The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up – Photo-reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz

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Photo-reportage by Spanish photojournalist César Dezfuli and journalist colleague María Sanz takes us into the lives of Uruguayans dispossessed by the floods that occurred in the south of the country this month–and specifically into the city of Colonia del Sacramento, where 150 families had to be evacuated. The area suffers flooding regularly, and the impoverished residents, who also suffer social exclusion, are the most affected. This community of Uruguayans waits to be relocated by the local government into houses which are owned by a Finnish paper company, but since they were first promised three years ago that they would be moved to new houses nothing has happened, although the government knows they are living in a flood area. 

This story, beyond being a natural disaster, illustrates a particular case of exclusion of the right to housing.

 

“Tonight I can finally get back to my palace,” said Claudia Machado with an ironic smile, standing on the back of a Uruguayan Army truck. She is a victim of a flood that forced more than 150 people to evacuate Oct. 29 in Colonia del Sacramento, a city by the Río de la Plata in southern Uruguay.

Claudia was among last of the evacuees returning to her home in Villa Ferrando, a squatter settlement in the suburbs of Colonia. This area was one of the most damaged by the rains due to the swelling of La Caballada, a stream close by the place where the houses were built.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (10)

Most of the residents in Villa Ferrando found shelter in the Campus Municipal, the sports center in Colonia. Two days later, in the early morning, they returned to their houses under a darkened sky reflecting the threat of another storm.The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (13)

The houses were not in proper condition, so no one should have spend another night there. However, the residents had been asked to leave their temporary refuge in the sports center. Some of them were happy to be back home, and others guessed that they had been forced to go because there was a football match that day and the visitor’s team needed the Campus Municipal to sleep.

Many of the people in Villa Fernando had to face the heavy damage caused by the storm when they arrived home: destroyed ceilings, houses flooded with mud, moldy walls, unusable furniture and appliances… Dripping clothes and drenched mattresses were hanging on ropes to dry in the sun.The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (27)

By the door of her empty place, one of the closest houses to the river, Marta explained how the stream reached the two-room house where she lived with her whole family. “It was all under water–you couldn’t see that curve on the river there, it was all covered with water. The house started to get flooded and we all had to get away,” she said.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz

Neighbors made an inventory of losses and recalculated how long it will take them to recover what had been damaged. “At home we had a fridge, a washing-machine… My husband and I are working, and it takes us more than one year to pay the fees on everything,” explained Ana Acosta, spokeswoman of the slum. “Our appliances are ruined and no one is accepting that responsibility. We have to start again, and again, and again… because this is not the first flood we are suffering.”

Acosta works in a retirement home in the city, but most of her neighbors confess that they live off “changas”–irregular, sporadic jobs–just to survive. “It’s really hard to get regular employment, because when you say you live in Villa Ferrando, you are automatically discriminated and employers don’t call you anymore,” she revealed.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (7)

Her parents, who are already retired, have been living in this very same place for decades. They remember at least one similar flood in 2007, although they state it did not damage as many houses as this last one did. “The stream was huge. It was just impressive,” said Acosta.

According to Omar Espinosa, another resident, recent swells had been caused by the work on the upper side of the river course, destined to create a new quarry for the company Arenera Colonia. Curiously enough, the neighborhood was named after the founder of this enterprise, Santiago Ferrando, who had been dedicated to sand extraction in the area.

“When they started the excavations to extract more sand in the upper part of the stream, a wider water flow began to go down the river, so this area is now more likely to get flooded,” warned Espinosa. “If the lower part of the stream would get drained, the river would get deeper and be less likely to overflow,” he thought.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (20)

Omar, a 60-year-old evangelical priest, works in the building sector. He has lived in the shanty town of Villa Ferrando for more than twenty years with his wife, Suly Roldán, and their offspring, which includes 27 grandchildren. As a missionary, he had traveled to faraway places: Peru, Southern Korea, Angola… until he settled down in Colonia to go on with his preachment. To him, successive floods are “God’s challenges,” and he faces them with faith and a fighting spirit. He himself built up the walls of his precarious home, which has electricity and is open to everyone else in the neighborhood.

Outside, in the huge puddle that grows with every new rainfall, one of Omar’s grandchildren played in the silt wearing big rubber boots. Behind the house, survivors of the disaster were looking for shelter: some hens, some dogs, but no pigs. In addition to the objects and the scarce goods in the houses, the rains had taken a big part of the food and the livelihood of the slum inhabitants.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (16)

“If your house gets flooded, you have to run away. You resist until the last moment, trying to save some of your things, but when you are up to your neck in water, material things are not so important,” explained Alba Machado while cleaning her muddy home in the dark, suddenly brightened by lightning. She was so convinced of her indifference toward material goods that some years ago she moved from her house to the slum, following her partner. He died some time ago, a victim of a lung disease. Obviously life conditions at the slum would not have contributed to his recovery.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (17)

Waiting for a place to call home

Villa Ferrando’s inhabitants have been waiting for some years for their relocation, given that they occupy a zone close to a stream, and that the authorities are trying to finish with shanty towns in the area. Uruguay’s Housing Ministry (MVOTMA) and Social Development Ministry (Mides), in collaboration with Colonia’s local government, are working together to provide the 270 slum families with safe houses equipped with all supplies.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz

The aim is to relocate the families in different areas in the city in order to make the community become more “integrated into society,” according to public servants in the MVOTMA headquarters in Colonia.

