Google blames AI as its emissions grow instead of heading to net zero
Three years ago, Google set an ambitious plan to address climate change by going “net zero”, meaning it would release no more climate-changing gases into the air than it removes, by 2030. But a report from the company on Tuesday showed it is nowhere near meeting that goal. Rather than declining, its emissions grew 13 percent in 2023 over the year before. Compared with its baseline year of 2019, emissions have soared 48 percent. Google cited artificial intelligence and the demand it puts on data centres, which require massive amounts of electricity, for last year’s growth. Making that electricity by burning coal or natural gas emits greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane, which warm the planet, bringing more extreme weather. The company has made one of industry’s most significant climate commitments and has been seen as a leader. Lisa Sachs, director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, said Google should be doing more to partner with cleaner companies and invest in the electrical grid. “The reality is that we are far behind what we could already be doing now with the technology that we have, with the resources that we have, in terms of advancing the transition,” she said. Google Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt told The Associated Press news agency, “Reaching this net zero goal by 2030, this is an extremely ambitious goal. “We know this is not going to be easy and that our approach will need to continue to evolve,” Brandt added, “and it will require us to navigate a lot of uncertainty, including this uncertainty around the future of AI’s environmental impacts.” AI electricity demand Some experts said the rapidly expanding data centres needed to power AI threaten the entire transition to clean electricity, an important part of addressing climate change. That’s because a new data centre can delay the closure of a power plant that burns fossil fuels or prompt a new one to be built. Data centres are not only energy-intensive, but they also require high-voltage transmission lines and need significant amounts of water to stay cool. They are also noisy. They often are built where electricity is cheapest, not where renewables, such as wind and solar, are a key source of energy. Global data centre and AI electricity demand could double by 2026, according to the International Energy Agency. Other major tech company sustainability plans are also challenged by the proliferation of data centres. They caused Microsoft’s emissions to grow 29 percent above its 2020 baseline, the company said in an environmental sustainability report in May. Tech companies make the case that while AI is contributing to climate change, it’s also helping to address it. In the case of Google, that could mean using data to predict future flooding or making traffic flow more efficiently to save petrol. Amanda Smith, senior scientist at the climate nonprofit Project Drawdown, said those who use AI – both large companies and individuals just making memes – need to do so responsibly, meaning using the energy only when it benefits society. “It’s up to us as humans to watch what we’re doing with it and to question why we’re doing that,” Smith added. “When it’s worth it, we can make sure that those demands are going to be met by clean sources of power.” Google’s emissions grew last year in part because the company used more energy; 25,910 gigawatt hours more, an increase from the year before and more than double the hours of energy consumed just four years earlier. A gigawatt hour is roughly the energy that a power plant serving several hundred thousand households puts out in one hour. On the positive side, as Google’s consumption grows, so has its use of renewable power. The company said in 2020 it would meet its enormous need for electricity using only clean energy every hour of every day by 2030 all over the world. Last year, Google said, it saw an average of 64 percent carbon-free energy for its data centres and offices around the globe. The company said its data centres are on average 1.8 times as energy efficient as others in the industry. Sachs credited Google for its ambition and honesty but said she hopes “that Google would join us in a more rigorous conversation about how to accelerate” clean energy amid the climate crisis, “so that it doesn’t get much worse before it starts getting better”. Adblock test (Why?)
