Another hefty compendium of alarms and alerts about the increasingly destruction relationship betwixt people and planet, starting with that most urgent of events, the continuing Ebola catastrophe in Africa.
International Business Times covers one deadly consequence:
Ebola Outbreak: Liberian Army Ordered to ‘Shoot on Sight’ Anyone Crossing Sierra Leone Border
Liberia’s armed forces have been given orders to shoot people on sight who are attempting to illegally cross the border from Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone, according to local media reports.
The order was given to soldiers stationed in Bomi and Grand Cape Mount counties on the border with Sierra Leone in hope of preventing the spread of the deadly virus, deputy chief of staff, Colonel Eric Dennis said.
Liberia has the highest death toll from the disease with approximately 400 citizens killed. So far, more than 1,200 people have died from the disease, which has been described as the worst ever outbreak of the virus.
And an earlier omnibus report from Deutsche Welle:
African governments take isolation measures
African governments are sealing their ports and airports in an attempt to halt the spread of Ebola. But will fever checks and entry bans really make any difference?
With more than 1,100 dead and 2,100 suspected cases of Ebola, authorities in many African countries are holding their breath. Many are nervous, and some have begun to isolate themselves.
From Tuesday onwards, Kenya Airways has suspended flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Ivory Coast is no longer allowing ships from Ebola-hit countries to pass through its waters. In Nigeria, no one is allowed to board a plane unless their temperature is normal and they have passed the airport’s “fever check.”
“I think the restriction of air traffic is an expression of the helplessness of the authorities there when it comes to containing the disease,” said Dieter Häussinger, director of the Hirsch Institute of Tropical Medicine. He thinks that monitoring people’s temperature is a questionable method, because it’s impossible to separate those infected with Ebola from people who’ve got the flu.
United Press International ups the aid ante:
Food distribution to Ebola quarantine sites scaled up as death toll hits 1,200
The World Health Organization and the U.N.’s World Food Program have teamed up to provide needed food to quarantine sites in Ebola-affected countries in West Africa. “Providing regular food supplies is a potent means of limiting unnecessary movement,” WHO noted.
The World Health Organization issued an update Tuesday regarding the deadly outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.
As of August 16, WHO recorded 2,240 cases of confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, including 1,229 deaths.
The distribution and classification of the cases are as follows:
Guinea, 543 cases (396 confirmed, 140 probable, and 7 suspected), including 394 deaths;
Liberia, 834 cases (200 confirmed, 444 probable, and 190 suspected), including 466 deaths;
Nigeria, 15 cases (12 confirmed, 0 probable, and 3 suspected), including 4 deaths;
Sierra Leone, 848 cases (775 confirmed, 34 probable, and 39 suspected), including 365 deaths.
From the Associated Press, a hopeful sign in a disease that kills 90 percent of its victims:
Liberia: 3 receiving untested Ebola drug improving
Three Liberian health workers receiving an experimental drug for Ebola are showing signs of recovery, officials said Tuesday, though medical experts caution it is not certain if the drug is effective.
The World Health Organization said that the death toll for West Africa’s Ebola outbreak has climbed past 1,200 but that there are tentative signs that progress is being made in containing the disease.
The three Liberians are being treated with the last known doses of ZMapp, a drug that had earlier been given to two infected Americans and a Spaniard. The Americans are also improving, but the Spaniard died.
CBC News makes a critical note about a continent where Africans have all been treated as Big Pharma lab rats:
Ebola outbreak: Africans understandably wary about promised cures
Past drug trials likely affecting public suspicion in West Africa today
New concerns that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is much worse than reported are adding to the global pressure to find a solution – even if that means testing unproven drugs on desperate Africans. But medical ethicists and others in the drug-testing business say the focus on miracle cures for Ebola is misplaced.
And, in any event, Western nations owe Africans a huge debt of gratitude for even considering being the ones to try these experimental medications.
Untested drugs and vaccines are now in the spotlight after reports that three Westerners received the experimental Canadian drug ZMapp, and about the Canadian government announcing it would donate up to 1,000 doses of a potential Ebola vaccine that is in the development stage.
The Japan Times rounds up:
Liberia says all 17 runaway Ebola patients have been located
Liberia has found all 17 suspected Ebola patients who fled a quarantine center in Monrovia at the weekend and transferred them to another clinic, the information minister said on Tuesday.
“We are glad to confirm that all of the 17 individuals have been accounted for and have now been transferred to JFK Ebola specialist treatment center,” said Lewis Brown.
He also said that three infected African doctors who had received the experimental Ebola drug Zmapp were showing “remarkable signs of improvement,” quoting an assessment by the doctor overseeing their treatment.
TheLocal.fr raises aerial objections:
Air France staff object to flying to Ebola countries
Air France cabin crew are so concerned about the threat of the Ebola epidemic that unions have started a petition calling for flights to be stopped to those West African countries most affected by the disease.
