ROFLMAO

Michael Flynn refutes QAnon claims
that he worships Satan during guest
appearance on Christian YouTube channel

Morgan Keith

Fri, October 8, 2021,

In this Feb. 1, 2017, file photo, then - National Security Adviser Michael Flynn speaks during the daily news briefing at the White House, in Washington. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File

• In September, Flynn led a prayer during a conference at the Lord of Hosts Church in Nebraska.

• Flynn said that his prayer was a rendition of a prayer to Christian archangel St. Michael.

• Flynn and the Lord of Hosts Church's senior pastor denied the Satanic accusations.

Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn appeared on Christian YouTube channel "Truth Unveiled TV" to refute claims he worships Satan following a prayer he led at Nebraskan church, The Daily Beast reported.

During its "Opening the Heavens" conference in mid-September, Flynn led a prayer at the Lord of Hosts Church in which he referenced "legions" and "rays," according to The Daily Beast, which convinced many QAnon believers that he was praying to Satan.

Following an ad from voter fraud conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell's MyPillow, Flynn told "Truth Unveiled TV" host Paul Oebel that people were reading into things and it was a "straightforward" rendition of a prayer to St. Michael, a Christian archangel that his mother named him after.

"People need to stop overthinking what everyone is saying and listen to what is happening around us," Flynn said. "Pay attention to the reality that is happening around us instead of interpreting things that don't need interpretation."

Both Flynn and Hank Kunneman, senior pastor at the Lord of Hosts Church, have acknowledged and denied the Satanic accusations.

"Can you just give people a break?" Kunneman asked his congregation on September 26, The Daily Beast reported.

Prior to the prayer debacle, Flynn was a QAnon darling who spoke at its conferences, appeared on a podcast hosted by a QAnon influencer, and publicly referenced conspiracy theories pushed by the movement about the 2020 election.

Under President Donald Trump, Flynn served as national security advisor until his resignation in February 2017. He departed after pleading guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the US at the time.

Flynn was pardoned by Trump last November.

Hong Kong: University orders Tiananmen statue's removal

Fri, October 8, 2021

The university has called for the Hong Kong Alliance group to remove the statue

The University of Hong Kong has said a statue commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre must be removed.

The Pillar of Shame depicts dozens of torn and twisted bodies and was at the forefront of vigils held in the city to commemorate the 1989 crackdown.

The university said the decision was "based on the latest risk assessment and legal advice" without expanding on this explanation.

Beijing has recently moved to silence opposition to its rule in Hong Kong.

Tiananmen is still a heavily censored topic in modern China. The anniversary was marked annually in Hong Kong until it was banned by authorities in 2020, citing Covid measures.

Earlier this year, nine pro-democracy activists were sentenced to between six and 10 months in prison for taking part in the banned 2020 vigil.

The statue has been at the forefront of annual Tiananmen vigils

Pillar of Shame, by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot, has been on display at the university's campus for 24 years.

But the university wrote a letter to the Hong Kong alliance, a now disbanded group which organised an annual vigil, asking for the piece to be removed by 13 October.

It added that the statue would be deemed "abandoned" if it was not removed from the campus.

Mr Galschiot told Hong Kong Free Press that the statue, which was given to the alliance as a gift, is "difficult to remove".

"It is really not fair to remove it in a week while it's been there for 24 years," he said, adding that it could be damaged if it is moved too quickly.

What happened in Tiananmen Square?

In 1989, Beijing's Tiananmen Square became the focus for large-scale protests, calling for reform and democracy.

Demonstrators had been camped for weeks in the square, but late on 3 June, the military moved in and troops opened fire.

China has only ever said that 200 civilians and security personnel died, but there has been no publicly released record of deaths. Witnesses and foreign journalists have said the figure could be up to 3,000.