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One of these areas would be the neighborhood built three years ago by the Chilean-Finnish paper company Montes del Plata to host the employees working on the construction of the plant destined to become a paper mill. Now that the job is finished, furniture and other comfort supplies are being removed in order to “make houses match with the families’ profiles,” explained staff at MVOTMA.

The local government wants to give the houses to all their occupants at the same time, but Villa Ferrando’s inhabitants are not satisfied with this measure. “Here we have some families with children, with elderly people…Families who live at the river bank and have to deal with the risk of a new flooding… And we want these families to be relocated first, because their situation is much more urgent. The houses are already built, but they remain empty,” Ana Acosta stated.

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It never rains but it pours inside the houses, and people in the slum calculate how many spring and summer weeks are left. They do not talk about seasons anymore, but about chance of rain. Resignation sticks out. “We have no more hope to have a home,” says Amelio, another neighbor. “All politicians came here before election day to ask for our votes. That is when they care about us). They all make promises, but then they never keep their word,” he complains.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz

According to Uruguay’s National Statistical Institute (INE), in 2011 there were 165.271 people living in slums in the country, the global population of which is just over three million inhabitants. The number of people living in slums lowered 8 percent between 2006 and 2011, and the total of irregular housing settlements reported around the country fell 11 percent, according to the data provided by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

It is considered that 5 percent of Uruguayans currently live in shanty towns, while more than 30 percent of the houses in the country do not have access to water and sewerage. The Frente Amplio, a left-wing political party which has governed the country since 2005 and represents the option with more chances to win the upcoming November 30th elections, stated that more than 400 million Uruguayan pesos (approximately 13.28 million euros) would be invested in 2014 in a special program for informal housing settlements.

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz (6)

At the same time, the opposition party, the Partido Nacional, second in number of votes in the first-round elections day held on October 26th, has proposed a strategy to achieve the goal of a country without slums. They promise to “relocate people living in slums, especially those groups located in highly polluted areas or in zones that are more likely to be flooded.”

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What Villa Ferrando is asking the candidates of any party for is support before they become abandoned and forgotten. “We want them to be a little bit more concerned about us. We are not here in the slum by choice, but because we are needy people,” said a neighbor while she walked by. But her voice was lost in the sounds of the thunderstorm that was getting ever closer.

César Dezfuli and María Sanz

The Uruguayan puddle that never dries up - Photo reportage by César Dezfuli and María Sanz

 

A first-hand account of South Sudan’s IDP camps: “What is our fate? We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence”

A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)
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In this captivating first hand account of the situation in South Sudan’s IDP camps, South Sudanese Assistant Director for Information and Media at the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, Afayoa Richard Metaloro, details the actuality of life in the camps, their problems, and some of the measures currently being taken and proposed as solutions for the gender based violence and other issues that plague the lives of residents there.

The camps were set up by the United Nations and other international aid groups to shelter and provide basic human requirements to South Sudanese and others who were displaced by the civil conflict that has raged in the country since Dec. 2013.

Some 30,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are being protected by the United Nations in the nations capital, Juba, and 100,000 live in Protection of Civilians (PoC) camps nationwide.

The humanitarian situation across the entire nation of South Sudan remains “dire,” according to the UN. To date, almost 2 million people have been displaced in a nation of 11.3 million. Of those, 1.35 have been displaced internally, while approximately 500,000 have relocated to neighboring countries.


 

We want to go home whether there is peace or not in South Sudan. The government and rebels must know that they are also citizens of South Sudan, thus deserve equal rights. South Sudanese IDPs are in despair!

In my visit to the IDP camps in Juba–Protection of Civilians (PoC) camps–the IDPs there expressed the bitterness of their situations living in A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)the PoCs, saying that whether there is peace or not, they are eager to move out of the Pocs! To where? Is it safe out there? And who to depend on remained a big and challenging question to all the humanitarian actors working in South Sudan. The living conditions of the IDP’s living in the camps has remained a very big challenge, as the situation has pushed them deep into the misery from where recovery is difficult if not impossible. They are cut off from carrying out livelihood activities, despite the efforts of the humanitarian community in the emergency response to attempt to save lives.

This however, came after several clashes that occurred between the IDP communities within the PoCs, shortages of funding from the donors to the NGOs that led to the cut off of some services, denial by agencies to register new arrivals, incidents of sexual A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)harassment of women and girls by members of various groups such as the UN and and other NGOs, armed groups and the IDP communities within the camps, lack of effective representation for the voice of the voiceless, etc.

The government, since the fighting broke out in South Sudan on Dec.15, 2013, payed little attention to the needs of the IDPs living in camps, yet it is a constitutional mandate that a sovereign state ensures the protection and service provision of the affected population in times of civil conflict. Surprisingly, little was done by the government, which pretends to implementing the international humanitarian law despite the huge challenges encountered by humanitarian agencies in delivering humanitarian assistance to needy people. These barriers to assistance include impediments to access the target people, road blocks that A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)charge huge amounts of cash, rape cases, ill treatment and detentions, and kidnapping and looting of humanitarian items. It is not as if these problems make up the only observations in the humanitarian intervention; the worst case scenarios have been practiced by the rebel side, where there has been a very large number of children abducted for child-soldier recruitment, as well as massacres of innocent lives, arbitrary arrests, detentions, etc.

Read more: South Sudan: Child Soldiers Enter Fight on Government Army Side, Condemned by Human Rights Watch

The needed response

Many of the threats to women and girls highlighted by assessment participants can and should be mitigated by the humanitarian response. It is A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)the obligation of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and other humanitarian actors to ensure that relief services are not only not harmful, but are also proactive in their interventions to alleviate risks and make the camps a safer environment for women, girls, boys and men.