Judge delays Trump’s New York sentencing until closer to US election
Trump became the first former US president convicted of felony charges and was originally set to be sentenced next week. The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money case has granted a request to delay the former United States president’s sentencing until at least September. The decision on Tuesday follows a ruling by the US Supreme Court that ordered broad criminal immunity for presidents in their official acts. Trump’s legal team had cited the top court’s decision in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan requesting the delay in the sentencing, which was originally scheduled on July 11. The lawyers representing Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, told Merchan they needed time to build their case that Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges of falsifying business documents to cover up hush money payments made to an adult actress should be overturned in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling. Before Merchan’s decision, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump’s argument was “without merit” but agreed to delay the sentencing. Merchan said the sentencing would be delayed until at least September 18, less than two months before the November 8 elections. Prosecutors had argued that Trump falsified business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence on an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. They directly connected the payments to a wider scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election. In their letter to Merchan, Trump’s lawyers argued that during the trial, prosecutors had presented evidence involving Trump’s official acts as president, including social media posts he made and conversations he had while in the White House. That evidence should have been protected under presidential immunity, the lawyers said, per the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling. The ruling from the majority of six justices on the nine-member bench said presidents have “absolute immunity” from criminal liability for any acts within their “core constitutional powers”. Evidence related to those official acts also may not be presented at a trial, the majority opinion said. However, the ruling, which was assailed by the court’s three liberal justices, said presidents could still be prosecuted for acts outside those powers. The exact delineations remain unclear. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned the decision opened the door to “nightmare scenarios”, including possible immunity for assassinating a political rival. “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” she wrote. Political implications The Supreme Court ruling bodes well for Trump, who faces three additional criminal trials. It is expected to be the most bedeviling to the legal argument at the heart of a federal case related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results after his loss to President Joe Biden. It could also have implications for a state trial in Georgia related to efforts to pressure officials to change the 2020 vote count as well as a second federal trial related to Trump allegedly hiding and hoarding classified White House documents at his Florida estate. The New York trial, however, was the only trial expected to finish before the election. While the initial guilty verdict did not show a major shift in support for Trump, analysts have argued that a severe sentence could turn off some would-be Trump voters. Merchan’s decision comes five days after Biden delivered a dismal performance in the first presidential debate against Trump, which has sent the Democrat’s campaign into damage control while bringing concerns over the 81-year-old’s age to the fore. On Tuesday, a Reuters/Ipsos poll was released showing one in three Democrats think Biden should end his re-election bid after the debate performance. Still, the poll found no prominent elected Democrat would perform any better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump. On Wednesday, Biden was reportedly set to meet with Democratic governors in an effort to allay their concerns. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre also said Biden would give his first post-debate interview to ABC News on Friday and would hold a news conference during a NATO conference next week. She reiterated that Biden has no intention of dropping out of the race. Adblock test (Why?)
Why has the UK’s economy grown so slowly under the Tories?
As the United Kingdom gears up for a general election on Thursday, one issue has emerged at the forefront of voters’ minds – the state of the economy. Since the ruling Conservative Party entered office 14 years ago, the UK’s economy has slowed dramatically. The slowdown is particularly stark when immigration-driven population growth is accounted for and the period before the start of the global financial crisis is included. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita grew just 4.3 percent from 2007 to 2023, compared with 46 percent growth over the previous 16 years, according to research released earlier this month by the Resolution Foundation think tank. That is the lowest growth rate since 1826, according to it. While UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has insisted the economy has “turned a corner” amid a return to growth and falling inflation, Britons are projected to dump the Conservatives in favour of the Labour Party, led by human rights lawyer-turned-politician Keir Starmer. Why has the UK economy performed so poorly? Above all, the UK’s economic troubles can be traced to its dismal record on productivity growth. A rise in productivity – the ability of workers to produce more with less – is the key driver of economic growth and improving living standards. The UK’s productivity growth has badly lagged its peers under the stewardship of the Conservatives. GDP per hour worked increased by an average of 0.6 percent annually in the 2010s, compared with 2.2 percent in the decade before the financial crisis – the worst performance among the Group of Seven economies except for Italy, according to the Resolution Foundation. According to OECD data, GDP per hour worked in the UK grew roughly 6 percent from 2007 to 2022, compared with 17 percent in the United States, 12 percent in Japan and 11 percent in Germany. What does this mean for common people? The upshot is that Britons’ incomes have stagnated. Britons had on average 10,200 pounds ($12,950) less to spend or save in total during 2010-22 compared with 1998-2010 growth rates, according to an analysis of disposable incomes by the nonpartisan research institute Centre for Cities. What has caused the UK’s productivity gap? The UK’s productivity gap has been widely attributed to years of chronically low investment relative to other developed nations. The UK’s investment spending from 2017 to 2021 amounted to the equivalent of 18 percent of GDP compared with 25 percent of GDP in Japan, 23 percent in France and 21 percent in the US, according to a PwC analysis of World Bank figures. “These problems are a symptom of a core issue, namely low investment by the state and by business,” David Spencer, the head of Leeds University Business School, told Al Jazeera. “Years of austerity have created barriers to growth – indeed, by reducing the extent and effectiveness of social and economic infrastructure, they have actively suppressed growth. Private businesses have remained too reliant on making profit at the expense of investing in capital and people. The result is that the UK finds itself in a low growth, low productivity and low wage economy.” Will there be economic growth in the UK? While the UK’s economy has struggled to one extent or another for more than a decade, there have been positive signs to point to more recently. The economy exited recession earlier this year, with GDP growing a better-than-expected 0.7 percent in the first quarter and inflation on target at about 2 percent. Some forecasts envision the UK outperforming many of its peers in the coming years. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that the UK will see GDP per capita grow 6.2 percent between 2024 and 2029, which would be faster than every other G7 economy apart from the US and Japan. How will the UK achieve economic growth? The UK’s long-term prospects will ultimately depend on its ability to close the productivity gap. The Resolution Foundation in its report described the UK’s potential to boost productivity as “a silver lining, if not a silver bullet”. “Productivity, as measured by GDP per hour, is 13-19 percent higher in the US, Germany, and France, indicating significant productivity gains that the UK can aim for,” the think tank said. “Indeed, if the UK moved to the average productivity of these countries, this would result in a boost in productivity of 17 percent.” “It will take a major change in policy to transform the UK economy,” Spencer said. “As ever, it is easier to talk about change than achieve it, but with the right commitment and policy mix from government, change can be achieved.” Adblock test (Why?)
Kazakh dissident dies following Kyiv shooting
Wife of journalist Aydos Sadykov blames Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for attack last month. A Kazakh dissident has died in Ukraine, two weeks after being shot outside his home last month. Kyiv-based journalist Aydos Sadykov was shot in the head while seated in a car with his wife on June 18. Ukrainian prosecutors suspect that the “carefully planned” attack was carried out by a pair of suspected assassins from Kazakhstan. Sadykov’s wife, Natalya Sadykova, blamed Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for the death of her husband, who was an outspoken critic of the Central Asian country’s leadership. “My beloved husband, father of our three children, great son of the Kazakh people. Aydos dedicated his life to Kazakhstan and suffered martyrdom at the hands of killers,” Sadykova said in a Facebook post. “His death is on Tokayev’s conscience,” she declared. Who are the suspects? According to the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, two Kazakh citizens, one of them a former policeman, are suspected of shooting Sadykov. Both left the country on the same day, they say, escaping to Moldova. While Kazakhstan has since detained one of the suspects, named as Altai Zhakanbayev, it has said it would not hand him over to Ukraine. The second suspect remains at large. President Tokayev instructed Kazakh law enforcement agencies to cooperate with Ukraine to locate the suspects, his spokesperson said last month, according to Russian news agencies. “Astana is ready to cooperate with Ukraine, including through Interpol,” the spokesperson was cited as saying. ‘Bring them to justice’ Human Rights Watch has called for an investigation into the shooting of Sadykov, who ran a YouTube channel often critical of Kazakhstan’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev and then his successor Tokayev. “The news of the attack on Sadykov during broad daylight in the Kyiv city centre is deeply disturbing,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch last month. “Ukrainian authorities should ensure Sydykov’s safety, identify the attacker, bring them to justice, and determine who ordered the attack. Kazakhstan should show it is committed to the rule of law during this process.” Adblock test (Why?)
