Mexico ignores women’s rights

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Mexican women’s groups have expressed deep disappointment after the supreme court dodged a ruling on a proposal which could have opened a legal path towards decriminalizing abortion. In a 4-1 decision, the court voted against the proposal for technical reasons – without addressing arguments that restrictions on abortion violated women’s rights and contravened international treaties to which Mexico is a signatory. 
The case centred on a court injunction in Veracruz, which ordered the legislature to rewrite its laws to remove penalties for abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The case centred on a court injunction in Veracruz, which ordered the legislature to rewrite its laws to remove penalties for abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – a self-described leftist with social and fiscal conservative tendencies – has not made any moves towards reforming the country’s abortion laws, even though his party controls both chambers of congress and more than half the state legislatures. López Obrador said that he respected the court decision.
“Women’s rights are not a priority [for López Obrador’s government] even if he says they are,” said Maricruz Ocampo, who works with victims of sexual violence in Querétaro. “His actions demonstrate they are not.”

Iran’s falling birth rate

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 Back in the 1980s, Iran’s birth rate was one of the highest in the world, with the population growing at an explosive rate. But now, Iran’s spiritual leaders are worried about their country’s low birth rate. Political measures aimed at helping people juggle work and family life haven’t made much of a difference.

“I don’t want a child,” said Sarah, a woman who’s been happily married for eight years. “Having a child is a lot of responsibility that I don’t want, perhaps because I haven’t yet recovered from the constant competition in my own life,” the 38-year-old, who lives in Tehran and works for a food company, told DW. For Sarah, money isn’t a problem. She counts herself among Iran’s “baby boomer” generation, born after the 1979 revolution. 
In 1979, the country had 37 million inhabitants. Family planning was the rule — the population even dipped slightly in the previous decade. But religious revolutionaries at the time rejected family planning as un-Islamic — they envisioned a powerful, populous, Shiite-dominated country in the Middle East. During the long bloody war against Iraq in the 1980s, Iranian authorities actively encouraged women to have babies. 
Iran’s population has more than doubled in the last 41 years, from 37 million to 84 million people. With that growth came a realization among politicians that the country’s education and health systems were overtaxed, and that sorely needed investments had been lacking during the war with Iraq. In December 1988, the Supreme Court paved the way for a modern program to promote family planning when it declared the practice was perfectly compatible with Islam.
The new program foresaw families with an average of three children. The government promoted the distribution of modern contraceptives, and made counseling and education available across Iran. The plan worked: By 2010, the average number of births per woman had dropped from 5.1 to 1.7, a figure that has essentially remained stable to this day. According to the Tehran Times, however, the number of annual births has been steadily dropping in recent years. About 1.48 million births were recorded between March 2016 and March 2017, 1.36 million the year after, and 1.2 million the year after that — a steady decline of around 100,000 births every year.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has long criticized the low birth rate in the Islamic Republic. The spiritual leader wants the population to grow to 150 million, and in 2012 he enforced a turnaround in the country’s family policies that cut off funding for family planning education and contraceptive services. Two years later, Khamenei declared the increase of the country’s birth rate to be a strategic goal. Since then, a number of family-friendly measures have been introduced, including an extended maternity leave of nine months. Pregnant women are free to take sick leave whenever necessary, with a simple medical certificate, and access to loans and jobs has also been facilitated for families with children.  The measures have been accompanied by a massive propaganda effort in state media and institutions, including universities. 
However, they haven’t been enough to convince young people to change their minds, in a country where the average age is almost 31. Many young people just can’t see having a large family with several children. Many Iranians are struggling economically and they simply can’t imagine bringing children into the world under such circumstances.

Floods to come

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The combined impacts of human-caused sea level rise, storm surges and high tides could expose an extra 23 million people to coastal flooding within the next 30 years, even with relatively ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, a new global study has found. According to the study, about 148 million people globally are exposed to flooding events today.