Biden administration cancels remaining Laredo, Rio Grande Valley contracts for Trump's border wall, angering Republican lawmakers

Kevin Shalvey

Sat, October 9, 2021,

A Border Patrol vehicle near the Rio Grande in Laredo, Texas. Veronica G. Cardenas/Reuters

• The Biden administration on Friday canceled contracts for border wall construction in Texas.

• The cancelled contracts were in the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo areas.

• The move "isn't going to solve the Biden Border Crisis," Sen. Tom Cotton said.

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday said it would cancel the remaining construction contracts for former President Donald Trump's border wall.

The contracts related to two sections of the US-Mexico border in Texas: Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley area, the DHS said in a press release.

The move came months after the Biden administration cancelled two contracts that spanned about 31 miles of the US-Mexico border in Texas.

DHS said it planned to begin environmental studies for border barrier "system projects." However, those "activities will not involve any construction of new border barrier or permanent land acquisition," it said.

The construction of barriers along the southern US border has become a highly partisan issue. President Donald Trump sought to build a "big, beautiful wall," but others raised questions about whether barriers would solve the problems that drove asylum-seekers to the US in the first place.

Friday's move by the Biden administration raised the ire of a handful of Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, of Texas.

"Impeach Mayorkas," Crenshaw said on Twitter, referring to Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of homeland security.

"Canceling construction of the border wall isn't going to solve the Biden Border Crisis," Sen. Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, said on Twitter.

Earth Justice, an environmental nonprofit that had sued the Trump administration over the wall, on Friday said canceling the projects would save "71 river miles in Webb and Zapata counties from destruction." The group said the projects would have cost more than $1 billion.

In June, the White House returned $2 billion from border wall projects to the military. Trump's administration had diverted those funds.

"Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border and costs American taxpayers billions of dollars is not a serious policy solution or responsible use of federal funds," The White House Office of Management and Budget said at the time.

Caged dogs used to be sole source of canine blood supply in California. That's about to change

Melody Gutierrez
Sat, October 9, 2021, 

Animal health technicians Sasha Hickman-Beoshanz, left, and Dyne Handing prepare to draw blood from Merlyn, a wirehaired pointer, at the UC Davis Veterinary Hospital as part of a volunteer donation program.

 (David Butow / For The Times)More

California will phase out the controversial use of blood from caged dogs in pet hospitals under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday.

Under the new law, veterinarians in the state will be able to operate canine blood banks similar to the voluntary model used for people, which is anticipated to help increase the amount of lifesaving supplies needed to heal injured or ailing pets.

A national shortage of dog blood has left veterinarians scrambling for limited supplies.

California currently requires that all animal blood purchased by veterinarians come from two privately owned companies that house hundreds of donor dogs at their facilities for the sole purpose of collecting their blood. Animal rights groups have accused these facilities of mistreating donor dogs, but substantiating those claims is difficult because the companies have sweeping exemptions from public records laws, including sealing their state inspection records.

Those records exemptions will no longer exist under Assembly Bill 1282 starting Jan. 1. Under the bill, the phase-out of closed colony donor dog facilities will begin after supplies from the voluntary donation system meet veterinary demand, a timeline meant to ensure the shift does not worsen existing shortages.

"These community blood banks for animals are similar to human models in that they collect blood from pets whose owners voluntarily consent to the donation," said Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), the bill's author, during a July legislative hearing. "California is the only state in the country that requires animal blood to come from so-called closed colonies that keep hundreds of animals confined for years for the sole purpose of harvesting their blood."

Newsom vetoed a bill in 2019 by state Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita) that would have allowed dog owners to volunteer their pets to donate blood while continuing to allow the two private companies with closed colonies to operate. At the time, Newsom said he wanted legislators to send him a bill that would phase out using dogs “kept in cages for months and years to harvest their blood for sale.”

That approach was included in this year's bill.

The bill requires the California Department of Food and Agriculture to phase out the use of blood from captive donor dogs within 18 months of determining that community blood banks have sold as much dog blood to veterinarians as the private companies with closed colonies. It's unclear when voluntary donations would outpace the amount of blood products coming from closed colonies.

