Opinion: It's past time to fix health-care closures and short-staffing in Alberta

Chris Gallaway - Edmonton Journal


Recent announcements of an urgent-care hours reduction in Airdrie, the temporary emergency department closure in Hardisty, and the obstetrics closure in Fort Saskatchewan are just the latest examples of the bed and unit closures which are rampant throughout our health-care system this summer.


The ambulance emergency bay entrance at the Misericordia Community Hospital in Edmonton, Thursday Aug. 4, 2022.

Short-staffing and burnout are everywhere. This has led to service reductions in surgery, acute care, urgent care and emergency departments currently happening at over 35 facilities across the province. This, while tens of thousands more Albertans have lost their family doctor, EMS red alerts are occurring hundreds of times per month, and families have been left lining up in parking lots outside of emergency rooms.

If this isn’t a health-care crisis, I don’t know what is. Our health-care system is struggling under the strain of a seventh wave of the pandemic and a series of other crises. Yet, where is our provincial government? Such an urgent situation should precipitate an urgent response. A response that includes strong provincial leadership with a plan to retain the health-care workers that we have, to recruit workers into the system, and train those we will need for the future.

Instead, we have a government that is missing in action. And a UCP leadership race to select our new premier where the seven candidates have so far offered almost nothing in terms of health-care solutions, beyond blaming the federal government. Because the truth is, what’s happening to our public health-care system isn’t an accident. We have a government that is intent on breaking our public system in order to justify privatizing more and more of it. Watching the system struggle and wait lists continue to grow serves their agenda well.

Which is why at every turn, this government has prioritized privatization over improving patient care — with recent announcements privatizing surgeries, community labs, ophthalmology, seniors care, home care, and even a scheme to send Alberta surgeons along with their patients to private for-profit facilities out of province. Their agenda of privatization is clear. It is full steam ahead. And it will only worsen the dire staffing situation facing our public system.

Albertans should be very concerned. If there was ever a time to fight for our treasured public health-care system, it’s right now. Because while our system is clearly struggling, it isn’t beyond repair. There are short- and longer-term solutions to our staffing issues worth fighting for.

Nurses across the country have also been calling on premiers to adopt policy changes aimed to retain nurses and bring others back into the system. For months, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta has been calling for specific retention strategies to address our EMS crisis, including simple policy changes such as all paramedics being offered permanent full-time jobs instead of being forced into 89-day rotating casual contracts with no benefits or job security.

And there are solutions to the various crises which have been adding further pressure onto our health-care system. For instance, responding to the ongoing drug poisoning crisis with a harm reduction approach would reduce the strain on our EMS and emergency departments. We could listen to calls to take proactive measures to reduce the impact of heat waves, of monkeypox, and of future waves of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We could finally implement the demand for paid sick days for all Alberta workers.

Yet all of these calls for action have been ignored. Which only means we need to get louder. Because even with this stubborn, ideological provincial government, all hope is not lost.

The recent response to the government’s cruel and short-sighted decision to cut the Insulin Pump Benefits Program demonstrated this. Following massive public outcry, the government announced a reversal of their plans to terminate the program and have even opened consultations on improving benefits. This happened because thousands and thousands of grassroots Albertans spoke up, rallied, wrote to their MLAs, shared their stories and fought back.

Albertans made it clear that in this province we look out for each other’s health, regardless of ability to pay.

With the next provincial election on the horizon, we need to make supporting our public health-care system a bigger issue than ever before. Albertans need to make it clear to every political party that we demand better. We did it for insulin pumps and can do the same for our public health-care system.

Chris Gallaway is the executive director of Friends of Medicare.

'Betrayal': 10 years in prison for Calgary man in multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme

CALGARY — A Calgary man who bilked his clients out of millions of dollars in a Ponzi scheme was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $3.1 million in restitution for what the judge called a "deliberate and large-scale" fraud.


