Global vaccine plan may allow rich countries to buy more

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FILE - In this Wednesday, June 24, 2020 file photo, a volunteer receives a COVID-19 test vaccine injection developed at the University of Oxford in Britain, at the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. Politicians and public health leaders have publicly committed to equitably sharing any coronavirus vaccine that works, but the top global initiative to make it happen may allow rich countries to reinforce their own stockpiles while making fewer doses available for poor ones. (AP Photo/Siphiwe Sibeko, FIle)


LONDON (AP) — Politicians and public health leaders have publicly committed to equitably sharing any coronavirus vaccine that works, but the top global initiative to make that happen may allow rich countries to reinforce their own stockpiles while making fewer doses available for poor ones.

Activists warn that without stronger attempts to hold political, pharmaceutical and health leaders accountable, vaccines will be hoarded by rich countries in an unseemly race to inoculate their populations first. After the recent uproar over the United States purchasing a large amount of a new COVID-19 drug, some predict an even more disturbing scenario if a successful vaccine is developed.

Dozens of vaccines are being researched, and some countries — including Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. — already have ordered hundreds of millions of doses before the vaccines are even proven to work.

While no country can afford to buy doses of every potential vaccine candidate, many poor ones can’t afford to place such speculative bets at all.

The key initiative to help them is led by Gavi, a public-private partnership started by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that buys vaccines for about 60% of the world’s children.

In a document sent to potential donors last month, Gavi said those giving money to its new “Covax Facility” would have “the opportunity to benefit from a larger portfolio of COVID-19 vaccines.” Gavi told donor governments that when an effective vaccine is found within its pool of experimental shots, those countries would receive doses for 20% of their population. Those shots could be used as each nation wished.

That means rich countries can sign deals on their own with drugmakers and then also get no-strings-attached allocations from Gavi. Poorer countries that sign up to the initiative would theoretically get vaccines at the same time to cover 20% of their populations, but they would be obligated to immunize people according to an ethical distribution framework set by the United Nations.

The donor countries are “encouraged (but not required) to donate vaccines if they have more than they need,” the document says.

“By giving rich countries this backup plan, they’re getting their cake and eating it too,” said Anna Marriott of Oxfam International. “They may end up buying up all the supply in advance, which then limits what Gavi can distribute to the rest of the world.”

Dr. Seth Berkley, Gavi’s CEO, said such criticisms were unhelpful.

Right now there’s no vaccine for anyone, he said, and “we’re trying to solve that problem.”

Berkley said Gavi needed to make investing in a global vaccine initiative attractive for rich countries. Gavi would try to persuade those countries that if they ordered vaccines already, they should not attempt to obtain more, he said.

But he acknowledged there was no enforcement mechanism.

“If, at the end of the day, those legal agreements are broken or countries seize assets or don’t allow the provision of vaccines (to developing countries), that’s a problem,” Berkley said.

Gavi asked countries for an expression of intent from those interested in joining its initiative by last Friday. It had expected about four dozen high and middle income countries to sign up, in addition to nearly 90 developing countries.

Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which is working with Gavi and others, said they would be talking in the coming weeks with countries who had signed deals with drug companies to secure their own supplies.

One possibility: They might ask countries to contribute their private vaccine stockpile to the global pool in exchange for access to whichever experimental candidate proves effective.

“We’ll have to find a solution because some of these arrangements have been made and I think we have to be pragmatic about it,” he said.

After a vaccine meeting last month, the African Union said governments should “remove all obstacles” to equal distribution of any successful vaccine.

Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief John Nkengasong said Gavi should be “pushing hard” on convincing companies to suspend their intellectual property rights.

“We don’t want to find ourselves in the HIV drugs situation,” he said, noting that the life-saving drugs were available in developed countries years before they made it to Africa.

Shabhir Mahdi, principal investigator of the Oxford vaccine trial in South Africa, said it was up to African governments to push for more vaccine-sharing initiatives, rather than depending on pharmaceutical companies to make their products more accessible.

“If you expect it to be the responsibility of industry, you would never get a vaccine onto the African continent,” Mahdi said.

Last month, Gavi and CEPI signed a $750 million deal with AstraZeneca to give developing countries 300 million doses of a shot being developed by Oxford University. But that deal happened after the drug company had already signed contracts with Britain and the U.S., who are first in line to get vaccine deliveries in the fall.

“We are working tirelessly to honor our commitment to ensure broad and equitable access to Oxford’s vaccine across the globe and at no profit,” said AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot. He said its contract with Gavi and CEPI marked “an important step in helping us supply hundreds of millions of people around the world, including to those in countries with the lowest means.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping has also vowed to share any COVID-19 vaccine it develops with African countries — but only once immunization has been completed in China.

The World Health Organization has previously said it hopes to secure 2 billion doses for people in lower-income countries by the end of 2021, including through initiatives like Gavi’s. About 85% of the world’s 7.8 billion people live in developing countries.

Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders, said Gavi should try to extract more concessions from pharmaceutical companies, including compelling them to suspend patents on the vaccines.

“Gavi is in a very delicate position because they’re completely reliant on the goodwill” of drug companies, said Elder. She said the system of how vaccines are provided to developing countries needed to be overhauled so that it wasn’t based on charity, but on public health need.

“We’re just having our governments write these blank checks to industry with no conditions attached right now,” she said. “Isn’t now the time to actually hold them to account and demand we as the public, get more for it?”

Yannis Natsis, a policy official at the European Public Health Alliance, said the last thing on the minds of officials in rich countries is sharing with poor ones.

“Politicians are scared if they don’t throw money at companies, the citizens in the next country over will get the vaccines first and they will look very bad,” Natsis said.

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Cara Anna in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science

Egypt journalist dies of coronavirus after leaving prison: family

Issued on: 14/07/2020 

Video game industry faces its #metoo moment

Issued on: 14/07/2020 - 15:18Modified: 14/07/2020 - 15:17

Just Dance is one title by Ubisoft, which just shed a number of senior executives after sexual harassment allegations Robyn Beck AFP

Paris (AFP)

After years of simmering controversy over sexism in the video game industry, change may be on its way after outrage came to a boil with a C-suite massacre at Ubisoft.

Following online allegations of sexual misconduct, the publisher of Assassin's Creed and Far Cry launched a probe, resulting in the departure over the weekend of the company's chief creative officer.

The head of human resources also left, as did the chief of operations in Canada where the game maker has its biggest studios.


CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot acknowledged that "Ubisoft has fallen short in its obligation to guarantee a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees".

The executive ousters were a high-profile victory for the #metoo movement in the male-dominated video game publishing industry that has a reputation for hostility towards women.

Accusations on social media of sexual harassment and abuse have targeted a number of video game publishers, as well as people in the gaming community around the Twitch platform.

In 2014, two prominent women developers became the targets of an online harassment campaign known as gamergate and seen by many as a backlash to growing pressure about sexism.

- 'Toxic' -

Women Ubisoft employees described as "toxic" the work culture at the company, particularly at its Canadian studios.

One woman who asked for her name not be used told AFP that "working on Far Cry cost me two burnouts, psychological and sexual harassment and humiliation, and human resources never bothered to listen to me".

One employee said on social media that shortly after arriving at Ubisoft a team leader told her she was hired because she was "cute" but that "to everyone's surprise you do your job well".