 Rising sea levels caused by global heating that expands the oceans and melts land-based ice could mean that one-in-100-year floods occurring now would become one-in-10-year floods by the end of the century. As much as 4% of the world’s population could be affected by flooding.



 The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, identified “hotspot” regions at risk of extensive flooding. South-eastern China, Australia’s north, Bangladesh, West Bengal and Gujarat in India were especially at risk. In the United States, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland were considered to be most exposed, as were the UK, northern France and northern Germany.



 In a worst-case scenario where emissions continue to rise and no efforts are made to adapt to the rising sea levels, coastal assets worth US$14.2tn – about 20% of global GDP – could be at risk by the end of the century. But the study also shows how the risk of damage from rising sea levels and storm surges will continue to rise even if emissions are kept to a level that would keep the global temperature rise to well below 2C by the end of this century. If greenhouse gas emissions rise moderately – the equivalent of 1.8C of global warming by the end of the century – a further 54 million people will be exposed. But if emissions are allowed to spiral in a worst-case scenario, then this number rises to 77 million. About US$10.2tn of coastal assets are exposed to coastal flooding in 2100, even with emissions kept at moderate level, according to the study.



 Prof Ian Young, a co-author of the study at the University of Melbourne, said: “We certainly need to mitigate our greenhouse gases but that won’t solve this problem.



 “The sea level rise is already baked in – even if we reduce emissions today the sea level will continue to rise because the glaciers will continue to melt for hundreds of years.” Young said: “When most people think of sea level rise they think about 3 or 4mm per year, but when flooding occurs it happens it’s when you also have a storm. That happens today and we have seen that on the coast of New South Wales last week. Sea level rise exacerbates the magnitude – and increases the frequency – of these flooding events. There are significantly larger areas of land flooded and that will have significant economic impacts on infrastructure.



 He explained, “Even if we mitigate greenhouse gases it does not make much effect. We have to adapt to this – it is going to happen so we have to look at either hard engineering solutions, or do we look at planned retreat and move populations and that’s incredibly difficult, or there are nature-based coastal defence systems.”



 Ebru Kirezci, the lead researcher, also of the University of Melbourne, said: “We need to adapt to sea level rise and climate change. Adaptation is the only way out and we need to adopt some risk mitigation strategies like sea walls and dykes and develop forecasting and warning systems, or coastal retreat, which means the relocation of coastal communities to safer places.”


‘Everything is burning’

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Raging fires described as “completely out of control” is threatening the Paraná delta grasslands, one of South America’s major wetland ecosystems. The fires have been burning for months now.



 The Paraná is South America’s second largest river after the Amazon and the eighth longest river in the world. Its floodplain, known by Rosarinos as “la isla”, is not actually an island, but a vast delta covering some 15,000km2 , through which the Paraná drains towards the Atlantic Ocean 300km away. The giant delta is clearly visible in satellite imagery as a dark green wedge on the northern margin of the Paraná from Rosario to Buenos Aires. Giant plumes of smoke from the fires raging since February have at times covered the streets of Rosario and other places along the Paraná with a layer of ash from scorched plants and animals. The air in Rosario has been unbreathable for weeks at a time. 



 Although cattle ranchers, illegal hunters and property developers have encroached on its rich habitat, the Paraná delta still teems with diverse wildlife, all facing a dire challenge to their survival. There’s the carpincho [capybara], the world’s largest rodent, a relative to the guinea pig, but the size of a farm pig, weighing over 60 kilos, aquatic and highly gregarious. Then the gato montés [wildcat], a solitary hunter at the top of the delta food chain despite being only the size of a domestic cat, either spotted like a leopard or entirely black like a panther. Then there’s an endless variety of birds, invertebrates, mollusks, rare insects, amphibians, reptiles … which must be suffering an incredible mortality rate.”