Ravaged by civil war, how a national park was restored in Mozambique
Gorongosa, Mozambique – In Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique, veterinarian Mercia Angela cradles a baby pangolin in her arms. Perhaps aware that it is safe, it reaches out and gently pulls her hair. “Our special unit of rangers who investigate people trying to sell pangolins rescued this one from a trafficker, and now we’re on a journey to rehabilitate it, preparing it for its eventual release back into the wild,” she said about the pangopup. Pangolins are a keystone species, meaning they play a critical role in shaping their habitats and altering ecosystems. But they are also the world’s most trafficked mammal – often hunted for their meat, skin, and even scales, which some Asian countries believe have medicinal properties. According to the World Wildlife Fund, pangolin skin is also in demand in the United States and Mexico for processing into products like boots, belts and bags. Four African variations of the pangolin are listed as vulnerable on the Red List of Threatened Species maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Some 20 years ago, it’s possible this pangopup – christened Larissa by Angela and her team – would not have survived or been rescued at all, as Gorongosa’s wildlife and infrastructure were ravaged amid the country’s post-independence civil war that pitted the rebel Mozambique National Resistance Movement (Renamo) against government forces. “The fighting was all over the country, but Gorongosa [in Sofala province, central Mozambique] was the epicentre of the war as Renamo established their headquarters here at Casa Banana, near the park boundary,” Gorongosa National Park Warden Pedro Muagura, who represents the Ministry of Environment, told Al Jazeera. “The rebels wanted game meat from the park for food, and they killed elephants for ivory, which they exchanged for weapons from South Africa.” In the early days of the 1977-1992 war, then-white-ruled South Africa and Rhodesia backed the rebels in Mozambique, taking advantage of internal differences to destabilise their neighbour, which was harbouring groups fighting against their racist governments. Government military police patrol the streets of Gorongosa Village in central Mozambique [File: Grant Lee Neuenburg/Reuters] The civil war left some one million people dead, displaced several million more, and ruined the country’s economy. In Gorongosa, the park’s large mammals also suffered during the conflict as both sides slaughtered hundreds of animals for food and trade. Hungry soldiers shot many more thousands of zebras, wildebeest, buffaloes, and other ungulates. They also killed lions and other large predators for sport or trophies. Widespread poaching also contributed to the decimation of the wildlife. Muagura said that while snares and gin traps may have been set by people for food, they were non-selective and killed whatever would have sprung them. Thousands of snares were cleared from all over the park after the war. ‘Fundamentals’ in place After the 1992 peace accord that ended the war, though the government recognised the park’s value, the money to rehabilitate it was unavailable. In 1994, the African Development Bank began a five-year effort to rebuild Gorongosa’s infrastructure and restore its wildlife with help from the European Union and the IUCN. Enter Greg Carr, an American tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist who made his millions starting companies such as Boston Technology, founded in 1986 and modifying voicemail technology to make it less expensive. After he and his business partner sold the company in 1998, Carr got involved in other tech ventures, including co-founding Africaonline, an internet service provider. But after making his millions, Carr was still searching for meaning. In 1998, he launched the Carr Foundation and a year later founded the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. In 2004, he met then-Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, a strong advocate for conservation who addressed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Their meeting led to a partnership that would change the fate of Gorongosa National Park, paving the way for its rehabilitation and the return of its wildlife. American philanthropist Greg Carr got involved in a project to restore the park after a meeting with Mozambique’s former president [Courtesy of Gorongosa National Park] Chissano invited Carr to Mozambique. “I spent two years studying Mozambique, asking myself, ‘How can I be helpful?’” Carr, now 65, told Al Jazeera at Gorongosa National Park. As someone who has always been positive about nature’s ability to fix itself with minimum human intervention, he settled on funding the park’s restoration. “The fundamentals of this ecosystem were in place, meaning the rivers were flowing, and the soil was good and the grass was growing. If you stop whatever the disturbance is in a natural area, you have a very good chance that nature will know how to restore itself,” he said. However, protecting the flora and fauna was not the only goal for Carr. “It was essential to me that the project was not simply to manage the national park or restore the wildlife, but to create employment and help the communities that live next to the park and share the ecosystem,” he said. “And that’s in my contract with the government.” Carr acknowledges the