© Provided by The Canadian Press

Arnold Breitkreutz, 74, was convicted in June of fraud over $5000 for what the Crown called a multimillion-dollar scheme in which investors believed they were putting money into safe first mortgages.

Court heard the money from his company, Base Financial, was instead loaned to an oil-and-gas promoter and used in a risky oil play in Texas that was secured against oil-and-gas leases and equipment.

The Crown recommended a sentence of between 10 and 12 years to send a message to others who might try a similar scheme.

Queen's Bench Justice Colin Feasby said Breitkreutz's actions warranted a significant sentence.

"His fraud was deliberate, large-scale and profoundly and adversely affected the lives of many victims," said Feasby, noting the 29 victim impact statements the court received.

"These conditions were also provoked by the profound sense of betrayal experienced by many of the victims. Many of the victims had, over time, come to know and trust Mr. Breitkreutz, and some considered him to be a friend," the judge said.

"The stark realization that he had defrauded them hit many of the victims hard."

There were 107 victims between May 1, 2014, and Sept. 30, 2015, who provided Breitkreutz with more than $21.4 million.

Feasby said Base Financial had been operating since the 1980s and the scale of fraud could be much higher. He said the scheme was complicated enough to fool many individuals who were retirees and planning to enjoy their sunset years.

"One of the most insidious effects of Mr. Breitkreutz's fraud on the victims was that it robbed them of their faith and trust in others," said Feasby.

"The victims ... blame themselves for being stupid, or foolish or greedy. They are none of these things."

Feasby rejected an argument that the sentence should be more lenient because of Breitkreutz's advanced age and the fact he lost his own money along with that of his clients when the Ponzi scheme collapsed.

"I accept that Mr. Breitkreutz did not enjoy the flamboyant lifestyle common to many fraudsters," Feasby said.

"So far as the court can determine Mr. Breitkreutz lost the victim's money finding providence in unauthorized investments and then playing a shell game for years and perhaps decades to try and avoid reckoning."

Breitkreutz showed little emotion after the sentence. Earlier this week, he issued a brief apology to his victims.

"I can feel your loss and for that I'm unbelievably and indescribably sorry. It was not my intention when I accepted your money,'' he said.

"I put your money in the same place that I put my own. Nonetheless, I feel for you deeply, as much as I can and I'm sorry."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 19, 2022.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

Two years after Trudeau promised a made-in-Canada COVID vaccine, the country is still waiting

John Paul Tasker - CBC

In the early days of the pandemic, the federal government announced a multi-million-dollar funding agreement with the National Research Council (NRC) to expand a vaccine facility in Montreal — a site Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said would pump out Canadian-made COVID-19 shots by November 2020.

Two years after the prime minister made that pledge, the NRC facility still hasn't produced a single vial of a COVID-19 vaccine.

A spokesperson for the NRC, the federal entity dedicated to research and development, told CBC News its vaccine facility recently secured the necessary Health Canada approvals. But the NRC still offered no target date for when the biologics manufacturing centre (BMC) will be operational.

"The inspection by Health Canada took place in late July 2022 and the facility has been rated as compliant," the NRC spokesperson said.

The spokesperson referred questions about vaccine production to Novavax, the Maryland-based company that was tapped by Ottawa to make COVID-19 shots at the facility.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Novavax said the company "continues to work with the NRC to complete the tech transfer of our COVID-19 vaccine" and it anticipates "integrating supply from this facility into our vaccine program" at an unspecified later date.

While announcing a $44-million investment for the NRC facility in April 2020, Trudeau said expanding this site and others would put Canada "at the forefront of scientific research" and give the country the "infrastructure to prepare vials for individual doses as soon as a vaccine becomes available."

In August of that year, the government pumped an additional $126 million into the NRC's Royalmount site, a federal investment that Trudeau said would "enable the preliminary production of 250,000 doses of vaccine per month starting in November 2020."

