Foreign News
Living in Delhi smog is like watching a dystopian film again and again
Winter has come to Delhi and with it, a familiar sense of gloom. The sky here is grey and there is a thick, visible blanket of smog.
If you stay outdoors for more than a few minutes, you can almost taste ash. You will feel breathless within minutes if you try to run or even walk at a brisk pace in the smog.
Newspapers are back to using words like toxic, deadly and poisonous in their main headlines.
Most schools have been shut and people have been advised to stay indoors – though those whose livelihoods depend on working outdoors can’t afford to do so.
Delhi’s air quality score was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 on Monday and Tuesday, according to different monitoring agencies. The acceptable limit is less than 100.
These scores measure the levels of particulate matter – called PM 2.5 and PM10 – in the air. These tiny particles can enter the lungs and cause a host of diseases.
On social media, people have been expressing shock, disappointment and anguish that it’s all happening again.
Along with the gloom, there is a strong sense of déjà vu – like we have seen this all many times before in the past 15 years.
Covering this story feels like watching (and being in) the same dystopian film every year – following the same characters, plot and script. The outcome is always the same – nothing changes.
The parks are empty again – people, particularly children and the elderly, have been told to stay indoors.
Those who must work – daily-wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, delivery riders – are coughing but still going out.
Hospitals are seeing an increasing number of people coming in with respiratory problems.
And amid all this, we are back to the same question again – why does nothing change?
The simple answer is that solving Delhi’s air problem requires monumental efforts and coordination.
The sources of the problem are many. One of them is the practice of farmers burning crop remains to clear their fields quickly to sow seeds for the next yield.
This mostly happens in the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The smoke from the farm fires engulfs Delhi every winter and hangs low in the atmosphere as wind speeds reduce during winter months.
But farmers can’t be entirely blamed for this because this is the cheapest way of clearing fields.
Different governments have talked about providing machines and financial incentives to stop crop burning, but very little has happened on the ground.
Delhi itself produces a huge chunk of the pollution – emission from vehicles, construction and factories.
Every year, in the winter months, people get angry, journalists write and produce reports, politicians blame each other and courts fume – until we do it all over again the next year.
A public health emergency like this would spark mass protests in most democracies. But the anger in Delhi is mostly limited to social media.
Activists say the reason is that pollution doesn’t cause immediate problems for most people. Ingesting high levels of PM2.5 deteriorates health slowly. A Lancet study found that pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019.
And then there is the class divide. People who can afford to temporarily leave the city do that, those who can buy air purifiers do that, and those who can vent on social media do that.
The rest, who don’t have these options, just go about their lives.
The collective angst has so far not resulted in a massive protest and, as the Supreme Court once observed, politicians just “pass the buck” and wait for the season to get over.
Experts say governments at the federal level and in different states need to leave their party politics behind and work together to solve this problem. They need to focus on long-term solutions.
And citizens need to hold politicians accountable and courts have to pass decisive orders months before the pollution worsens.
This year, we are again in the thick of the season and temporary measures have been announced, like banning construction work.
But can these bring Delhi’s elusive blue skies back? The evidence from the past few years doesn’t give much hope.
[BBC]
Argentina face the prospect of a Fifa fine after their players celebrated the World Cup semi-final win against England with a banner in support of their country’s claims to the Falkland Islands.
The defending world champions produced a dramatic late comeback in Atlanta, scoring twice to defeat Thomas Tuchel’s side 2-1 and book a showdown with Spain in Sunday’s final.
After the final whistle, Argentina players celebrated while holding a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, which translates as “The Falklands are Argentine”.
The Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory in the south-west Atlantic Ocean, remain the subject of a sovereignty dispute between Britain and Argentina.
The two nations went to war over the group of islands, situated 300 miles off Argentina’s east coast, from April to June 1982.
The 74-day conflict led to the deaths of 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen. Three people from the islands also died.
In 2014, Fifa fined the Argentine Football Association 20,000 pounds after its players held up a banner with the same message before a friendly against Slovenia.
World football’s governing body said the gesture had breached rules on political action and team misconduct.
[BBC]
The death toll in a fire at a popular live music pub in Bangkok has risen to 32 after two more people died from their injuries, as Thai police continue to investigate possible negligence as a factor in the blaze.
The Erawan Emergency Medical Centre said on Wednesday that 30 people remained in hospitals in the city, with 15 of those being treated in intensive care units. It said 44 people had been discharged.
The fire, Thailand’s deadliest in 17 years, broke out at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao late on Sunday night. It took firefighters 30 minutes to put out the blaze.
Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation, while a few died from burn injuries, Wiroon Supasingsiripreecha, chief of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, told journalists on Wednesday.
Local police said that most of the people who were found dead were trapped in windowless bathrooms, where they may have tried to escape the blaze.
The cause of the fire has not been determined, and police are investigating the possibility of negligence at the venue, including whether emergency exits were obstructed.
Authorities say an electrical short circuit in a ceiling-mounted air conditioner may have sparked the fire. Some experts say that combustible acoustic materials around the stage may have ignited, producing extreme heat and smoke.
Some survivors and family members of victims arrived at the Phahonyothin Police Station on Wednesday to give statements, gather belongings and seek compensation.
Natthaphong Lakhorn, 26, told the Associated Press news agency that he was close to the stage when the fire started.
[Aljazeera]
Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the architect of Qatar’s remarkable transformation into an ultra-wealthy modern nation with global influence, has been laid to rest in Doha following his death at the age of 74.
Sheikh Hamad’s death was announced on Sunday morning, and his simple funeral ceremony was held after the daily evening prayer at sunset at the Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque in the capital.
Mourners wearing traditional Qatari dress stood with their hands clasped in front of them during a funeral prayer, facing the shrouded body of Sheikh Hamad.
Afterwards, close family members, including his son and successor as emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, carried his body out of the mosque. Sheikh Hamad was laid to rest at the Lusail Cemetery north of Doha.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said the ceremony was “a humble event” and Sheikh Hamad was “buried in a simple grave”.
“The simplicity really is in keeping with Islamic tradition but also emblematic of how the father emir carried himself in his life,” Basravi said. “He did not concern himself with the trappings of wealth but was focused on the welfare of his own people.”
During Sheikh Hamad’s reign from 1995 to 2013, Qatar’s gross domestic product rose more than 24-fold, largely because of his focus on developing the country’s massive gas resources. By 2006, the small nation had become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
[Aljazeera]
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A few showers may occur in the Western, Sabaragamuwa and North-western provinces and in Kandy, Nuwara-Eliya, Galle and Matara districts.
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