UK, US and Nato vow to find missing F-35 jet before Russia

Nato says it is not worried about possibility of recovery effort failing

An F-35B fighter jet on board 'HMS Queen Elizabeth'. 

One of the jets ditched into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off

 from the carrier last week. The UK, US and Nato are working to recover

 it amid fears Russia wants to get its hands on the downed aircraft. Getty Images

Laura O'Callaghan

Nov 23, 2021

The UK, US and Nato have offered reassurances that Russia will not get hold of the downed F-35B plane in the Mediterranean, insisting “we’ll get it first”.

The allies vowed to retrieve the £100 million ($133.7 million) warplane from the seabed after Britain said the Russians had been playing “close attention” to HMS Queen Elizabeth, which carried the jet before it went down.

Shortly after take-off last Wednesday, the plane ditched into the sea. The RAF pilot managed to safely eject.

"We'll get it first, I promise you," said Brig Gen Simon Doran, the top-ranking US officer on board the UK’s flagship aircraft carrier.

READ MORE

Gulf trip underlines British aircraft carrier's role fighting terror

F-35Bs, fifth-generation warplanes equipped to carry out a range of different missions, differ from other F-35s and are designed for short take-off and vertical landing.

Fitted with radars, sensors and other classified technology, the jets are the most secret and complex aircraft in the UK arsenal. They also carry the highest price tag.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is returning from its maiden voyage to the Far East and is leading a nine-vessel allied strike group. It is currently near Sicily.

Nato's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen Tim Radford, told journalists on board the vessel he had no worries about the possibility of a failed retrieval operation.

An F-35B plane on board 'HMS Queen Elizabeth' in Portsmouth, England. Getty Images

"We're not concerned at all about recovering it," he said. “We're not worried because we are working through the issue at the moment.

“There was obviously a concern when the plane went down. The pilot is safe, which is the most important thing.”

Gen Radford and other officials declined to give further details about the operation to salvage the jet.

Commodore Steve Moorhouse, commander of the carrier strike group, referred to the loss of the jet as “a hugely unfortunate incident” and “a setback”.

But he insisted “the reliability of the aircraft or confidence in it and the project is undiminished” after the loss.

The public pledge to find the jet came amid fears in Nato that Russia may try to recover the aircraft and glean the cutting-edge technology on board.

Last week Britain’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Russia had been closely watching the movements of HMS Queen Elizabeth.

"It is not a secret the Russians have been very interested in the carrier group, both on the way out from the United Kingdom – as she's sailed and her group towards the Pacific – and now she is back in the Mediterranean," Mr Wallace told Sky News.

"Of course the Russians are playing close attention – it is what I'd expect.”

So far, the UK has accepted delivery of 21 American-made F-35Bs.

The majority of the planes are for its two modern aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

BC

Protest on Pat Bay highway may lead to criminal charges: Saanich police

The protest occurred on Sunday: Nov. 21, 2021 (Charles Bodi)

CTV News Vancouver Island
Published Nov. 22, 2021 

VICTORIA -

Saanich police say they're reviewing a protest that shut down part of the Pat Bay highway on Sunday.

Police say they had no prior knowledge of the protest, which blocked the northbound lanes of Highway 17 beginning around 3:30 p.m.

Since people were marching on the highway, Saanich police say they moved to block the highway lanes to traffic to protect the safety of protesters and drivers.

Now, Saanich police say officers with the major crime unit are reviewing the protest to see if any criminal charges should be recommended to Crown counsel.

"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms affords everyone the right to peaceful, safe and lawful assemblies," said Saanich police in a release Monday. "While the group was peaceful, their actions were neither safe nor lawful."

Police say they acknowledge that the protest blocked a major travel route, and thanked the community for their patience Sunday.

"Resolving incidents of this nature safely for the public, the police, and those causing the disruption requires considerable planning and specialized resources, including coordination with other emergency services to develop alternate routes," police said.

"We acknowledge the significant impact that this incident had on members of our community and regret the inconvenience caused by this traffic disruption."