But when November 2020 came, Trudeau conceded there wouldn't be any shots rolling off the line as planned. The project's initial timeline was derailed by construction delays and a failed deal with a Chinese vaccine maker.

In February 2021, as Canada was grappling with limited vaccine supply, Trudeau claimed that the NRC's facility would finish construction sometime that summer — and that shots would soon follow.

"We expect the facility to be up and running by mid-2021," Trudeau said.

In an interview with CBC News at the time, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne compared building this sort of facility from the ground up on such a constrained timeline to the U.S. mission to put a man on the moon.

"This is like the Apollo project," Champagne said. "Normally, it would take two to three years to do this, to get a production facility up and running."

With Pfizer and Moderna facing insatiable demand for their products at this early stage of the immunization campaign, Trudeau's announcement and Champagne's optimism were welcome news for Canadians concerned about a dearth of shots.

Asked to comment Friday, Champagne's office said he wasn't available for an interview.

Trudeau also announced in February 2021 the government's partnership with Novavax, a company that, before COVID-19, had never actually brought a vaccine to market.

This U.S. outfit, Trudeau said, would churn out tens of millions of its shots at the Montreal site. "This is a major step forward to get vaccines made in Canada, for Canadians," he said.

Related video: Canada still without vaccine plant despite federal promises

Duration 2:00  View on Watch

Dr. Earl Brown is a professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa's school of medicine and an expert in virology and microbiology. He said the government's timeline for starting production was "completely unrealistic."

"These things are just really complicated to build. There's just so much regulation — it's extreme. So I think it was crazily optimistic," he said.

"You need two years, at a minimum, to build any new facility. I didn't believe any of those numbers when I first heard them."

Brown said another major vaccine production project in Canada — a $925-million expansion of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi's Toronto campus — has a five-year timeline, with production expected to start sometime in 2027.

An optimistic timeline

"The leading vaccine producer in the world gave themselves five years and they do this all the time," Brown said, adding that the government should have anticipated that a relatively untested company like Novavax would need more time.

Once a world-leader in vaccine development and production, Canada's manufacturing capability has been hollowed out after decades of cuts and mismanagement. The government has said little lately about the NRC facility it once touted as a solution to the country's vaccine woes.

The NRC quietly announced in June 2021 that the site had finished construction on time — an impressive achievement that came just ten months after the first shovels hit the ground.

But in the world of biomanufacturing, construction is just one of many hurdles an entity must clear before it can start churning out sensitive products like a COVID-19 vaccine or another therapeutic.

Such a company must satisfy a series of industry and regulatory requirements before vaccines or biologics can be manufactured safely.

'Were they too ambitious?'

Marc-André Gagnon, an associate professor at Carleton University and an expert on the pharmaceutical industry, said the government made its promise to build the NRC site during an "emergency situation" and the 2021 production start date was likely its best-case scenario.

"They had to be ambitious. The question is, were they too ambitious? Some voices say that they were. We didn't know in 2020 when vaccines would be available but we probably knew that a facility like this wouldn't be ready before the end of 2021, for sure," he told CBC News.

Gagnon said that, despite the delays, Royalmount is a welcome addition to Canada's manufacturing landscape. He said a developed country like Canada needs a publicly owned — and domestic — source of vaccines to avoid the mad scramble that defined the early COVID-19 vaccine procurement process.

"Canada used to be a hub for vaccine manufacturing. We were world-class. We need biomanufacturing capacity for the next thing, the next pandemic," he said.

"And let me emphasize this — we need more public manufacturing capacity to discipline the private market a little bit and avoid predatory pricing."


© Ian Christie/CBC

The NDP's Don Davies

NDP MP Don Davies, the party's health critic, agreed that some sort of public option for vaccine production is prudent but the government's handling of the NRC facility has been "a major failure."

He said it suggests Ottawa has a "serious credibility issue."

"We are two years plus into this pandemic and we still aren't producing a single dose of a vaccine in this country. It's a policy fail, an accountability fail and a credibility fail," he said in an interview with CBC News.