The operators of the two animal blood banks in California — Hemopet and Animal Blood Bank Resources International — say closed-colony blood banks ensure a consistent and safe supply of blood with minimal exposure to pathogens and diseases.

The owner of Hemopet, which is in Garden Grove, has said previously that there are more than 200 greyhounds housed as blood donors at the facility. Greyhounds are typically chosen because of their generally docile temperament and their “universal” blood type, which can be used to treat any breed.

Dixon-based Animal Blood Bank Resources International, which has disclosed little about its operations, raised objections to the bill, saying that when captive colony operations are phased out, the "canine blood supply would fall off a cliff."

"We remain concerned that pets in California and their owners will not have the blood products they need after the trigger is pulled," said the company's lobbyist, Jeffrey Leacox, at a hearing in July.

However, Dr. Jeannine Berger, a veterinarian and a senior vice president with the San Francisco SPCA, said the bill Newsom signed balances the needs of pets now with the needs of captive donor dogs.

“I am very excited to see California take this step,” Berger said in a statement after the bill passed the Legislature. “Veterinarians regularly face a lack of lifesaving blood and blood products to respond to emergencies, leaving animals and families in deep — and avoidable — distress. With Gov. Newsom’s signature on AB 1282, California will reduce the suffering of many animals and the people who love them.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

GMO IS OMG BACKWARDS

Mexico denies permit for new GMO corn variety, first time ever

David Alire Garcia and Adriana Barrera
Fri, October 8, 2021

MEXICO CITY, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Mexican health safety regulators have rejected a new variety of GMO corn for the first time, according to German conglomerate Bayer which makes the grain and blasted the decision, saying it was looking into its legal options.

Mexico, birthplace of modern corn, has never permitted the commercial-scale cultivation of GMO corn but has for decades allowed such varieties to be imported, mostly from U.S. farmers and overwhelmingly used to fatten livestock.

Mexican regulators did not confirm the decision and also did not reply to several requests for comment. Regulators must approve each new variety developed by seed companies before crops grown from them can later be imported.

In late August, heath regulator Cofepris rejected a permit for a new GMO corn variety sought by pharmaceutical and crop science giant Bayer, according to data from Mexico's National Farm Council (CNA) later confirmed by the company.

The regulator determined that the new seed variety was designed to tolerate weed-killer glyphosate, adding it considers the widely used herbicide dangerous and said its rejection was based on a "precautionary principle," the data showed.

The Cofepris ruling was never publicly disclosed, and its press office did not respond to requests for comment.

CNA President Juan Cortina said in an interview that Mexican corn importers will begin to feel the impact from the rejection as soon as next year.

"This is the first obstacle, which isn't immediate, but it's coming," he said, pointing to seven other pending GMO corn seed permits that have been waiting from between 14 to 34 months for a resolution. He said he believed the decision violated the USMCA North American trade agreement.

Neither Mexico's economy ministry, responsible for international trade, or the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington, immediately responded to a request for comment on Cortina's allegation.

While regulators worldwide have determined glyphosate to be safe, Bayer agreed last year to settle nearly 100,000 U.S. lawsuits for $9.6 billion, while denying claims that the herbicide caused cancer. In February, it struck a $2 billion settlement to resolve future legal claims that glyphosate causes cancer.

In a statement sent to Reuters, Bayer said it was disappointed by the regulator's decision which it described as "unscientific." The company said regulatory delays and the possibility of additional permit denials could have a "devastating impact" on Mexican supply chains.

Bayer said GMO crops have undergone more safety tests than "any other crop in the history of agriculture" and have been judged safe.

In the past, the Mexican government has approved some 90 GMO corn varieties for import, among nearly 170 total approvals for GMO seeds including cotton and soybeans. But under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in late 2018, no GMO seeds have been approved by Cofepris.

Last year, Mexico imported more than 16 million tonnes of corn from U.S. suppliers, almost all of it grown from GMO varieties.