Queen sends message to British Columbians amid 'catastrophic' flooding

Meagan Gill
CTV News Vancouver Journalist
Follow | Contact
Updated Nov. 22, 2021

VANCOUVER -

The “atmospheric river” that brought devastating floods and landslides to several areas of B.C. has caught the attention of Queen Elizabeth II.

Governor General Mary May Simon took to Twitter to share a message to the flood-ravaged province from the 95-year-old monarch.

“My thoughts are with the people of British Columbia as you continue to confront the recent catastrophic flooding and gradually begin the process of recovery and rebuilding," it reads.

The Queen goes on to thank emergency workers and volunteers for their efforts during the natural disaster.

“I am grateful for the tireless work of the many first responders and volunteers who continue to provide comfort and support to their fellow Canadians during this difficult time.”

The atmospheric river wiped out several routes in and out of the Lower Mainland and parts of Vancouver Island.

At least four people died in one of the landslides that hit the region as a result of the deadly storm.

 

Badly Timed Rain Hurts Australian Wheat When World Needs It Most

Sybilla Gross, Bloomberg New

A stockpile of wheat in a warehouse at a Riordan Grains storage facility in Balliang, Victoria, Australia, on Tuesday, Nov, 9, 2021. For the second season in a row, the stars are favorably aligned for Australian wheat growers -- a bumper harvest, a shortage of one of the world's most important foods and global prices near nine-year highs. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Those fretting about the global scarcity of high quality wheat have one more reason to worry: heavy rains at the wrong time in Australia, one of the world’s biggest exporters of the grain. 

Just as farmers were set to head into the fields and pull off a bumper harvest, sheets of heavy rain have battered crops across major growing regions in the country’s east, bogging down machinery and raising the risk of hefty downgrades that are likely to worsen a worldwide shortage of milling wheat.

The torrential downpours are typical of a La Nina weather event, which the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on Tuesday had now commenced. The phenomenon brings above average rainfall to eastern and northern areas of Australia and to Southeast Asia, and dry weather to parts of the Americas.

“There’s no doubt that everyone is downgrading wheat, to the point where we are going to get 200% to 300% more feed wheat than a normal year,” said Ole Houe, chief executive of IKON Commodities. New South Wales state would be facing the greatest losses with around 30%-40% of total output at risk of being low-grade animal feed -- up from around 8% in a normal year, he said.

Still, Australia is on track to produce a record 37 million tons of wheat this season, according to IKON, with output from Western Australia largely unaffected by the torrential rains. If conditions remain the same during the season, only 15%-20% of the national crop is likely to be downgraded to feed, said Houe, who added that even the feed will be met with “plenty of demand.”

“Will it reduce our exports? Probably not. Will it keep prices high for the quality? Yes it will,” he said. “Is it a big deal? You betcha.”

IKON’s forecast for wheat production is above some other predictions. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, estimates the crop at 31.5 million tons, down from last year’s record 33 million tons, but still one of the largest ever.

While the damage doesn’t yet look quite as bad as the downpours in 2011, which resulted in severe downgrades to around 75% of the New South Wales crop, a dearth of higher-quality supplies globally has led to the market banking on the Australian harvest for relief, with a particular focus on the east coast which tends to grow varieties with higher protein content than western regions.

The red hot demand has pushed benchmark prices in Chicago to multi-year highs. Meanwhile, the deteriorating situation is driving up prices Down Under, with futures for Eastern Australia Wheat jumping to the highest since 2019.

“The general protein-quality profile of the actual crop is lower than a normal year and in many years that doesn’t matter,” Houe said. “But given we’ve lost access to a lot of the Russian grain this year, we had trouble with the Canadian crop, we were kind of looking at Australia for this high-protein wheat.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

GoDaddy data breach affects nearly 1.2 million WordPress users

Dev Kundaliya

23 November 2021•

Image: 

GoDaddy data breach affects nearly 1.2 million WordPress users

The attacker used a compromised password to access the company's provisioning system for Managed WordPress

Attackers have breached domain registrar and web-hosting firm GoDaddy, gaining access to the information of nearly 1.2 million active and inactive Managed WordPress customers.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company's chief information security officer Demetrius Comes said the company detected 'suspicious' activity in its Managed WordPress hosting environment on 17th November, following which the firm immediately blocked the unauthorised access.

