Islamophobic attacks in France up by 34 pc - predictably

Islamophobic attacks in France up by 34 pc: report | Europe | World Bulletin

As predicted on this blog at the time, the banning of the burka in France has not, as advocates of the ban predicted, ushered in a more tolerant attitude among French citizens by creating a religiously neutral mono-cultural citizenship. The ban appears, rather, to have reinforced islamophobic tendencies as attacks on Islams and their buildings and business have risen by a third in the last twelve months (see link above).

It is interesting to observe how government policies tend to not only establish legal rules, but also contribute to the setting of a cultural mood within a nation, resulting in actions which the legislation itself was not intended to encourage.

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It's Official - Global Warming is Bad for Your Health

Health professionals around the world have issued a variety of warnings about the impact of global warming on human health.

In Canada, the Ontario College of Family Physicians has issued a report highlighting the dangers to public health of continued climate change. These include an increase in the incidence of heat stroke and respiratory illness, especially among children and older people. Citing a two-week heat wave in France in 2003 which resulted in 15,000 premature deaths, the College is urging medical services to prepare for similar events in Canada and elsewhere in the coming years. The report also predicts an increase in the number of cases of malaria and dengue fever, caught by Canadians returning from vacations in a warmer Caribbean. Climate change will, says the report, also lead to an increase in Lyme disease (pictured) and west Nile virus – conditions which the vast majority of Canadian physicians have never seen let alone treated.

College President, Dr. Renee Arnold, says the negative health effects of climate change will be irreversible "if we don't get our act together now and stop damaging our environment."

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has issued a warning of 150,000 deaths a year as a direct result of climate change, with more than half coming from the Asia-Pacific region.

This number of fatalities will be caused by increases in malaria, malnutrition and diarrhoea as well as by flooding triggered by climate change. Citing outbreaks of malaria in regions once considered too cold for the disease to survive – such as the highlands of Papua new Guinea – WHO spokesman Shigeru Omi describes the health effects of climate change as lasting for the long term: "it is inevitable climate change will get worse for some time," Omi said.

Related health developments cited by the WHO include:

• Increased water-borne illness caused by sea water seepage into ground water supplies in Pacific Island nations such as Tuvulu and the Marshall Islands
• Deaths caused by increased flooding and droughts
• The spread of disease caused by the migration of people rendered homeless through environmental degradation

In a separate report, the WHO has also highlighted the link between climate change and mental health with evidence that extreme weather conditions can lead to psychiatric illness.

"Psychosocial illnesses are a part of the various health issues associated with climate change," according to Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Deputy Regional Director of the WHO.

Studies of severe flooding in England and a cyclone-affected area of Orissa in India have demonstrated an increase in post-traumatic stress disorder among affected populations, up to one year after the initial climate event.

The relationship between drought and mental health has been long established: "The phenomenon of farmers’ suicides in India is a typical example of consequences of climatic vagaries in poor, predominantly agrarian economies," according to the report.

Following the Asian tsunami, the WHO estimated that 20-40 per cent of affected people suffered from short-term mild psychological distress and that another 30-50 per cent experienced moderate-to-severe psychological stress. Similar results emerged from those affected by Hurricane Katrina in the United States.

The report concludes that people living in poverty, those in geographically vulnerable areas and those highly dependent on farming for their livelihood are among the groups more likely to experience mental health problems sparked by extreme weather patterns.

Australian doctors, meanwhile, have warned of increased rates of climate-change related illness in Australia and the Pacific, citing heat stroke, mosquito-borne illness and gastroenteritis as representing particular problems.

Dr Graeme Horton is quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying, "Climate change is clearly much, much more than an economic inconvenience, it is a threat to our life support systems."

The final warning comes from the British Medical Association which is calling on health professionals to take the lead in responding to the public health aspects of climate change.

Predictions include the possibility of malaria occurring in the UK, increased water-borne illnesses caused by flooding and a possible increase in skin cancers and sunstroke caused by heat waves becoming “common” by the middle of the C21. Head of Science and Ethics for the BMA, Dr Vivienne Nathanson, also foresees increased mental health issues sparked by climate change.

The BMA report predicts an economic imbalance in the health effects of climate change in the UK with the most deprived 10% of the population “eight times more likely to be living in the coastal floodplain than the least deprived 10 per cent” and thus more at risk.

POST SCRIPT

Exactly one year after this post was published, evidence was submitted today by the US Environmental Protection Agency confirming that greenhouse gases represent a significant and direct threat to human health. Findings include:

• concentrations of six greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluorideare - are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions
  
• these high levels are "very likely" the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate
• Climate change is resulting in increased drought and flooding; more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires; greater sea level rise; harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems
• the health of the poor, the very young, the disabled and the elderly are disproportionately effected by climate change and increased concentrations of ground-level ozone
  

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Guess Who is Opposing Ban on Cluster Bombs?

With delegates from more than 120 national governments meeting in New Zealand to discuss a world ban on the use of cluster bombs, Britain, the US, China and Russia are all opposing the idea. The latter three are not even attending.

New Zealand Defense Minister Phil Goff opened the 5-day conference by informing delegates that its aim was "to build agreement among a sufficient mass of countries, including those who possess cluster munitions, to form a legally binding treaty to stop unacceptable harm to civilians."

