Chad hopes ‘green charcoal’ can save vanishing forests

Chad hopes ‘green charcoal’ can save vanishing forests
A worker pours a gum arabic-based binder at Grace International's green coal production site in N'Djamena, Chad. (AFP)
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Updated 20 June 2025
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Chad hopes ‘green charcoal’ can save vanishing forests

Chad hopes ‘green charcoal’ can save vanishing forests
  • Chad has lost more than 90 percent of its forest cover since the 1970s, hit by climate change and overexploitation of trees for household uses such as cooking

N’DJAMENA: As they zigzagged from one machine to another in the searing African sun, the workers were covered in black soot.

But the charcoal they were making is known as “green,” and backers hope it can save impoverished Chad from rampant deforestation.

Chad, a vast, landlocked country of 19 million people perched at the crossroads of north and central Africa, is steadily turning to desert.

It has lost more than 90 percent of its forest cover since the 1970s, hit by climate change and overexploitation of trees for household uses such as cooking, officials say.

“Green charcoal” aims to protect what forest is left.

Made from discarded plant waste such as millet and sesame stalks or palm fronds, it is meant to save trees from being chopped down for cooking.

The product “releases less emissions than traditional charcoal, it doesn’t blacken your pots, it has high energy content and lasts up to three times longer than ordinary charcoal,” said Ousmane Alhadj Oumarou, technical director of the Raikina Association for Socioeconomic Development (Adser).

“Using one kilogramme of green charcoal saves six kilogrammes of wood.”

The group has installed a production facility in Pont Belile, just north of the capital, N’Djamena.

There, workers grind up burnt plant waste, then mix it with gum arabic, which helps it ignite, and clay, which makes it burn more slowly.

The resulting black nuggets look like ordinary charcoal.

Like the traditional kind, it emits CO2 when it burns — but less, said Souleymane Adam Adey, an ecologist at the University of N’Djamena.

And “it contributes to fighting deforestation, by ensuring the trees that aren’t cut down continue to capture and store carbon,” he said.

The conflict in neighboring Sudan, which is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, is adding to pressure on Chad, which has become home to more than 800,000 Sudanese refugees since 2023 — double the 400,000 it already hosted.

“Desertification has progressed in the regions that have been hosting Sudanese refugees for the past two years,” said Adser’s director, 45-year-old businessman Ismael Hamid.

Adser invested 200 million CFA francs (about $350,000) to launch the project, then won backing from the World Bank, which buys the charcoal for 750 CFA francs per kilogramme.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, distributes the charcoal in refugee camps in eastern Chad.

But Hamid said he hoped to expand production and slash prices to 350 to 500 CFA francs per kilo to make “green charcoal” available and affordable nationwide.

The plant currently produces seven to nine tons per day.

“If we want to meet the country’s needs, we have to increase our output by at least a factor of 10,” said Hamid, calling for subsidies to support the budding sector.

Environment Minister Hassan Bakhit Djamous told AFP the government was working on a policy to promote such projects.

“We need to bet on green charcoal as an energy source for the future of our country,” he said.

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US ends case against doctor over alleged Covid vaccine scheme

US ends case against doctor over alleged Covid vaccine scheme
Updated 9 sec ago
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US ends case against doctor over alleged Covid vaccine scheme

US ends case against doctor over alleged Covid vaccine scheme

WASHINGTON: US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Saturday she had ordered charges to be dropped against a doctor accused of destroying Covid-19 jabs and issuing fake vaccination certificates.

The abrupt halt to proceedings comes just days after the trial commenced, and is the latest boost to the vaccine-skeptic movement from President Donald Trump’s administration.

Michael Kirk Moore, a plastic surgeon in the western state of Utah, was charged by the Department of Justice in 2023 alongside his clinic and three others for “running a scheme” to defraud the government.

He was accused of destroying or disposing of over $28,000 worth of government-provided Covid vaccines and handing out at least 1,937 false vaccine record cards in exchange for payment.

Moore, who faced decades behind bars, was also accused of administering a saline solution to children — at the behest of their parents — so that they would think they had been vaccinated against Covid.

Moore’s trial began this week at a federal court in Salt Lake City.

But on Tuesday, Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s most vocal hard-right supporters, said she had written to Bondi calling for charges against Moore to be dropped.

“Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so. He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today,” Bondi wrote on X.

Bondi’s decision also notably comes as she faces fire from right-wing activists over her handling of a probe into the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

She thanked Greene and Utah Senator Mike Lee, another hard-right lawmaker, for their advocacy for dropping charges against Moore.