 Far from abating, the number of fires has been rising. Liotta works at the Scasso Natural Science Museum in San Nicolás, where he has been monitoring the delta fires via Nasa satellites. “We’ve identified 8,024 likely fires so far this year, almost half of them this month of July.” Liotta worked backwards and found the scale of the

calamity was unprecedented. “The average number of yearly satellite-detected hotspots was only 1,800 in 2012–2019. We’re already at over 8,000 and barely halfway through the year.”



The unregulated expansion of cattle ranching is the main culprit for the expanding fires says Laura Prol, an ecologist from the Rosario-based environmental NGO Taller Ecologista. Cattle ranchers ship their livestock to the islands on barcos jaula [cage boats], sometimes two storeys high, that carry around 60 heads of cattle each. 


“The delta has always been used by livestock farmers to graze their cattle, but the number of cattle grew 500% between between 2000 and 2010,” Prol told the Guardian. “Although that number has dropped some in the last decade, ranchers continue burning the dead winter grass as if they were still in the 19th century, the idea being for the new grass beneath to sprout stronger.”


“But the real problem is that 2020 has been one of the driest of recent years, which causes two problems. First, without proper humidity the dead grass becomes highly flammable, and second, the low level of the river dries out the canals that usually act as buffers that stop the fire from expanding beyond individual islands,” says Prol.


“Legal action won’t stop the fires. What is needed is a long-term environmental policy to deal with the drop in the level of the river caused by the changing climate and by the El Niño weather phenomenon,” says Prol. “This year’s dry spell might also be an effect of the fires in the Amazon last year, in which a large amount of vapour-producing vegetation that then turned to rain perished. Finding the culprits for this year’s fires is of course important, but we need real environmental protection.”


 Leonel Mingo, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, agrees: 
“We have been lobbying for years for a comprehensive wetlands law. The reason these fires are raging is because there is no legislation. We need to ban cattle farming in the delta. Because right now, with this dry weather, with the drying up of the Paraná river and without a campaign to change the traditional use of fire by cattle ranchers to clear land for pasture, you have the perfect storm.”


Dirty England

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More than 1,300 sites across England are breaching annual limits for harmful pollutant nitrogen dioxide, analysis by Friends of the Earth suggests. Friends of the Earth said 1,360 monitoring sites across the country exceeded the annual average air quality target of 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air for nitrogen dioxide in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available.



 In some spots, the annual average was more than double the level set to protect health from long-term exposure to pollution, the analysis shows. Nitrogen dioxide is a pollutant which mostly comes from traffic fumes and, along with other pollution such as particulate matter, is linked to health issues such as lung and respiratory diseases and early deaths.



 Simon Bowens, clean air campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said failing to fix air pollution costs lives and showed a failure to address the climate crisis.



 The 10 sites with the highest annual average nitrogen dioxide levels according to the Friends of the Earth analysis are:

– Chideock Hill, West Dorset 97.7
– Station Taxi Rank, Sheffield 91.7
– North Street Clock Tower, Brighton 90.8
– Neville Street Tunnel, Leeds 88
– Strand, City of Westminster 88
– Walbrook Wharf, City of London 87
– Hickleton opp Fir Tree Close, Doncaster 86
– Marylebone Road, City of Westminster 85
– Euston Road, London Borough of Camden 82.3
– Hickleton, John O’Gaunts, Doncaster 82

Bangladesh Floods and the Climate Emergency

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Around a third of Bangladesh is underwater due to recent catastrophic flooding and the climate crisis has played a role in the devastation, according to experts.
The widespread flooding, which has displaced millions of vulnerable people and caused more than 100 deaths, follows the deadly super-cyclone Amphan which hit the region in May. Amphan tore through coastal areas of Bangladesh, a low-lying, heavily-populated country of 162 million people, along with neighbouring regions of India. The cyclone killed more than 100 people and impacted at least 1 million, according to the United Nations, wiping out villages and essential infrastructure with the cost of damage estimated at $11.5 billion.
Torrential monsoon rains this month have compounded the suffering, sending water rushing from hilly areas and causing dangerously high water levels in two of Bangladesh’s major rivers, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna.


