Braver than the troops

The Hospital de San Bartolome in Peru organized Monday a breast milk collection marathon, in which 10 volunteers participated, to help prematurely born children with low weight problems and other high-risk conditions.

“This is the eighth ‘Lechetón’ contest that we have done since we started our work in 2014. We have been working uninterruptedly, even in a pandemic we have worked perfectly, trying to meet our mandatory goal of providing milk to all premature infants under 1,500 grams from the hospital,” said Wilfredo Ingar Armijo, head of the San Bartolome Hospital Milk Bank.

He said the milk extracted Monday is going to be frozen and pasteurized, “with all the necessary controls to guarantee its safety,” so premature babies “can receive safe, nutritious and ideal milk for their neurological development.”

name a more cursed cars x carnism combo

This story was co-published with Popular Science.

Electric vehicles are becoming more and more commonplace on the nation’s roadways.

The federal government wants nearly two-thirds of all cars in the United States to be EVs within the next decade. All the while, EVs are breaking sales records, and manufacturers are building charging stations and production plants to incentivize a shift away from fossil fuels in the transportation sector.

With EVs taking the streets by storm, an unlikely industry now wants a piece of the pie.

Trade associations, fuel producers, and bipartisan lawmakers are pushing for biogas, fuel made from animal and food waste, to start receiving federal credits meant for powering electric vehicles.

The push for biogas-powered EVs would be a boon for the energy sector, according to biogas industry leaders. Environmental groups and researchers, however, say the fuel has yet to prove itself as a truly clean energy source. Biogas created from agriculture has been linked to an increase in waterway pollution and public health concerns that have disproportionately exposed low-income communities and communities of color to toxic byproducts of animal waste.

With the nation needing more ways to power fleets of Teslas and Chevy Bolts, the use of livestock manure to power EVs is still in limbo.

For biogas, there are, broadly speaking, three sources of waste from which to produce fuel: human waste, animal waste, and food waste. The source of this fuel input can be found at wastewater treatment plants, farms, and landfills.

At these locations, organic waste is deprived of oxygen, and a natural process known as anaerobic digestion occurs. Bacteria consume the waste products and eventually release methane, the main ingredient of natural gas. The gas is then captured, piped to a utility, turned into electricity, and distributed to customers.

Fuel created from animal waste isn’t a new concept. Farms around the country have been cashing in on biogas for decades, with a boom in production facilities known as anaerobic digesters expected after funding for their construction made it into the Inflation Reduction Act.

At the end of June, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, which outlines how much renewable fuels — products like corn-based ethanol, manure-based biogas, and wood pellets — are used to cut greenhouse gas emissions, as well as reduce the use of petroleum-based transportation fuel, heating oil, or jet fuel.

Under this program, petroleum-based fuels must blend renewable fuels into their supply. For example, each time the RFS is updated, a new goal for how much corn-based ethanol is mixed into the nation’s fuel supply is set. This prediction is based on gas and renewable-fuel-industry market projections.

These gas companies and refineries purchase credits from renewable-fuel makers to comply with the mandated amount of renewable fuel that needs to be mixed into their supply.

A currency system tracks which renewable fuels are being produced and where they end up under the RFS. This system uses credits known as RINs, or Renewable Identification Numbers. According to the EPA, a single RIN is the energy equivalent of one gallon of ethanol, and the prices of the credits will fluctuate over time, just as gas prices do.

Oil companies and refineries purchase credits from renewable-fuel makers to comply with the mandated amount of renewable fuel that needs to be mixed into their supply. The unique RIN credit proves that an oil seller has purchased, blended, and sold renewable fuel.

Currently, the biogas industry can only use its RIN credits when the fuel source is blended with ethanol or a particular type of diesel fuel. Outside of the federal program, biogas producers have been cashing in on low-carbon fuel programs in both California and Oregon.

With the boom in demand for renewable electricity, biogas producers want more opportunities to sell their waste-based fuels. EVs might get them there.

During recent RFS negotiations, the biogas industry urged the EPA to create a pathway for a new type of credit known as eRINs, or electric RINs. This pathway would allow the biogas and biomass industry to power the nation’s EVs directly. While the industry applauded the recent expansion of mandatory volumes of renewable fuels, the EPA did not decide on finalizing eRIN credits.

Patrick Serfass is the executive director of the American Biogas Council. He said the EPA could approve projects that would support eRINs for years, but has yet to approve the pathway for biogas-fuel producers.