The Covid-19 pandemic sparked fierce political division in the US between those who supported lockdowns and vaccination drives, and those who considered the measures as restrictions on freedom.

Trump, himself vaccinated against Covid-19, has appointed as his Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has initiated an overhaul of American vaccine policy.

Kennedy said Moore “deserves a medal for his courage and commitment to healing,” in an X post in April.

At the end of May, Kennedy announced that federal authorities would no longer recommend Covid-19 jabs for children and pregnant women, prompting accusations from medical groups that he was taking away parents’ ability to opt for vaccinations.

Kennedy has been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation, including about the measles vaccine, even as the US grapples with its worst measles epidemic in 30 years.

 


Lawmakers visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after being blocked

Lawmakers visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after being blocked
Updated 6 min 50 sec ago
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Lawmakers visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after being blocked

Lawmakers visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after being blocked

OCHOPEE, Florida: Democratic lawmakers condemned Florida’s new Everglades immigration detention center after a state-arranged visit Saturday, describing a crowded, unsanitary and bug-infested facility that officials have dubbed ” Alligator Alcatraz.” A Republican on the same tour said he saw nothing of the sort.

The tour came after some Democrats were blocked earlier from viewing the 3,000-bed detention center that the state rapidly built on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. So many state legislators and members of Congress turned up Saturday that they were split into multiple groups to view the facility.

“There are really disturbing, vile conditions and this place needs to be shut the hell down,” Rep. US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, told reporters after visiting. “This place is a stunt, and they’re abusing human beings here.”

Cage-style units of 32 men share three combination toilet-sink devices, the visitors measured the temperature at 83 degrees  in one area that was billed as air-conditioned and grasshoppers and other insects abound, she and other Democrats said.

Although the visitors said they weren’t able to speak with the detainees, Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democrat from Florida, said one called out “I’m an American!” and others chanting, “Libertad!,” a Spanish word for “freedom.”

State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican from Florida, countered that he had seen a well-run, safe facility where the living quarters were clean and the air conditioning worked well. He recalled that a handful of detainees became “a little raucous” when the visitors appeared but said he didn’t make out what they were saying.

“The rhetoric coming out of the Democrats does not match the reality,” he said by phone. “It’s a detention center, not the Four Seasons.”

Journalists weren’t allowed on the tour, and lawmakers were instructed not to bring phones or cameras inside.

Messages seeking comment were sent to the state Division of Emergency Management, which built the facility, and to representatives for Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis spokesperson Molly Best highlighted one of Ingoglia’s upbeat readouts on social media.

DeSantis and fellow Republicans have touted the makeshift detention center — an agglomeration of tents, trailers and temporary buildings constructed in a matter of days — as an efficient and get-tough response to President Donald Trump’s call for mass deportations. The first detainees arrived July 3, after Trump toured and praised the facility.

Described as temporary, the detention center is meant to help the Republican president’s administration reach its goal of boosting the United States’ migrant detention capacity from 41,000 people to at least 100,000. The Florida facility’s remote location and its name — a nod to the notorious Alcatraz prison that once housed federal inmates in California — are meant to underscore a message of deterring illegal immigration.

Ahead of the facility’s opening, state officials said detainees would have access to medical care, consistent air conditioning, a recreation yard, attorneys and clergy members.

But detainees and their relatives and advocates have told The Associated Press that conditions are awful, with worm-infested food, toilets overflowing onto floors, mosquitoes buzzing around the fenced bunks, and air conditioners that sometimes shut off in the oppressive South Florida summer heat. One man told his wife that detainees go days without getting showers.

Florida Division of Emergency Management spokesperson Stephanie Hartman called those descriptions “completely false,” saying detainees always get three meals a day, unlimited drinking water, showers and other necessities.

“The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order,” she said.

Five Democratic state lawmakers tried to visit the site when it opened July 3 but said they were denied access. The state subsequently arranged Saturday’s tour.

The lawmakers have sued over the denial, saying that DeSantis’ administration is impeding lawmakers’ oversight authority. A DeSantis spokesperson has called the lawsuit “dumb.”

As Democratic officials headed into the facility, they said they expected to be given a sanitized and limited view.

Wasserman Schultz told reporters the lawmakers came anyway because they wanted to ask questions and get a sense of the structure and conditions.

 


German backpacker drank from puddles in Australian bush ordeal

Carolina Wilga. (Supplied)
Carolina Wilga. (Supplied)
Updated 12 July 2025
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German backpacker drank from puddles in Australian bush ordeal

Carolina Wilga. (Supplied)
  • Wilga was suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, sunburn, “extensive insect bites,” and an injured foot, police said

SYDNEY: German backpacker Carolina Wilga drank water from puddles and sheltered in a cave before escaping an 11-night ordeal in the Australian bush, police said Saturday.