Cortina said this year the country was poised to import "more than 19 million tonnes," which would mark an all-time record, even as the government pledges to boost domestic production.

Mexico is mostly self-sufficient in its production of white corn, which is used to make the country's staple tortillas, but depends heavily on yellow corn imports for both livestock feed as well as numerous industrial uses like making cereals and sauces.

Lopez Obrador issued a decree late last year that seeks to ban by 2024 both glyphosate and GMO corn for human consumption, but officials have yet to clarify if the ban would apply to livestock feed or the industrial demand.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Victor Suarez, an influential backer of the decree, said last month that the government is now aiming to cut corn imports by half by 2024.

"Right now, I don't think it's going down," said Cortina, referring to the country's demand for imported corn.

He pointed to official agriculture ministry data showing that domestic corn production is down more than 5% during the first six months of this year. 

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia and Adriana Barrera; Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)

Bayer blasts 'unscientific' rejection by Mexican regulator of GMO corn permit

David Alire Garcia
Fri, October 8, 2021

FILE PHOTO: The historic headquarters of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG is pictured in Leverkusen

BAYER OFFICE DURING WWII

By David Alire Garcia

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Bayer is evaluating its legal options after Mexican health regulators for the first time rejected a GMO corn permit it was seeking, the German pharmaceutical and crop science giant said in a statement to Reuters on Friday, blasting the decision as "unscientific."

Reuters reported earlier in the day that regulator Cofepris rejected the corn permit for future import as the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hardens its opposition to genetically modified crops.

"We are disappointed with the unscientific reasons that Cofepris used to deny the authorization," the statement said, identifying the rejected corn variety as using its proprietary HT3 x SmartStax Pro technology.

Bayer stressed that the permit denial does not affect its current business, noting that last year the company stopped work on its HT3 hybrid corn varieties due to regulatory delays in the European Union in favor of a new HT4 line which the company expects to launch later this decade.

Bayer nonetheless criticized what it described as continuous regulatory delays with Cofepris as well as the possibility of additional permit denials that could have a "devastating impact" on Mexican supply chains.

The company said genetically modified crops including corn have undergone more safety tests than "any other crop in the history of agriculture" and have been judged safe for humans, animals and the environment.

The Cofepris press office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Lopez Obrador issued a controversial decree at the end of last year that outlined a three-year plan to ban the weed killer glyphosate and GMO corn for human consumption.

Industry associations have sharply criticized the plan and have sought unsuccessfully to persuade judges to strike it down, arguing that it risks a trade dispute with the United States. If the ban is interpreted to include animal feed or other industrial uses, they say it will ultimately hit consumers with higher food prices.

The planned prohibition, however, is popular with environmentalists and health-food advocates who argue that spraying glyphosate on the GMO crops designed to tolerate them is indeed harmful.

Glyphosate was pioneered by the Roundup brand of weed killers from agrochemical company Monsanto, which was bought by Bayer as part of a $63 billion acquisition in 2018.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia in Mexico City;Editing by Christian Plumb and Matthew Lewis)

Unicef sees end of polio in Pakistan

Amin Ahmed

Published October 10, 2021 - 

In this 2015 file photo, a healthworker gives polio vaccines to children in the suburbs of Lahore. — AP/File


ISLAMABAD: Deputy Executive Director of Unicef Omar Abdi has said his organisation sees the possibility of an end to polio in Pakistan as only one polio case has been reported in the country this year.

Talking to Dawn at the end of his visit to Pakistan, Mr Abdi said: “We have been looking at the trend for the last 20 years and twice before we came this close, but now we are closest to the finish line.”

There is a commitment from the government to eradicate polio, and vaccines continue to arrive in Pakistan; as a result, cases are going down. Samples from sewerage now showed less percentage of positivity, the Unicef official said.

Official says with one case reported this year ‘we’re closest to the finish line’

About the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Abdi, a national of Somalia who served in Unicef Pakistan 15 years ago, was pleased to note that Pakistan had remarkably responded to the pandemic with leadership coordination among different parts of the government at federal, provincial and district levels.