“It doesn’t matter which administration,” Serfass said. “The Obama administration didn’t do it. The Trump administration didn’t do it. The Biden administration so far hasn’t done it. EPA, do your job.”

Late last year, the EPA initially included approval of eRINs in the RFS proposal. Republican members of Congress who sit on the Energy & Commerce Committee sent a letter to the EPA, saying that the RFS is not meant to be a tool to electrify transportation.

“Our goal is to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable, available, reliable, and secure energy,” the committee members wrote. “The final design of the eRINs program under the RFS inserts uncertainty into the transportation fuels market.”

The RFS has traditionally supported liquid fuels that the EPA considers renewable, the main of which is ethanol. Stakeholders in ethanol production see the inclusion of eRINs as an overstep.

In May, Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa, introduced legislation that would outlaw EVs from getting credits from the renewable-fuels program. Grassley has been a longtime supporter of the ethanol industry; Iowa alone makes up nearly a third of the nation’s ethanol production, according to the economic growth organization Iowa Area Development Group.

Serfass said biogas is a way to offset the nation’s waste and make small and midsize farms economically sustainable, as well as local governments operating waste treatment plants and landfills. When it comes to animal waste, he said the eRIN program would allow farmers to make money off their waste by selling captured biogas to the grid to power EVs.

“There’s a lot of folks that don’t like large farms, and the reason that large farms exist is that as a society, we’re not always willing to pay $6 to $9 for a gallon of milk,” Serfass said. “You have farm consolidation so that farmers can just make a living.”

Initially, digesters were thought of as a climate solution and an economic boon for farmers, but in recent years, farms have stopped digester operations because of the hefty price tag to run them and their modest revenue. Biogas digesters are still operated by large operations, often with the help of fossil fuel companies, such as BP.

In addition to farms, Serfass said biogas production from food waste and municipal wastewater treatment plants would also be able to cash in on the eRIN program.

Dodge City, Kansas, a city of 30,000 in the western part of the state, is an example of a local government using biogas as a source of revenue. In 2018, the city began capturing methane from its sewage treatment and has since been able to generate an estimated $3 million a year by selling the fuel to the transportation sector.

Serfass said the city would be able to sell the fuel to power the nation’s EV charging grid if the eRIN program was approved.

The EPA’s decision-making will direct the next three years of renewable-fuel production in the country. The program is often a battleground for different industry groups, from biogas producers to ethanol refineries, as they fight over their fuel’s market share.

Of note, the biomass industry, which creates fuel from wood pellets, forestry waste, and other detritus of the nation’s lumber supply and forests, also wants to be approved for future eRIN opportunities.

This fuel source has a questionable track record of being a climate solution: The industry has been linked to deforestation in the American South, and has falsely claimed they don’t use whole trees to produce electricity, according to a industry whistleblower.

The EPA did not answer questions from Grist as to why eRINs were not approved in its recent announcement.

“The EPA will continue to work on potential paths forward for the eRIN program, while further reviewing the comments received on the proposal and seeking additional input from stakeholders to inform potential next steps on the eRIN program,” the agency wrote in a statement.

Ben Lilliston is the director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He said he supported the EPA’s decision to not approve biogas-created electricity for EVs.

“I think the jury is still out around biogas from large-scale animal operations about how effective they are,” Lilliston said.

He wants more independent studies to determine what a growing biogas sector under the eRIN program would mean for the rural areas and communities of color that surround these facilities.

Predominantly Black and low-income communities in southeastern North Carolina have been exposed to decades of polluted waters and increased respiratory and heart disease rates related to the state’s hog industry, which has recently cashed in on the biogas sector.

In Delaware, residents of the largely rural Delmarva peninsula have become accustomed to the stench of the region’s massive poultry farms. These operations now want to cash in on their waste with the implementation of more biogas systems in a community where many residents are Black or immigrants from Haiti and Latin America who speak limited English, according to the Guardian.

“I think that our concern, and many others’, is that this is actually going to increase emissions and waste and pollution,” Lilliston said.

Aaron Smith, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of California, Davis, said electricity produced from biogas could be a red herring when it comes to cheap, clean energy.