She discovered a mailing list where men describe what women are wearing "so guys can go take a look".

She then received comments about her looks, unwelcome invitations from superiors and was "regularly pinched on the butt and breast" while using a passageway between buildings.

A former employee said "at Ubisoft people who do bad things are unfortunately protected. They are often highly-placed and if you go to human resources or to managers they usually do nothing."

Another put the blame on the "work hard, play hard" culture inside the company.

"That is where one creates a climate that is not safe, where inhibitions are lowered and people engage in predatory behaviour."

- Lara's transformation -

On Ubisoft's creative teams only one in five employees are women.

Isabelle Collet, a French researcher who has long studied the issue in the IT industry overall, said "getting more women requires a willingness to better welcome them".

Collet said "video game publishers today are real companies that should have real tools against harassment".

But she added that the sector was "not necessarily worse" than medicine or journalism.

Fanny Lignon, a researcher at France's CNRS research institute said: "What is annoying is that sexism can be more common in other types of media without one necessarily realising it".

There has been some change in the representation of women in the games themselves.

In the successful Lara Croft game, the heroine morphed from excessively voluptuous and scantily-clad to a more normal body covered by clothes appropriate for her adventures.

"Many games are now without stereotypes, but some still engage in them extensively, and that usually includes a hypersexualistion of bodies," said Lignon.

"Women are slender and well proportioned, men have more varied builds but most are young and athletic. We end up with a vision that is similar to that presented by other media, like advertising for example," she added.

On the other hand, Lignon pointed to Ubisoft's 2018 Assassin's Creed Odyssey for offering users choices of women characters with real bodies of warriors.

"We're seeing more women characters emerge that are a bit 'badass'," she said.

But a brawny Abby in the game The Last of Us Part 2 released in June has kicked up a storm of comments about her "unrealistic" body for a woman -- illustrating that some gamer stereotypes remain well-entrenched.

burs-rl/jh

Tintin and the mystery of the duelling mummies



Issued on: 14/07/2020 - 15:18

Royal museum curator Serge Lemaitre criticised Herge for attending a 1979 exhibit that displayed the rival mummy JOHN THYS AFP

Brussels (AFP)

The mummified corpse of Rascar Capac thrilled and terrified generations of young fans of the Tintin comic book story "The Seven Crystal Balls".

Now, Herge's fictional Inca has sparked a row between rival Belgian tourist attractions, each of which displays a mummy they say inspired Tintin's creator.

The very serious Art and History Museum is in Brussels' Jubilee Park, near where Herge used to live, and he was known to frequent its collections.

The museum's Andean mummy, squatting upright with knees bent, appears similar to the haunting effigy in the author's illustrated tale of the be-quiffed reporter Tintin's adventure.

Curators thought they had established the link beyond doubt 10 years ago, but the Pairi Daiza safari park in southern Belgium is touting a rival mummy.

Last week, the popular zoo began marketing an exhibit of the "authentic mummy nicknamed Rascar Capac".

The royal museum is not taking this well, and has all but accused the zoo park of false advertising.

"We don't attract visitors by promising them pandas," sniffed museum director general Alexandra de Poorter.

The zoo has expressed regret over an "argument started by the royal museums" but admits that "no one can say for sure which mummy inspired Herge."

If there is confusion, it dates back until at least 1979, when the 2,000-year-old preserved corpse now on display at the zoo appeared in Brussels at an exhibit titled "Tintin's museum of the imagination".

The collection was assembled to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1929 release of the boy reporter's first book-length adventure, "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets".

Author and illustrator Georges Remi -- better known under his pen name Herge -- attended the show, adding some credibility to the mummy's significance.

But this, according to the Art and History Museum's curator of Latin American relics, Serge Lemaitre, was a mistake.

The mummy in question had been bought by a Belgian collector in the 1960s, long after Herge published the "Seven Crystal Balls" book in 1948.

- French connection? -

"And in the first frames serialised in 1941 in the newspaper Le Soir, Rascar Capac was hairless and had very bent knees, just like our mummy," Lemaitre says.

Herge lived near the Jubilee Park -- still a popular spot in Brussels' European quarter -- and knew the museum and its curator Jean Capart well.

Capart even seems to have been fictionalised as Professeur Bergamotte -- or Professor Hercules Tarragon in the English-language version of "The Seven Crystal Balls".

Not only that, but items drawn from other pieces in the museum's ethnographic collections have appeared in the Tintin tales, notably a Peruvian figurine that inspired its eponymous twin in "The Broken Ear".

The museum is thus confident in its claim, but -- as is often the case in a Tintin mystery -- the plot may have a further twist, according to independent expert Philippe Goddin.

"We should stop arguing. Herge looked at lots of Inca mummies, but his first sketches of Rascar Capac are essentially based on a drawing in the Larousse dictionary," he said.

This is an explanation that will not suit anyone in Belgium, where tourist attractions have seized upon any Tintin link to exploit as a key draw.

The drawing in the Larousse was based on a mummy brought back from Peru by the 19th-century French explorer Charles Wiener and is today in the Quai Branly Museum ... in Paris.

© 2020 AFP

Anguish and anger in Serbia as virus returns with a vengeance



Issued on: 14/07/2020 - 

Petar Djuric has become a symbol of anger at the Serbian government's virus response after his father succumbed to the disease Oliver BUNIC AFP

Belgrade (AFP)

When Petar Djuric arrived with fruit and water for his father at the hospital in April, he learned it was too late. For this loss, he blames the collapse of Serbia's health system just as much as the coronavirus.

"Pops, this is for you," the bleary-eyed 31-year-old told a local TV channel as he joined protests that erupted last week over the Serbian government's handling of the health crisis.

The words became a rallying cry for those outraged at leaders accused of toying with the health of citizens for political purposes.

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After flattening its first curve of infections by May, Serbia is now reporting its deadliest days yet.

Hospitals are overstretched with more than 300 new cases reported daily, putting a record number of around 170 patients on ventilators.

Djuric, a basketball coach, became a symbol of anger among protesters who accuse the government of lifting an initial lockdown prematurely in order to hold an election that tightened the ruling party's grip on power.

After his father came down with a high fever and cough in late March, "we called the COVID-19 call centre every day. They told us to wait, not to come to the hospital," Djuric, who finally drove his father to the hospital himself, told AFP.

On April 9, a doctor recommended the 71-year-old painter be transferred to a ward for respiratory assistance, according to his son.

But in the hospital in Zemun, a neighbourhood of the capital Belgrade, "no ventilator was available at the time," Djuric said.

A few days later, his father was gone.

"I think the doctors did their best. But apparently the system does not work. My father told me the situation was catastrophic," he added.

President Aleksandar Vucic -- the target of protesters' anger -- responded to Djuric in a nationally televised address, calling the story a "lie", while pro-government tabloids launched their own attacks.

- 'Manipulated data' -

Officially, nearly 420 people have died in the country of seven million.

But protesters accuse the authorities of covering up the true death toll, an allegation first levied by a local investigative outlet.

Members of a government crisis team recently admitted that the actual death count is "almost certainly" higher because some patients who died "didn't get the chance to be tested".

Stana, a 50-year-old Belgrade native who declined to give her surname, told AFP she is convinced her father-in-law falls in that category.

She believes he died of the respiratory disease but was not counted in the official COVID-19 figures because he could not be tested in time.