Mr Abdi also visited a vaccination centre in Islamabad and said it was encouraging to see that 30 million people in Pakistan were fully vaccinated, while over 60 million had received one dose of Covid-19 vaccine. As more vaccine doses arrive in the country, the rollout of the vaccine would cover a million people a day.

The Unicef official said that nutrition was an area where Pakistan continued to face significant challenges. The prevalence of stunting is very high — at about 40 per cent. Likewise, the prevalence of wasting is very high as the number of children under-weight is also very high.

Referring to his meeting with Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Dr Sania Nishtar, the Unicef official stated that nutrition was not just related to access to food but it was a multi-sectoral issue, covering health, water and sanitation and they all together contributed to the nutritional status.

Mr Omar Abdi, who visited Afghanistan before traveling to Islamabad, said the migration of Afghans to Pakistan, Iran and other countries will begin if situation in Afghanistan did not improve.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2021

#ABOLISHTHEDEATHPENALTY

French EU presidency to seek global end to capital punishment

Despite widespread support within France for the death penalty, President Emmanuel Macron announced he will be campaigning on a global scale to end the practice.



Macron described the penalty as an "abomination"

France will seek a global end to the death penalty as part of its upcoming presidency of the European Union, President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in France, Macron said he would convene a summit in 2022 to campaign for the moratorium.

The conference will be held in Paris as France takes over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2022.

"As part of the French presidency of the European Union, we will organize... a meeting in Paris at the highest level, bringing together civil society members from countries that still apply the death penalty," Macron was quoted by broadcaster France 24 as saying.

He said the aim was to convince national leaders of the importance and urgency of abolishing capital punishment.
France divided on death penalty

France, a country once known for its infamous guillotine executions, abolished the death penalty in 1981 — when over 60% of its population still backed the execution of criminals.

It became the 35th country in the world to scrap the practice and introduced an article in its constitution that says "no one shall be sentenced to death".


Today, roughly half of France wants the penalty reintroduced, polls show.

Macron was speaking alongside Robert Badinter, the justice minister who steered the abolition under President Francois Mitterand and went on to campaign for a global abolition.

“I want to share with you my absolute conviction that the death penalty must disappear from the entire world as it is a shame for humanity," said Badinter. "The death penalty does not protect society, it dishonors it."

France's ministry for foreign affairs also put out an anniversary statementand said the death penalty constituted a "violation of human rights".
A global decline

While a total of 54 countries in the world still impose the death penalty in law or practice, the number of annual executions carried out has consistently shrunk over the last decade.

Describing the penalty as an "abomination", the French leader noted with regret that "483, certainly an underestimated number, executions" had been carried out worldwide in 2020.

China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, respectively carried out the most executions in 2020, according to Amnesty International.

In the EU, all member states have abolished the death penalty in line with the European Convention on Human Rights. While in Europe, Belarus is the last remaining country that continues to carry out executions.

Reuters contributed to this report.

ABOLIR LA PENA DE MUERTE

ABSCHAFFUNG DER TODESSTRAFE

ABOLIR LA PEINE DE MORT

ОТМЕНА СМЕРТНОЙ КАЗНИ

Abdul Qadeer Khan: 'Father' of Pakistan's atomic bomb dies at 85

Abdul Qadeer Khan was hailed as a national hero in Pakistan for making his country the world's first Islamic nuclear power — but regarded by the West as a dangerous renegade.

HE BROUGHT NUCLEAR DETERENCE TO THE REGION  WHICH SUFFERED UNDER  INDIA'S AGGRESIVE NUCLEAR PROGRAM. 

PAKISTAN SIGNED THE NON PROLIFERATION AGREEMENT, 

INDIA LIKE ISRAEL DID NOT!

    

A.Q. Khan was educated in Europe

Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered as the founding 'father' of Pakistan's nuclear program, died in Islamabad on Sunday morning. 