As the cooks, cleaners, and caretakers of the family, women and girls ensure lifesaving relief services are used at the household level. The humanitarian community is doing a disservice to families, if relief interventions do not fully incorporate in their lifesaving activities the safety issues that women and girls face as they carry out their essential contribution to their family’s well-being and health.

A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)To overcome barriers in the community that prevent survivors from seeking services and to ensure that survivors feel welcome to seek assistance from the available services, outreach and awareness is important.

Awareness, however, is not enough to encourage survivors to report. GBV and health service providers need to build trust, and therefore must demonstrate that they support the interests of survivors. It is essential that they make concerted efforts to respect survivors by talking with them and listening to their needs and wishes. Confidentiality must be respected. All efforts should be made to ascertain the safest options for survivors before and during interventions to meet their needs for protection and efforts to access justice. Simultaneously, it is necessary to work with the community to change attitudes and practices that stigmatize survivors and create barriers for them to seek help and justice through extended social mobilization and awareness campaigns.

Read more: South Sudanese Propose “Reconciling Many Truths” to End Crisis, Form One Acceptable Narrative

Change has started but vigilance needs to be sustained

According to the camp managers, an assessment was conducted, and the humanitarian response began to mitigate some risks in ways that will A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)have a positive impact on the safety of women and girls. A new extension has been opened and two-thirds of the population has moved to new residential areas that have been designed to be less congested and to ensure that access to essential infrastructures is more evenly balanced. Congestion and overcrowding has been the underlying factor in many of the risks of gender based violence (GBV) in the original PoC (tight alleys, hidden dark spaces, difficult access to latrines and water, crowded markets, etc).

Other improvements that can potentially lower risks of GBV have also started, according to the camps’ managers. The structures of the latrines A South Sudanese writes What is our fate We are suffering all kinds of sickness, insecurity, and all kinds of violence (5)in the new site are more private and safe. A water pipeline is being constructed to provide clean water directly to the site, which will mean that women do not have to take risks when getting water, because there will better quantity and reliable schedules. Handheld torches have been distributed to all households and streetlights are being purchased for installation. Activities targeting adolescent boys and girls are starting. A women’s committee has been formed. United Nations Police (UNPOL) conducts daily patrols and investigates offences agsinst the general public. A holding center is now operational to separate offenders of major public offences, such as rape, according to camp managers in the PoCs. Despite all these improvements claimed by the camp managers, it still has not restored the hope of the IDP community to believe that they can live in safety and move out of the PoCs to their desired locations.

By Afayoa Richard Metaloro

Photos: European Commission DG ECHO, United Nations Photo, Oxfam East Africa, Arsenie Coseac

Afayoa Richard Metaloro is the assistant director for Information and Media in the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission. He was born in South Sudan in 1986 and lived with his family in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia as refugees of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005). Metaloro completed his education in Mass Communication in Kampala and worked as editor and administrator at South Sudan’s electronic news portal, Sudan Tribune. 

 

Hailstones Are Formed by Biological Material – Conclusive Evidence by MSU Environmental Scientists

Hailstones Are Formed by Biological Material - Conclusive Evidence by MSU Environmental Scientists
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Montana State University environmental scientists have found conclusive evidence that hailstones originate in biological material. MSU researcher Alex Michaud turned travesty into understanding by peeling back the onionlike layers of the crystalline compositions he collected from the Bozeman and two other Rocky Mountain hailstorms, and the results promise to increase our understanding of the role of aerosol particles in atmospheric condensation and, as a part of the bigger picture, improve our model inputs to the Earth’s energy balance.

“A hailstone is a very complex weather phenomenon, Alex Michaud, MSU doctoral student and first author of the paper, told The Speaker. “It can tell us a lot about the properties of the clouds in which it was formed.”

Hailstones Are Formed by Biological Material - Conclusive Evidence by MSU Environmental Scientists
MSU’s Alex Michaud holds one of the hailstones that fell June 30, 2010 in Bozema

Michaud, who normally studies Antarctic microorganisms, took up the subject of hailstones after storms pummeled Bozeman and other parts of southwest Montana in 2010.

“While they cause lots of damage there are many things to be learned from hailstones. They’re more than just a clump of ice falling from the sky,” Michaud told us.

“This is the first paper to really show that biological material makes hailstones,” commented John Priscu, a polar scientist and professor at MSU’s Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, with whom Michaud regularly works and who coauthored the report. “Despite the millions in dollars of damage the storm caused in Bozeman, the damaging hailstones provided us with a better understanding of hailstone formation, which will help us understand the role of aerosol particles in the formation of precipitation.”

Hailstones Are Formed by Biological Material - Conclusive Evidence by MSU Environmental ScientistsAfter the Montana storm, Michaud collected and stored hailstones–averaging 1.5 inches in diameter. He also collected hailstones from two other local storms that year and the next.

Michaud peeled back the crystalline layers of the hailstones and found that they had formed around a biological embryo.

“We can assume–quite safely, except maybe in the dead of winter–that biological material is constantly being taken up into the air,” said Michaud. “Many surfaces give off biological material such as leaf surfaces, lakes, oceans, animals, my dandruff, etc. They are emitting bacteria, fungal spores, detritus, and so forth.”

Michaud elaborated to explain that biological material in the air was not the only thing required to create hailstones.