"The prime minister said publicly in August 2020 that we'd be producing vaccines at the Montreal facility. That was either highly irresponsible, or incompetent, or it was deceptive. I don't know which of the three it is but Canadians know — we had a direct, clear promise from the prime minister about vaccines being produced here in Canada at a time when we were all on pins and needles.

"He was either misinformed or he was misleading. He has a duty to come clean with Canadians."

Conservative MP Michael Barrett, the party's health critic, was equally scathing in his assessment of the government's vaccine track record.

In a statement, Barrett said the "Trudeau Liberals spent millions of dollars on their promises to produce vaccines domestically, and after two years they have missed every deadline with nothing to show for it."

Guterres calls on Russia not to disconnect Zaporiyia nuclear plant from Ukrainian power grid

Daniel Stewart - Yesterday 10:04 a.m.


United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday called on Russian authorities not to disconnect the Zaporiyia nuclear plant from the national power grid after senior Russian officials threatened in recent days to shut down two of its reactors.

"Zaporiyia electricity is Ukrainian electricity, and it is necessary, especially during the winter for the Ukrainian people, and this principle must be fully respected," Guterres said during a visit to the Ukrainian port of Odessa, where he oversaw the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports, one of the most important diplomatic achievements of the Russia-Ukraine war since its outbreak in late February.

Guterres was responding to threats made by the commander of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense troops, Igor Kirillov, who warned on Thursday that Russian forces could shut down reactors 5 and 6 at the nuclear power plant, "leading to the shutdown of the plant," if fighting in the vicinity persisted.

Kiev and Moscow accuse each other of initiating these hostilities, as well as deliberately attacking the plant's facilities.

However, as he has done on other occasions, the UN Secretary General has called for the withdrawal of all armed elements both from inside the plant, under Russian control, and from the surrounding area. "The only certainty is that if the plant were to be demilitarized, as we have proposed, this problem would have been solved," he said.

Guterres also referred to the difficult talks on the arrival in Zaporiyia of a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear agency, currently paralyzed by security issues and on the route to follow.

Russia has offered to transfer the experts but, as the Kremlin itself recognizes, this is a delicate issue given that Ukraine could interpret Russian management as an affront, as the plant is located in territory occupied by Moscow. The IAEA has expressed its interest in carrying out this visit as soon as possible -- Moscow expects it to take place at the beginning of September -- but the UN General Secretariat has expressed its doubts in view of the intensity of the clashes.

In this regard, the UN Secretary General has insisted that the agency has the power as an "autonomous organization with a very clear mandate", the ability to decide on the conditions of the mission, before stressing that the General Secretariat has the capacity to "support the development of the mission", especially in terms of security, on a journey from Kiev to Zaporiyia.

"Decisions on this issue are IAEA decisions, with the consent of the parties, obviously, and with the consent of the Ukrainian government as well," he reiterated.

U.S. Treasury disputes finding that new IRS funding would increase middle-class taxes



Fri, August 19, 2022 
By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As a political messaging war rages over $80 billion in new Internal Revenue Service funding, a U.S. Treasury official is pushing back on an informal estimate that the money could cause Americans earning less than $400,000 to pay as much as $20 billion more in taxes over a decade.

Republicans have seized on the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, claiming Democratic President Joe Biden's recently enacted, sweeping tax, drugs and climate law would break his pledge not to increase taxes on middle-class Americans.

Republicans are also claiming the funding will unleash an 87,000-strong "army" of new IRS agents on American households, despite the Treasury's plans to focus the bulk of IRS hiring on offsetting a wave of retirements and improving customer service and information technology.

When the bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, was being debated in the Senate, Republican Senator Mike Crapo introduced an amendment to prohibit any use of funds to audit Americans with taxable incomes below $400,000.

Responding to a request from Crapo, the CBO found that the proposed amendment would reduce revenues by $20 billion over a decade if it was enacted, his office said. A spokesperson for the CBO confirmed the figure.

