India to spray New Delhi from on high to combat toxic smog

According to a 2016 World Bank report, nearly 1.4 million people died in India due to air pollution in 2013, causing an economic loss worth 7.7 percent of the nation’s GDP. (AFP)
Updated 10 November 2017
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India to spray New Delhi from on high to combat toxic smog

NEW DELHI: India plans to spray water over its capital, New Delhi, to try to combat toxic smog that has triggered a pollution emergency, officials said on Friday, with conditions expected to get worse over the weekend.
Illegal crop burning in farm states surrounding New Delhi, vehicle exhaust in a city with limited public transport and swirling construction dust have caused the crisis, as they do year after year.
“Sprinkling water is the only way to bring down the dangerous pollution levels,” said Shruti Bhardwaj, the environment ministry’s senior most official in charge of monitoring air quality.
The government was finalizing the plans to spray the water from a height of 100 meters, which would be unprecedented, she said, without saying how much of the city of 22 million people would be covered.
The thick blanket of grey air and pollutants has enveloped Delhi for the past four days. A US embassy measure of tiny particulate matter, called PM 2.5, showed a reading of 523 at 9am on Friday — the outer limit of “good” air is 50.
PM 2.5 is about 30 times finer than a human hair. The particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs, causing heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and respiratory diseases.
The air has remained consistently in the “hazardous” category or beyond those levels, despite a litany of government measures: ordering a halt to all construction activities, restricting vehicular movement and raising parking charges four times to push residents to use public transport.

Commercial trucks are now banned from the city unless they are transporting essential commodities and the Delhi transport department said it re-introduced an “odd-even” scheme under which cars with license plates ending in an odd number are allowed one day and even-numbered cars the next day.
The scheme was introduced in the Chinese capital a decade ago to fight traffic and pollution with mixed success.
The Delhi high court issued an order on Thursday suggesting the city’s government consider “cloud seeding” to induce rainfall artificially, a practice also used in Beijing.
Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi, said sprinkling water will help, but it won’t solve everything.
“Each and every dust control measure has to be put in place to ensure that air quality improves as soon as possible,” she said.
Satyendra Kumar Jain, New Delhi’s health minister, said laborers living in urban slums or beneath road fly-overs were suffering the most. Government hospitals in the city, Jain said, were treating thousands of patients with respiratory ailments.
“The only solution left is that we start spraying water right at the street level, especially along heavy traffic roads,” Jain said.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of Delhi, called the capital a “gas chamber” earlier this week as his government sought urgent meetings with the federal government and neighboring states to find solutions.
Affluent residents and large private companies have been placing bulk orders for air purifiers and filtration masks.
“I have installed six air purifiers in my home, closed all the windows, but my eyes are still watering,” said Ranveer Singhal, a commodity trader living in leafy neighborhood of the city.
According to a 2016 World Bank report, nearly 1.4 million people died in India due to air pollution in 2013, causing an economic loss worth 7.7 percent of the nation’s GDP.
Organizers of music festivals and open air parties are now canceling events after the Central Pollution Control Board said air quality could deteriorate further during the weekend.
Pronab Sarkar, president of the Indian Association of Tour Operators, said air pollution had also hit tourism.
“Many tourists are canceling their bookings for Christmas holiday,” he said.


Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel

Updated 57 min 56 sec ago
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Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel

  • Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency, Trump posts

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Katie Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration and is the wife of his incoming deputy chief of staff, as one of the first members of an advisory board to be led by billionaire allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that aims to drastically slash government spending, federal regulations and the federal workforce.
Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.
Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.
She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.


Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal

Updated 23 December 2024
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Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal

  • Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans

PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday dismissed recent threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to retake control of the Panama Canal over complaints of “unfair” treatment of American ships.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a video posted to X.
Mulino’s public comments, though never mentioning Trump by name, come a day after the president-elect complained about the canal on his Truth Social platform.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he said.
Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!“
The Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.
Panama took full control in 1999.
Trump said that if Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
Mulino rejected Trump’s claims in his video message, though he also said he hopes to have “a good and respectful relationship” with the incoming administration.
“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”
Later on Sunday, Trump responded to Mulino’s dismissal, writing on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that!“
 

 


Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’

Updated 23 December 2024
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Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’

  • Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”
WASHINGTON: Could Elon Musk, who holds major sway in the incoming Trump administration, one day become president? On Sunday, Donald Trump answered with a resounding no, pointing to US rules about being born in the country.
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.