“Certainly the atmospheric and meteorological conditions need to fit a certain set of conditions in order for a hailstorm to occur and produce hailstones. These particular conditions are best answered by a meteorologist, but suffice it to say that you need a very strong thunderstorm conditions to generate a hailstorm. So not all biological material turns into hail because meteorological conditions need to be appropriate to support hailstone formation.”

In his research, Michaud was also able to gauge the temperatures at which the hailstone embryos formed by analyzing stable isotopes in water. The temperatures at which hail froze were warm, Michaud found.

“Warm freezing temperatures–warm, sub-zero temperatures–is indicative of ice nuclei that are efficient at catalyzing ice nucleation. Water needs a template or a nucleus in order to form an ice crystal, only once water reaches ~-40C does it spontaneously freeze. So for something to freeze at warm subzero temperatures means that it provides a good template of an ice crystal, which is found in biological material much more often than abiotic–dust, minerals, etc–material.”

The study builds on previous findings that warm temperature ice nucleation indicated that biological material was likely the nuclei of hailstones.

Among past researchers in hailstones was Tina Santl Temkiv, a postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, with whom Michaud consulted.

“It was very coincidental that she published two hailstone microbiology papers two years before me and we ended up at the same university for a few month,” said Michaud. “Plus, we are the only ones to work on hailstone microbiology since a 1973 paper in Nature.”

Michaud also said that hailstones were a nice model for studying atmospheric ice nucleation and cloud processes because of the way hailstones grow.

“Hail is a good model system for understanding precipitation formation and nucleation,” said Michaud. “We can trace the life history of a hailstone all the back to the part of the hailstone that was present when it was first started, the embryo. This ability to trace a hailstones life back to its beginnings, and those life history stages are layers of ice that can be peeled away–sort of like an onion–we can be more definitive in saying what was present when the embryo of the hailstone formed.”

Michaud explained to us how the new evidence could contribute to our understanding of the role of aerosol particles in the formation of precipitation.

“Aerosols are a broad term for any particle that is aloft in the atmosphere. These aerosol particles play a large role in reflecting solar energy and in cloud formation–which also reflects solar energy. So understanding how aerosols form precipitation and/or clouds will help with meteorological models and the earth’s energy balance.

“Certainly the last one is a bit of a stretch for my work, but knowing that biological ice nuclei are active in forming clouds and precipitation–rain, snow, and, now, hail–will improve the model inputs to earth’s energy balance. It’s a piece to a much bigger puzzle.”

Michaud was uncertain if the results would have any immediate practical implications.

“On improving our use of aerosol particles, I’m not too sure. In California they are trying to perform cloud seeding to increase snowpack in the Sierras to decrease drought conditions, which is through the use of particular aerosols. I don’t think I am qualified to speak to how we–the royal we, humans–can improve our use of aerosol particles.”

The report, “Biological ice nucleation initiates hailstone formation,” was authored by Alexander B. Michaud, John E. Dore, Deborah Leslie, W. Berry Lyons, David C. Sands andJohn C. Priscu, and was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.

Photo: Alex Michaud, Andrew Slaughter and Kelly Gorham, MSU

Indonesia Continues “Virginity Tests” for Female Police

Indonesia Continues "Virginity Tests" for Female Police
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The Indonesian government continues to conduct mandatory “virginity tests” on all female applicants to the country’s national police force, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. The longstanding practice continues in accordance with police regulations and despite claims by officials that the inspections–including the “two-finger test”–are no longer applied. Human Rights Watch in their report stated that this practice was in violation of international law, in addition to other criticisms.

“The Indonesian National Police’s use of ‘virginity tests’ is a discriminatory practice that harms and humiliates women,” said Nisha Varia, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Police authorities in Jakarta need to immediately and unequivocally abolish the test, and then make certain that all police recruiting stations nationwide stop administering it.”

The “virginity tests” take place as a matter of law, Human Rights Watch reported. Article 36 of the Chief Police Regulation No. 5/2009 on Health Inspection Guidelines for Police Candidates requires all female police academy applicants to undergo an examination for “obstetrics and gynecology.” This examination continues to include, according to senior police women interviewed by Human Rights Watch, a “virginity test,” and, according to interviews conducted in six major Indonesian cities in 2014, the test had been applied to all women who were in the academy.

The tests take place in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch alleged.

“’Virginity tests’ have been recognized internationally as a violation of human rights, particularly the prohibition against ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’ under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and article 16 of the Convention against Torture, both of which Indonesia has ratified,” stated Human Rights Watch in their report.

The tests also contravene National Police principles, which state that recruitment must be “nondiscriminatory” and “humane.”

Indonesia Continues "Virginity Tests" for Female PoliceIndonesian officials have claimed that the tests are no longer applied. Other claims have been made that steps are being taken to remove the tests, but, according to Human Rights Watch, the rights group has seen little evidence that could support any such claim.

The National Police website continues to state, “In addition to the medical and physical tests, women who want to be policewomen must also undergo virginity tests. So all women who want to become policewomen should keep their virginity.”

Married women are ineligible for the police force.

Indonesia is not the only country with well-documented policies of “virginity tests.” Other nations known for the practice include Egypt, India and Afghanistan. Neither are “virginity tests” only conducted on police applicants in Indonesia; school girls are also subject to the tests, which Human Rights Watch have criticized as being not only discriminatory and degrading, but also subjective and unscientific.

“So-called virginity tests are discriminatory and a form of gender-based violence – not a measure of women’s eligibility for a career in the police,” Varia said. “This pernicious practice not only keeps able women out of the police, but deprives all Indonesians of a police force with the most genuinely qualified officers.”