“There’s often a tendency to say, ‘We have this pollutant like methane gas that escapes from a landfill or a dairy manure lagoon, and if we can capture that and stop it from escaping into the atmosphere, that’s a win for the climate,'” Smith said. “But once we’ve captured it, should we do something useful with it? And the answer is maybe, but sometimes it’s more expensive to do something useful with it than it would be to go and generate that energy from a different source.”

Smith’s past research has found that the revenue procured by digesters has not been equal to the amount of methane captured by these systems. In a blog post earlier this year, Smith wrote that taxpayers and consumers are overpaying for the price of methane reduction. He found that the gasoline producers have essentially subsidized digester operations by way of the state’s low-carbon transportation standards. To pay for this, the gasoline industry offloads its increased costs by raising the price of gas for consumers.

“I think we do need to be wary about over-incentivizing these very expensive sources of electricity generation under the guise of climate games,” Smith told Grist.

Garments that can be packed with ice or equipped with fans are becoming increasingly popular among workers exposed to high heat.

It’s not the disease-carrying mosquitoes, the scorpions, or the 22-kilogram tanks full of pesticide strapped to his back that Wendell Van Pelt fears. It’s the heat. This summer, while spraying insect-killing chemicals in the gardens of the rich in Greater Scottsdale, Arizona, Van Pelt has endured temperatures well in excess of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Stepping past velvety green lawns and lagoon-like pools on his rounds, the field training manager at Mosquito Squad, a pest control service, has at times felt like he's “living in an oven.”

But Van Pelt has had respite from the scorching conditions: a cloak of cooling power wrapped around his torso—a vest filled with ice. “I love it,” he says, describing how his backpack filled with pesticide or natural repellent seems to amplify the effect: “That backpack is almost pressing the cold into your back. It just feels fantastic.”

Van Pelt knows that heat stress can be very dangerous. Everyone should be mindful of the risks, he emphasizes. And due to climate change and multiple recent heat waves, awareness of those risks is growing around the world. Millions of workers who toil outside, or in indoor spaces where temperatures can climb to unbearable levels, are increasingly adopting special strategies to cope. Cooling garments—vests, hats, and scarves—are among them.

It was only last year that Mosquito Squad rolled out cooling vests to employees in Greater Scottsdale. Many other firms are taking the same step, from power companies to real estate management businesses. Cooling vests have actually been around for decades, but in recent years their popularity, and variety, has exploded. Choosing the right one could potentially make the difference between going home after a good day’s work or heading to the ER. Over the past decade, hundreds of workers have died from environmental heat exposure in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For Van Pelt, activating the cooling properties of his vest means stuffing it with flat, flexible packs of water ice straight from the freezer. These gradually melt as he works, but they can keep him cool for hours, he explains. There are many other technologies available.

Some use packs that contain fluids other than water—known as “phase change materials,” or PCMs. As these materials transition from solid or semisolid to liquid, they soak up heat, because this phase change requires energy. Non-water PCMs can be concocted in such a way as to remain flexible when cold or have higher melting points, which helps them last longer while maintaining a constant comfortable temperature. Other vests have tubes through which water is pumped around the wearer’s torso, or you might choose one with built-in fans that blow air directly onto your body. Finally, some vests are simply made with highly breathable fabric. Depending on the design and accessories, a top-of-the-range cooling vest could set you back close to $400.

“Demand this year has been so strong that just a few customers consumed 100 percent of our manufacturing capacity for months,” says Justin Li, cofounder and CEO of Qore Performance, a Tennessee-based firm that makes panel-like containers that you fill with 1.5 liters of water, freeze, and then sling against your chest, back, or both. A pair costs $148, and you can drink the water in them, via a tube, as it melts. Li got the idea, he explains, after talking to a soldier serving in Afghanistan, who told him how he and his comrades would put a frozen water bottle inside their body armour to try and stay cool while out on patrol. “We just reshaped it,” says Li.

Qore Performance has sold tens of thousands of the special water bottles, called IcePlates, to military personnel, Li estimates, but he has lots of commercial customers too. The surge in orders this year was largely driven by companies buying the devices for employees as heat waves erupted in the US and Europe. Known users of the IcePlate include factory staff, schoolyard supervisors, and fast-food workers, he says.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, EZ Cooldown has found clients for its cooling vests among roofers, cargo loaders, and TV production staff. But that’s not how things started. “The cosplay community and the fur-suit community was the group that I targeted first,” says Pepeyn Langedijk, founder and co-owner, who is himself a furry—someone who enjoys socializing while dressed in an animal-like furry suit.

