Latest news with #NavySeals
New Paper
3 hours ago
- General
- New Paper
Gold Medal Rose within a whiff of maiden victory
With Malaysians celebrating the King's birthday on June 1 and, with the revelry flowing into June 2, there was no "official" trackwork at the Sungai Besi racetrack on the usual Tuesday. Of course, the horses who are down to contest the races on June 7 would not have had much of a break and many would have been given fast work. That being the case, it was - understandably and expectedly - rather quiet on the morning of June 4, when the order of the day would have been to keep it simple. So it was, fast gallops were few and far between but, for those at trackside, there was enough speed to whet the appetite. Impressive among them was Gold Medal Rose. The Wrote filly from the stables of Ooi Chin Chin was in a galloping mood and she covered the 600m in a smart time of 38.2sec. Still looking for that elusive first win, Gold Medal Rose will be having her seventh race start in the Open Maiden event over the 1,200m. On the strength of her most recent gallop, she should give her rivals something to think about. The New Zealand-bred is still a three-year-old and her most impressive showing was when she finished a head second to Defeater on debut in a 1,200m sprint way back on Sept 8, 2024. Ooi has since put her through the grinder. He sent her to the races five times where she added money to the kitty by finishing third on two occasions. In addition, she has been to the trials twice this season. Yes, she looks sufficiently topped up for this assignment coming up and it could pay to include her in that list of "horses to follow". Also turning on the style - but not in a sprinting sort of way - was Zero Five Five. The handsome-looking chestnut loosened up with some solid cantering and will come into the action in a Class 4B (1,150m) on June 7, looking primed and poised for a good showing. Prepared by Richard Lines, who pulled off a win with Seson on June 1, Zero Five Five came close to a first Malaysian win in Ipoh on May 11. But he had to be content with second, finding one better in Prince Lonhro. However, make no mistake about it, Zero Five Five knows a thing or two about racing and has a win to show. When based at Flemington before being flown out here, Zero Five Five - then racing as Wirrapanda - won a 1,130m race in Geelong on March 26, 2024. No doubt the Wandjina four-year-old's last-start ninth in a Class 4B (1,400m) back on his home track was a let-down, but on his smart workout, he can bounce back. It could also pay to keep an eye on Navy Seals, who is set to contest the Class 4 (B) race over the 1,700m. Trainer Frank Maynard sent the US Navy Flag four-year-old out for some fast work on June 4 and he came through that 600m sprint in 39.2sec. Already a four-time winner - three of which came when he was under the care of Tan Kah Soon at Kranji - Navy Seals won once for Maynard. That was on April 5 when he showed racing fans at Sungai Besi just how good a stayer he was. That day, when partnered by Nuqman Rozi, he came from near last at the 400m mark to power home for a narrow win over the 2,000m. He goes over 1,700m on June 7 and, while it might seem a tad short, he is in that kind of form which makes all things possible. Maynard can also count on Star Victory, who ran over the 600m in 40sec. The Vancouver six-year-old is still winless in Malaysia, but do not hold it against him. While housed at Kranji under the helm of English trainer James Peters, he posted six wins - over trips ranging between 1,100m and 1,400m. His last win was on Sept 28 when he came with a pounding run over the concluding stages of that 1,200m race to score by half-a-length. That day, he had five-time Singapore champion jockey Manoel Nunes doing the steering. The 1,500m he has to cover on June 7 should be right up his alley and, with the benefit of that solid piece of work, he could be anything he wants to be. brian@
DW
23-05-2025
- General
- DW
Wildfires through the eyes of the toughest firefighters – DW – 05/23/2025
When Kelly Ramsey joined an elite unit of wildland firefighters called the "hotshots" in Northern California, she thought she knew what she was signing up for. But climate change has flipped a switch, transforming wildfires from a natural occurrence into an unstoppable force. We'll hear her story and check in with firefighters in Canada and Australia about what it now takes put out the flames. Interviewees: Kelly Ramsey, author of "Wildfire Days: A woman, a hotshot crew and the burning American West" Hugh Murdoch, incident commander, British Columbia Wildfire Service Rick McRae, fire behavior specialist and visiting fellow at University of New South Wales Canberra TRANSCRIPT Kelly Ramsey: I knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming. Almost every crew in California was getting called to this fire at some point. It's 2020 – Kelly Ramsey's first fire season in Northern California. She joined a hotshot crew, which is kind of like joining the Navy Seals of wildfires. And for their last assignment, they get sent to a massive fire that's been burning for nearly two months. Kelly: It was something like 37 fire starts that was eventually more than 1,000,000 acres. By this point, the wildfire's consumed an area five times bigger than New York City. Kelly: So, I'm sitting in the back with, you know, these seven men, and we swing onto the highway. You know, I've been to big fires already at that point, I'd been to 100,000- and 200,000 acre-fires. But a fire that big, you might take an hour to get from one side of it to another. This was 5 or 6 hours just going from the eastern part of the fire to the northern part. So already it's this feeling of like, "Oh my God." They pass through a charred moonscape filled with thick yellow smoke. When do they do see fire, even experienced crew members go … Kelly: Whoa, and kind of everybody in the back of the buggy turns and is like, look at that fire behavior or look at that column or whatever. Often you don't say anything at all. Everybody's just like, oh, [BLEEP] . So, one of their assignments is to cut off a wildfire before it reaches the highway. The goal is create a dead zone so the wildfire has nothing left to consume. Right now, the wind is working in their favor. They grab their torches and start dripping fire. Kelly: So that night we've been burning for, I don't know, 12 hours or something. I sort of lose track of time. And I'm on the road with my buddy and we've just dragged two strips of fire with our drip torches down the edge of this road, and the fire is romping. It is torching trees en masse which is like, torching is when the tree kind of goes up like a Roman candle. Just like all at once WHOOSH! it just like lights from the bottom to the top. And so these