By Sid Douglas

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaBFLwD934U#t=39″]VIDEO[/su_youtube]

Those Who Cook at Home Eat Better, Study Finds

Those Who Cook at Home Found Eat Better - Report
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After investigating the eating habits of thousands of Americans, one factor was found to account for a significant difference in the healthiness of Americans: cooking meals at home. In a recent study from Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, people who cooked meals at home were found to eat consume fewer calories, fat, sugar and carbohydrates.

Those Who Cook at Home Found Eat Better - Report
Julia Wolfson, MPP

“A difference of 150 calories per day over time can make a significant difference in dietary intake and health,” Julia Wolfson, MPP, PhD Candidate Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future-Lerner Fellow, and one of the authors of the study, told The Speaker.

And a difference of 150 calories per day was the finding. After analyzing data from over 9,000 participants aged 20 and older, the researchers found that when adults who cooked dinner once or less a week were compared with adults who cooked six to seven times a week, the people who cooked at home were eating a lot healthier. Those who cooked at home consumed 2,164 calories, 81 grams of fat and 119 grams of suger on average daily, while those who more often ate out consumed an average of 2,301 calories, 84 grams of fat and 135 grams of sugar.

“This difference indicates that a person who starts cooking more does not need to make drastic changes to their diet in order to see a beneficial impact, Wolfson told us. “These results show that just the act of cooking more frequently is associated with reduced intake of calories, fat, sugar and carbohydrates.”

The researchers also made other significant findings. Blacks were found to be more likely than whites to live in households where there was less home cooking, and individuals who worked over 35 hours per week outside the home were also found to cook less often at home.

“There are very real barriers to frequent cooking,” explained Wolfson. “Time constraints, cost of ingredients, resources and equipment to cook, and lack of access to fresh, healthy, and affordable ingredients. These barriers are more likely to impact lower-income populations, who… are more likely to be black.”

Americans are familiar with the 40 hour work week associated with full-time employment, but recent polls have found that full-time workers in the US actually work an average of 47 hours per week–and 40 percent of full-time workers work over 50 hours per week.

“Long work hours, inflexible schedules definitely make cooking very frequently more difficult for many people,” Wolfson told us. “Because encouraging more cooking at home has the potential to have a positive impact on obesity rates and diet quality, we need to find ways to support more frequent cooking at home. However, for those individuals for whom cooking at home is not feasible, we also need to invest in ways to make eating healthfully outside the home easier and more affordable.

“The most important takeaway is that more frequent cooking at home is associated with a healthier diet, regardless of whether one is trying to lose weight. If a person starts cooking more meals at home, they will be eating healthier by default.”

The report, “Is cooking at home associated with better diet quality or weight-loss intention?” was authored by Julia A. Wolfson and Dr Sara N. Bleich, an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School, was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and was published in the journal Public Health Nutrition.

By Heidi Woolf

Photo: Ryan McVay

Ukraine President: “We Are Prepared for Total War”

Ukraine President: "We Are Prepared for Total War"
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, facing a return to fighting in East Ukraine after a seventh Russian convoy days ago refortified the Russians and pro-Russians fighting Ukraine in and around Donetsk, has stated that Ukraine is now ready for total war with the Russians.

“We are prepared for a scenario of total war, said Poroshenko in an interview Monday. “We don’t want war. We want peace and we are fighting for European values, but Russia does not respect any agreement.”

The Ukrainian army, Poroshenko said, was more ready than it was months ago when Russia first began its invasion of Ukraine.

“More than anything we want peace, but we must at the moment face up to the worst-case scenario,” said Poroshenko. “Our army is now in a better state than it was five months ago and we are being supported by the entire world.”

Despite the peace agreement between Russian and pro-Russian soldiers in East Ukraine and Ukrainian authorities, Russian military equipment, including aircraft, entered Ukrainian territory and airspace last Wednesday.

“Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defence systems and Russian combat troops” were sighted, according to US Gen Philip Breedlove, commander of NATO.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held an emergency meeting over Ukraine the same day. Besides representatives of the UNSC’s 15 members, the meeting will be attended by the permanent representative for Ukraine. The Russian delegate, however, did not attend the meeting.

Since the crisis in Ukraine began early this year, the UNSC has met over a dozen times to the purpose of addressing Ukraine, but little action has been taken, partially because every UNSC decision must be approved be all of the five permanent members of the council: China, France, UK, US and Russia, which invaded Ukraine in late Febuary and continues to fight against the Ukrainian army in an undeclared war.

The Sept. 5 Minsk Agreement ceasefire has been violated almost daily. Donetsk, the main city in Eastern Ukraine, has seen the heaviest shelling in recent weeks.

Fresh volleys of artillery were heard in many parts of Donetsk Monday, days after a seventh convoy of Russian humanitarian aid was delivered to Russian and pro-Russian fighters there, and the United Nations stated that it feared a “return to total war” in the area.

By James Haleavy

Photo: Anatoliy Stepanov

China to Thailand: We Want Our Refugees Back

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The Chinese government is asking Thailand to send back a group of mostly Uighur Muslim refugees that were found by Thai authorities in Thailand’s Songkhla province. The Chinese consul is asking Thailand to repatriate the group, who are offering little information about their identities–although some have claimed to be Turkish–and has dismissed concerns that have been raised about possible mistreatment the refugees might face if returned to China.

“They have been uncooperative and refused to communicate at all,” said Qin Jian, Chinese consul in Songkhla.

