Day: June 30, 2024

JAMMU, India — The putrid smell of burning garbage wafts for miles from the landfill on the outskirts of Jammu in a potentially toxic miasma fed by the plastics, industrial, medical and other waste generated by a city of some 740,000 people. But a handful of waste pickers ignore both the fumes and suffocating heat to sort through the rubbish, seeking anything they can sell to earn at best the equivalent of $4 a day.

“If we don’t do this, we don’t get any food to eat,” said 65-year-old Usmaan Shekh. “We try to take a break for a few minutes when it gets too hot, but mostly we just continue till we can’t.”

Shekh and his family are among the estimated 1.5 million to 4 million people who scratch out a living searching through India’s waste — and climate change is making a hazardous job more dangerous than ever. In Jammu, a northern Indian city in the Himalayan foothills, temperatures this summer have regularly topped 43 degrees Celsius.

At least one person who died in northern India’s recent heat wave was identified as a garbage picker.

The landfills themselves seethe internally as garbage decomposes, and the rising heat of summer speeds and intensifies the process. That increases emissions of gases such as methane and carbon dioxide that are dangerous to breathe. And almost all landfill fires come in summer, experts say, and can burn for days.

At the Jammu landfill, small fires dotted the massive pile, sending up plumes of smoke as two men hauled a frayed tarp loaded with garbage on the day Associated Press journalists visited. A 6-year-old boy clutched an armful of plastic sandals. As other pickers occasionally sheltered from the heat, birds wheeled overhead, occasionally touched down in their own search for scraps.

India generates at least 62 million tons of waste annually, according to federal government records, and some of its landfills are literal mountains of garbage, like the Ghaziabad landfill outside New Delhi. And while a 2016 law made it mandatory to segregate waste so that hazardous material doesn’t make its way to landfills, the law has been poorly enforced, adding to the risk of waste pickers.

“Since they mostly just use their hands, they are already contaminated by touching everything from diapers to diabetes syringes,” said Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of the New Delhi-based Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group.

Chaturvedi, who has worked with waste pickers for more than two decades, said extreme heat has added new risks to waste pickers who are already victims of social discrimination and appalling work conditions.

“It’s been a terrible, terrible, terrible year,” she said. “They already expect to suffer from the heat and that gives them a lot of anxiety, because they don’t know if they’ll make it, if they’ll survive it (the summer).”

Chaturvedi said this year’s heat has “been the most catastrophic thing one could imagine” adding that “It’s really very sad to look at how the poor are trying to live somehow, just take their bodies and try to reach the end of this heat wave in some form of being intact.”

Heat planning and public health experts say that people who are forced to work outdoors are at most risk due to prolonged heat exposure. Heatstroke, cardiovascular diseases and chronic kidney diseases are some of the risks from working outdoors during high heat.

Waste pickers “are among the most vulnerable and highly exposed to heat,” said Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads the climate resilience team at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s India program.

In New Delhi, some people who work the capital city’s estimated 4.2 million annual tons of garbage have cut back from two meals a day to just one, said Ruksana Begum, a 41-year-old waste picker at the Bhalswa landfill in the city.

“They are trying to avoid work because of the heat since if they go to work they end up spending more at the hospital than for their food,” Begum said.

Tiwari and Chaturvedi both said it’s essential to give waste pickers access to a regular water supply, shade, or a relatively cool building near the landfills. They should also be encouraged to avoid working at high heat and given prompt medical care when they need it, they said.

Tiwari said India has taken significant steps to devise heat action plans but implementing the plans all across the country is a challenge.

“As a society, we have a responsibility to protect them (garbage pickers),” said Tiwari. Simple steps can help, such as offering them water if they’re standing outside people’s homes, rather than asking them to leave, he said.

Geeta Devi, a 55-year-old garbage picker also at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, says when she feels dizzy in the heat she takes shelter and sometimes someone gives her water or food. But she has to work to earn the 150-200 rupees ($1.80 to $2.40) per day that puts food on the table for her children.

“It is difficult to do my job because of the heat. But I have no other job,” she said.

Угроза атаки БПЛА также была отменена.

(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden raised money and tried to calm fears in multiple appearances Saturday, while many top donors expressed concern over Biden’s status as the Democratic nominee following his poor debate performance on Thursday.

“I didn’t have a great night, but I’m going to be fighting harder,” Biden told attendees at a private fundraiser at the Red Bank, New Jersey home of Gov. Tim Murphy.

“Donald Trump is a genuine threat to the nation,” Biden emphasized, saying that his predecessor would undermine democracy if returned to the White House and his economic ideas would worsen inflation.

Biden and his wife, Jill, also attended two private events in East Hampton, New York at the home of Avram Glazer, an owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the home of investor Barry Rosenstein.

Public calls to quit the race; family meeting

The fundraisers came a day after The New York Times called on Biden to quit the race. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution made the same call in a front-page editorial for Sunday’s paper. But the Philadelphia Inquirer published an editorial calling on former President Donald Trump to quit his campaign.

And there are hints that the president is taking the public and private concerns to heart. The Biden family will get together Sunday at Camp David, a source tells NewsNation. That source says the president, first lady and others are expected to discuss the state of the campaign.

NBC quotes “five people familiar with the matter” in a similar report, saying the discussion will focus on “the future” of the campaign. A Biden official disputed the notion that the first family is doing anything more than having a family gathering.

“The premise of the story is not accurate,” the official told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One.

DNC Chair spins, donors share concerns

As Biden raised money and promised to continue the campaign, Democratic National Committee Jaime Harrison held a call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. He did not acknowledge Biden’s weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.

Multiple committee members on the call, granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted – that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.

The Biden campaign also released a memo Saturday that said Biden’s poor showing in Thursday night’s presidential debate “did not change the horse race.”

“Flash polls from CNN, 538, SurveyUSA, Morning Consult, and Data for Progress show what we expected: The debate did not change the horse race,” Biden campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in the memo. “This mirrors what the campaign’s internal post-debate polling showed: The president maintained his support among his 2020 voters and voters’ opinions were not changed.”

But not everyone in the party is buying it.

Democratic donors across New York, Southern California and Silicon Valley privately expressed deep concerns about the viability of Biden’s campaign. They even discussed a short list of possible replacements, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump his social media, lawmakers talk 25th

Trump was off the campaign trail Saturday but was busy on his social media platform.

“This past Thursday night was a defeat not only for Biden but for the entire Radical Left Democrat Party and the Fake News Media who have been lying to the American People as our Country was being destroyed,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“The whole world should know that while Biden is the worst president in the history of our Country, America will be strong again, and very soon!”

Trump surrogates aren’t waiting for Biden to voluntarily step aside. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called on the cabinet to remove Biden from office under the provisions of the 25^th Amendment.

“If Biden cannot speak coherently, articulate his policies, and is unfit to perform after weeks of preparation, how will he perform when America is truly tested?” Tillis wrote in a letter to his Senate GOP colleagues on Friday.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, added that he would file a resolution calling on Harris and the Cabinet to declare Biden incapable of fulfilling his presidential duties.

The Hill and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Вице-премьер Великобритании Оливер Дауден выразил “серьезную озабоченность” в связи с сообщением медиакомпании ABC о вероятной кампании влияния на выборы со стороны РФ.

Северная Корея будет всеми силами защищать свой суверенитет и интересы безопасности.