A union representing Air France staff has launched a petition to try to persuade company chiefs to stop flying to Guinea and Sierra Leone until the Ebola crisis is under control.
The two countries are heavily affected by the epidemic, that has killed over 1,200 people, and staff fear their lives are in danger each time they touch down in those countries.
Latin American Herald Tribune makes ready across the Atlantic:
Mexico City Airport Prepares to Deal with Ebola
The Mexico City International Airport is ready to deal with any possible cases of Ebola, a viral disease that is spreading through West Africa, aviation officials said.
Posters informing travelers about the disease and the measures to take to avoid spreading it are being put up around the airport.
The airport “is fully complying with the regulations established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regarding the outbreak affecting Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, countries where people have been infected with the virus,” airport management said in a statement.
And from the Los Angeles Times, a photojournalist covers the crisis:
Ebola crisis: Photographer John Moore chronicles the outbreak in Liberia
Program notes:
Getty Images photographer John Moore travels to Liberia to cover the burgeoning Ebola outbreak in the West African country, and he describes the scene and precautions he and health workers have taken.
From TheLocal.de, a false alarm:
Stomach bug behind Berlin ‘Ebola’ scare
Around 600 people were held for several hours in emergency quarantine at a Berlin Job Centre on Tuesday after a West African woman collapsed with Ebola-like symptoms.
The emergency services cordoned off the premises in the city’s northeastern Prenzlauer Berg district after the 30-year-old collapsed. The woman then told medics she had had contact with victims of the deadly disease in her homeland.
She was immediately taken for hospital testing along with several other people who had been with her in the building.
However, doctors said that Ebola was unlikely and that the woman was probably suffering from an acute stomach bug.
TheLocal.at covers another false alarm:
All-clear given on suspected Ebola cases
Austria’s health ministry gave the all-clear Tuesday evening after regional authorities earlier reported two suspected cases of Ebola in two men recently returned from Nigeria.
“The test results in both cases were negative,” the health ministry said.
The news came hours after the governor of Upper Austria province, Josef Pühringer, said two men who returned last Wednesday from Lagos had been hospitalised on suspicion of carrying the deadly disease.
Blood samples were sent to a laboratory in Germany, which announced late Tuesday that the results were negative, Pühringer later said.
On to another environmental front with Newswise:
World’s Primary Forests on the Brink
An international team of conservationist scientists and practitioners has published new research showing the precarious state of the world’s primary forests.
The global analysis and map are featured in a paper appearing in the esteemed journal Conservation Letters and reveals that only five percent of the world’s pre-agricultural primary forest cover is now found in protected areas.
Led by Professor Brendan Mackey, Director of the Climate Change Response Program at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, the authors are experts in forest ecology, conservation biology, international policy and practical forest conservation issues.
Representing organisations such as the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, the Zoological Society of London, the Geos Institute and Australian National University, they conclude that primary forest protection is the joint responsibility of developed as well as developing countries and is a matter of global concern.
Primary forests – largely ignored by policy makers and under increasing land use threats – are forests where there are no visible indications of human activities, especially industrial-scale land use, and ecological processes have not been significantly disrupted.
From the Guardian, another global alarm:
Earth sliding into ‘ecological debt’ earlier and earlier, campaigners warn
World has already exhausted a year’s supply of natural resources in less than eight months, Global Footprint Network says
Humans have used up the natural resources the world can supply in a year in less than eight months, campaigners have warned.
The world has now reached “Earth overshoot day”, the point in the year when humans have exhausted supplies such as land, trees and fish and outstripped the planet’s annual capacity to absorb waste products including carbon dioxide.
The problem is worsening, with the planet sliding into “ecological debt” earlier and earlier, so that the day on which the world has used up all the natural resources available for the year has shifted from early October in 2000 to August 19 in 2014.
Al Jazeera America covers a consequence of perverted appetites:
Ivory poachers killing elephants faster than they are being born
Study says tipping point reached as poachers kill 7 percent of African elephants annually; birth rate is 5 percent
African elephants are being pushed over the tipping point, a new study said, with more being killed by poachers for their ivory than are born each year.
“We are shredding the fabric of elephant society and exterminating populations across the continent,” said the study’s lead author, George Wittemye of Colorado State University. The peer-reviewed report was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Poaching has killed 7 percent of the continent’s elephant population annually from 2010-2013, but their birth rate is just 5 percent, according to the report. At those rates the animals could be wiped out within 100 years, and conservationists are worried.
After jump, tainted food, metallic toxins, catastrophic mine leaks, fracking protests, the latest chapter of Fukushimapocalypse Now!, and one for the birds. . .