Experiences like this helped fuel the frustration of protests that started on July 7, several of which ended in violent clashes with police.

"We are fed up with the manipulation of COVID-19 figures," Danijela Ognjenovic, a 52-year-old protester, told AFP.

"No one trusts any information coming from the government at this point," added Branko Jovanovic, 44.

- 'Danger was denied' -

President Vucic claims the country has "a health system that is better than that of nine European Union countries".

But some frontline doctors disagree.

While Serbia's medical care was once highly respected -- a legacy of the socialist Yugoslav era -- the health system has been deteriorating for decades.

Like other sectors, the medical industry has suffered from a huge exodus of young professionals moving abroad for better pay in places like Germany.

A nurse earns on average 400 euros ($455) a month in Serbia, while a specialist doctor can make just over 800 euros, according to data from doctors' unions.

The country now lacks some 3,500 doctors and 8,000 nurses, according to the economic news portal novaekonomija.rs.

A doctor working in one of Belgrade's dedicated COVID-19 wards told AFP he believed initial health measures were dropped too early, allowing President Vucic to campaign on a victory against the virus ahead of the June 21 parliamentary elections that cemented his party's domination.

"Until the last moment, the existence of danger was denied, even when it was obvious," he told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

"There was no preparation" before the second wave, in order to "create the image of a system (that) works," he said.

"The situation was bad two weeks ago, now it's even worse."

© 2020 AFP

Humanity on Mars? Technically possible, but no voyage on horizon
Issued on: 14/07/2020 -

A member of the AMADEE-18 Mars simulation mission wearing a spacesuit standing in the doorway of a simulation habitat, with a view of the night sky above in Oman's Dhofar desert, in February 2018 KARIM SAHIB AFP/File

Washington (AFP)

Robotic landers and rovers have been touching down on Mars since the 1970s, but when will humanity finally set foot on the Red Planet?

Experts believe the technical challenges are nearly resolved, but political considerations make the future of any crewed mission uncertain.

NASA's human lunar exploration program, Artemis, envisions sending people back to the Moon by 2024 and using the experience gained there to prepare for Mars.

Plans have been proposed for a crewed exploratory mission of our neighboring planet since before NASA was created in 1958, but have never taken off.

In the spring of 1990, then president George Bush Sr announced the most audacious promise to date -- a man on Mars before July 20, 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing.

The commitment clearly never came to pass, and similar goals articulated by presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have not led to concrete programs.

"I have seen maybe 10,000 graphs, charts, proposing various ideas about how to get to Mars, for humans," G. Scott Hubbard, an adjunct professor at Stanford and former senior NASA official, told AFP.

"But putting the money behind it to make it a reality has not occurred."

The mission itself would last two or three years.

Today, Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are building heavy rockets capable of sending tens of tons toward Mars.

- Alone, and far -

For the seven-month journey, twenty years of living and working in the International Space Station (ISS) has reassured scientists about the dangers posed by radiation and by weightlessness, such as muscle atrophy.

The body does not emerge unscathed, but the risks are deemed acceptable.

Then there is the stay on Mars itself, which would last 15 months so that the planets are once more on the same side of the Sun.

The surface temperature will average -63 degrees Celsius, and though radiation is a factor, suits and shelters exist that would shield astronauts.

In case of medical emergencies, distance would make an evacuation impossible.

What mishaps should astronauts anticipate?

First of all fractures, but plaster casts would often suffice, says Dan Buckland, an engineer and emergency room doctor at Duke University, who is developing a robotic intravenous needle with support from NASA.

Diarrhoea, kidney stones and appendicitis are generally treatable, except for 30 percent of appendicitis cases which must be operated and could therefore be fatal.

With extensive screening of astronauts' genetics and family history, you can greatly reduce the probability of having a crew member who develops cancer over the course of a three-year mission.

"I have not found a showstopper for going to Mars, in terms of a health condition," said Buckland.

One major issue would be protecting the habitats and vehicles from the ravages of the fine dust that covers the surface.

"Mars is unique in that there's also a concern about dust storms," said Robert Howard of the NASA Johnson Center.

These hellish planet-wide tempests can block out the Sun for months, rendering solar panels useless.

Small nuclear reactors would therefore be needed.

In 2018, NASA and the Department of Energy successfully completed a demonstration project, the Kilopower Project.

Ultimately, the goal will be to manufacture materials on site using mined resources, probably with 3D printing machines.

Development is embryonic, but the Artemis program will be a testing ground.

- Colonies? -

Musk has proposed colonizing Mars, with a first expedition to build a factory that converts Martian water and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into oxygen and methane fuel.

"Becoming a multi-planet species," he said in a 2017 speech, "beats the hell out of being a single-planet species."

Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, likewise advocates for the creation of "new branches of human civilization."

That no progress has been made since humanity last walked on the Moon in 1972 is, to him, shameful.

"It was as if Columbus had come back from the New World the first time and then (king and queen) Ferdinand and Isabella had said, 'so what, we're not interested,'" he said.

Not everyone is convinced.

"Enough of the nonsense!" said exobiologist Michel Viso from CNES, the French space agency.

"We have an amazing planet with an atmosphere, with oxygen, with water...It's criminal, you don't have the right to fool people into thinking there is a 'Plan B,' a 'Planet B,' that we will have a Martian civilization."

Whether humanity installs a colony or permanent bases, the most important obstacle, for a lasting human presence on Mars, will be to convince people to accept a higher level of risk than for the Moon or the ISS, argues Buckland.

In the long run, not everyone will return.

© 2020 AFP

Brazil's Bolsonaro fed up with quarantine, to take new virus test

Issued on: 14/07/2020

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who says he is bored staying at home after testing positive for COVID-19, feeds emus outside the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia Sergio LIMA AFP

Brasília (AFP)

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been in quarantine nearly a week after testing positive for the new coronavirus, announced Monday he plans to take another test as he "can't stand" being in isolation.

The result of the test, which is scheduled for Tuesday, "should be out in a few hours, and I will wait quite anxiously because I can't stand this routine of staying at home. It's horrible," Bolsonaro said in a telephone interview with CNN Brazil, from his official residence at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the far-right president has dismissed the seriousness of the epidemic and criticized containment measures ordered by governors in Brazilian states.

During his interview, Bolsonaro said that he feels "very well" and has no fever or problems breathing. He also has not lost his sense of taste, one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19.

"Tomorrow, I don't know if the new test will confirm (the virus), but if everything is fine, I'll go back to work. Of course, if it's the other way around, I'll wait a few more days," said the 65-year-old, adding he hoped to resume his activities within a week at most.

"Otherwise everything is fine. We are working by videoconference all the time and we are doing our best not to let things accumulate," he said.

Brazil is the second-worst hit country in the world, after the United States. As of Monday, 72,833 people had died out of 1.8 million confirmed cases.

During his weekly Facebook Live post last Thursday, Bolsonaro said that after feeling unwell, he had started taking one hydroxychloroquine tablet every day.

The drug, originally tested to fight malaria, has been pushed as a treatment for COVID-19 in many countries -- but its effectiveness has not been formally proven and the issue is deeply dividing the global scientific community.

"I took (hydroxychloroquine) and it worked, and I'm fine, thank God. And let those who criticize it at least offer an alternative," he said during the Facebook Live.