Russian president meets Slovak PM as Ukraine gas transit contract nears expiry

Updated 23 December 2024
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Russian president meets Slovak PM as Ukraine gas transit contract nears expiry

  • Fico has also been a rare senior EU politician to appear on Russian state TV following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine

MOSCOW: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin met Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in the Kremlin on Sunday, a rare visit by a European Union leader to Moscow as a contract allowing for Russian gas to transit through Ukraine nears expiry.
Slovakia is dependent on gas passing through its neighbor Ukraine, and it has ramped up efforts to maintain those flows from 2025 while criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to extend the contract expiring at the end of the year.
Fico’s trip to Moscow was only the third by an EU government head since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Slovak opposition politicians called the visit a “disgrace.”
Fico said on Facebook after the meeting that top EU officials were informed of his trip on Friday.
He said it came in response to talks last week with Zelensky, who, according to the Slovak leader, had expressed opposition to any gas transit through Ukraine to Slovakia.
“Russian President V. Putin confirmed the readiness of the (Russian Federation) to continue to supply gas to the West and Slovakia, which is practically impossible after Jan. 1, 2025 in view of the stance of the Ukrainian president,” Fico said.
Fico came to power in 2023 and shifted Slovakia’s foreign policy. He immediately stopped state military aid to Kyiv, has said the war with Russia does not have a military solution, and has criticized sanctions against Moscow.
His visit to the Kremlin follows Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who visited in April 2022, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who went to Moscow last July. EU allies had criticized both of those visits.
Russian television showed Putin and Fico shaking hands at the start of their talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting had been arranged a few days ago.
In the talks, Fico said he and Putin exchanged opinions on the military situation in Ukraine, chances of a peaceful end to the war and on Slovak-Russian relations “which I intend to standardise.”

GAS TRANSIT
Slovakia, which has a long-term contract with Russia’s Gazprom, has been trying to keep receiving gas through Ukraine, saying buying elsewhere would cost it 220 million euros ($229 million) more in transit expenses.
Ukraine has repeatedly refused to extend the transit deal.
Fico pushed the subject on Thursday at a EU summit that was also attended by Zelensky, who reiterated his country would not continue the transit of Russian gas.
The Slovak prime minister, who has said his country was facing a gas crisis, has also spoken of solutions under which Ukraine would not transit Russian-owned gas, but rather gas owned by someone else.
Hungary has also been keen to keep the Ukrainian route, but it will continue to receive Russian gas from the south, via the TurkStream pipeline on the bed of the Black Sea.
Ex-Soviet Moldova has also relied on gas transiting Ukraine to supply its needs and those of its separatist Transdniestria enclave, including a thermal plant that provides most of the electricity for parts of Moldova under government control.
The acting head of Moldovagaz, the country’s gas operator, Vadim Ceban, said it could provide gas for Transdniestria acquired from other sources. But the pro-Russian region would have to pay higher prices associated with those supplies.
Ceban said Moldovagaz had made several appeals to Gazprom to send gas to Moldova through TurkStream and Bulgaria and Romania.

 


Ho Chi Minh City celebrates first metro

Updated 22 December 2024
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Ho Chi Minh City celebrates first metro

HO CHI MINH CITY: Thousands of selfie-taking Ho Chi Minh City residents crammed into train carriages Sunday as the traffic-clogged business hub celebrated the opening of its first-ever metro line after years of delays.

Huge queues spilled out of every station along the $1.7 billion line that runs almost 20 kilometers from the city center — with women in traditional “ao dai” dress, soldiers in uniform and couples clutching young children waiting excitedly to board.

“I know it (the project) is late, but I still feel so very honored and proud to be among the first on this metro,” said office worker Nguyen Nhu Huyen after snatching a selfie in her jam-packed train car.

“Our city is now on par with the other big cities of the world,” she said.

It took 17 years for Vietnam’s commercial capital to reach this point. The project, funded largely by Japanese government loans, was first approved in 2007 and slated to cost just $668 million.

When construction began in 2012, authorities promised the line would be up and running in just five years.

But as delays mounted, cars and motorbikes multiplied in the city of nine million people, making the metropolis hugely congested, increasingly polluted and time-consuming to navigate.

The metro “meets the growing travel needs of residents and contributes to reducing traffic congestion and environmental pollution,” the city’s deputy mayor Bui Xuan Cuong said.

Cuong admitted authorities had to overcome “countless hurdles” to get the project over the line.