The company followed standard procedure in these cases: enlisting the aid of an IT forensics firm and contacting law enforcement.

Although the investigation is ongoing, GoDaddy's IT security team has determined that the breach began around 6th September 2021, when the attacker used a compromised password to access the company's provisioning system for Managed WordPress.

This unauthorised access affected nearly 1.2 million active and inactive Managed WordPress users. The attacker(s) was able to view their customer numbers and email addresses.

GoDaddy said the original WordPress admin password set at the time of provisioning was also exposed. The company has reset these credentials, if customers were still using them.

In addition, the attacker could also see passwords for the secure file transfer protocol and database, as well as database usernames, for active customers. GoDaddy has reset both passwords.

GoDaddy is also issuing and installing new SSL certificates for some active customers whose private SSL key was exposed.

Security experts fear attackers behind the breach could use the SSL credentials to impersonate sites belonging to genuine firms, to distribute malware or steal credentials.

"We are sincerely sorry for this incident and the concern it causes for our customers. We, GoDaddy leadership and employees, take our responsibility to protect our customers' data very seriously and never want to let them down. We will learn from this incident and are already taking steps to strengthen our provisioning system with additional layers of protection," Demetrius Comes stated in the SEC filing.

This is not the first instance of a security incident exposing GoDaddy customer details.

In May last year, the company disclosed a breach that revealed some customers' web hosting account credentials.

The company said the incident happened in October 2019 and enabled an unauthorised individual to access some customers' login information, used to connect to SSH on their hosting account. It assured customers that the breach did not impact 'main customer accounts,' and there was no evidence to suggest that hackers added or modified any files on affected accounts.

In 2019, hackers used hundreds of stolen GoDaddy credentials to create nearly 15,000 subdomains to redirect potential victims to malicious websites. 

In 2018, UpGuard's Cyber Risk Team uncovered a security breach in which an unsecured AWS S3 bucket exposed GoDaddy's internal systems data.

India arrests prominent Kashmir rights activist under terror law

India’s National Investigation Agency arrests Khurram Parvez under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for ‘terror-funding’.

Rights activist Khurram Parvez, left, speaks with lawyer Parvez Imroz inside the office of Jammu-Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society in Srinagar [File: Dar Yasin/AP]

By Rifat Fareed
Published On 23 Nov 2021

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – India’s top anti-terrorism investigation agency has arrested prominent Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez under a stringent terror law following a day-long raid at his office and residence in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Parvez on Monday evening after carrying out searches for more than 15 hours at his home and the office of the Jammu-Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) in the region’s main city of Srinagar.

Parvez, 42, is the programme coordinator at JKCCS, which he founded with another activist Parvez Imroz in 2000. He is also the chairman of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD).

“They confiscated his phone, laptop, my phone and some books from the library. Our two children are in trauma … We were all asleep when the raid started,” Parvez’s wife Sameena Mir told Al Jazeera.

Mir said Parvez was summoned to the NIA office in Srinagar on Monday afternoon for questioning from where he was formally arrested under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code for “terror funding” and other charges.

The UAPA is vaguely-worded legislation that effectively allows people to be held without trial indefinitely and convictions under the law are rare.

“He has been booked under so many cases in the past and now there are new cases. More than a shock, this is all very normal here now,” Mir said. “It is all because of his human rights work.”

For more than 20 years, Parvez had been vocal about highlighting human rights abuses in Indian-administered Kashmir by the Indian forces. His organisation has published a series of reports detailing the “impunity enjoyed by the armed forces” in the disputed region.

The Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by India and Pakistan, who rule over parts of it.

An armed rebellion against New Delhi’s rule began on the Indian side 30 years ago, with the rebels demanding either the region’s merger with Pakistan or independence.

The conflict intensified after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped the region’s limited autonomy and split it into two federal territories in 2019.

The controversial move was followed by the imposition of a months-long security lockdown, and the arrests of hundreds of Kashmiri politicians, lawyers and activists.

Since 2019, at least 2,300 people have been arrested under the UAPA in the region. Almost half of them are still in prison.