The refugees are thought to be fearful of mistreatment if they were to return to China, and have offered little information about their identities. Qin stated that there were no grounds for such concern.

“If they do not have criminal records back in China, there will be no prosecution,” said Qin.

The group of 200 mostly Uighur refugees were found by Thai authorities in March. They are presumed to have been trafficked to a remote camp in Thailand’s Songkhla province. The refugees have claimed to be Turkish, but Qin stated that there had been no confirmation of Turkish identity since the Turkish embassy met with the refugees.

However, dozens of men from the group were identified as Uighurs. Others, Qin suspected based on their appearance, were also Uighur.

The group is currently being cared for at Songkhla detention center.

The Uyghur American Association (UAA), based in Washington, DC, has asked the Thai government to allow the refugees access to the United Nations refugee agency. The group could request asylum of the UN, according to UAA.

“Uighurs have been forcibly returned to the hands of their persecutors in the past with dire results,” said UAA president, Alim Seytoff.

Read more: 2,000 Possibly Killed in Muslim Uyghur Riot in Xinjiang, China

Seytoff said that the increasing number of Uighurs seeking refuge in countries outside of China was an indication of the repression faced by Muslims under the Chinese government.

In recent months, violence in Xinjiang, the westernmost province of China, has left hundreds dead and has seen an escalation in charges for crimes of illegal practicing of religion, separatism and terrorism.

 

By Sid Douglas

Prime Minister of Abkhazia Beaten After Car Blocked in Traffic, Escapes

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Prime Minister Beslan Butba of the Republic of Abkhazia was assaulted while travelling with his family Wednesday. The vehicle in which the leader of the disputed state was travelling in was blocked in traffic, and Butba was beaten by two men before escaping.

Butba was travelling in a vehicle with his family in Sukhumi, a city in western Georgia and the capital of Abkhazia, when the car was cut off by another vehicle. Two men jumped out of the second vehicle and attacked the prime minister. Butba was able to escape, according to Raul Lolua of the Abkhazian interior ministry.

The extent of Butba’s injuries are not known, but he was able to call the interior ministry immediately after the incident.

The prime minister was travelling without his bodyguard when the attack happened.

The vehicle in which the attackers traveled has been detained by authorities at the Eshera checkpoint, according to sources. The identities of the two men and a woman who accompanied them are now being confirmed.

As reported by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, the two assailants may have been intoxicated, and the prime minister may have suffered a concussion and was admitted to a hospital before returning home.

Prime Minister of Abkhazia Beaten After Car Blocked in Traffic, Escapes Also Saturday, tens of thousands of Georgian protesters in Tbilisi demonstrated against a planned agreement between Russia and Abkhazia. The deal would create a joint Russian-Abkhazian military force.

Demonstrators expressed concern that Russia would annex oil-rich Abkhazia in the same way it recently annexed Ukraine’s Crimea. Protesters waved flags that read, “STOP PUTIN” and “STOP RUSSIA.”

Abkhazia is a disputed territory also claimed by Georgia. Independent statehood is recognized by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru, as well as other partially recognized separatist states in the region. Abkhazia is controlled by a separatist government which resides in exile in Tbilisi and not by the government of Georgia. The United Nations and most world governments hold that the territory does belong to Georgia, however.

By Jame Haleavy

Photo: Reuters

China: Two Child Policy Coming

China: Two Child Policy Coming in Two Years
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According to Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Vice Director Cai Fang, China will fully relax their one-child policy in two years. The government has already conducted an experiment to allow some couples to have a second child, and that experiment has led to a decision to expand the two-child policy to all Chinese.

“People wish to choose the number of children they want to have, and they should be given the choice–at least for two children,” said Fang at in interview Thursday, “We will fully relax the policy.”

The Chinese government relaxed its one-child policy last year, allowing couples to have two children if either parent was an only child. Six months later, only three percent (700,000 couples) of all eligible couples applied for a second child.

Cai said that relaxing population control would not significantly increase the Chinese population. Currently, China’s fertility rate is 1.66–considerably below the 2.1 rate needed to sustain a given population.

China is also experiencing a labor shortage, and that shortage is expected to increase–labor supply will increase only 6.2 percent annually up to 2020, according to Cai. A large labor supply is part of the reason for China’s three decades of rapid economic growth.

By Sid Douglas

NCU Scientists Identify Specific Ebola-Linked Genes

NCU Scientists Identify Specific Ebola-Linked Genes
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Significant improvements in Ebola research have been made possible by researchers at the University of North Carolina. The researchers have not only bred a mouse that can be used to better investigate the way Ebola symptoms develop in a human host, but have also identified several key genes that account for a variety of Ebola symptoms–in particular one gene, Tek, which accounts for a large amount of the symptom variation in individuals within a species.

“Laboratory mice have traditionally been unable to be infected by wild-type Ebola virus,” Martin Ferris, research assistant professor of genetics at UNC-Chapel Hill and one of the researchers on the project, told The Speaker.

NCU Scientists Identify Specific Ebola-Linked Genes
Dr Martin Ferris

Typical lab mice do not develop Ebola in the way that humans do–mice infected with Ebola don’t develop the fatal symptoms that present in human victims. The team considered, however, that some mice might be more susceptible than others, and bred a new mouse strain that could be infected with an Ebola virus and which displayed symptoms like those displayed by human Ebola victims.

“A mouse adapted strain of Ebola has been used for in vivo studies of Ebola pathogenesis for over 15 years,” said Ferris. “This mouse adapted Ebola virus was used in our studies.” Ferris clarified for us that the team did not infect mice with the active human strain of Ebola that is currently epidemic in West Africa. Nevertheless, strict medical precautions were taken.