Such suits are very hot, but they’re designed to look sleek—no one wants to wear a bulky cooling vest underneath them, even if the effect feels pleasant. Langedijk has a solution: a highly contoured, slimline vest, into the lining of which you can slip packs filled with a frozen, vegetable-oil-based fluid. “We have packs made to our specifications,” he says. “That product is something I created myself.”

Depending on how hot the user is at the time, EZ Cooldown’s packs might provide cooling for up to several hours. Once melted and no longer cool, they can be swapped out for a fresh set of packs straight from the fridge or freezer. Like Li, Langedijk says demand is booming—sales are up 35 percent this year, and he’s noticed rising interest from places like Scandinavia, where, he suggests, people are less adapted to the heat waves that are becoming more common there.

A lot of the vests require the user to swap out expired cooling components for fresh ones. Once the cooling substance has done what it can and has warmed up, the vest might in theory make things worse, since the wearer is then left with an unnecessary additional layer of clothing, notes Sarah Davey, an assistant professor at Coventry University in the UK who researches work and exercise in extreme environmental conditions, and who has studied cooling vests.

“They can help. However, we’ve seen that the effectiveness varies,” adds Andreas Flouris, an associate professor in the Department of Exercise Science at the University of Thessaly in Greece. “It varies based on the system that you use, and it also depends on the environmental conditions.”

Flouris has studied the use of cooling vests by a variety of workers—including those who helped to build stadiums for last year’s FIFA World Cup in Qatar. He has also observed trials involving grape pickers in a Cypriot vineyard. In that scenario, vests with built-in fans proved problematic. They kept sucking vegetation against the workers’ clothing, and the vests were very cumbersome to wear. Garments containing phase-change materials are almost always the best option, he says.

A particularly effective technique isn’t to wear a body vest at all, but to instead cool down a person’s head and neck before physical exertion, Flouris says. In one study, adolescent tennis players wore a cooling cap for 45 minutes until their core temperature dropped by half a degree Celsius. Flouris and colleagues measured this by asking the players to swallow a capsule that could record their core body temperature and broadcast it to a nearby receiving device. “The cooling effect is tremendous,” says Flouris. He explains that cooling the blood vessels in your head helps chill the rest of your body relatively quickly. In the study, when players used the cooling cap pregame, they had lower skin temperature throughout and felt, on average, 14 percent more comfortable than when they didn’t use it. There were also some small improvements in player performance too.

There may be resistance in some quarters from those unwilling to admit that they need help to survive blistering heat. Workers who spoke to WIRED confirmed that such attitudes are common. But the threat is real, stresses Tom Votel, president and CEO of Ergodyne, which makes a range of cooling garments. Workers who embrace such tools are no less tough than their colleagues—they’re just savvier, he argues. Research in the US suggests that heat stress results in thousands of workplace injuries annually.

By and large, employers aren’t yet protecting workers enough from excessive heat, says Juley Fulcher, worker health and safety advocate at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. There are many cheaper alternatives to cooling gadgets too. It’s important to provide employees with water, fans, breaks in cool locations, or the option to adjust their schedules when temperatures rise, she suggests. “If you can keep them from experiencing heat stress, you’re going to get a lot more productivity out of them,” says Fulcher, noting the benefit to businesses.

Rutger Standaart, an account manager at Bertschat in the Netherlands, which sells cooling and heating garments, recently visited a company that uses welding machines. In the summer, temperatures by the machines can rise above 50 degrees Celsius, meaning that working for longer than 20 minutes at a time is unbearable. “With our cooling vests, they can work for an hour,” he says.

Fulcher says that cooling garments work best if they can be made lightweight and ergonomic. As the technology improves, she says, such devices could provide an alternative to energy-hungry air-conditioning in some situations—since AC is accelerating the climate crisis: “You’re going to see a lot more of these cooling vests used as an option around the world,” she says.

With first 2024 presidential debate days away, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley hits out at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Israel remarks.

Washington, DC – Ahead of the first Republican debate in the 2024 United States presidential race, two candidates have clashed over support for Israel, showing differences within the party over foreign aid.

Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley hit out at her fellow Republican Vivek Ramaswamy on Monday for suggesting that he would cut US military assistance to Israel.

“Vivek Ramaswamy is completely wrong to call for ending America’s special bond with Israel,” Haley, a staunch Israel supporter, said in a statement.