KKITV Honolulu brings into the realm of dietary toxins:
UH study: High levels of mercury found in fish substitutions
New measurements from fish purchased at retail seafood counters in 10 different states show the extent to which mislabeling can expose consumers to unexpectedly high levels of mercury, a harmful pollutant, according to a new study from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Fishery stock “substitutions,” which falsely present a fish of the same species but from a different geographic origin, are the most dangerous mislabeling offense, according to UH Manoa scientists.
“Accurate labeling of seafood is essential to allow consumers to choose sustainable fisheries,” said UH Manoa biologist Peter B. Marko, lead author of the new study published in the scientific journal PLOS One. “But consumers also rely on labels to protect themselves from unhealthy mercury exposure. Seafood mislabeling distorts the true abundance of fish in the sea, defrauds consumers, and can cause unwanted exposure to harmful pollutants such as mercury.”
And a green light for one source of mercury via the Guardian:
UK lobbying to keep open one of Europe’s dirtiest coal power stations
Government seeks exemption from European law that would close down Aberthaw for its excessive nitrogen oxide emissions
The UK government is lobbying the European commission (EC) to keep open one of Europe’s dirtiest coal power stations, even though its nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions exceed new legal limits by five times.
The EC has begun infraction proceedings against the UK because its proposals for reducing emissions under new European laws have been littered with “inconsistent or missing” data.
Aberthaw power plant in south Wales was named in the top 30 highest carbon-emitting plants in Europe by an alliance of NGOs last month. But its emissions of NOx, which causes respiratory problems and lung disease, are also extremely high.
The study’s online here.
From Shanghai Daily, another metallic toxin tale:
Heinz pledges tighter controls after lead scare
US foodmaker Heinz said yesterday it wold tighten controls over ingredients suppliers in China after it was forced to recall some infant food products from Chinese store shelves due to excess levels of lead.
The company, known globally for its ketchup and baked beans, made the announcement as it sought to contain the potential damage to its reputation in a country where consumers are highly sensitive to food safety after a series of scares.
Heinz said on Monday that it had recalled four batches of its AD Calcium Hi-Protein Cereal for infants after a food watchdog in eastern China found levels of the toxic heavy metal above regulation standards.
Also from Shanghai Daily, another food recall:
Shop pulls pasta as ‘mac & fleas’ fails to impress
A DEPARTMENT store in the Gubei area of the city has withdrawn from sale all of its pasta products imported from Italy after a customer found bugs living in a bag of macaroni.
Shanghai Takashimaya agreed to suspend the sale of Pasta del Levante branded items after a woman surnamed Jin found the offending creatures in a 500g bag of pasta purchased on Saturday.
More metallic misery from BBC News:
Mexican mine’s toxic spillage closes schools in Sonora
Up to 5,000 pupils have not been able to start the school year in the northern Mexican state of Sonora after a toxic spillage from a copper mine.
The authorities said 88 schools were not able to open this week for fear pupils could come into contact with water contaminated with acids.
The spillage from the mine turned a tributary to the Sonora river orange. Environmental authorities have filed a criminal complaint against the copper mine blamed for the accident.
From the Guardian, a wild card:
Iceland volcano eruption risk level raised to orange for aviation
Intense seismic activity at the Bardarbunga volcano indicates the potential for a disruptive ash event similar to 2010
Iceland’s meteorological office has raised its risk level to the aviation industry for an eruption at its Bardarbunga volcano to orange, which is the fourth level on a five-grade scale.
Ash from the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010 shut down much of Europe’s airspace for six days, affecting more than 10 million people and costing $1.7 billion.
There has been intense seismic activity at Bardarbunga since August 16, although there are no signs of eruption yet.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now! First, another failure from Jiji Press:
TEPCO Fails to Freeze Tainted Water at Nuclear Plant
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday that it has failed in an attempt to create an ice wall in a section of an underground tunnel connected to a damaged reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 power station to block the escape of high-level radioactive water.
Since July, TEPCO has injected more than 400 tons of ice and dry ice to freeze radioactive water in a section that connects the tunnel, used to run cables, with the turbine building of the No. 2 reactor, one of three reactors that suffered core meltdowns in March 2011.
By freezing the water, TEPCO hoped to create a wall of ice to block the flow of water between the turbine building and the tunnel. The process would have made it easier to pump out highly radioactive water from the tunnel.
But the temperature inside the section did not fall low enough despite the use of large amounts of coolants, officials said at a meeting with the Nuclear Regulation Authority, acknowledging that the strategy did not work.
From the Japan Times, yet another TEPCO fubar:
Firm rapped for neglecting to get Fukushima decontamination workers health checks
A Yokohama-based firm has been reprimanded for not having one or more of its workers undergo required health checks after sending them to Fukushima Prefecture for decontamination work in the wake of the 2011 nuclear crisis, labor authorities said on Tuesday.