“In general, adaptation of viruses to small animal models results in attenuated viruses as measured on human cell types–obviously there are no studies showing primary human infection. Often this is due to viral changes to utilize host-species specific cell receptors. That said, it is not clear whether the mouse adapted Ebola virus used in these studies would cause disease in a human. Therefore, to be safe, this virus was still handled under Biosafety Level 4 conditions, just like other Ebola virus strains.”

Read more: Ebola Genome Sequencing Being Undertaken by Harvard Team to Discover Weaknesses in Virus Genome, Which Has Already Mutated Hundreds of Times

The team bred together eight genetic mouse variants to create the new strain that could be infected and develop symptoms similar to those experienced by humans.

Ferris elaborated on how the process worked.

“Just as host genetic variants can impact disease susceptibility, so too can viral genetic variants. In other words, just as there is no single human from a genetic standpoint, there is no single Ebola virus from a genetic standpoint.

In some cases specific mutations in a virus can be identified and characterized which allow for improved infection of a different species (e.g. mice instead of humans). In other cases, there are only associations of sequence variants in different stages of an epidemic. For example, as viruses that have typically resided in wild animal populations spend more and more time spreading within the human population, and eventually are maintained by human to human contact, we can see genetic variants selected for in the virus population. This is illustrated by the SARS-coronavirus epidemic in 2002-2003, where changes in the virus over the course of the outbreak allowed it to interact more efficiently with its receptor on human cells. This likely allowed the virus to infect humans more efficiently, thereby worsening the outbreak.”

The UNC study will aid researchers in fighting Ebola by providing them with a better tool for understanding how Ebola Ebola infection manifests in the body of a host, and by pointing to a gene that researchers can target in their investigations.

The team found that a combination of genes was involved in producing a range of disease symptoms, and linked genetic variation to symptom variety. Not only that: the researchers were able to identify a single gene that accounted for much of the variation in symptoms–a gene that codes for the protein Tek.

“Our study not only in gives an improved mouse model which recapitulates more of the severe Ebola disease seen in humans,” said Ferris, “but also in pointing to a gene, Tek, which has sequence variants that are strongly associated with disease outcome in these mice. This helps in two ways.

“Therapeutics and vaccines need to be shown to be both effective against viral infection, and also safe for individuals. By developing a mouse model that shows many aspects of severe Ebola disease, we have a better platform for quickly assessing how effective treatments might be.”

“We now have a genetic target (Tek),” continued Ferris, “and its associated pathway of host response genes where we can focus studies on. Having a specific pathway that differentiates resistant and susceptible mouse lines provides us with a good host pathway that can be targeted to develop Ebola virus therapies.”

Of particular importance is the way that a disease, such as Ebola, infects individuals within a species differently, and that means variants in a species genetic code need to be identified in order to combat the disease–exactly what was accomplished in the research.

“Host genes have a major impact on susceptibility to infection, and not just between species,” said Ferris. “The mice we used were related to each other, yet some were resistant to infection and others got hemorrhage in a very controlled experiment. This means variants in their genes played a major role in determining their disease outcomes.”

NCU Scientists Identify Specific Ebola-Linked GenesThe UNC team has been working on the study since before Ebola made headlines earlier this year, and Ferris pointed out that disease, if it is to be successfully fought, must be studied before it becomes a problem.

“I think another critical point is that we cannot wait for a major outbreak to start research on potential human pathogens,” said Ferris. “We have been part of this collaborative study for over 2 years, and therefore started well before the current outbreak. Only by identifying pathogens and studying them before they cause pandemics can we hope to develop the tools needed to combat infection.”

The report, “Host genetic diversity enables Ebola hemorrhagic fever pathogenesis and resistance,” was authored by Angela L. Rasmussen, Atsushi Okumura, Martin T. Ferris, Richard Green, Friederike Feldmann, Sara M. Kelly, Dana P. Scott, David Safronetz, Elaine Haddock, Rachel LaCasse, Matthew J. Thomas, Pavel Sova, Victoria S. Carter, Jeffrey M. Weiss, Darla R. Miller, Ginger D. Shaw, Marcus J. Korth, Mark T. Heise, Ralph S. Baric, Fernando Pardo Manuel de Villena, Heinz Feldmann, and Michael G. Katze, and was published in Science Magazine.

By Dan Jackson

Obama: “We Are Not in Favor of Tibet’s Independence”

Obama: “We are not in favor of Tibet’s independence"
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US President Barack Obama signed a long-term climate change deal with China that will cap emissions and increase renewable energy in ways that will require a complete overhaul of the Chinese economy, as well as increase US efforts. During the APEC meetings the president also made statements on the Chinese territory of Tibet, which has been protesting for independence from China for decades and has been the subject of extensive and continuous human rights abuses, according to all human rights groups. The president stated that the US was “not in favor of Tibet’s independence.”

In Beijing Wednesday, Obama urged the Chinese authorities to “take steps to preserve the unique cultural, religious and linguistic identity” of the Tibetan people, but said that he recognized Tibet as part of China.

“We are not in favor of Tibet’s independence,” said Obama at a press conference in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

China views the longstanding and broad desire of Tibetans for independence and the return of their outlawed spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, as separatist and criminal. The Dalai Lama is officially a state terrorist in China, and any mention of the leader, possession of images bearing his likeness, or songs related to him are all illegal for Tibetans, many of whom have received lengthy jail terms for refusing to give up their beliefs and affiliations.