While the NIA did not immediately issue a statement over Parvez’s arrest, a local official confirmed the charges against the activist to Al Jazeera.

This was not the first NIA raid at Parvez’s office and residence. In October last year, the agency conducted similar searches at the JKCCS office and his residence.

The home and office of another rights activist Parveena Ahanger, who is the founder of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) that fights cases of enforced disappearances in Indian-administered Kashmir, was also raided.

In its many reports, the JKCCS has exposed human rights violations by the Indian security forces including torture, extrajudicial killings, and unmarked mass graves.

Last week, the group had raised questions on the killing of four people, including two civilians, during a gunfight with suspected rebels in a shopping complex in Srinagar.

The bodies of the four people were hurriedly buried by Indian authorities in a graveyard 80km (50 miles) away from Srinagar, as part of a recent practice of denying bodies of suspected rebels or their alleged “associates” to their families for burial.

On Thursday night, following angry protests by the families of three of the victims of last week’s shoot-out, Indian authorities exhumed two of the bodies and returned them to their families for proper burial according to Islamic traditions.

Parvez had been vocal about highlighting alleged rights abuses in India’s only Muslim-majority region by the Indian security forces. His organisation has published a series of reports detailing the “impunity enjoyed by the armed forces” in the region.

In February 2019, the JKCCS came up with a detailed report on torture by the security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir. In December the same year, the group’s annual Human Rights Review Report highlighted rights abuses committed by authorities after the region’s special status was scrapped.

In 2016, Parvez was barred from travelling to Switzerland to participate in a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

A day later, he was booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA), a law under which a person can be detained for a year without trial. He was released after 76 days of imprisonment.

It was during this detention that the AFAD, headed by him, won the 2016 Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award for its work on enforced disappearances in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Parvez, who is also the recipient of the 2006 Reebok Human Rights Award, lost one of his legs during a landmine blast while he was monitoring the 2004 parliamentary elections. One of his colleagues Asiya Jeelani lost her life in the incident.

Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said Parvez’s arrest is “a really troubling development”.

“We have seen human rights defenders arrested on counterterror charges earlier and it is really unfortunate that Indian authorities continue to abuse a law, designed with draconian powers to protect the public from harm, to instead target those that speak for fundamental rights like an end to torture and extrajudicial killings,” she told Al Jazeera.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), a global network of more than 200 non-governmental organisations or NGOs, said it was “deeply concerned about the high risk of torture while in custody”.

“We call for his immediate release,” the group said in a tweet.

In another tweet, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, said Parvez’s arrest was “disturbing”.

“I am hearing disturbing reports that Khurram Parvez was arrested today in Kashmir and is risk of being charged by authorities in India with terrorism-related crimes,” she posted.

“He is not a terrorist, he’s a human rights defender.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Bolsonaro’s Credibility on the Amazon Is Gone

Reports that Brazil’s government suppressed unflattering deforestation data will permanently change its relationships abroad, writes AQ’s editor in chief.

Aerial view of deforested area in the Amazon.

Call it Amazongate, a mentira verde, whatever you like, but the consequences are the same: The Brazilian government’s apparent decision to hide data showing a massive 22% increase in Amazon deforestation until after the COP climate summit in Scotland ended is a major development, one that will permanently change how the international community deals with President Jair Bolsonaro.

To recap the facts: On October 27, Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE, for its initials in Portuguese) finished a report showing deforestation rose to a 15-year high in the period from August 2020 to July 2021, with more than 5,100 square miles of tree cover lost. This annual report came as a negative surprise, since preliminary data from the same institution had suggested deforestation levels were stable, or perhaps down slightly, during that same period.

But instead of publicly releasing the new, more definitive numbers ahead of the UN Climate Summit, which was starting four days later in Glasgow, Bolsonaro and several ministers met at the presidential palace and decided to withhold the data until after the conference was over, The Associated Press reported Friday, citing three of Bolsonaro’s own ministers. (Other media published broadly similar accounts). Environment Minister Joaquim Leite insisted he found out about the numbers only after the summit, attributing the delay to possible “caution” by INPE. But no one I’ve spoken to in embassies or government offices since believes his version of events.