The Pakistani atomic scientist, 85, is considered a national hero for making Pakistan among the world's first Islamic nuclear power.

However, Khan is seen as a disgraced scientist by the West as he was the center of a nuclear proliferation scandal. 

He was admitted to hospital in Islamabad on August 26 after testing positive for COVID-19, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency. The state-run agency added that Khan had been moved to a military hospital in Rawalpindi later.

Pakistani PM commemorates 'national icon'

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was saddened by the nuclear scientist's passing. He praised Khan for being a national icon and for providing Pakistan with security against an "aggressive much larger nuclear neighbour."

Prime Minister Khan said Khan's body would be buried in Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.

Pakistani President Arif Alvi also offered his condolences, saying he knew Khan personally since 1982. He added that Khan developed "nation-saving nuclear deterrence" and Pakistan would forever be indebted to him for that.

But Abdul Qadeer Khan has been at the center of controversies

Abdul Qadeer Khan was accused of illegally trading nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. 

In 2004, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations, pulled up Khan as a primary suspect of a nuclear proliferation ring that involved sales of nuclear technology to several countries.

The IAEA was trying to resolve how Iran and others had gotten hold of nuclear technology to create weapons.

In 2004, Khan confessed to having shared nuclear secrets with those countries on national TV. 

Pervez Musharraf, who was Pakistan's president at the time, said he would accept a written apology from Khan. He added that proliferators would be severely punished.

However, Musharraf pardoned Khan and placed him under house arrest for five years.

While confessing to his actions on TV, Khan said he had acted alone and without the knowledge of state officals. Later, Khan said he was scapegoated.

"I saved the country for the first time when I made Pakistan a nuclear national icon and saved it again when I confessed and took the whole blame on myself," he told AFP news agency in an interview in 2008.

He lived mostly out of the public eye after his house arrest was lifted in 2009

Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan passes away at 85 in Islamabad

Dawn.com Published October 10, 2021 -

This file photo shows nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. — AFP/File

Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan passed away in Islamabad on Sunday morning at the age of 85.

According to Radio Pakistan, he was admitted to a local hospital where his health deteriorated early morning. PTV said that he died after being transferred to a hospital with lung problems.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that under the directions issued by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Dr Khan would be given a state funeral.

Speaking to the media in Islamabad, he said that the premier had also directed cabinet ministers to attend the funeral. The interior minister said that the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the services chiefs would also be in attendance.

He said that the funeral prayers will be held at Faisal Mosque at 3:30pm. "The general public will be allowed to attend," he said.

He said two graves were being prepared, one at Faisal Mosque and one at Islamabad's H-8 graveyard. His family will decide where to bury him and that will be implemented, he said.

"The whole nation is grieving," the minister said, adding that the flag would be flown at half-mast.

He said that he had also directed law enforcement agencies and the Islamabad commissioner to make security arrangements.

'National icon for Pakistanis'

Prime Minister Imran Khan said Dr Khan was loved by the nation because of his critical contribution in making Pakistan a nuclear weapon state.

"This has provided us security against an aggressive much larger nuclear neighbour. For the people of Pakistan he was a national icon," he said, adding that he would be buried in Faisal Mosque "as per his wishes".

President Dr Arif Alvi said that he had personally known Dr Khan since 1982. "He helped us develop nation-saving nuclear deterrence, and a grateful nation will never forget his services in this regard," he said.

Last month, Dr Khan had complained that neither PM Imran nor any of his cabinet members inquired after his health while he was under treatment at a hospital.

According to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan, Dr Khan had been admitted to Khan Research Laboratories Hospital on August 26 after he tested positive for Covid-19. Later, he was shifted to a military hospital in Rawalpindi but was discharged after recovering from the virus.

'A huge loss for Pakistan'

According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Nadeem Raza and all services chiefs expressed sorrow over Dr Khan's passing.

The ISPR statement also quoted Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa as saying that he had rendered invaluable services to strengthen Pakistan's defence capabilities.