Developing countries like Bangladesh, which have historically contributed little to the pollution driving increased temperatures and rising sea levels, will suffer the greatest impacts. 10 per cent of the world’s most affluent people are responsible for between 25 and 43 per cent of environmental impact. In contrast, the world’s bottom 10 per cent income earners exert only around 3–5% of environmental impact.
Dr Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh, told The Independent that the “fingerprint” of climate change could be seen in the magnitude of the recent disasters. I think that this is definitely linked to climate change,” Dr Huq said. “This is a one in 20-year flood event that we are having now for the fifth time in the last 20 years. The events didn’t happen because of climate change but they are definitely more intense because we’ve interfered with the climate system.” Dr Huq pointed to the direct impacts that global heating had in intensifying Amphan into a super-cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. “Sea surface temperature aggravates the cyclone and makes it more intense,” he said. Dr Huq wrote that “it is now apparent that the year 2020 is clearly the year in which the impact of climate change can be identified in both Cyclone Amphan that hit Bangladesh and India a few months ago, as well as the current flooding which is affecting millions of people as well as crops and property”.
A monsoon climate change assessment by the American Meteorological Society in June found that “continued global warming and urbanisation over the past century has already caused a significant rise in the intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall events in all monsoon regions”.
World Meteorological Organisation Secretary-General Petteri Taalas noted this week that “climate change is increasing the risk of extreme rainfall events, flooding and coastal inundation”.
The Bangladesh Directorate General of Health Services said this week that 129 people had died in the floods. Across India, Bangladesh and Nepal, some 550 people have died and millions more have been displaced from their homes, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). More than 100 Bangladeshis, mostly children, had drowned while other deaths were attributed to water-borne diseases. More than 3.3 million people had been impacted the flooding and a third of the total are children, according to UNICEF. Millions of Bangladeshis have little in the way of resources to fall back on, in a country where one in five people live below the poverty line and the average wage is less than $5 a day.
 Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of the IFRC, told AP that South Asia could face a humanitarian crisis.
“People in Bangladesh, India and Nepal are sandwiched in a triple disaster of flooding, the coronavirus and an associated socioeconomic crisis of loss of livelihoods and jobs,” he said. “Flooding of farmlands and destruction of crops can push millions of people, already badly impacted by Covid-19, further into poverty.”
Bangladesh is widely-recognised as one of the most climate-vulnerable countries on the planet with impacts expected to intensify in the coming decades. The number of Bangladeshis displaced by the climate crisis could reach 13.3 million by 2050, according to a 2018 World Bank report. The recent disasters bring into sharp focus the ongoing calls from developing countries to their wealthier counterparts to address the inequities, the so-called “loss and damage” of the climate crisis. Dr Huq said that “loss and damage” remained a deeply political issue and a “taboo” subject in the developed world.
“We are now seeing inevitable loss and damage that is no longer natural but is manmade,” he said. “Under the framework, vulnerable developing countries have been demanding some financial mechanism or funding to be made available, to compensate the victims of climate change.”

UK wildlife on the brink

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A quarter of native mammals now at risk of extinction in the UK. This is according to the first Red List of UK mammals – a comprehensive review of the status of species, including wildcats, red squirrels and hedgehogs.
“When we draw all the evidence together – about population size and how isolated and fragmented those populations are – we come up with this list of 11 of our 47 native species being threatened imminently,” explained Prof Mathews. “And there are more species that are categorised as ‘near threatened’. That means that we need to keep an eye on these species, because while we don’t yet have a red flag waving, they’re still abundant enough to be able to turn things around.”
The mammals in the most threatened categories are as follows:

Critically endangered: Wildcat, greater mouse-eared bat; Endangered: Beaver, red squirrel, water vole, grey long-eared bat; Vulnerable: Hedgehog, hazel dormouse, Orkney vole, Serotine bat, Barbastelle bat; Near threatened: Mountain hare, harvest mouse, lesser white-toothed shrew, Leisler’s bat, Nathusius’ pipistrelle

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53585627

The Old Were Sacrificed

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The COVID19 has been devastating for elderly people. 
The numbers are staggering, more than 80 percent of the fatalities due to coronavirus in the US and East Asia occurred among adults aged 65 and over. In Europe and Australia, the figures are even higher, 94 and 97 per cent of the deaths were persons aged 60 and over.