The list of people with egg on their faces is a mile long. Bolsonaro’s government spent 2021 trying to convince the world it finally understood the need to stop deforestation, after years of dismissing the problem as a globalist fever dream. Foreign governments, NGOs and the Brazilian people themselves were always skeptical of this purported change of heart. But perhaps Bolsonaro had understood that, with the departure of his ally Donald Trump and the election of Joe Biden, Brazil risked becoming a full-fledged pariah. And there was just enough evidence, from the preliminary INPE data to the departure of problematic ministers like Leite’s predecessor Ricardo Salles, for some to convince themselves the winds had shifted.

As I wrote earlier this year in Brazil’s Piaui magazine, it was this illusion of relative progress that allowed Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan to travel to Brasilia in August to meet Bolsonaro, and focus on issues besides just the Amazon, namely China. Pressure for sanctions and consumer boycotts of Brazilian products in Europe and elsewhere also abated somewhat. But the real outrage was at the COP summit, where Brazilian officials basically acted like everything was fine while making new commitments that now seem even less viable in light of the new data. Biden’s special climate envoy John Kerry credulously welcomed Brazil’s promise to end illegal deforestation by 2028, two years earlier than before. “Looking forward to working together!” Kerry tweeted.

The apparent deception at Glasgow is galling. But the worst news is the data itself, an unprecedented fourth straight year of increases in deforestation rates. The conclusion is inescapable: Even if you assume Brazil’s government is acting in good faith on the Amazon, its strategy is not working. Deploying the Brazilian military to try to deter illegal loggers, or encouraging companies to “adopt” a patch of rainforest, has not been nearly enough to compensate for massive budget cuts to environmental enforcement agencies and the president’s own rhetoric encouraging wildcat mining and development. When confronted with evidence of its own failures, Bolsonaro’s government consistently prefers to attack or ignore the evidence itself, as it has done with tallies of COVID-19 deaths, its fiscal accounts, or polls showing the president’s approval at all-time lows as he faces reelection next October. There is no reason to believe Bolsonaro will shift tactics now, on the Amazon or any other issue.

Tactically speaking, and through the narrow lens of his own self-interest, Bolsonaro may have made the right decision. Instead of spending two weeks taking a beating from foreign officials and the international media under the bright spotlight at Glasgow, his government will now send its more respectable emissaries to “reaffirm” Brazil’s commitments and quietly downplay reports by a “biased” media. They might just get away with it: Justin Bieber and Cher are no longer Instragramming about the Amazon in 2021 as they were in 2019, and a weakened Biden administration also seems less eager to call Brazil out. The controversy has not been major news in Brazil, where voters are more focused on issues like rising inflation. Activist groups like Greenpeace have called for new sanctions, but others may prefer to just wait in the hope a new government will take charge in January 2023.

In the meantime, however, no one should be under any illusions. The era of treating Bolsonaro’s government as a credible partner capable of reversing the catastrophic damage in the Amazon is now over. Foreign governments, companies, investment funds, NGOs and international bodies like the OECD will all need to decide what that means for them, and how they want to react. But they will no longer need to play along with the occasional sunny rhetoric coming from Brasilia.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Brian Winter is editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and the vice president for policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas. A best-selling author, analyst and speaker, Brian has been living and breathing Latin American politics for the past 20 years.

COP26 was not a roaring success, but let’s not write it off just yet

Sunday | November 21, 2021 |

Racquel Moses - Contributor


AP

Ahead of COP26 (The United Nations Climate Change Conference), there was a sense of urgency and expectation that had not been felt previously.

Having been postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic, the negotiations that were set to take place in Glasgow were not just overdue, they were crucial. Island and vulnerable nations have been on the front lines of the climate crisis for decades, and as the impacts worsen, the cost of inaction is not just measured in dollars, but also in human lives.

When reports emerged in the lead-up to COP that there was a deepening mistrust between developed and developing nations over climate finance and related actions, many were bracing for the worst.

The official pre-COP event in Milan highlighted that the rumblings that had been heard throughout the year were serious. This, in addition to the mixed results at the G20 summit that quickly took place between Milan and Glasgow set the scene for a tense two-week stretch of negotiations.