The amendment was rejected on a party-line vote.

Asked about the claims about middle-class taxes, Natasha Sarin, Treasury Department counselor for tax policy and administration, told Reuters this week that the CBO estimate assumed a threshold of $400,000 in reported taxable income before any audits, which would exclude the middle class.

Sarin said those making $400,000 and up include far wealthier people who have hidden their incomes to lower taxable incomes below $400,000, sometimes even to zero -- the very people the Treasury is seeking to target for audits.

A significant portion of the $20 billion estimated by CBO would be recouped from wealthier people who are under-reporting their income, she said.

"People are trying to look like they are under $400,000 when actually they are well above it," said Sarin, who as a University of Pennsylvania law professor did influential research https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26475/w26475.pdf on policing tax evasion with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

The CBO has not issued a final cost estimate for the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes the IRS funds along with massive new spending on clean energy and healthcare.

Sarin said the $80 billion in funding to improve enforcement, information technology and taxpayer services would actually spare more middle-class taxpayers reliant on wage income from being targeted with audits. New, modern computer systems would be better able to use data analytics and other tools to more precisely target wealthier Americans for audits, she said.

(Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Walmart expands abortion coverage for U.S. employees

Fri, August 19, 2022 

Employees sort shelving for food products as they prepare for the opening of a Walmart Super Center in Compton, California

(Reuters) -Walmart Inc, the largest private employer in the United States, is expanding abortion and travel coverage for employees, about two months after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the procedure nationwide.

In a Friday memo to its 1.6 million U.S. employees that was seen by Reuters, the retailer said its self-insured healthcare plans will now cover abortion "when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability."

Company employees and their family members will also have their travel costs paid for, if they cannot access a covered legal abortion within 100 miles of their location, according to the memo.

A host of other companies including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Amazon.com Inc and Walt Disney Co have also expanded their insurance policies to offer travel benefits to U.S. employees who may need to access out-of-state abortion services.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)

Crypto exchange FTX ordered to halt 'false and misleading' claims by U.S. bank regulator

By Pete Schroeder and Hannah Lang - Yesterday 

© Reuters/DADO RUVICFILE PHOTO: Illustration shows representations of cryptocurrencies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. bank regulator ordered crypto exchange FTX on Friday to halt what it called "false and misleading" claims the exchange had made about whether funds at the company are insured by the government.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said a July tweet by Brett Harrison, head of FTX's U.S. operations, contained misleading claims that funds held at and stocks purchased through FTX were FDIC insured, and ordered the company to remove any misleading language from its social media accounts and websites.

Related video: What Happens If a Crypto Platform Goes Bankrupt?

Duration 6:10   View on Watch

In the tweet, which Harrison has since deleted, he stated that direct deposits from employers to the crypto exchange are “stored in individually FDIC-insured bank accounts” and that stocks purchased via FTX US “are held in FDIC-insured” brokerage accounts. The FDIC said in its cease and desist letter to FTX US that those statements implied that FDIC insurance was available for cryptocurrency and stock holdings, and that the agency does not insure brokerage accounts.

In a tweet on Friday, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried emphasized FTX is not FDIC-insured, and apologized if anyone misinterpreted previous comments.

The order, one of five sent to crypto firms by the FDIC on Friday, comes as regulators have ramped up efforts to police crypto firms that may be misleading investors on whether their funds enjoy a government backstop. The issue has come to a head of late, as turmoil in the crypto market has led to stress and the collapse of some high profile firms.