© 2020 AFP

Brazil's displaced indigenous struggle in concrete jungle far from home

Issued on: 14/07/2020 -

Angoho, an indigenous woman of the Pataxo Ha-ha-hae community, wears a face mask at the Vila Vitoria favela on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, Brazil DOUGLAS MAGNO AFP

Belo Horizonte (Brazil) (AFP)

Forced to leave her home after last year's Brumadinho dam disaster that killed 270 people, indigenous woman Angoho Pataxo Ha-ha-hae is now fighting the coronavirus sweeping through her community in the concrete jungle of a favela far from her ancestral home.

"Here in the neighborhood there are already 120 cases, if we go on like this more people from our group will be contaminated," said 53-year-old Angoho, panting for breath as she spoke.

The Pataxo Ha-ha-hae people are an 11,000 strong indigenous group from Bahia in northeastern Brazil.

But Angoho and her husband Hayo, the community's chief, are living in a two-room concrete house in Vila Victoria, on the the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, one of Brazil's biggest cities and a world away from their ancestral home.

They were diagnosed with COVID-19 in early July and are trying to fight the disease with a combination of ancient tribal remedies and Western medicine.

Suffering from fever, she coughs a lot and sometimes has trouble breathing. Five other members of her family also have symptoms of COVID-19.

Thirteen families from her village have settled in Vila Vitoria, and others have left for other Brazilian states.

It is her family's third home, having originally been forced our of Bahia.

"In Bahia we were deprived of water on our land because of the eucalyptus farms in the area and we left in search of better living conditions," she said, speaking slowly and haltingly because of her breathing problems.

Together with about 20 other Pataxo Ha-ha-hae families, they traveled more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to settle on the banks of the Paraopeba River in Minas Gerais state.

But on January 25 2019, a massive dam owned by the Vale mining company at Brumadinho collapsed, releasing tonnes of toxic waste into the river, on which the indigenous people depended.

The tragedy killed 270 people and swept away the livelihood of hundreds of others. Earlier this year, Angoho and her family decided to move on for Belo Horizonte.

"We left there because we couldn't take it anymore, the river was dead, we couldn't plant or fish, we were getting sick," said Angoho, who became a prominent critic of the environmental and human tragedy.

Millions of tons of toxic mining waste engulfed houses, farms and waterways, devastating the mineral-rich region in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

- 'Living in peace' -

From the roof of their modest red brick house in the favela, Angoho gazes out over a urban landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see.

She still wears a majestic traditional tribal headdress of black and white feathers and a yellow protective mask that matches the geometric patterns of her body paint.

Some days, her husband is unable to leave his bed with COVID-19. She tries to treat him with traditional remedies, including herbal teas made from ginger, avocado pits, tobacco leaves or rosemary.

Her family is among those receiving compensation from the Vale mining conglomerate, following a court decision in the wake of the disaster. But she says it is not enough and the family has to rely on donations to survive.

"But we don't want to live on donations. We know how to plant, we know how to make crafts. We just want our land back so that we can live in peace," she says.

© 2020 AFP

France raises pay for health care workers by more than €8 billion

Issued on: 13/07/2020 -

French Health Minister Olivier Véran (R), flanked by Prime Minister Jean Castex (L), delivers a speech after signing wage agreements as part of talks aimed at improving working conditions, salaries and patient care in the medical sector at the Hotel Matignon in Paris on July 13, 2020. © Thomas Samson, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

The French government and unions signed an agreement Monday giving over eight billion euros in pay rises for health workers, with the prime minister admitting the move was overdue in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

During the peak of the outbreak in France, people applauded every night health workers who in turn said that such gratitude rang hollow if it was not followed by concrete steps.

The bulk of the package comprises 7.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) for pay increases for nurses and careworkers, who will get an average monthly raise of 183 euros ($208).

There is also 450 million euros ($510 million) for doctors intended to bolster wages for those who solely work in the public sector, a move aimed at luring them from more lucrative private clinics.

"No one can deny that this is a historic moment for our health system," Prime Minister Jean Castex said after a signing ceremony that followed seven weeks of negotiations between government and unions.

"This is first of all recognition of those who have been on the front line in the fight against this epidemic," he said.

"It is also a way of catching up the delay for each and every one -- including perhaps myself -- has their share of responsibility."

But some unions, including the hardline CGT, refrained from signing the accords, an indication that tensions over the issue may not be over.

The coronavirus epidemic has now killed over 30,000 people in France and while infection rates have fallen markedly, officials remain wary of the risk of a second wave.

(AFP)


France’s health workers march for pay raise as country pays homage virus heroes on Bastille Day


Issued on: 14/07/2020 

The French government approved pay raises to health workers on Monday, but unions say it is not enough. While Bastille Day celebrated these same workers who were on the frontline in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, unions marched in Paris asking for a higher raise, as FRANCE 24’s Chris Moore reports.

Superheroes and skater videos: young LA entertainers lead new activism

 14/07/2020

AJ Lovelace, co-founder of Blac 4 Black lives; Melina Abdullah, civic leader; activist and singer Paris Draper; Ciera Foster, actress and co-founder of Blac 4 Black Lives; Jasmyne Cannick, social justice advocate; and Tyson Suzuki, film editor and founder of "Active Advocate" VALERIE MACON AFP

Los Angeles (AFP)

In a town that sells silver-screen fantasies to the world, young Los Angeles entertainers are using their Hollywood talents to inspire and lead a new generation of real-life protesters.

"I tell everybody we're all superheroes, because superheroes are the best of humanity," says Ciera Foster, who plays one in web television series "Ninjak vs. the Valiant Universe."

"We're walking, breathing history right now."

When not controlling machines with her mind as an African-American superhero, Foster organizes demonstrations against racism and police brutality through the streets of Los Angeles.

Like many in the entertainment industry, Foster -- a students' rights and justice reform activist for years -- spoke out after witnessing footage of the killing of George Floyd in May.

Many young volunteers create "super-well produced" images of the protests that go viral on social media, including for her Black Leadership Allied Coalition.

Drone footage of more than 20,000 people peacefully marching down Hollywood Boulevard last month spread rapidly around the world, becoming an enduring image of the mass movement.

"We have photographers hanging off bridges and the sides of buildings covering us. They're sending these full-on Sundance Festival pieces... it's amazing," said Foster.

- 'We are the change' -

Tyson Suzuki, a young black film editor from Hawaii, has led daily anti-racism protests to the Los Angeles mayor's doorstep at City Hall since Floyd's death.

"We start protesting but we do it in harmony: 'Eric Garcetti, listen. Eric Garcetti, listen. We are the change. We are the change.'"

His Active Advocate group aims to achieve 100 continuous days of protest, but the thirtysomething leader's activism also goes back many years.

Suzuki began campaigning as a teenager when he realized his editing skills -- honed making skater videos -- could be of use for a campaign against big tobacco.

"I'm not an overnight activist, I am an organizer," he says, noting that many of those who support him also work in entertainment.

"We all work in the creative economy. When you're creating something, you are innately developing a conceived idea, and the idea is driven with passion. Right now, the passion is destroying racism."

For 28-year-old filmmaker AJ Lovelace, that means "doing socially conscious films and plays" as well as using technology and social media to help protesters "find the specific group they align with the most."

"My plan to keep the momentum going is to continue to create content," he says.