post-war recovery efforts, but says they were hamstrung because those involved “didn’t have a lot of money”. His Gorongosa Restoration Project signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mozambican government to restore the park. He committed $36m to the project in 2004. Rewilding Gorongosa Some 20 years after its inception, the project has succeeded in its mission to rewild the park, rehabilitate its infrastructure, revive tourism and improve the lives of communities in the so-called buffer zone, which is conterminous with the park. A 1994 survey, the first since the civil war, counted 100 elephants, 300 reedbuck, 100 waterbuck, and only a handful of zebra and small antelope. A 2022 aerial survey (PDF), shows a significant rebound in the numbers of most species. Some of the populations have grown because of the protection of the park. At the same time, some, including buffalo, wildebeest, hippos, wild dogs and jackals, have been reintroduced into
How Israel destroyed Gaza’s ability to feed itself
At the start of summer, Gaza’s fields are usually bursting with ripening crops and fruits of all colours, scents and sizes. But, nearly nine months into Israel’s war on Gaza, abundant harvests have given way to devastation and a dire humanitarian crisis. A UN report says 96 percent of Gaza’s population is food insecure and one in five Palestinians, or about 495,000 people, is facing starvation. Satellite images analysed by Al Jazeera’s digital investigation team, Sanad show that more than half (60 percent) of Gaza’s farmland, crucial for feeding the war-ravaged territory’s hungry population, has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks. Israel has killed at least 37,900 people and injured 87,000 others in bombings, by destroying healthcare that could have saved them, and by starvation. North to south, nowhere and nobody has been spared. North Gaza In Beit Lahiya, once known for plump, juicy strawberries that locals fondly called “red gold”, Israeli bulldozers and heavy machinery have systematically razed fields, reducing them to dirt. Before the war, Gaza’s strawberry industry employed thousands of people. Seeding and planting began in September, with harvesting from December through March. A Palestinian farmer carries a box of strawberries on a farm in north Gaza [File: Getty Images] Before and after satellite images show vehicle tracks over the once-fertile regions of Beit Lahiya. Defying Israel’s ongoing attacks, farmers like Youssef Abu Rabieh figured out ways to grow food between bombed-out buildings – makeshift gardens of repurposed containers. Palestinian farmer Youssef Abu Rabieh launched his agricultural initiative despite ongoing Israeli attacks in Beit Lahiya, on April 28, 2024 [Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images] Gaza City Thriving garden patches and back-yard fruit trees once dotted Gaza City, home to about a third (750,000) of Gaza’s 2.3 million population before the war. South of Gaza City is Zeitoun, a neighbourhood named after the Arabic word for olive. Before and after satellite images show southern Zeitoun where nearly every last bit of greenery has been wiped out. The olive tree is deeply beloved in Palestine, symbolic of Palestinian resilience against Israeli occupation. During one short pause in fighting from November 22 to December 1, Palestinian farmers ran to harvest their olives and extract oil, because they do not know any other way to live, and because they needed the harvest. Olive cultivation is crucial in the Palestinian economy and is used for everything from oil to table olives to soap. Palestinian farmers work to press the olive crop for oil during the one-week pause in Gaza City, November 27, 2023 [Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images] Deir el-Balah Its very name meaning “House of Dates”, the central governorate of Deir el-Balah is one of Gaza’s largest agricultural producers, known for its oranges, olives and – of course – dates. The date harvest typically begins in late September and continues through the end of October. Palestinian farm workers collect dates in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, September 30, 2021 [AP Photo/Adel Hana] The satellite images below show the widespread destruction of farms, roads and homes in eastern Maghazi in the centre of Deir el-Balah. Khan Younis Khan Younis in the south used to produce the bulk of Gaza’s citrus, including oranges and grapefruits. With its fertile soil and long hours of Mediterranean sunshine, it has the ideal climate as well as lots of space, being Gaza’s largest governorate – about 30 percent of the Strip’s 365sq km (141 sq miles). Farmers pick citrus fruits in Khan Younis on November 7, 2022 [Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images] The satellite images below show how Israeli forces have decimated Khan Younis’s orchards and farmlands. Rafah Rafah is Gaza’s southernmost district, with a pre-war population of about 275,000 people. Rafah is also the name of the crossing with Egypt which used to be a vital link between Gaza and the rest of the world before it was destroyed by Israel in May. In the southeast of Rafah is the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing where goods grown or produced in Gaza were shipped out of the territory. Before and after satellite imagery shows how Israeli forces have flattened vital fields in eastern Rafah Adblock test (Why?)