Led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s viral speech during the opening days of COP26, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and vulnerable nations took centre stage. Climate finance and accountability, which had been the elephant in the room at pre-COP and the G20, was addressed directly on the first day of the summit – and dictated the tone for the following days.

From the Indian Ocean to the Pacific and Caribbean, leaders spoke out about the issues facing their communities as a result of the climate crisis, and the lack of action or accountability from developed nations.

Two key issues were central to the discourse: the US$100 billion in climate finance that was meant to be provided to vulnerable nations every year from 2009 to aid in climate mitigation and adaptation, but that had not materialised; and the financial compensation that was supposed to be dispensed to countries experiencing loss and damage due to climate change.

Both international agreements had fallen short of their purview, and developed nations solutions for these issues prior to COP26 had not been received successfully. A clearer picture emerged during the summit.

SHIFTING FINANCE SOURCES

The US$100 billion pledge is now set to be reached by 2023. Loss and damage proved to be too contentious an issue, and no progress, other than the first mention of loss and damage, was made in negotiations. While this may seem like a poor outcome for island nations and vulnerable communities, there is a silver lining.

Where the public sector and global governments were slow to commit, the private sector and philanthropists have seemed to pick up the slack. Evident in the creation of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a platform that unites 450 global companies worth US$130 trillion that are seeking to fund the transition to net-zero, or the Jeff Bezos Earth Fund’s US$10 billion commitment to environmental conservation.

As Justine Lucas, the executive director of the Clara Lionel Foundation, explained in the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator’s (CCSA) recent virtual event, “There’s a role for philanthropy for climate action – governments have a role to play but philanthropy can help in the development.

“Donors want to see an end goal, a sense of change for climate change in the region,” she continued, “we need to engage in collaborative financing and mobilise these finances to the Caribbean. It is possible to engage in trust-based philanthropy for climate resilience.”

THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY

Although public finance was not as forthcoming at COP26 as hoped, the private sector has rapidly been shifting towards more environmental investment and sustainable development. While diplomacy takes time, businesses and philanthropists find themselves less tethered to red tape.

Net-zero goals are embraced by companies as much as governments, and financing local resiliency or climate action programmes is not just an investment in mitigation or adaptation, but also improving the community’s resilience. Across SIDS and vulnerable nations, the private sector and local communities are not waiting on international aid – they are working towards their own solutions, and finding opportunities to implement them.

Programmes like the Resilience Scorecard are highlighting how local innovation can potentially have a widespread effect on the region and the world at large.

“The idea behind the scorecard is that we really wanted something that each Caribbean island can use to set baselines for their goals, evaluate resilience barriers, bring alignment to certain planning initiatives and really demonstrate leadership and focus on how these issues can be addressed,” noted Advanced Energy Group’s (AEG) Kimberly Lewis of the newly launched scorecard.

“The goal was to have one country use the scorecard within 12 months, at the moment we have five.”

Innovation and resilience-building is happening locally, with or without the climate financing promised, but having it – whether now or in 2023 – will still be welcomed.

LOOKING FORWARD

Labelling COP26 as a failure is not a fair assessment of the summit. There was progress made, such as recommending the reduction of fossil fuel subsidies and stopping the financing of overseas coal plants.

There were compromises, namely the current commitments that take us to 2.4-degree Celsius rather than the 1.5-degree Celsius necessary to minimise the extent of the destruction already being experienced, and the climate finance promised to vulnerable nations.

Of course, there were some failures – loss and damage sticks out prominently, as does the lack of tracking of pledges, which the UN has now committed to undertake with greater rigour, however late.

Overall though, progress was made. Are we better off than before the Glasgow summit? Yes. Could it be better? Spectacularly so, but as the UK’s Lead Climate Negotiator Archie Young put it, “Imagine bringing together 197 friends and getting them all to agree on where to go to lunch.”

Let us not forget that these summits are every year. COP27 will be held in just under a year in Egypt and delegates will once again take stock of the progress made during 2022 and negotiate new agreements.