The 26-year-old walked “confused and disorientated” 24 kilometers away from her van after it got stuck in remote bushland in Western Australia. The backpacker had lost hope of being rescued, police said.

But on Friday, she managed to flag down a woman who drove her to police in the agricultural community of Beacon, northeast of Perth. Wilga was airlifted to a Perth hospital for treatment.

“She spent 11 nights exposed to the elements and survived by consuming the minimal food supplies she had in her possession, and drinking water from rain and puddles,” Western Australia police said in a statement.

“She sought shelter at night where possible, including in a cave.”

Wilga was suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, sunburn, “extensive insect bites,” and an injured foot, police said.

The driver who spotted her, Tania Henley, told public broadcaster ABC that she saw Wilga waving her hands by the side of the road.

She appeared to be in a “fragile state,” bitten by midges and suffering from the cold.

“Everything in this bush is very prickly. I just can’t believe that she survived. She had no shoes on, she’d wrapped her foot up.”

The rescue was down to “sheer luck,” Western Australia police acting inspector Jessica Securo told a news conference in Perth after speaking to Wilga.

“She is still in disbelief that she was able to survive. In her mind, she had convinced herself that she was not going to be located,” said Securo.

“She basically looked at the direction of the sun and tried to head west, thinking that that would be her best bet of coming across someone or a road.”

Wilga told police she was “very confused and disorientated.”

Until her rescue, she had been last seen on June 29 arriving in the van at a general store in Beacon.

A police search spotted the van on Thursday, abandoned in dense bushland north of Beacon with plastic orange traction tracks placed beneath the rear wheels.

“It appears that she has somewhat lost control of the vehicle, and then it’s become mechanically unsound, and bogged,” Securo said.

She stayed with the van for one day before leaving the vehicle through “panic,” hoping to find help.

Wilga was “overwhelmed” to have found someone to help her.

“She had minimal food and minimal water. From speaking to her, she has said she could have planned better.”

The terrain can be “quite dangerous,” Securo added.

Wilga remained in hospital and was not expected to be released on Saturday, still needing “emotional support” and treatment for some injuries.

“She’s had a good night’s sleep. She’s had a shower. We’ve got her some food, which was a massive relief for her. So she’s just taking it one day at a time at the moment.”

The backpacker is now in “frequent communication” with her family who are relieved and thankful the Western Australian community came together to “throw every resource at locating their daughter,” Securo said.

The family had no plans at this stage to travel to Australia.

Police say Wilga had spent two years backpacking around the country, and was working at mine sites in Western Australia while staying mostly at hostels.

“Carolina has told me that she loves Australia. She still has so much travel to do here. She hasn’t made it over to the east coast yet, so that’s still on her bucket list,” said Securo.

 


Emergency vaccines slash deaths by 60 percent

Emergency vaccines slash deaths by 60 percent
Updated 12 July 2025
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Emergency vaccines slash deaths by 60 percent

Emergency vaccines slash deaths by 60 percent
  • ‘For the first time, we are able to comprehensively quantify the benefits of deploying vaccines against outbreaks,’ Gavi chief Sania Nishtar says

GENEVA: Emergency vaccination during outbreaks of diseases like cholera, Ebola and measles have over the past quarter-century reduced deaths from such illnesses by nearly 60 percent, according to a new study.

A similar number of infections are also believed to have been prevented, while billions of euros have been generated in estimated economic benefit.

The Gavi vaccine alliance, which backed the study, said it collaborated with researchers at Burnet Institute in Australia to provide the world’s first look at the historical impact of emergency immunization efforts on public health and global health security.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Vaccination was shown to decrease deaths during yellow fever outbreaks by a full 99 percent, and 76 percent for Ebola.

• At the same time, emergency vaccination significantly reduced the threat of outbreaks expanding.

• The study estimated that the immunization efforts carried out during the 210 outbreaks generated nearly $32 billion.

“For the first time, we are able to comprehensively quantify the benefit, in human and economic terms, of deploying vaccines against outbreaks of some of the deadliest infectious diseases,” Gavi chief Sania Nishtar said in a statement.

“This study demonstrates clearly the power of vaccines as a cost-effective countermeasure to the increasing risk the world faces from outbreaks.”

The study, published this week in the British Medical Journal Global Health, examined 210 outbreaks of five infectious diseases — cholera, Ebola, measles, meningitis and yellow fever — in 49 lower-income countries between 2000 and 2023.