“Support for Israel is both the morally right and strategically smart thing to do. Both countries are stronger and safer because of our iron-clad friendship. As president, I will never abandon Israel.”

Ramaswamy said in an interview with British actor and activist Russell Brand this month that his commitment would be to US interests only.

“There’s no North Star commitment to any one country other than the United States of America,” he said when asked about aid to Israel.

Ramaswamy, a billionaire entrepreneur who has no previous experience in politics, went on to say that he believes ties with Israel have been beneficial to the US.

But he added that he would push to get more Arab and Muslim countries to recognise Israel as part of Washington’s ongoing “normalisation” drive, so aid “won’t be necessary” for stability in the region.

Ramaswamy said he would honour the current memorandum of understanding — signed under former Democratic President Barack Obama — that grants Israel $3.8bn annually until it expires in 2028.

The candidate’s comments made headlines late last week, days after the interview had aired.

Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Israel, one of the richest countries in the Middle East, was the top recipient of US foreign aid.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have accused Israel of imposing apartheid — defined as systemic policies to ensure the dominance of one racial group over the other — against Palestinians.

Israel, however, has enjoyed strong bipartisan backing in the US, with Democratic President Joe Biden calling the two countries’ bond “unbreakable”.

Despite voicing support for Israel, Ramaswamy’s comments put him at odds with most Republicans, even foreign policy isolationists and opponents of foreign aid, who often carve out an exception for Israel.

For example, last year, Republican Senator Rand Paul proposed halting all foreign assistance administered through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for 10 years — except for money allocated for Israel.

Foreign aid, especially for Ukraine, is a contentious issue among Republicans.

But evangelical Christians, who support Israel for theological reasons, have grown into a major Republican constituency. Backing Israel has become a default for many Republican platforms.

Ramaswamy’s proposal to scale back aid for Israel comes as the candidate rises in the polls, making him a greater target for his Republican rivals.

An August survey from Emerson College puts support for Ramaswamy at 10 percent, tied with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has taken a more hardline approach to Israel.

DeSantis has prided himself on penalising companies that boycott Israel and falsely stated that the Palestinian West Bank is not occupied territory.

At the first presidential debate on Wednesday, Ramaswamy, Haley and DeSantis are all expected to take the stage to discuss their policy platforms.

But former President Donald Trump, who enjoys a massive lead among the Republican candidates, has confirmed that he will not take part in the event.

During his presidency, Trump pushed US policy further in favour of Israel, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem and recognising the country’s claims to Syria’s occupied Golan Heights.

Other candidates set to attend the debate include former Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott and ex-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie — all outspoken supporters of Israel.

Biden, who is widely expected to win his party’s presidential nomination in 2024, has also pushed on with Trump’s pro-Israel policies.

Subscription users of X, formerly Twitter, will need to send a selfie and copy of ID to an Israeli verification company.

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, will now require X Blue users to submit a selfie alongside a photo of a government-issued ID, according to a report by PC Magazine.

The user’s personal information required by the verification process will be handled by Israeli company AU10TIX software which will store the information for up to 30 days.

said the data collected from a user’s profile will be used “for the purpose of safety and security, including preventing impersonation”.

Many X users were unhappy with the choice of the company to store user data, pointing out its employees’ links to Israeli intelligence. Others expressed their discomfort with giving a company their data when so many data breaches have been reported in the past.

AU10TIX helped to create the identity verification systems for airports and border controls in the 1980s and 90s before expanding, with the growth of the internet, into what it describes as “digital spaces” in 2002. It now boasts several high-profile clients such as Uber, PayPal and Google.

Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter in October 2022, appeared to have completed ID verification on August 1, suggesting that the ID verification system is already operational and could therefore appear publicly soon.

Verification was then extended to any account with a verified phone number and an active subscription to an eligible Twitter Blue plan.

On April 1, Twitter announced it would begin removing its legacy verification programme and removing legacy verified checkmarks.

These changes led to fears that impersonation would be easier on the platform and hand false credibility to accounts that spread misinformation.

In response, the platform, introduced gold and grey checkmarks, used by verified organisations and government-affiliated accounts, respectively.

In July 2023, Musk announced that Twitter would be rebranded as X.

The latest X verification process, which requires a selfie and a government-issued ID, is part of a drive to add an additional layer of security against impersonation and fraud.