The Tsurumi Labor Standard Inspection Office issued an order to the firm, which is now undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, in June to take corrective measures for being remiss in its duty to have its workers medically examined.
The inspection office said the firm was a subcontractor for a joint venture led by Tokyo-based general contractor Kajima Corp. that received an order from the Environment Ministry to do work decontaminating soil and houses affected by radioactive fallout from the triple meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
NHK WORLD weighs in:
NRA receives 17,000 comments about plant restart
Japan’s nuclear regulator has received about 17,000 comments from the public on restarting a nuclear plant in southwestern Japan.
Last month, the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved a draft safety plan for restarting the reactors at the Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. The NRA said the assessment prepared by Kyushu Electric Power Company satisfied its stricter safety requirements for nuclear facilities.
The NRA invited the public to send comments on the draft for 30 days until last Friday. NRA officials said some people complained that the regulator’s measures for dealing with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are inadequate.
They said some people also commented that the NRA should look into evacuation plans for residents although these are not included in its current remit.
Kyodo News debates:
Japan to decide in 2015 on nuclear share of power generation
Japan aims to decide the percentage of electricity to be generated by nuclear power by late 2015 when a U.N. climate conference is to be held in Paris, the industry minister said Tuesday.
All of Japan’s nuclear reactors are shut down for one reason or another in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in 2011, while the Japanese government and society debate how large a role, if any, atomic power should play in the so-called energy mix of the world’s third-largest economy.
In a revised national energy plan adopted in April, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared nuclear power generation an “important base-load power source.”
And from the Wall Street Journal, prepartions for a sign-off:
Tokyo Weighs Written Guarantee of Nuclear-Plant Safety
Eager to get Japan’s nuclear-power plants restarted, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is weighing whether to offer a written statement guaranteeing plants’ safety.
“We have received requests from local governments to guarantee the safety of specific plants–for example, in a written statement,” said Toshimitsu Motegi, the minister who oversees the power industry, at a Tokyo conference Tuesday. “We’ll consider what sort of measures we could take to explain” the situation, said Mr. Motegi, who is minister of economy, trade and industry.
In mid-July, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said two nuclear reactors at the Sendai plant in Kagoshima prefecture met new, tougher safety regulations adopted after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in 2011. All of Japan’s 48 reactors are currently offline, and the two Sendai reactors would be the first to restart after the new regulations were adopted. The public-comment period on the regulator’s findings ended Friday.
From Reuters, nuclear woes in Europe:
The cost of caring for Europe’s elderly nuclear plants
Europe’s ageing nuclear fleet will undergo more prolonged outages over the next few years, reducing the reliability of power supply and costing plant operators many millions of dollars.
Nuclear power provides about a third of the European Union’s electricity generation, but the 28-nation bloc’s 131 reactors are well past their prime, with an average age of 30 years.
And the energy companies, already feeling the pinch from falling energy prices and weak demand, want to extend the life of their plants into the 2020s, to put off the drain of funding new builds.
From the Asahi Shimbun, solar power down in the dumps:
Environment Ministry looks to plant solar farms on landfill sites
With increasing solar power generation a goal of the nation’s future energy supply, the Environment Ministry is hoping to plug into the unloved sites offered by full landfills.
The ministry’s new subsidy program would be distributed for installing arrays of ground-mounted solar panels over landfill sites that have reached full capacity.
Currently, there are about 3,600 landfills for general garbage and industrial waste around Japan. Their total land area combined is 109 square kilometers, or about 1.7 times the land area within the JR Yamanote Line, which loops around central Tokyo.
From the Guardian, another fuel, another problem:
Anti-fracking group stages day of action
Protests at offices of Defra and energy firm in London, Swansea University campus and sites in East Yorkshire and Blackpool
Anti-fracking protesters caused peaceful disruption at several locations on Monday, gluing themselves to the doors of a government department, occupying a building used by an energy firm and blockading access to a test drilling site.
Activists dressed in toxic hazard suits staged a protest outside the London offices of Political Planning Services (PPS), a PR firm that represents the oil and gas exploration company Cuadrilla.
The stunts were part of a day of direct action declared by Reclaim the Power, a pressure group opposed to fossil fuel consumption and extreme energy extraction, which has set up a protest camp near a potential fracking site in the Blackpool area
And for our final item, via TheLocal.ch, it’s for the birds:
Villagers reject hydro plant to protect vultures
A couple of bearded vultures won out over a planned hydroelectric plant in a referendum held in a small village in the Engadin Valley region of the canton of Graubünden this week.
With the backing of municipal officials, electricity producer Repower wanted to build the plant in La Punt Chamues-ch.
However in a vote on Monday night, citizens voted 74 to 64 against the project, the SDA news agency reported on Tuesday.
They cast ballots after a long debate involving proponents and detractors, including environmental groups and the regional association for the protection of birds.