Vaccine roll-outs in these settings had a dramatic impact, with the study showing they reduced both the number of infections and deaths by almost 60 percent across the five diseases.

For some of the diseases the effect was far more dramatic.

Vaccination was shown to decrease deaths during yellow fever outbreaks by a full 99 percent, and 76 percent for Ebola.

At the same time, emergency vaccination significantly reduced the threat of outbreaks expanding.

It also estimated that the immunization efforts carried out during the 210 outbreaks generated nearly $32 billion in economic benefits just from averting deaths and years of life lost to disability.

That amount was however likely to be a significant underestimate of overall savings, it said, pointing out that it did not take into account outbreak response costs or the social and macro-economic impacts of disruptions created by large outbreaks.

The massive Ebola outbreak that hit West Africa in 2014, before the existence of approved vaccines, for instance saw cases pop up worldwide and is estimated to have cost the West African countries alone more than $53 billion.

The study comes after the WHO warned in April that outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, meningitis, and yellow fever are on the rise globally amid misinformation and cuts to international aid.

Gavi, which helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against infectious diseases, is itself currently trying to secure a fresh round of funding in the face of the global aid cuts and after Washington last month announced it would stop backing the group.

 


London’s Met Police arrest dozens for alleged support for banned Palestine Action group during protest

London’s Met Police arrest dozens for alleged support for banned Palestine Action group during protest
Updated 12 July 2025
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London’s Met Police arrest dozens for alleged support for banned Palestine Action group during protest

London’s Met Police arrest dozens for alleged support for banned Palestine Action group during protest
  • Protest marked second consecutive weekend of arrests over alleged references to the proscribed organization

LONDON: London’s Metropolitan Police arrested 41 people on Saturday during a protest in Parliament Square, accusing them of showing support for the now-banned direct action group Palestine Action, it was reported.

The protest marked the second consecutive weekend of arrests over alleged references to the proscribed organization.

The demonstration was part of a coordinated campaign by the group Defend Our Juries, which held simultaneous actions in other UK cities including Manchester, Cardiff, and Derry.

Protesters gathered in Parliament Square shortly after 1 p.m., sitting silently at the base of statues of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi while holding cardboard signs bearing messages in support of Palestine Action, The Guardian reported.

According to the Metropolitan Police, the arrests were made under terrorism legislation.

In a statement posted on social media, the force said: “We are responding to a protest in support of Palestine Action. Officers are in the process of making arrests. We will issue any updates on this thread.”

In a follow-up statement, the Met confirmed: “Officers have made 41 arrests for showing support for a proscribed organisation. One person has been arrested for common assault.”

 

 

Defend Our Juries said on X: “Over 300 police officers have been seen to carry away dozens of people from the foot of statues of Nelson Mandela and Gandhi for alleged ‘terrorism offences’. Those arrested are accused of holding signs in support of Palestine Action.”

Officers were seen cordoning off demonstrators, searching their bags, inspecting ID cards, and seizing signs. Some protesters lay atop one another as police moved in to confiscate their placards. The demonstrators’ signs reportedly included messages such as: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

 

 

The protest comes days after the UK government’s controversial decision to ban Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act.

The move followed an incident in which activists allegedly broke into RAF Brize Norton and defaced two military aircraft with spray paint.

The ban was announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in late June and formally approved by MPs last Wednesday.

The House of Lords backed the decision without a vote the following day. It marks the first time a direct action protest group has been proscribed under terrorism legislation in the UK, placing Palestine Action in the same legal category as Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State.

Under the new law, supporting or promoting the group now carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Palestine Action is known for its campaigns targeting Israeli and Israeli-linked businesses in Britain, particularly defense firm Elbit Systems.

Its protests have included blocking entrances, damaging property, and spraying buildings with red paint to symbolise blood.

Critics of the ban say the government is conflating protest with terrorism and suppressing legitimate dissent.

In a failed legal challenge to the proscription, a lawyer for Palestine Action argued the government’s move marked “the first time Britain had proscribed a group which undertook this type of direct action.”

UN experts, human rights organisations, cultural figures, and hundreds of lawyers have also voiced alarm over the decision, warning it sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing civil disobedience.

Saturday’s demonstration echoed scenes from the previous weekend, when 29 protesters, including 83-year-old former priest Rev Sue Parfitt, were arrested at a similar gathering in Parliament Square.

In Manchester, police also made arrests at a protest in support of Palestine Action, while peaceful demonstrations took place in Cardiff and Derry.

The controversy surrounding Palestine Action’s ban comes amid heightened tensions over the war in Gaza, where the International Court of Justice in The Hague is hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. Israel denies all allegations of wrongdoing.

* With Reuters