The bank regulator issued a similar cease and desist letter to bankrupt crypto firm Voyager Digital , arguing that the company had misled customers by claiming their funds with Voyager would be covered by the FDIC. Later, the FDIC issued an advisory urging banks dealing with crypto companies to ensure that customers are aware of what types of assets are government-insured, particularly in cases where firms offer a mix of uninsured crypto products alongside insured bank deposit products.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder and Hannah LangEditing by Tomasz Janowski)

BlackRock warns Wall Street watchdog new ESG rule could harm investors

By Katanga Johnson - Yesterday 

© Reuters/CARLO ALLEGRI

The BlackRock logo is pictured in New York City

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's largest asset manager BlackRock Inc. warned the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week that its proposed rules aimed at fighting "greenwashing" by fund managers will confuse investors.

BlackRock made the claims in a letter filed this week in response to a SEC May proposal to stamp out unfounded claims by funds about their environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) credentials. The rules also aim to create more standardization around ESG disclosures.

Regulators and activists have become concerned that U.S. funds looking to cash in on the popularity of ESG investing may be misleading shareholders over their ESG credentials.

While BlackRock acknowledged the need to boost oversight, it questioned the SEC's demand for more details on how funds should categorize strategies and describe their ESG impact, arguing such details could mislead investors about how much ESG really matters when managers pick stocks and bonds.

"The proposed requirements would increase the potential for greenwashing and lead to investor confusion," BlackRock wrote in its letter.

"The granular nature of requirements will inevitably lead to the disclosure of proprietary information about these strategies, reducing the competitive advantage of those unique insights."

Also at issue is how the SEC's proposal outlines how ESG funds should be marketed and how investment advisors should disclose their reasoning when labeling a fund.

While SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a May statement the measures respond to growing investor demand for such details, industry groups warn the agency's aim to standardize ESG labels could reduce investor choice.

The Managed Funds Association said it also supported the SEC’s goal to promote better disclosure, but with concerns.

"Requiring an adviser to provide extensive disclosures concerning how it integrates ESG factors—no matter how incidental the consideration may be...—will result in undue emphasis on an otherwise immaterial strategy," the group said.

(Reporting by Katanga Johnson in Washington; Editing by Michelle Price and Josie Kao)

As Iraqi protesters rally, political deadlock leaves families without cash
By Amina Ismail




A supporter of Iraqi populist leader Moqtada al-Sadr attends the mass Friday prayer outside the parliament near the Green Zone, in Baghdad, Iraq August 19, 2022. 

REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

Summary
Support for hundreds of thousands of families at stake
Political deadlock has lasted 10 months since election
Amid protests, some efforts at dialogue

BAGHDAD, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Sabreen Khalil lost her husband to COVID last year, leaving her to raise seven children alone, but Iraqi government funding to help her and hundreds of thousands of families in poverty is blocked by political stalemate.

With politicians deadlocked over forming a new government since an election in October, rival Shi'ite Muslim factions in Baghdad on Friday continued their weeks-long protests which have prevented parliament from meeting.

The standoff has raised fears of renewed unrest in a country where militias wield significant power and is already taking a toll on the most vulnerable.

"I am a woman and all of a sudden I had to take the responsibility of seven children alone...it broke my back," Khalil said, speaking of the impact of her husband's death.

Sitting on the floor in her one-bedroom brick house in the village of Saada on the outskirts of Baghdad, she said she cannot afford treatment for her chronic illness and that her children have to skip some meals as food prices soar.

Nine months after applying for a government pension, she has received nothing from the ministry of labour and social affairs. "Every time we go they tell us 'We are waiting for a budget'," she said.

An official at the ministry said Khalil qualifies for support but confirmed there is no funding to provide it. "Our hands are tied because there is no budget," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

Her family is one of about 370,000 families who qualify for the pension but are not receiving it because of the political deadlock, the official said.

ATTEMPT AT DIALOGUE

Iraq's 10-month standoff since the election is the longest stretch without a fully functioning government in the nearly two decades since Saddam Hussein was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Rival Shi'ite groups want to see a new government formed, but disagree on the steps to achieve it.

Supporters of the powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who fought U.S. occupation forces before emerging as the main opponent of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias and their political leaders, has demanded fresh elections.