Change is incremental and does not happen overnight, and even if it seems as though there is a lack of action on the global stage, you can look to your local communities to see that there are solutions being developed and opportunities available. Putting issues of accessibility and climate justice aside, the world is actively working towards improving the future.

What we need are more people willing to take a stand and make a difference.

Racquel Moses is the chief executive officer at The Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.

End in sight: Optometrists to resume eye exams for kids, seniors as job action is paused

By The Canadian Press and Michael Talbot
Posted Nov 22, 2021,

Ontario optometrists will resume eye exams for seniors and children after the Ontario Association of Optometrists (OAO) and the Ministry of Health agreed on Monday to enter negotiations to try and resolve a bitter funding dispute.

Starting Tuesday, the OAO confirms it will pause job action that’s seen optometrists across the province withdraw provincially insured eye services

The job action has been ongoing since September.

The OAO has accused the province of underfunding eye exams, leaving them to pay around 45 per cent out of pocket.

Health Minister Christine Elliott has said the government has committed to paying $39 million in retroactive costs and is prepared to increase reimbursement by 8.48 per cent going forward, but the optometrists say that neither proposal is sufficient to cover their costs.

“The OAO is committed to negotiating a sustainable funding model that aligns with how optometric care is funded in other Canadian jurisdictions,” an OAO statement Monday states.

“The OAO expects robust talks to begin immediately, noting that the swift resolution of this issue is a top priority for both optometrists and their patients.”

RELATED: Ontario willing to discuss optometrist costs, but won’t write blank cheque: minister

The Ministry of Health notes there will be a media blackout while negotiations take place, but said it is ready to sit at the table “to reach a timely and fair agreement regarding this important matter.”

Poor diets imperilling people and the planet: report


Consumption of red and processed meat is at almost five times the maximum recommendation of one serving per week 

(AFP/Pierre-Philippe MARCOU)


Tue, November 23, 2021

Nearly half the world's population suffer from poor nutrition linked to too much or not enough food, a global assessment said Tuesday with wide-ranging impacts on health and the planet.

The Global Nutrition Report (GNR), a yearly survey and analysis of the latest data on nutrition and related health issues, found that 48 percent of people currently eat either too little or too much -- resulting in them being overweight, obese or underweight.

At current rates, the report finds, the world will fail to meet eight out of nine nutrition targets set by the World Health Organization for 2025.

These include reducing child wasting (when children are too thin for their height) and child stunting (when they are too short for their age), and also adult obesity.

The report estimates nearly 150 million children under five years old are stunted, more than 45 million are wasted and nearly 40 million are overweight.

It also finds more than 40 percent of adults (2.2 billion people) are now overweight or obese.

"Avoidable deaths due to poor diets have grown by 15 percent since 2010 and poor diets are now responsible for a quarter of all adult deaths," Chair of the GNR's Independent Expert Group Renata Micha told AFP.

"Our global findings show that our diets have not improved over the last ten years and are now a major threat to people's health and to the planet."

- Foods matter -

This year's GNR is the first to look at global diets and how food choices are affecting people and the planet.

It finds people are failing to consume enough health-promoting foods like fruits and vegetables, particularly in lower-income countries.

Higher-income countries had the highest intake of foods with harmful health impacts like red meat, dairy and sugary drinks.

Consumption of harmful foods is on the rise, the report found, with red and processed meat already at almost five times the maximum recommendation of one serving a week.

The report notes that current global nutrition targets do not mention diet, with the exception of limiting sodium, and recommends new, more holistic targets.

"The science supports a food-based approach or diet-pattern approach in assessing the impacts on health and the environment," Micha said.

In line with other estimates, the GNR calculated global food demand generated some 35 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018.

"Animal-source foods have generally higher environmental footprints per product than plant-based foods," the report said.

"Consequently, they were responsible for the majority of food-related greenhouse gas emissions and land use, with particularly large impacts from beef, lamb and dairy."

The report called for urgent funding to improve nutrition across the globe, particularly as Covid-19 has pushed an estimated additional 155 million people into extreme poverty.

The GNR estimates the nutrition spending will need to increase by nearly $4 billion annually until 2030 to meet stunting, wasting, maternal anaemia and breastfeeding targets alone.

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