In exchanges with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, Wednesday, Obama said that China had evolved a lot in their regard for human rights.

Nine major human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, signed a letter in October urging the president to consider China’s actions and attitude in Tibet as a barrier to bilateral relations during his APEC visit.

The two largest economies–and the two largest polluters–in the world signed what has been called a “landmark” carbon emissions deal at APEC. The US committed to cut emissions 26-28 percent by 2025, representing an acceleration of existing goals by 17 percent.

China, for its part, stated that it “intends” to begin to cut carbon emissions in 2030 and will make “best efforts” to make 2030 the peak year for carbon pollution in China. China will also increase the share of non-fossil fuels energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030, according to the deal.

By Sid Douglas

Shipworms Co-opt Digestive Enzymes From Outside Stomach, and It Could Aid the Bio Fuel Revolution

Shipworms Co-opt Digestive Enzymes From Outside Stomach, and It Could Aid the Bio Fuel Revolution
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The same bizarre worm-like clams that create holes in driftwood may be a game-changes for fuel supplies in America, according to a joint research team that has just published their finding that shipworms have a totally unique digestive system–hitherto unknown–and possess the ability to create enzymes that break plant matter down into sugar and other fuel products.

“You don’t hear about the discovery of new diges­tive strate­gies very often,” said Dr Dan Distel, Director at the Ocean Genome Legacy Center of New England Biolabs Marine Science Center, Northeastern University, and a lead researcher on the study. “It just doesn’t happen.”

Breakthrough Discovery of Exterior Digestion Could Aid Bio Fuel Revolution“This is why it’s so impor­tant that we as researchers look at oceans,” Distel said. “It yields so many unex­pected benefits.”

Shipworms aren’t worms–they’re clams that look like worms, and they burrow holes through wood using enzymes made by bacteria. They use the broken down wood matter as nutrition, similar to termites.

How shipworms break down wood is the matter of the teams recent, groundbreaking discovery: the bacteria doesn’t come from shipworms’ guts.

The enzymes that break down wood are made by bacteria that lives inside special cells in the clam’s gills, and are transported to the gut.

No other animal in the world uses bacteria produced outside its digestive system, Distel said. No other intracellular bacterium produces enzymes that function outside of the host.

Shipworms Co-opt Digestive Enzymes From Outside Stomach, and It Could Aid the Bio Fuel Revolution
Dr Dan Distel

“This is really unusual in that the bacteria that produce the enzymes are located in an organ outside the digestive system and in fact appear to be intracellula,” Distel told The Speaker. “The vast majority of animals use extracellular bacteria in the gut to help them digest. The lumen of the gut, if you think about it, is really part of the outside of the animal. There are some examples of animals ingesting enzymes produced by bacteria or fungi in their food, but I have not heard of another animal that has a special organ outside of the gut designed to house enzyme-producing bacteria.”

Because the team could find around 45 genes inside the guts of the shipworms that matched the 1000 genes found in the gills, the team believes they can find the enzymes that could be used in commercial biofuel production.

“This was a key finding,” Distel said, “because we can iden­tify the small number of enzymes that are actu­ally involved in breaking down wood in gut, and that gives us a list of can­di­dates that you can start to look at to find commercially-​​viable enzymes.”

The enzymes convert plant biomass–cellulose–into sugar, and sugar can be used to make ethanol and other biofuels.

Breakthrough Discovery of Exterior Digestion Could Aid Bio Fuel RevolutionBiofuel production is already a matter of US government policy. By 2022 36 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuel should be produced in the country, according to a government mandate, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) expects that one-third of US transportation fuel could be met with cellulosic biomass.

The main obstacle to commercial success in cellulosic ethanol is finding the right enzymes to convert plant matter into sugar.

Distel told us that although it would be an overstatement to say that they had found the key to unlocking commerce in cellulosic ethanol, they had identified a new source of enzymes with potential commercial value.

Next for the research team is to investigate how shipworms’ digestive enzymes move from gills to gut, and to characterize each of the proteins the team found and evaluate their potential applications.

The research was a large cooperative effort undertaken with the help of colleagues at the Joint Genome Institute (DOE), New England Biolabs, and other collaborating institutions.

In addition to collaborative help, advances in science were also credited by Distel in the research.

Breakthrough Discovery of Exterior Digestion Could Aid Bio Fuel Revolution“It has been known that bacteria are present in the gills since the 1970’s and it has been suspected for some time that they contribute to wood digestion by the host,” Distel told us, “but this is the first demonstration. I have been working on these critters for many years, but recently advances in genomics and proteomics have given us the tools to answer many questions that were previously tough to address. ”

Their research paper, “Gill bacteria enable a novel digestive strategy in a wood-feeding mollusk,” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday afternoon, and was authored by Roberta M. O’Connora of Tufts Medical Center, Jennifer M. Fung at Bolt Threads biotech company, Koty H. Sharp at Eckerd College, Jack S. Bennerd, Colleen McClungd, Shelley Cushing, Elizabeth R. Lamkin, Alexey I. Fomenkov, Bernard Henrissat, Yuri Y. Londer, Matthew B. Scholz, Janos Posfai, Stephanie Malfatt, Susannah G. Tringe, Tanja Woyke, Rex R. Malmstromh, Devin Coleman-Derrh, Marvin A. Altamia, Sandra Dedrick, Stefan T. Kaluziak, Margo G. Haygood, and Daniel L. Distel.

By Dan Jackson

Photos: Dan Distel, Korabel Cherv