A zoo in Tennessee says it has welcomed a rare giraffe that does not have any spots. The spotless giraffe was born at Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, on July 31 and the zoo says experts believe she is the only solid-colored reticulated giraffe on the planet.

On Sunday, the zoo announced a naming contest for the baby giraffe, which visitors can now see at the zoo.

“It is also a problem, frankly, with abortion pills," said Liz Murrill. "Buy em online, well, they’re gonna have fentanyl in them too.” Nope!

Liz Murrill, Louisiana’s solicitor general and attorney general candidate, believes—or, more likely, wants the rest of us to believe—that drug dealers have slipped opioids into abortion pills. Murrill, whose sharp mind is in charge of leading complex constitutional litigation in the state, is running as a Republican.

During an interview on “Mornings with Brian Haldane” on Thursday, the candidate made her bizarre claim after going legal cannabis. “The fact is that that also creates a great black market, and that’s what actually creates a great avenue for more fentanyl, and they do put fentanyl in pot,” Murrill told the host. “It is also a problem, frankly, with abortion pills. Buy em online, well, they’re gonna have fentanyl in them too.”

Huh?!

Murrill wasn’t done. “You can’t buy anything online that’s illegal and not consider it to be a problem potentially with fentanyl in it,” she said.

Well, that’s great for abortion pill takers, because abortion pills are not illegal. In fact, they’re among the safest pills out there. Mifepristone, the main pill in the two-drug protocol for most medication abortions, is safer than other low-risk drugs like Viagra and penicillin. Since 2000, mifepristone has seen 5 deaths per every 1 million people who used it, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Safety is just one of the reasons medication abortion became the most used method of abortion care in America.

However, that incredible safety record hasn’t stopped anti-abortion politicians, activists and quack doctors from trying to restrict the public’s access to abortion pills. Just last week, the ultra-conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that if it weren’t for the pesky Supreme Court, it would have severely restricted abortion pills. (The Supreme Court stepped in earlier in litigation to say abortion pill access would remain as it currently is until the case is fully resolved. You can still get abortion pills.)

A group of activists are trying to weaponize environmental regulations to ban abortion, falsely contending that medication abortions at home (whether self managed or under the supervision of a doctor) are contaminating our waste water.

In Congress, Republicans attempted to pass a budget that would take away the FDA’s ruling to mail abortion pills. The Department of Justice cleared the U.S. Postal Service to carry and delivery abortion pills at the start of this year, even if the abortion may be performed after an arbitrary six-week ban.

So abortion pills have no shortage of enemies on the right, but they definitely do not contain fentanyl. Murrill, who was recently endorsed by the state Republican party, has not presented any evidence that mifepristone and misoprostol are being contaminated. This is a not a problem, but it is a quick way to get rapid primary voters on your side. And it’s troubling that the woman (woman!) who wants to be the top cop in Louisiana is being so willfully obtuse and misleading about basic reproductive health care.

Sunday’s vote makes Ecuador the first country to restrict fossil fuel extraction through the citizen referendum process.

Ecuadorians voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject oil drilling in a section of Yasuní National Park, the most biodiverse area of the imperiled Amazon rainforest.

Nearly 60% of Ecuadorian voters backed a binding referendum opposing oil exploration in Block 43 of the national park, which is home to uncontacted Indigenous tribes as well as hundreds of bird species and more than 1,000 tree species.

The Associated Press reported that “the outcome represents a significant blow to Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, who advocated for oil drilling, asserting that its revenues are crucial to the country’s economy. As a result of the vote, state oil company Petroecuador will be required to dismantle its operations in the coming months.”

Yasunidos, the civil society group behind the referendum, celebrated the vote as “a historic victory for Ecuador and for the planet.” Drilling operations in Block 43, which began in 2016, currently produce more than 55,000 barrels of oil per day.

Most of Ecuador’s oil is located under the Amazon rainforest, whose role as a critical carbon sink has been badly diminished in recent years due to deforestation and relentless corporate plunder.

Sunday’s win was decades in the making. As The New York Times reported ahead of the vote, the referendum is “the culmination of a groundbreaking proposal suggested almost two decades ago when Rafael Correa, who was president of Ecuador at the time, tried to persuade wealthy nations to pay his country to keep the same oil field in Yasuní untouched. He asked for $3.6 billion, or half of the estimated value of the oil reserves.”