Figures for the percentage of mini-bomblets contained within a typical cluster bomb that fail to detonate on impact are, not surprisingly, heavily disputed. While the MOD figure is 6%, Landmine Action places the total between 7-11%, based on the failure rate of cluster bomblets in the Kosovo campaign of 1999.

With some types of cluster bomb containing bomblets (technically sub-munitions) that are brightly coloured, they are about the size of a soft drink can and have proven a particular danger to children.

Unicef estimates that about 1000 children in Iraq have been injured or killed by such munitions since the 2003 war, the sub-munitions remaining live for months or years after their initial deployment. After the first Gulf War, there were over 1,600 deaths or injuries to Kuwaiti citizens from unexploded cluster bomblets used in that country to drive out Iraqi forces.

The following table indicates the number of cluster bombs used in Iraq by American and British forces since 2003. Figures are in the public domain and are from the British Ministery of Defence and the US Pentagon.

Type	Quantity	Number of bomblets (sub-munitions)	Originator	Location
RBL 755 (arial delivery)	66	147 per bomb (=9702)	RAF	Not stated
L20 Cluster Shells	2,098	49 per shell (=102, 802)	Royal Artillery	Basra
CBU-103	818	202 per missile (=165,236)	USAF	Not stated
BBU-105	88	202 per missile (=17776)	USAF	Not stated
CBU-105	6	202 per missile (=1212)	USAF	Baghdad

China, Russia and the United States - the main producers of cluster bombs - are not participating in the Wellington Conference either directly or by sending observers. Meanwhile, France, Germany, Japan and the UK have been tabling motions to restrict the terms of any agreement reached at the conference - including excluding certain weapons from a ban, allowing their use in conflicts with countries which do not sign the treaty and building in a transition period before any ban becomes law.

Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch responded: "The treaty must not be weakened to pander to the interests of users, producers and stockpilers."

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Scary Airport

Not original I know, but a great photo of the landing strip at Courcheval in the French Alps.

The runway length is 525 metres and has a gradient of 18%.

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African Soldiers in World War One

The idea that the Great War was an essentially European event is gradually changing.

The enclosed photos are of African soldiers who fought alongside the French Army in World War One and are rare examples of contemporary photographs taken and reproduced in colour, bringing the conflict to light in a powerful new way. The images are of Senegalese and Algerian soldiers and are contained along with hundreds of others on a French language web site here. Many are reproduced on the English language World War One colour photos site here.

The story of African soldiers in the First World War has received little attention at a popular level until recently. The facts are that both France and Britain drew heavily upon their colonies for manpower during the war. An estimated 500,000 Africans were deployed in the French and British forces; some as labourers, others as fighting soldiers.

Of the 1,186,000 French troops killed or missing in action in WWI, 71,100 were from the French colonies of Algeria, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia and Madagascar. Fatalities included thousands of Muslim soldiers. In 2006, a memorial to Muslims killed at the battle of Verdun was inaugurated by then French President Jacques Chirac.

South Africa supported Britain during the conflict. The South African Brigade (consisting primarily of white career soldiers and so-called coloured/mixed-race soldiers) saw active service at the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Aras and the Third Battle of Ypres and suffered 15,000 casualties during the war.

A major loss of life occurred when the SS Mendi was sunk in the English Channel in 1917. Over 600 black South African soldiers – members of the African Native Labour Corps - drowned in the tragedy. Black South Africans were not permitted to serve as front line troops in Europe and only the white officers on board received any official recognition for their loss in the Mendi incident.

Africa’s other main contribution to the First World War was as an arena of battle – in fact, the first and last shots of the war were fired in Africa. In Tip and Run, Edward Paice Phoenix describes the opening hostilities on the boarder of German Togoland as the British West African Frontier Force attempted to protect British shipping from German colonial forces. In East Africa, meanwhile, the British navy was shelling German positions in Dar es Salaam in modern-day Tanzania.

The War in East Africa saw 200,000 soldiers – all volunteers - involved on the British/South African side against German colonial forces, with over 10,000 black and white soldiers killed. The conditions were extreme and many deaths were exacerbated by the grueling climate, malaria and dysentery. Eventually the South African forces (allied with numerous Indian regiments) were replaced by troops from the British colonies in modern-day Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Sudan.

South African writer Hamilton Wende has argued that the experience gained by black Africans who fought in the East Africa campaign was one source of inspiration for the liberation movements that emerged in South Africa in the decades following the War as “white and black screamed and died together in the simple equality of human suffering.”

Private Wayne Miner of Kansas City was the last American soldier to die in World War I and was one of the many African Americans who participated in black regiments during the War. Their story is told in a number of publications. One contemporary account is History of the American Negro in the Great World War by William Allison Sweeney (originally published in 1919) which is now available as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg. Click here for the download options.

Many photos and other original documents can be found at the rootsweb site here

Jami Bryan has written a helpful introduction to the African-American experience in WWI here.

For more reading on African American soldiers in WWI, please see:

Unknown Soldiers: African-American Troops in WWI

The Right to Fight: A History of African-Americans in the Military

Soldiers of Freedom

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