- 'A better future' -

The Los Angeles movement against racism does not just emerge from and employ the techniques of Hollywood, but actively targets the movie industry itself.

Jasmyne Cannick, a 42-year-old social justice advocate, says it is no surprise "that young people in entertainment are pushing back" given the racism still rampant in the sector.

"All the people who 'love black people' in Hollywood -- they haven't done a good job, because it's still been allowed to continue all this time," she said.

"I guess it just takes young people to come in basically with the attitude of 'we don't care -- we're going to get this done.'"

For Paris Draper, a 20-year-old singer and activist, her generation's focus on empathy and kindness offer hope for radical change.

"We definitely differ from past generations because we are taking the time to hear each other out," she says.

"I think in this day and age we are all trying to have a better future."

© 2020 AFP

BIGGEST FRENCH UNION OPPOSES MACRON REOPENING FRANCE
 BECAUSE IT CAN'T BE DONE SAFELY

Paradise regained then lost: Med mammals mourn lockdown end

Issued on: 14/07/2020 -

Aquatic creatures such as these common dolphins swimming off the southern French coast benefited from less sound pollution from pleasure craft during lockdown Christophe SIMON AFP

La Ciotat (France) (AFP)

When Europeans retreated into their homes to observe strict stay-at-home rules to contain the coronavirus, dolphins and whales on the Mediterranean coast basked and thrived in a hitherto unknown calm.

But the return of tourists, noisy boats and heavy sea transport with the end of lockdowns in France and other Mediterranean littoral countries has signalled the return of danger and harm caused by human activity for underwater creatures.

Nowhere is this more true then in the crystalline waters outside France's second biggest city of Marseille, a nature reserve important for wildlife but also thronged with day-trippers in the summer season.


"As soon as the pleasure boaters came back, we saw footage that really annoyed us," said Marion Leclerc from the conservationist organisation Souffleurs d'Ecume (Sea Foam Blowers).

In one video, three teenagers jump from a boat close to a finback whale while wearing snorkelling masks, which is dangerous for both animal and human, said Leclerc.

"We're speaking of an animal that weighs 70 tons," she lamented.

"Many forget that the Mediterranean is also a home, where animals rest, feed and reproduce," Leclerc said.

The Mediterranean Sea is home to more than 10,000 species, despite only amounting to 1 percent of the Earth's oceans.

But the sea which separates Africa from Europe draws 25 percent of marine traffic.

Heavy traffic increases the risk of fatal collision with the sea mammals.

"It's the first cause of non-natural mortality for big cetaceans," said Leclerc.

- Reduce speed -

Out of the 87 marine mammals in the world registered by the UN, 21 have been spotted in the Mediterranean. Most of them are considered at risk of extinction.

On a bright summer's morning, a group of fifty striped dolphins splash around an inflatable blue speedboat off La Ciotat bay a short boat ride from Marseille.

"We need to reduce our speed and place ourselves parallel to their trajectory to avoid cutting their path. They come and play if they want to," said Laurene Trudelle, at the helm of the boat belonging to the scientific research group GIS3M.

The lockdown brought maritime traffic to an almost complete standstill, giving dolphins and whales the opportunity to explore areas from which they are normally kept at bay by tourists.

All scientific studies were put on hold in the Mediterranean during lockdown, but marine drone manufacturer Sea Proven got the necessary authorisation and funds from Prince Albert II of Monaco to continue observations in the Pelagos Sanctuary, a marine area protected by Italy, Monaco and France.

- 'Reversible pollution' -

Bioacoustics researchers from a Toulon University team who analysed Sea Proven's data, observed a 30 decibel decrease in noise on the coastal areas as a result of the total lack of pleasure boaters.

And the silence allowed the aquatic creatures to interact in areas between two and six times as large, said researcher Herve Glotin.

"The lockdown period showed that we really are responsible for the noise in the bays and that this pollution is completely reversible," Glotin said.

"When you think that reducing boats' speed by 10 percent in areas highly populated with marine mammals would be enough to significantly decrease sound pollution and the risk of collision" Glotin added.

The Quiet Sea research project also saw the amount of hydrocarbon -– the principal component of petrol –- halve during lockdown.

"It's really good for biodiversity, so indirectly for all of the food chain," said Glotin.

No binding international law obliges ship-owners to preserve marine mammals' natural habitat.

But since 2017, France requires boats that are over 24 metres (78 feet) in the Pelagos Sanctuary to have onboard equipment which detects the animals.

© 2020 AFP

Mystery as Argentine sailors infected with virus after 35 days at sea
Issued on: 14/07/2020

The Echizen Maru fishing trawler returned to port in Ushuaia after some of its crew began exhibiting symptoms typical of COVID-19 EITAN ABRAMOVICH AFP/File
Buenos Aires (AFP)

Argentina is trying to solve a medical mystery after 57 sailors were infected with the coronavirus after 35 days at sea, despite the entire crew testing negative before leaving port.

The Echizen Maru fishing trawler returned to port after some of its crew began exhibiting symptoms typical of COVID-19, the health ministry for the southern Tierra del Fuego province said Monday.

According to the ministry, 57 sailors, out of 61 crew members, were diagnosed with the virus after undergoing a new test.


However, all of the crew members had undergone 14 days of mandatory quarantine at a hotel in the city of Ushuaia. Prior to that, they had negative results, the ministry said in a statement.

Two of the other sailors have tested negative, and two others are awaiting test results, the province's emergency operations committee said.

Two sailors were hospitalized.

"It's hard to establish how this crew was infected, considering that for 35 days, they had no contact with dry land and that supplies were only brought in from the port of Ushuaia," said Alejandra Alfaro, the director of primary health care in Tierra del Fuego.

A team was examining "the chronology of symptoms in the crew to establish the chronology of contagion," she said.

The head of the infectious diseases department at Ushuaia Regional Hospital, Leandro Ballatore, said he believed this is a "case that escapes all description in publications, because an incubation period this long has not been described anywhere."

"We cannot yet explain how the symptoms appeared," said Ballatore.

The crew was placed in isolation on board the ship and returned to the port of Ushuaia.

Argentina exceeded 100,000 total cases on Sunday, and the death toll rose to 1,859. The majority of infections are in the Buenos Aires area.

© 2020 AFP

Denmark's German refugees remember forgotten WWII chapter

Issued on: 14/07/2020 -
   

In a largely forgotten chapter of the dying days of World War II, some 250,000 German refugees were interned in refugee camps across Denmark -- still then occupied by the Nazis -- where they were not made to feel welcome Erik PETERSEN Ritzau Scanpix/AFP

Copenhagen (AFP)

Barbed wire and tunneling beneath it to go and pick flowers outside his refugee camp in Denmark are what Jorg Baden remembers most clearly 75 years on from World War II.

Baden's experience -- a largely forgotten chapter of history -- was one shared by some 250,000 fellow Germans interned in neighbouring Denmark following the conflict.

Between the ages of five and eight, Baden -- now a cheerful German pensioner -- was a refugee in Denmark, after his family and tens of thousands of his compatriots fled Germany as the Red Army advanced towards Berlin.

From February 1945 Denmark, then occupied by the Nazis, was forced to take those refugees, the majority consisting of old people, women and children, as well as wounded soldiers.

Mostly spared the fighting, the Scandinavian nation was Berlin's favoured destination for exiles.