However, when contagions spread, older persons were denied access to beds and ventilators, despite being the most vulnerable group.
Human rights experts were alarmed by the decisions made around the use of scarce medical resources in hospitals and intensive care units, discriminating solely based on age. Despite being helpless and most at risk, older persons were not prioritized; they were de facto sacrificed, denied treatment and emergency support. 
About half of the coronavirus casualties in high income countries were in care homes, though this is an underestimation because originally official death tolls did not include those who had died outside hospitals without a COVID19 test done. 
In Sweden, protocols discouraged care workers from sending older persons to hospitals, letting them die in the care homes. 
Most countries reported insufficient protective equipment and testing in care homes for both residents and care workers. Thousands were infected of coronavirus in nursing homes, and while some staff heroically worked in dangerous conditions, others did not. Staff absenteeism added to the problems. 
In a nursing home in France, 24 old folk passed away in only 5 days; they died alone in their rooms of hypovolemic shock, without food or water, because 40 percent of the staff was absent. 
In Canada, a criminal investigation was launched after 31 residents were found dead, unfed and unchanged at a Seniors’ Residence; after other disturbing cases, the Canadian military had to be deployed to assist and the government is considering to take over all private long-term care institutions. 
In Spain, when the military were deployed to disinfect nursing homes, they were shocked to find people “completely abandoned or even dead in their beds.” Spain has launched criminal investigations into dozens of care homes after grieving relatives of thousands of elderly coronavirus victims claimed ‘our parents were left to die’.
In Italy’s Lombardy region, a resolution offering 150 euros (US$175) to care homes for accepting COVID19 patients to ease the burden on hospital beds, accelerated the spread of the virus among health workers and residents. Coffins piled up in nursing homes. Families are filing lawsuits for mishandling the epidemic.
In the US, more than 38,000 older persons have died in residences because of COVID19 and many families have filed lawsuits against nursing homes for wrongful death and gross negligence. In the US, nursing homes and long-term care operators have been lobbying state and federal legislators across the US to pass laws giving them broad immunity, denying responsibility for conditions inside care homes during COVID19. Nineteen states have recently enacted laws or gubernatorial executive orders granting nursing homes protection from civil liability in connection with COVID19. Nobody is being held responsible for the suffering of thousands of older persons that died alone in care homes.
In the UK, families of care home residents who died from COVID19 are suing the Health and Social Care Secretary; the claims accuse the government of breaching the European Convention on Human Rights, National Health Service Act 2006 and the Equalities Act.
Long-term care is a lucrative and powerful industry. Europe’s care sector is concentrated in the hands of a few large private groups. Also in the US, 70 percent of the 15,000 nursing homes are run by for-profit companies; many have been bought and sold in recent years by private-equity firms.
Health system capacity is strained because austerity cuts in earlier years. It was the shortage of beds, staff and equipment that made doctors discriminate against older persons and prioritize those younger, with more chances of survival to COVID19. Governments and international financial institutions must stop mean budget cuts that have condemned many to die, and instead invest in universal public health and social protection systems, spend more on health and long-term care services for older persons.
Despite a rapidly ageing population, half the world’s elderly lacks access to long-term care. At the moment, governments spend very little on long term care; instead, they have allowed private care services to develop, with minimal regulation. As a result, most older persons have to pay up to 100 percent of long term care out of their own pocket and most cannot afford quality services – a highly unequal system. Societies have failed their senior citizens during the COVID19 pandemic
“Older people have the same rights to life and heath as everyone else. Difficult decisions around life-saving medical care must respect the human rights and dignity of all,” stated the UN Secretary-General.