“Mr. Correa spent six years in a campaign to advance the proposal but never managed to persuade wealthy nations to pay,” the Times noted. “Many young Ecuadoreans, though, were persuaded. When Mr. Correa announced that the proposal had failed and that drilling would begin, many started protesting.”

Yasunidos ultimately collected around 757,000 signatures for the proposed ban on oil exploration in Yasuní — nearly 200,000 more than required to bring a referendum to a vote in Ecuador.

“The uncontacted Tagaeri, Dugakaeri, and Taromenane have for years seen their lands invaded, firstly by evangelical missionaries, then by oil companies,” said Sarah Shenker, head of the Survival International’s Uncontacted Tribes campaign, following the vote. “Now, at last, they have some hope of living in peace once more. We hope this prompts greater recognition that all uncontacted peoples must have their territories protected if they’re to survive, and thrive.”

Sunday’s vote makes Ecuador the first country to restrict fossil fuel extraction through the citizen referendum process, according to Nemonte Nenquimo, a Waorani leader.

“Yasuní, an area of one million hectares, is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth,” Nenquimo wrote in a recent op-ed for The Guardian. “There are more tree species in a single hectare of Yasuní than across Canada and the United States combined. Yasuní is also the home of the Tagaeri and Taromenane communities: the last two Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in Ecuador.”

“Can you imagine the immense size of one million hectares?” Nenquimo added. “The recent fires in Quebec burned a million hectares of forest. And so the oil industry hopes to burn Yasuní. It has already begun in fact, with the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oil project on the eastern edge of the park.”

Ecuadorians’ decision to reject oil drilling in the precious ecosystem drew applause from around the world.

“Historic and wonderful,” responded the climate group Extinction Rebellion Global. “Thank you and congratulations to the people of Ecuador for protecting their people, land, nature, future, and those of the rest of the world, too.

The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative — a global campaign that works to accelerate the transition to renewable energy — added that “the historic vote sets a remarkable example for other countries in democratizing climate politics.”

This story has been updated to include a statement from Survival International.

Rickets – a disease associated with Victorian-era slums – is on the rise in Scotland, while other conditions linked to poverty and malnutrition are also increasing across the UK. On the rise: rickets and other diseases

Rickets is a skeletal disease caused by a sustained lack of Vitamin D. It can lead to skeletal deformities such as bowed legs or knock knees. Research has linked rickets to a lack of exposure to sunlight and Vitamin D, which is found in foods like oily fish and eggs. It largely disappeared from Britain more than half a century ago. This was after government and health service efforts to improve the public’s diet and exposure to sunlight. However, it’s now on the rise again.

In Scotland, a total of 442 cases of rickets were recorded in 2022, compared to 354 in 2018 – a 25% increase. Most of the cases were recorded in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, with 356 diagnoses.

Glasgow is one of the most deprived local authority areas in Scotland. 32% of all children in the city were estimated to be living in poverty in 2021-2022. According to the latest data from 2019, men living in the most deprived areas of the city on average live 15.4 years less than those in the most affluent parts. For women, the gap has increased from 8.6 to 11.6 years in recent times.

Some 482 cases of rickets were also found across England. Back in Scotland, and data collated by the Times showed 112 cases of tuberculosis in 2022, another disease which historically had been got under control. There was a sharp rise in scarlet fever diagnosis, with 223 cases in 2022 compared with 39 the year before. Meanwhile, in England there were 171 cases of scurvy in 2022, with three recorded in Scotland. This is a disease linked to Vitamin C deficiency.

People are poor in the UK – poverty has increased, and it set to continue to do so. With think tank the Resolution Foundation forecasting that child poverty is set to reach its highest levels since since 1998/88 in 2027/28, it’s likely that without action, the increase in Victorian-era diseases will only continue.

read more : https://resumen-english.org/2023/08/ecuador-and-guatemala-go-to-the-polls-under-a-shadow-of-violence-and-political-uncertainty/

Leftist lawyer Luisa Gonzalez, 45, was leading in a first-round presidential election in Ecuador on Sunday, but looked headed for a run-off after grabbing only 33 percent of the votes, official data showed.

In an unexpected performance, the right-wing candidate Daniel Noboa, 35, was coming second with 24 percent, with 74 percent of votes counted as of Sunday evening.

read more : https://resumen-english.org/2023/08/ecuador-and-guatemala-go-to-the-polls-under-a-shadow-of-violence-and-political-uncertainty/

Surprise favorite Bernardo Arevalo was swept to victory in Guatemala's presidential election on Sunday, with his anti-corruption message firing up weary voters.

