIU, said in a statement.

They added that they were still determining if a crime had taken place and if so, who was to blame. It is still unclear if the FIU failed to pass on the reports of fraud of its own accord, or was directed to do so by someone at one or both of the ministries.

According to Der Spiegel magazine, the amount of laundered cash is "in the millions," and that there was "extensive" communication between the two ministries and the FIU about the suspicious transactions made by the banks.

Prosecutors said they are still determining how high up the communications went, searching for the relevant documents was the main target of the raids.

Both the finance and justices ministries said that they "fully support the authorities" carrying out the raids. 

What is FIU?

The FIU was formerly a branch of law enforcement, but it was moved to the customs authority in 2017, which is part of the Finance Ministry.

Its job is to collect tips on possible cases of money laundering from banks and other organizations and forward their reports to the appropriate authorities. In recent years, their caseload has significantly increased — receiving 144,000 reports in 2020, a 12-fold increase on 2010, which has led to a huge backlog in cases.

FIU almost implicated in Wirecard scandal

This is the second time the FIU has come under scrutiny from authorities in recent months. The organization has also been suspected of covering up fraud committed by the German fintech company Wirecard, which collapsed last year in spectacular fashion.

The customs body failed to pass on hundreds of reports of suspicious transactions at the company, according to a report in the Handelsblatt business daily in August.

Both Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Chancellor Angela Merkel came under significant scrutiny over the Wirecard case.