 http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/07/neglected-sacrificed-older-persons-covid19-pandemic/

Lead Poison in the Blood

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One in three children around the world have concentrations of lead in their blood at levels likely to cause significant long-term health damage, new research has found.
About 800 million children and young people under the age of 19 are likely to have blood levels of lead at or above 5 micrograms per decilitre (5μg/dl), according to the report. There is no safe level for lead exposure, according to the World Health Organization, because even at very low concentrations it operates as a dangerous toxin, but levels above 5μg/dl are regarded by the US Centers for Disease Control as a cause for action. Lead is a potent neurotoxin and high exposure can kill, while lower levels cause symptoms ranging from pain, vomiting and seizures to developmental delay, mental difficulties and mood disorders. The lower levels can also cause children to be born prematurely. Exposure at the levels studied is likely to cause reductions in cognitive ability, higher levels of violence and long term health impacts such as cardiovascular disease, according to the researchers. 
Children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure because it damages the developing brain and nervous system, building up over time, and the impacts do not show immediately. Lead mimics calcium in the bones, building up in people’s bodies and causing damage to other vital organs, including the kidneys, heart and lungs. Lead at 5μg/dl of blood is likely to wipe about 3-5 points from a child’s IQ score, and at the levels found in the Unicef report could double the level of violence in society. It is also likely to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, as about 900,000 deaths a year are already linked to lead poisoning.  30 academic studies had linked elevated lead levels to people’s propensity for violent behaviour, providing enough corroboration for scientists to make a strong association between continuing lead contamination and its likely impacts on violence.
“This is an absolutely shocking figure,” said Nicholas Rees, policy specialist at Unicef and author of the report. “We have known for so long about the toxic nature of lead, but we have not known how widespread it is, and how many children are affected.”
Richard Fuller of Pure Earth, an NGO that collaborated with Unicef on the report, said people were less aware of the damage caused by lead, after campaigns to remove the toxin from many common uses in developed countries decades ago.
“We did a terrific job of taking lead out of gasoline, but the use of lead has plateaued after falling in the 1970s and 80s,” he said. Fuller said that while the levels of lead might seem small, across populations the damage was significant. “It means double the number of people who are intellectually impaired,” he said. “It is definitely not a trivial issue.”
 In the US, children living in poorer households and dilapidated accommodation have been found to be at higher risk. In the UK, about 200,000 children are likely to be affected, according to Unicef.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/30/one-in-three-children-dangerous-levels-lead-in-blood

Cuba Continues Reforms

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Cuba is loosening restrictions on small businesses as it seeks to stimulate a state-dominated economy effected by events in its ally Venezuela, the United States sanctions and the pandemic. 



 President Miguel Diaz-Canel, however, speaking earlier this month, said the country faced an ongoing international crisis and would implement a series of reforms to increase exports, cut imports and stimulate domestic demand. The economy is forecast to decline this year in tandem with the region, or a bit less than 10 percent. The government admits it has little foreign exchange to buy food, fuel and other supplies from abroad, where the peso is worthless. Cuba faced a liquidity crisis even before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered tourism and hit other revenue earners.



 The measures include more autonomy for state companies, farmers and local government, dollarisation of some internal trade and, Diaz-Canel said, “the improvement of the non-state sector, with immediate priority in the expansion of self-employment and removal of obstacles.”



 The non-state sector, excluding agriculture, is composed mainly of small private businesses and cooperatives; their employees, artisans, taxi drivers and tradesmen. All are under the rubric of self-employed, numbering 600,000 before the pandemic left an estimated 40 percent tied to the tourism industry and public transportation without work.



 One obstacle already removed regards the right to import and export, albeit through state companies.



 “We want to put all forms of management on an equal footing,” Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca said.



 COVID-19 pandemic has worsened shortages of food, medicine and other goods and led to long lines at retail outlets.



 https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/isle-revival-communist-run-cuba-loosens-grip-small-businesses-200729190411727.html



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