Hurricane Beryl strengthens into ‘potentially catastrophic’ storm
Beryl, the earliest Category 4 storm ever reported, is moving towards Jamaica after hitting the island of Carriacou in Grenada. Hurricane Beryl has intensified into a “potentially catastrophic” Category 5 storm, the United States’s National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, as it headed towards Jamaica after bringing down power lines, damaging houses and flooding streets on other southeastern Caribbean islands. Beryl, the earliest Category 4 storm ever reported, made landfall earlier on Monday on the island of Carriacou in Grenada. “Beryl is now a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane,” the NHS said in a bulletin at 11.00pm (03:00 GMT). “Fluctuations in strength are likely… but Beryl is expected to still be near major hurricane intensity” as it moves across the Caribbean. Carriacou took a direct hit early in the day from the storm’s “extremely dangerous eyewall,” with sustained winds at upwards of 240km per hour (150 mph), the NHC said. Nearby islands, including Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines, also experienced “catastrophic winds and life-threatening storm surge”, the hurricane centre said. “In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a news conference. He said one person had died, but authorities had not yet been able to assess the situation on the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, where communications had been largely cut off. “We do hope there aren’t any other fatalities or any injuries,” he said. “But bear in mind the challenge we have in Carriacou and Petite Martinique.” Mitchell added that the government will send people early on Tuesday to evaluate the situation on the islands. The storm brought seawater surges that inundated some coastal communities in Barbados [Chandan Khanna/AFP] Streets from St Lucia island south to Grenada were strewn with shoes, trees, downed power lines and other debris. Some banana trees were snapped in half by the force of the wind. “Right now, I’m real heartbroken,” said Vichelle Clark King as she surveyed her sand and water-filled shop in the Barbadian capital of Bridgetown. The storm is expected to pass near Jamaica on Wednesday, the Miami-based hurricane centre said. Jamaica’s government issued a hurricane warning for the country, while tropical storm warnings were in effect for parts of the southern coasts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Climate change effect The last strong hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada. Beryl became the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season on Saturday and quickly strengthened to Category 4. Experts say that such a powerful storm forming this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November, is extremely rare and that climate change probably contributed to its rapid formation. Global warming has helped push temperatures in the North Atlantic to all-time highs, causing more surface water to evaporate, which in turn provides additional fuel for more intense hurricanes with higher wind speeds. “Climate change is loading the dice for more intense hurricanes to form,” said Christopher Rozoff, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the US state of Colorado. Andra Garner, a New Jersey-based meteorologist, noted that Beryl jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm in less than 10 hours. Her research has shown that as water temperatures have risen over the last five decades, it has become more than twice as likely for storms to jump from weak storms to major hurricanes in less than 24 hours. In May, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic this year, also pointing to unseasonably high ocean temperatures. At the Chillin’ restaurant in Kingston, waiter Welton Anderson said he felt calm despite the hurricane’s approach. “Jamaicans wait until the last minute. The night before or in the morning, the panic sets in. It’s because we’re used to this,” he said. Across other islands in the eastern Caribbean, residents had boarded up windows, stocked up on food and filled their cars with fuel as the storm drew closer. Officials in Mexico also began to prepare for Beryl’s arrival later this week, with the federal government issuing a statement urging authorities and the population to exercise “extreme caution”. Adblock test (Why?)
Will Pakistan ever be able to eradicate polio?
Health workers have begun a campaign to vaccinate 9.5 million children against polio in 41 districts in Pakistan this week. This latest round of a national vaccination drive will include Islamabad and focus particularly on areas where polio-positive sewage samples have been found. The anti-polio drive will be launched in 16 districts of Balochistan, 11 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, eight districts of Sindh, and five districts of Punjab, according to local media. Despite major efforts to eradicate the disease in Pakistan, six cases of the highly infectious virus have already been reported this year. Further hampering the drive, vaccination teams and medical professionals have faced harassment and even physical attacks in some parts of Pakistan. Pakistan’s PM Shehbaz Sharif, however, said the government “remains steadfast” in its aim to eradicate polio after a meeting with American billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates in Islamabad last week. How serious a problem is polio in Pakistan? Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic, the other being neighbouring Afghanistan, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The highly contagious viral disease largely affects children under the age of five. Children infected by poliovirus can suffer paralysis and in some cases death. The South Asian nation launched a vaccination programme as part of its Polio Eradication Programme in 1994. Officials say the country used to report more than 20,000 cases annually. Despite administering more than 300 million doses of the oral vaccine annually and spending billions of dollars, the disease is still rife across Pakistan. This year, four vaccination campaigns targeting more than 43 million children have already been undertaken as authorities claim they are in the “last mile” of their fight against polio in the country of 235 million people. How many cases have been reported in Pakistan? Since 2015, Pakistan has reported 357 polio cases, including six this year. One of the victims, a two-year-old boy, died in May. Officials said all of this year’s cases belong to the YB3A cluster, which they said originated in Afghanistan, where four cases have been reported this year. In addition to human cases, wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) has frequently been detected in environmental samples taken across the country. This year, WPV1 has been found in 45 of Pakistan’s 166 districts. How does Pakistan run its polio immunisation campaigns? Nationwide immunisation campaigns involving more than 350,000 health workers are run in phases with vaccine desks set up at health centres and health workers going door to door. The campaigns are organised by the government-run National Emergencies Operation Center (NEOC), which has been tasked with running Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Programme. Field workers go door to door over the course of a specified number of days, vaccinating children under the age of five. Vaccines are also administered at land and air borders, including to adults, and on motorways connecting major cities across the country. What are the issues facing the polio campaign? Resistance to the polio immunisation drive grew in Pakistan after the CIA, a United States spy agency, organised a fake hepatitis vaccination drive to track al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 in Pakistan by US special forces. Misinformation linked to religious beliefs has also been spread, claiming that the vaccine contains traces of pork and alcohol, which are forbidden in Islam. Disinformation, agenda-driven campaigns, myths, community boycotts and mistrust in the government have also been factors behind refusals. But officials said government campaigns are helping change bad perceptions. Health authorities in Pakistan have listed seven districts where polio is “endemic”. All seven are in the northwest, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Officials said the security situation has been the biggest obstacle in reaching the target population in the province bordering Afghanistan. In addition to the security situation, health officials say a target population that moves from one place to another, which may be carrying the YB3A variant, has proven to be a challenge. Why have health workers and security officials been targeted? Health workers and security officials accompanying them have been harassed, ridiculed, taunted, threatened and even targeted physically. At least 102 polio field workers, officials and security personnel have been killed, including at least six in campaigns carried out this year. In recent years, the Pakistan Taliban has killed dozens of health workers and members of the security forces involved in polio campaigns. But officials believe the reason for the violence is not the polio programme alone. “Over the last few years, it is not the polio programme that is targeted, but unfortunately, the targets are the security personnel guarding the teams because, given the security situation in some parts of the country, they become soft targets when they are in the community,” Dr Hamid Jafari, the WHO’s director of polio eradication, told Al Jazeera. What other issues affect the health workers? Low pay, salary delays, lack of assistance and compassion, and tough working conditions are some of the other issues facing the field workers. Some health workers told Al Jazeera they get paid as little as 1,360 rupees per day (about $5) for at least eight hours of work. Catch-up days when they go out in the field after the end of the campaign to vaccinate children who were missed are not paid, they said. In addition, some polio survivors now working on the campaign do not receive help with transport or health benefits despite their conditions, leaving them to walk in poor weather and tough terrain to carry out their work. Some staff lamented the lack of pay parity, saying people working with international organisations involved in the campaign are paid much more. What is the outlook for the polio eradication campaign? Dr Shahzad Baig, who was the NEOC chief until May, told Al Jazeera that the aim was to make Pakistan polio-free by 2026. “That is our target at the moment,” he said before he was replaced. However, after a Technical Advisory Group meeting organised by the WHO that took place in
How does Israel treat thousands of Palestinians in its prisons?
Accusations of widespread abuses and torture. Palestinian detainees released from Israeli prisons say abuse and torture are widespread and systematic. Thousands, including minors, have been held since the war on Gaza began in October. So, how does Israel treat its Palestinian prisoners? Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom Guests: Fadia Barghouti – Detained by the Israeli military for 90 days under its so-called administrative detention programme Basil Farraj – Assistant professor at Birzeit University, specialising in the study of political prisoners and violence in prisons in Palestine and elsewhere Mustafa Barghouti – Secretary-general and founder of the Palestinian National Initiative Adblock test (Why?)
US Supreme Court rules partial immunity for Donald Trump
NewsFeed In a historic 6-3 decision the US Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for certain official actions taken as president but can for private acts. The decision is being sent back to a lower court and likely will delay any trial Trump may face on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election until after the 2024 election in November. Published On 1 Jul 20241 Jul 2024 Adblock test (Why?)