Arevalo scored 59 percent of the vote, with 95 percent of ballots counted, according to official results from the TSE national election body.

His rival, the former first lady Sandra Torres, came in second with 36 percent of the vote as of Sunday night.

Arevalo pulled off a massive upset after defying opinion polls and coming in second in the first-round election in June.

Ahead of Sunday's vote, observers and foreign allies had sounded the alarm about meddling and efforts to undermine the electoral process, after a top prosecutor tried to have Arevalo disqualified and ordered raids on his party offices and the election body during the campaign.

After a first round marked by low turnout and invalid votes, the TSE reported "a historic turnout percentage" at the close of Sunday's voting, without giving details.

Fed-up voters expressed despair over the poverty, violence and corruption that have crippled the Central American nation, pushing thousands of its citizens to emigrate in search of a better life, many to the United States.

"You can no longer live anywhere, because there is so much crime," complained 66-year-old housewife Maria Rac, an Indigenous Mayan who voted in the town of San Juan Sacatepequez, 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital.

Truck driver Efrain Boch, 47, voting in the same town, pleaded with the new government to tackle corruption.

Arevalo, the son of the country's first democratically elected president, Juan Jose Arevalo, has slammed the plague of corrupt politicians on the campaign trail.

"We have been the victims, the prey, of corrupt politicians for years," Arevalo, a 64-year-old sociologist and former diplomat, said. "To vote is to say clearly that it is the Guatemalan people who lead this country, not the corrupt."

The prosecutor who has targeted him, Rafael Curruchiche -- sanctioned by Washington for corruption -- said he did not rule out more raids and possible arrests after the elections. A 'risk' to the system

At the close of voting, the TSE reported no "significant incidents" during the day.

Torres, from a traditionally center-left party, promised welfare programs and various subsidies for the poor.

However, she had also won the backing of the right and evangelicals, increased her socially conservative rhetoric, and was seen as representing the establishment.

"Traditional political forces have bet on Torres, because Arevalo is seen as a risk to the continuity of the system," political analyst Arturo Matute told AFP ahead of the results.

Mayan farmer Brigido Chavix, 57, said he did not support Arevalo, "but I voted for him because we want new faces."

"That lady (Torres) has already been around for a long time talking about policies, policies, and she has never carried them out."

Torres, 67, the ex-wife of late leftist president Alvaro Colom, has failed in her third attempt to become president.

Ahead of the results she had denounced "some irregularities" during Sunday's voting, without giving evidence.

Before the election, she raised doubts about the objectivity of the country's electoral board, accusing it of leaning toward Arevalo's party.

She had dismissed Arevalo as a "foreigner" because he was born in Uruguay while his father was in exile. 'Corrupt' taken control

Arevalo will replace unpopular right-wing President Alejandro Giammattei, who is constitutionally limited to one term.

Under Giammattei, several prosecutors fighting graft have been arrested or forced into exile. He has also cracked down on critical journalists.

The corrupt "have progressively taken control of all state institutions," former attorney general Claudia Paz y Paz -- who is now in Costa Rica -- told AFP.

Guatemala has some of the worst poverty, malnutrition and child mortality rates in Latin America, according to the World Bank.

The murder rate is one of the highest in the world, with many killings attributed to gang violence related to drug trafficking.

Iraqi authorities on Sunday ordered the shutdown of LED advertisement screens installed across Baghdad after a hacker managed to show a pornographic film on one, security forces said, announcing the arrest of a suspect.

On Saturday evening, "a person managed to hack into an advertising screen in Uqba bin Nafia Square", a major intersection at the centre of the Iraqi capital, a security source who requested anonymity told AFP.

The hacker "showed a pornographic film for several minutes before we cut the power cable," he said.

Videos of the pornographic film being screened as cars passed by in central Baghdad were widely shared on social media.

These "immoral scenes" prompted the authorities to "turn off all advertising screens in Baghdad" while they review security measures, explained the security official.

The interior ministry also announced in a statement that a suspect had been arrested, without giving details.

Several screens that usually show advertisements for household goods or political candidates before elections were switched off on Sunday morning, according to an AFP photographer.

Largely-conservative Iraq announced in 2022 that it was planning to block pornographic websites, but many have been left accessible.