The lion's share of the refugees arrived by boat, some of which were torpedoed by the Allies, across the Baltic Sea. They initially ended up in makeshift camps around the country.

After the May 5 "liberation of Denmark by the Allies, the Danish resistance realised that there were about 250.000 German refugees all over Denmark," accounting for five percent of the population, John Jensen, historian at Varde Museum, told AFP.

Fearing the establishment of a German minority with too much influence, the refugees were gathered up into new larger camps or re-purposed military camps.

- Curtailed Hippocratic oath -

Exhausted from the journey and plagued by various illnesses, many refugees died shortly after arriving.

Some never received medical assistance as the Danish Medical Association recommended that its members should refrain from intervening.

"The common thought was if Danish doctors helped a refugee they were indirectly helping the German war machine," Sine Vinther, historian at Roskilde University, said.

Between 1945 and 1949, when the last refugees left the country, 17,000 died, with 13,000 of those in 1945 alone -- 60 percent of whom were children under the age of five.

According to Vinther that is more than the number of Danes killed during the occupation.

But even after the end of the occupation, Danish doctors remained hesitant to offer help.

"They could not get rid of their enemy image of Germans... Danish doctors failed their oaths in this period of Danish history," Vinther told AFP at the Vestre Kierkegaard cemetery in Copenhagen, where more than 5,000 German refugees were laid to rest.

Jorg Baden was one of the lucky ones to receive help. At five years old he came down with diphtheria, but was hospitalised and treated.

"It was a critical time for many children, but I made it through," the former English and history teacher said.

He recalled his family's hasty escape from Warnemunde in north Germany and the perilous journey across the Baltic to Haderslev in Denmark.

- Not welcome -

At the end of September 1945, they were transferred the Oksbol camp -- which would come to house up to 37,000 people, becoming the de facto sixth largest town in Denmark.

"We were first accommodated in horse stables which was very primitive... we had very little privacy," Baden said.

"But my father was asked to teach mathematics... because of that we were allowed to move to a stone house where we had a room for ourselves, running water and flushing toilets which was a great step forward," Baden, who is now 80, explained.

That was a luxury at the camp which allowed the family to live a "quite unspectacular and normal" life.

The camps were set up on the fringes of Danish society with the authorities aiming to "de-Nazify" the refugees.

"The general idea was to re-educate them to a more democratic way of thinking," Jensen noted.

According to Vinther, the "refugees were almost prisoners."

"Danes were not allowed to interact with German refugees, the German refugees were not allowed to learn Danish or to talk to Danes because they were not supposed to get the feeling that they were wanted," she said.

However, leaving Denmark took longer than expected.

"The Germans wanted to go back but they weren't welcome in the areas they came from, so the Danes had to negotiate with the Allied powers to repatriate them," Jensen explained.

Jorg Baden and his family left Denmark for his father's hometown of Duisburg, where he had found work with the British army, in September 1947.

© 2020 AFP

SUNNI DAESH WAR ON THE SUFI
Malian jihadist on trial at ICC over Timbuktu destruction, crimes against humanity
Issued on: 14/07/2020 

Malian Muslim militant Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud arrives for his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, The Netherlands. He is accused of demolishing Timbuktu's fabled shrines, as well as for rape, torture and sex slavery. AFP - EVA PLEVIER

Text by:NEWS WIRES

The trial of a Malian jihadist accused of demolishing Timbuktu's fabled shrines and unleashing a reign of terror begins at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday.

Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, 42, has been charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and sexual slavery.

The charges cover a period when Islamic fundamentalists exploited an ethnic Tuareg uprising in 2012 to take over cities in Mali's volatile north.

Prosecutors at the tribunal in The Hague will give their opening statement against the man they described in pre-trial hearings as having "terrorised" local residents.

The defence and the legal representatives of alleged victims will deliver their statements at a later date when evidence is presented to the court.


Because of the coronavirus pandemic some participants in the trial will take part remotely, and it was unclear whether Al Hassan would personally be in court.

Jihadists who swept into Timbuktu, dubbed the "Pearl of the Desert", considered the shrines there to be idolatrous and wrecked them with pickaxes and bulldozers.

Built between the fifth and the 12th centuries by Tuareg tribes, Timbuktu has also been dubbed "The City of 333 Saints" who were buried there during the golden age of Islam.

'Essential, undeniable role'

ICC prosecutors said there were "substantial grounds" to convict Al Hassan for "crimes against humanity... torture, rape, sexual slavery (and) other inhumane acts including, inter alia, forced marriages, persecution and war crimes."

"Al Hassan played an essential and undeniable role in the system of persecution established by the armed groups... in Timbuktu," ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said last year.

The jihadist police imposed draconian measures on the city's residents who lived in constant fear of "despicable" violence and repression, prosecutors said.

They cited an example in which a man had his hand amputated after he was accused of petty theft.

Al Hassan is the second Islamist extremist to face trial at the ICC for the destruction of the Timbuktu shrines, following a 2016 landmark ruling at the world's only permanent war crimes court.

In the court's first case to focus on cultural destruction, the ICC judges found Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi guilty of directing attacks on the UNESCO World Heritage site in 2012.

He was sentenced to nine years in jail.

Timbuktu's tombs were rebuilt after the jihadists were thrown out, but the city remains in the grip of insecurity and tourists who once flocked there are no

Arctic spill fuels calls for shakeup at Russia mining giant



Issued on: 14/07/2020 - 10:20Modified: 14/07/2020 - 10:19

  

A massive clean up effort involved trapping floating diesel with booms on crucial water ways to prevent it flowing into fresh water lakes Irina YARINSKAYA AFP/File

Moscow (AFP)

Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel faced pressure from a key shareholder on Tuesday to overhaul management after disasters including a massive Arctic fuel spill that sparked a state of emergency.

Aluminium producer Rusal, which owns 28 percent in Norilsk Nickel, said it was "seriously concerned" over recent environmental accidents in the Russian Arctic and called for a shakeup in management.

"What is currently happening at Nornickel invites to seriously question the competence of the company's management as well as their suitability to be in charge of running the business," Rusal said in a statement.


It also criticised the management's "collective inertia" that it said was likely to lead to "damaging criticism from the environmental and investment communities".

President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency after 21,000 tonnes of diesel leaked from a fuel storage tank at one of Norilsk Nickel's subsidiary plants in the Arctic in late May.

A massive clean up effort involved trapping floating diesel with booms on crucial waterways to prevent it flowing into freshwater lakes.

Putin has said he expected Norilsk Nickel to fully restore the environment.

Rusal said it was calling on Norilsk Nickel to move its headquarters from Moscow to the Arctic city of Norilsk -- the site of several recent environmental accidents including the fuel spill.

In the statement, the aluminium producer appealed to Norilsk Nickel to overhaul "corporate policies towards environmental and safety issues".

Russia's environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor fined a Norilsk Nickel subsidiary 147.8 billion rubles ($2.05 billion) over the spill, but the company is contesting the sum.

© 2020 AFP

"ORC'S ON THE HORIZON" GANDALF  
Astronomers perplexed by "Odd Radio Circles," a newly discovered, very rare space phenomenon
"I AM PERPLEXED" ALEISTER CROWLEY
Invisible except in the radio wave portion of the spectrum, only four Odd Radio Circles have been discovered
CROP CIRCLES IN SPACE

The Australian Square Kilometre Array (ESO/CSIRO)


NICOLE KARLIS
JULY 13, 2020 

Astronomers believe they have discovered a new, bizarre type of cosmic object that is invisible to all wavelengths of light except radio.