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif said that the nation had lost "a true benefactor who served the motherland with heart and soul."

"The passing of Dr Khan is a huge loss for the country. His role in making Pakistan an atomic power remains central," he said.

Defence Minister Pervez Khattak said he was "deeply grieved" over his passing and called it a "great loss".

"Pakistan will forever honour his services to the nation! The nation is heavily indebted to him for his contributions in enhancing our defence capabilities," he said.

Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar said that Dr Khan had played an important role in making the country "invincible". He also offered prayers for the deceased.

Born in 1936 in Bhopal, India, Dr Khan had immigrated along with his family to Pakistan in 1947 after partition of the subcontinent.

After learning of India's nuclear test in 1974, he had joined his nation's clandestine efforts to develop nuclear power. He had founded the Khan Research Laboratories in 1976 and was its chief scientist and director for many years, according to Radio Pakistan.

He was awarded the Nishan-i-Imtiaz for his services to the country.

In 2004, Dr Khan was at the centre of a massive global nuclear proliferation scandal in 2004. In a series of dramatic developments, he was accused by then army chief and president Pervez Musharraf of running a rogue proliferation network for nuclear material.

Shortly after Musharraf’s announcement, a recorded confession by Khan was aired in which he took sole responsibility for all the nuclear proliferation that had been revealed.

 

 

 

Sand crisis: Mafias thrive as shortages loom

Demand for construction sand is rising faster than supply, pushing even countries in the Middle East to import it from as far away as Australia and Canada.



Mining so much sand is destroying ecosystems and fueling violence

It makes up the concrete of our houses, the tarmac of our roads, the glass in our windows and the silicon chips in our phones.

But sand, a building block of modern life that sits at the heart of a destructive and sometimes illegal industry, is in increasingly short supply — and nobody knows how soon it will run out.

Sand is the most used material on the planet but also one of the least well monitored. Unlike most other commodities, policymakers only have rough estimates of how much of it is used each year. A landmark report from the UN Environment Program (UNEP) in 2019 had to rely on data for cement — which sand and gravel are mixed with to make concrete — to land on a ballpark figure of 50 billion tons.

Researchers say that's more sand than can be responsibly used each year, even though more sand can be made by crushing rocks. In some regions, the shortages have already fueled targeted killings and the destruction of habitats.

Sand mining is not well monitored

"The nature of the crisis is we don't understand this material well enough," said Louise Gallagher from the Global Sand Observatory in Geneva, who co-authored the report. "We don't understand the impacts enough of where we're taking it from. Sometimes we don't even know where it's coming from, how much is coming out of rivers. We don't know. We just don't know."
Extracting sand

What experts do know, though, is that extracting sand in unparalleled quantities comes at a growing cost to people and the planet.

Sand mining destroys habitats, dirties rivers and erodes beaches, many of which are already losing ground to rising sea levels. When miners dig out layers of sand, riverbanks become less stable. The pollution and acidity can kill fish and leave less water for people and crops. The problem is made worse when dams upstream prevent sediments from replenishing the river.

"It has so many other impacts that are not taken into consideration," said Kiran Pereira, an independent researcher who has written a book on solutions to the sand crisis. "It's definitely not reflected in the cost of sand."

Watch video02:32
   Sand mining puts homes along the Mekong at risk of collapse


Eroded river banks have destroyed the habitats of the critically-endangered gharial crocodile in the Ganges river in India

Worse, much of the impact may not be immediately visible, which makes it hard to know exactly how bad it is, said Stephen Edwards, who leads research on extractive industries at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "It certainly is something that is rising to a level that we really need to be paying closer attention to."

According to an article published in the journal Nature in 2019, sand mining has helped push fish-eating gharial crocodiles in the Ganges river to the brink of extinction — fewer than 250 adults remain in the wild — and destabilized riverbanks in the Mekong whose collapse could force half a million people from their homes.