Sadr was the biggest winner of last year's election but was unable to form a government along with Kurdish and Sunni Muslim Arab parties, excluding his Iran-backed Shi'ite rivals.

Those rivals, known collectively as the Coordination Framework, say an election can only take place after a government is formed to lead a transition period during which legislation including a new election law should be passed.

"There is consensus over dissolving parliament and holding early elections, the issue is with the mechanism," a source in the caretaker government said, adding that talks were ongoing.

On Wednesday, caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi met political leaders and called on Sadr's supporters to join a national dialogue. He also called on all sides to suspend any political escalation.

Sadr did not attend the meeting, and his supporters have shown little public enthusiasm for the initiative.

"These dialogues do not serve the interest of the country... They serve your interests and your parties' interests and to keep you in power," an imam told hundreds of Sadr's followers who gathered to protest outside parliament on Friday.

Some carried portraits of Sadr and his late father, also a prominent cleric, as well as Iraqi flags.

Dozens of supporters of the Coordination Framework also protested outside the heavily protected Green Zone.

Hamdi Malik, an associate fellow at the Washington Institute and a specialist on Iraq's Shi'ite militias, said that despite some efforts to bridge the differences there appeared to be little prospect of swift results.

"The division is so wide that I can't see any solution and the possibility of clashes is actually increasing," Malik said.

Parliament did pass an emergency bill in June allocating billions of dollars to buy wheat, rice and gas and to pay salaries, but other government business has stalled.

A prominent Iraqi rights activist said the political factions were all responsible for the deadlock and ordinary Iraqis were paying the price.

"Anger is rising up among the people. Economic conditions have worsened and unemployment is on the rise," said Hanaa Edwar. Leaders are "holding dialogues to redistribute the spoils amongst politicians", she said.

Khalil meanwhile is still waiting in Saada, which means "happiness" in Arabic, for the government to come to her aid. She said the political process was not working.

"They say it's wrong if we don't vote," she said. "But elections didn't change anything."

Additional reporting by Maher Nazih in Baghdad; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Nick Macfie

Fires around major river torch wetlands, human health in Argentina
By Miguel Lo Bianco and Claudia Martini



Trucks drive by the route 174 amid the smoke produced by the fire that continues to consume trees and pastures in a wetland near the city of Victoria, Entre Rios, Argentina August 18, 2022. REUTERS/Marcelo Manera 

ROSARIO, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Grassland fires near a key South American river delta pose grave dangers to nearby wetland ecosystems and human health, according to environmental leaders, just a year after the water level of the once mighty Parana River dropped to a decades low.

The wildfires around the major riverside port of Rosario, crucial to transporting Argentina's massive grains harvest, have triggered alarm bells among ordinary residents as well as activists already concerned with prolonged drought worsened by this year's scarce rainfall and underscoring the consequences of a warmer, drier climate.

"The combined effect just makes it worse," said Enrique Viale, one of Argentina's leading environmental lawyers.

The Parana River, South America's second-longest waterway after the Amazon, saw its water level last year shrivel to its shallowest since 1944, according to official data, due to several drought cycles plus less rainfall in upstream Brazil. Its level remains very low.

A billowing haze caused by the wildfires, many set by farmers prepping the land for new crops, reached Buenos Aires, about 190 miles (300 km) south of Rosario, earlier in the week. The soot in the air provoked the ire of residents, with popular weather apps issuing forecasts that simply called for "smoke."

Earlier this month, thousands took to the streets of Rosario to protest the fires, demanding enforcement of laws that forbid them.

"Plant life around the river delta is terribly damaged," said Roberto Rojas, the local director of emergency services.

He noted that some 28,000 hectares had already been torched prior the most recent fires, while total land lost to the flames has reached as high as 500,000 hectares in recent years.

"With the climate like it is, so much wind and no rain, we can only wait to see how this story ends," added Rojas.

Reporting by Miguel Lo Bianco and Claudia Martini; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Richard Chang