The strange circular objects in question have been unofficially dubbed "Odd Radio Circles" (ORCs); three of them were discovered in a recent data accumulated during a preliminary survey by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, a radio telescope array in Western Australia. A fourth Odd Radio Circle was discovered when researchers sifted through old data from 2013.

The new phenomenon is the focus of a new paper published on the preprint website arXiv, which was submitted to Nature Astronomy by a group of international astronomers. It is yet to be peer-reviewed.

"Here we report the discovery of a class of circular feature in radio images that do not seem to correspond to any of these known types of object or artefact, but rather appear to be a new class of astronomical object," the authors of the paper write.

The ORCs are mostly circular in shape, with the exception of one shaped like a disc, and they cannot be seen with infrared, optical, or X-ray telescopes. Three of them are brighter around the edges.

The circular nature of the ORCs has led to some curiosity over their true nature. "Circular features are well-known in radio astronomical images, and usually represent a spherical object such as a supernova remnant, a planetary nebula, a circumstellar shell, or a face-on disc such as a protoplanetary disc or a star-forming galaxy," the researchers write.

Astronomers initially believed the ORCs may have been a telescope glitch — which is why the discovery of the fourth ORC, from data that was gathered in 2013 by the Giant MetreWave Radio Telescope in India, was key to the finding. That observation ruled out the possibility that the phenomenon was merely an artifact of the specific Australian radiotelescope array.

So what could these strange, circular radio objects be? In the paper, the researchers suggest a list of scenarios. First, they rule out that ORCs could be remnants of a supernova, mainly because of how rare ORCs are. Galactic planetary nebulas are ruled out, too, for the same reason. "[I]f the ORCs are [supernova remnants], which they strongly resemble, then this implies a population of SNRs [supernova remnants] in the Galaxy some 50 times larger than the currently accepted figure, or else a new class of SNR which has not previously been reported," the researchers explain.

The circular nature of the ORCs has led to some curiosity over their true nature. "Circular features are well-known in radio astronomical images, and usually represent a spherical object such as a supernova remnant, a planetary nebula, a circumstellar shell, or a face-on disc such as a protoplanetary disc or a star-forming galaxy," the researchers write.

Astronomers initially believed the ORCs may have been a telescope glitch — which is why the discovery of the fourth ORC, from data that was gathered in 2013 by the Giant MetreWave Radio Telescope in India, was key to the finding. That observation ruled out the possibility that the phenomenon was merely an artifact of the specific Australian radiotelescope array.

So what could these strange, circular radio objects be? In the paper, the researchers suggest a list of scenarios. First, they rule out that ORCs could be remnants of a supernova, mainly because of how rare ORCs are. Galactic planetary nebulas are ruled out, too, for the same reason. "[I]f the ORCs are [supernova remnants], which they strongly resemble, then this implies a population of SNRs [supernova remnants] in the Galaxy some 50 times larger than the currently accepted figure, or else a new class of SNR which has not previously been reported," the researchers explain.

Instead, they suspect the ORCs are a circular wave that appeared after some sort of extra-galactic "transient" event—like fast-radio bursts, another mysterious but far better documented astronomical phenomena.

"The edge-brightening in some ORCs suggests that this circular image may represent a spherical object, which in turn suggests a spherical wave from some transient event," the researchers write. "Several such classes of transient events, capable of producing a spherical shock wave, have recently been discovered, such as fast radio bursts, gamma-ray bursts, and neutron star mergers."

The researchers add that because of the "large angular size" the transient event in question "would have taken place in the distant past."

Avi Loeb, chair of Harvard's astronomy department, told Salon via email that he thinks the ORCs are "likely the result of radio emission from a spherical shock that resulted from an energy source at their center."

"They have a characteristic diameter of about an arcminute, corresponding to a physical length of ten light years (a few parsec) at our distance from most stars in the Milky Way or ten million light years (a few mega-parsecs) at our distance from most galaxies in the visible universe," Loeb said. "The former is a reasonable length scale for a supernova remnant, whereas the latter is a reasonable scale for the reach of the jets produced by the most powerful quasars."

However, since the distance to the source of the event is unknown, it remains unclear which interpretation is more likely.

Loeb added that the most likely explanation is that the ORCs are "the result of outflows from galaxies."

"We know that galaxies have powerful winds, driven by supernova explosions and quasar activity in their cores," Loeb said. "The collision of these outflows with the intergalactic medium is predicted to produce radio shells on the scale of the distance between galaxies, which is a few million light years, exactly as needed at a cosmological distance."
Advertisement:

Two decades ago, Loeb co-authored two papers theoretically predicting these "radio halos."
"Perhaps this is an indication that they exist," he added.

NICOLE KARLIS
Nicole Karlis is a news writer at Salon. She covers health, science, tech and gender politics. Tweet her @nicolekarlis.

The affluent are consuming the planet to death: study

1500 BILLIONAIRES OWN OUR COMMONWEALTH 

ALL 8 BILLION OF US!!!

A study argues that it is not enough to invest in green technologies; the world's affluent must stop overconsuming 

Jeff Bezos, laughing at the world (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

MATTHEW ROZSA
JUNE 23, 2020

A new study published this month in the academic journal Nature Communications argues that, despite all of the talk about using green technology to address man-made environmental problems, the only way for human consumption to become sustainable is if we rein in the affluent.

"The key conclusion from our review is that we cannot rely on technology alone to solve existential environmental problems – like climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – but that we also have to change our affluent lifestyles and reduce overconsumption, in combination with structural change," Professor Tommy Wiedmann from the University of New South Wales Engineering told that college's newspaper regarding the study.

The paper itself argued that "the affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions." The authors added that "existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change" and advocated "a global and rapid decoupling of detrimental impacts from economic activity," pointing out that the efforts made by global North countries to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are "highly unlikely" to occur rapidly enough on a global scale to stave off catastrophic environmental impacts.

"This is because renewable energy, electrification, carbon-capturing technologies and even services all have resource requirements, mostly in the form of metals, concrete and land," the authors point out. "Rising energy demand and costs of resource extraction, technical limitations and rebound effects aggravate the problem."

After observing that "the world's top 10% of income earners are responsible for between 25 and 43% of environmental impact" while "the world's bottom 10% income earners exert only around 3–5% of environmental impact," the authors that environmental damage is largely caused by the world's "affluent" and therefore needs to be confronted by demanding lifestyle changes among the wealthy.



In other words, the world's poorest have a negligible effect on overall environmental devastation; focusing on their consumption or behavior is a fool's errand when it comes to environmental policy. 

"Considering that the lifestyles of wealthy citizens are characterised by an abundance of choice, convenience and comfort, we argue that the determinant and driver we have referred to in previous sections as consumption, is more aptly labelled as affluence," the authors point out. They advocate reducing avoiding or reducing consumption "until the remaining consumption level falls within planetary boundaries, while fulfilling human needs," with the wealthy abstain from purchasing overly large homes and secondary residences, large vehicles, excessive quantities of food, and engaging in leisure activities that require a great deal of flying and driving.