One reason the damage from mining has been ignored is that although sand is in objects all around us, it's "hidden in plain sight", said Chris Hackney, a geographer at the University of Newcastle in the UK, who studies the issue and co-authored the Nature article. "Ask people to name the most important commodity on the planet and sand is probably not the one that gets mentioned."

Concrete boom

Sand shortages even sound counterintuitive. Although one-third of the Earth's land surface is classified as desert, much of it sandy, Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia import sand from as far away as Canada and Australia. The 830m-tall Burj Khalifa, a skyscraper in the neighboring United Arab Emirates, was built using imports from the other side of the world.

This is because desert sand holds little value for the construction industry.

When winds blow over dunes, they shape sand particles into spheres. These round balls have less grip than the jagged grains found on riverbeds, beaches and sea floors, which have the friction needed to make concrete strong.

"As I grew up in Bangalore, I constantly read reports about the rivers being decimated due to sand mining," said Pereira, the researcher, adding that some of her earliest memories involve waking up at 2:00 a.m. to fetch water from a crowded public tap. "At the same time, I remember seeing hundreds and hundreds of trucks filled with sand flying up and down the roads, supplying all the construction sites."

China used more than half the cement the world made in 2019

Most of the demand comes from China, which made more cement in the three years from 2011 to 2014 than the US did in the entire last century. India, the next-biggest cement producer, is projected to overtake China as the world's most populous country by 2027.

As people across Asia and Africa move to cities and the world population swells to 10 billion people by the middle of the century, demand for sand is projected to keep rising.

And it's not just for making concrete. In 2011, 20 million cubic meters of sand was dredged from the sea floor on the coasts of the Netherlands to form a natural barrier protecting against erosion and climate change. Over the last half century Singapore has built artificial islands that have increased its land mass by a quarter using sand imported from Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. Dubai's artificial Palm Islands, visible from space, were made with sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

The world's tallest skyscraper was built in the UAE, which is partly desert, using sand imported from Australia

Dubai has built artificial islands using sand dredged from the sea floor

Sand mafias

And then there's the human cost.

As sand prices have risen, police officers in countries from South Africa to Mexico have kept reporting dead bodies at the hands of miners.

Nowhere is the violence worse than in India, home to the world's deadliest "sand mafias." Criminal gangs there have burned journalists alive, hacked activists to death and run over police officers with trucks. A report last year from the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, an environmental group based in Delhi, counted 193 people who died through illegal sand mining in India over the last two years. The main causes of death were poor working conditions, violence and accidents.

Watch video 03:08  Kenya: Illegal sand mining threatens environment

While some miners dive to the bottom of rivers hundreds of times a day without protective clothing, and there are reports of child labor from India to Uganda, the industry has rarely been held accountable.

In late February, a special court in Delhi jailed the boss of Indian beach sand giant V.V. Minerals and a former director of the environment ministry for bribery. The mining baron, who has denied allegations of illegal sand mining that stretch back decades, had been caught paying the university tuition fees of an official's son in exchange for an environmental clearance, in a case that one local news outlet compared to notorious American mobster Al Capone being jailed for tax violations.

To solve the sand crisis, experts say world leaders need to better regulate the industry and enforce laws against corruption, as well as monitoring global sand production. They would need to cut demand for sand by finding alternatives to concrete and building more efficiently with materials like timber. The waste from demolished buildings could be reused as aggregate for roads, for instance.

Some researchers are exploring ways to make the world's abundant desert sand suitable for building, by heating and crushing the grains, and are now looking to make the processes cheap enough to be practical.

"Our ability to construct does not depend on our need for sand," said Pereira. "We can decouple these two and still build and allow for human prosperity without destroying our ecosystem."

AFRICA'S INNOVATIVE GREEN ARCHITECTURE

Learning in a green-minded building

The University of Agostinho Neto in Angola is considered one of the greenest buildings in all of Africa. Designed by Perkins+Will Architects, it positions classrooms to make the best use of natural ventilation and cooling by drawing breezes directly into the building. Trees arranged in a line create a funnel, through which winds blow.

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