The authors also argue for consumption patterns "to be shifted away from resource and carbon-intensive goods and services, e.g. mobility from cars and airplanes to public buses and trains, biking or walking, heating from oil heating to heat pumps, nutrition — where possible — from animal to seasonal plant-based products." In addition, they call for "the adoption of less affluent, simpler and sufficiency-oriented lifestyles to address overconsumption — consuming better but less." This approach would need to include "addressing socially unsustainable underconsumption in impoverished communities in both less affluent and affluent countries, where enough and better is needed to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth and guarantee a minimum level of prosperity to overcome poverty."

 The authors acknowledged that there are several schools of thought regarding how to best meet these goals.

"The reformist group consists of heterogeneous approaches such as a-growth, precautionary/pragmatic post-growth, prosperity and managing without growth as well as steady-state economics," the authors write. "These approaches have in common that they aim to achieve the required socio-ecological transformation through and within today's dominant institutions, such as centralised democratic states and market economies." By contrast the second group, which is "more radical," posits that "the needed socio-ecological transformation will necessarily entail a shift beyond capitalism and/or current centralised states. Although comprising considerable heterogeneity, it can be divided into eco-socialist approaches, viewing the democratic state as an important means to achieve the socio-ecological transformation and eco-anarchist approaches, aiming instead at participatory democracy without a state, thus minimising hierarchies."



Salon interviewed several scientists and scholars earlier this month about how the coronavirus pandemic has illustrated many of the sustainability problems inherent in capitalism. One problem with capitalist economic systems is that they rely on constantly increasing consumption in order to maintain periods of prosperity. If unexpected disasters interrupt that consumption — such as the pandemic requiring an economic shutdown — the whole system grinds to a halt.

"Going with the structural metaphor concept, there always huge cracks underneath the facades of capitalism, and the huge weight of this pandemic has widened those cracks," Norman Solomon, co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org and a Sanders delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention, told Salon. After pointing out how the poor wind up being hurt the most, he added that "the entire political economy is geared to overproduction and over-consumption to maximize corporate profits."

Michael E. Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, told Salon that "I think that there are larger lessons and messages here about the sustainability of a global population of nearly 8 billion and growing people on a planet with finite resources."



He added, "And what COVID-19 has laid bare is the fragility of this massive infrastructure which we've created to artificially maintain consumption far beyond the natural carrying capacity of the planet. And continued exploitation of fossil fuels, obviously, is inconsistent with a sustainable human society.

CONSPIRACISTS RAVE ABOUT THE SECRET RULING CLASS OUT TO KILL US FOR OUR EXCHANGE VALUE
(OUR PROPERTY ON THE CHEAP, END OF LEGACY PAYMENTS TO US ETC. ETC.SOYLENT GREEN ETC. ETC.)


THEY ARE HALF RIGHT, BY IGNORING OUR PLIGHT THIS TINY RULING CLASS OF BILLIONAIRES IS ALLOWING THE COVID-19 TO DO THEIR DIRTY WORK FOR THEM

The affluent are in denial about their class privilege, research says

To maintain their sense of self-worth, elites tend to exaggerate their own hardships, studies show

MATTHEW ROZSA
JULY 13, 2020 

Income is correlated with right-wing politics, meaning wealthier people tend to be slightly more conservative. While there is no singular reason for this, both history and observational anecdotes suggest that those with wealth and privilege tend to distort the reason they were so successful, chalking up their success to right-wing ideological canards like "hard work" — rather than admit they were helped by other social factors. (President Trump is a great case study, as he exaggerates the degree to which his father helped him build his empire: during the first 2016 presidential debate, Trump bragged that his father gave him "a very small loan in 1975," which he built "into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars." That "small loan" was actually $60.7 million.)

Now, a new social psychology study has uncovered the extent to which this tendency appears to be pathological among the moneyed elite. Titled "I ain't no fortunate one: On the motivated denial of class privilege," the new study, which was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that those who were posed questions about their class privilege responded by "increasing their claims of personal hardships and hard work, to cover [their] privilege in a veneer of meritocracy." 

"Flying in the face of meritocratic prescriptions, evidence of privilege threatens recipients' self-regard by calling into question whether they deserve their successes." Dr. L. Taylor Phillips, a professor of management and organizations at New York University Business School, and co-author Dr. Brian S. Lowery, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, wrote in their study. "Evidence of class privilege demonstrates that many life outcomes are determined by factors not attributable to individuals' efforts alone, but are caused in part by systemic inequities that privilege some over others."

The authors emphasized that, in the United States, people are conditioned to believe that we live in a meritocracy and to attribute success or failure primarily to one's talent and hard work. When members of the upper-middle or upper class are confronted with evidence that class privilege plays a major role in determining socioeconomic status, their self-regard is challenged. To maintain their sense of self-worth, they will exaggerate their own hardships or focus on the amount of work they do — even though class privilege does not preclude the reality of non-class related hardships and many people work very hard without achieving socioeconomic mobility.

The authors arrived at these conclusions after conducting a series of experiments. They asked hundreds of adult American citizens with upper-middle or upper class incomes from an elite West Coast university to read statements on general inequity or class privilege and how those are connected to opportunities in education. Others were asked to read about the more general advantages that accrue from people with high incomes. In an expansion on the original study, participants were exposed to information about personal hardships and class privilege. All of the studies found that, when participants who came from class privilege were confronted with that fact, they tended to focus on their personal hardships and work ethic in order to protect their self-regard from facing the reality that much of what they owned was given to them through luck and systems of oppression rather than individual merit.


"The main takeaway is really that people who are benefiting from inequity — that's how we define privilege — people who are benefiting from inequity do a lot of psychological work to cover up that benefit," Dr. Phillips told Salon. "They do things like claim that their lives has been harder overall as compared to when the privileges not been exposed and no one's really aware of it, but once we make it exposed, they start saying life has been harder."

She said that the individuals studied will specifically claim that they work harder at their jobs and will point to struggles from their lives to make the claim, "'Oh, you say I have this privilege and that's unfair, but actually look at these other things in my life, they kind of counteract or they kind of balance it out. It's all a wash.'"

Dr. Phillips also connected this mindset to a tendency toward classist and racist beliefs.

"It certainly supports the likelihood — or kind of creates a likelihood — that people start claiming racist, classist, and other inherently different sort of beliefs," Dr. Phillips explained, summarizing the mentality as arguing that "'I'm here in this position, someone else's in this different position. Rather than because the system is unfair or because I've benefited from something unfair, which would then threaten my self regard, instead it's easier for me to claim that there's actually some sort of difference between us that makes this all fair. . . . It's actually because this group is worse in some way, or this individual person is worse in some way.'"

In the study, Phillips and Lowery emphasize the importance of the meritocracy myth in creating these delusions.

"The ideology of meritocracy is woven deeply into the cultural fabric of American society," the authors write. "The very 'American dream' that attracts and attaches so many to America suggests that if one works hard enough, they can succeed, no matter their class or background. As a result, systemic inequity is a tricky subject for American psyches: while most Americans subscribe to meritocratic ideologies that abhor such inequity, many also benefit from inequities. To resolve this tension, we find that the class privileged specifically claim hardship and effort because these are symbols of merit: they help cover privilege in a cloak of meritocracy."



MATTHEW ROZSA
 is a staff writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.