trees had been torching just like 10 at a time and it sounds like a jet engine roar, you know? It, it feels scary, but for the entire day, the wind has been pushing in to, let's say, my right or to the East, it's been pushing in toward the main fire. So, it's drawing all those flames in toward the main fire, and it's also drawing the smoke all over toward the main fire. So that's what we want to see. Perfect. But, at this moment, I'm on the road with my buddy and all of a sudden the wind shifts. You see this like wall of smoke in the sky just kind of shift and fall over. And you can see all these bright orange sparks just wafting into the air and then landing. This massive ember wash is just raining over the road. They want to keep the biggest fire in California's history from becoming even bigger. Kelly: Obviously this is really not what you want. In this episode, we're going to hear more from Kelly about what life's like on the frontlines of wildfires. We're also going to hear from Canadian and Australian firefighters who've watched climate change turn wildfires into unstoppable events. They say there's a very real threat that wildfires will start hitting places across the globe that used to be safe. This is Living Planet. I'm Kathleen Schuster. Kelly: So we spread out about 10, 20 feet in a line. We're looking for these embers that are falling out of the sky all over us, like falling stars. And they're tiny. Often they will be, you know, a piece of a burning leaf that is, let's say the size of quarter or even like a dime. Something that small can start an entirely new wildfire. So, when it catches, and it, you know, lands in some duff or some dry leaves or some dry pine needles, and it starts to form a fire you're walking through the forest and the darkness and what you're looking for is essentially a tiny glow. It's like the flicker of a little candle. Within a matter of minutes, they see an ember land in a dry, rotten tree stump. Kelly: So, by the time we get there, this thing is already a 10 by 10 foot blaze. For non-US listeners, that's 3 by 3 meters. Kelly: Like the entire stump is just engulfed in flame and smoldering, and then it started to creep into the ground cover and you know little plants and grasses around the stump, and it's already starting to establish itself as a fire. So, we immediately got 5 or 6 people just, you know, digging a little hand line around it. And then we called for an engine to bring water. And it wasn't hard to catch it, but you know, imagine if we didn't. This is just the first of many spot fires Kelly and her crew will have to pounce on before the night is over. And as they race to prevent this million-acre fire from gaining even more ground, Kelly feels the whole summer of extreme wildfires in her muscles and in her mind. We're going to come back to Kelly, and also find out why none of should kid ourselves into thinking we could survive hotshot training, trust me we wouldn't… But before we do that let's stick with this image of uncontrollable embers a few moments longer. Wildland firefighters are trained to deal with normal wildfire behavior – including what to do about embers, of course. What's changing though is that, as one expert put it, climate change hasn't just turned up the dial. It's flipped a switch. Meaning, it's not just amplifying fire behavior. It's changing the predictability of wildfires altogether. Hugh Murdoch: When you're flying you can still be feeling that heat. Hugh Murdoch is one of five incident commanders for British Columbia's Wildfire Service. He's been fighting wildfires in Canada for over 30 years… Hugh: But it's remarkable to me that I've been on fires now where you fly at a good speed and you just keep going and going and going. And the fire is just there, outside your, your right-hand window and it's just percolating away and the trees look so small in comparison to the flames. And then if you fly down closer to the ground level and you get a better appreciation for how big those trees really are, and they're not small. Seeing fires growing not just by a methodical march of the perimeter or the fire's edge, but by throwing embers well in advance of itself. If we imagine for a second, a wildfire capable of throwing an ember a mile or roughly 2 kilometers ahead of itself, then it's not that hard to picture how fast these fires can move through a forest that's too dry. Or even being capable of blowing clear acro ss lakes and rivers, Hugh says. Hugh: Fires are certainly getting much, much bigger. The difference is really very significant. So, picture an area about the size of Manhattan, maybe just slightly smaller. That's about how big Hugh says a "good-sized" wildfire used to be. It would grow by about 10% a day. Now these huge wildfires are able to grow by the size of a Manhattan, if you will, in one single day. Hugh: And the intensity that it's burning is just really growing at an alarming rate. This trend is being seen in other regions, too. Take for example a study released last year by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder. The researchers looked at satellite data from the last two decades. They found that wildfires in the American West grew about 250% faster over a 24-hour period compared to wildfires in 2001. And in that same period, it was exactly those fast-moving fires that caused the most destruction. They also cost about $19 billion to suppress. Hugh: You know that the helicopters will only want to get so close to those large fires because there's so much heat coming off of the forest like the typical "hot air rises." Well, that's awfully hot air. So, it's rising very, very quickly. And it's sucking the air in to fill that void. So inevitably these large fires can make their own weather and their own winds. Before we get into how exactly fire can create it owns wind and weather, it's worth considering what it takes – both physically and mentally -- for someone to even become a wildland firefighter. Let's take Kelly and the hotshot crew she was on as an example. First off, why are they called hotshots? Kelly: It doesn't just mean like, oh, because we're the coolest, like "Oh, you're such a hotshot." (laughs) I think it's probably about like the heat of the work that we do. And that heat starts with building muscle and stamina during basic training… Kelly: So you are definitely hiking. And when I say hiking, I don't mean a hiking trail. I mean, like you look at an incredibly steep vertical mountain where your face is, is at, like, looking at the slope when you're standing on it. The slope is like in your face you know? And you have to maintain a certain crew pace and you have to carry at least 45 lbs. But most people carry 60 plus pounds up that hill. Forty-five pounds is about 20 kilos… or the equivalent of carrying a child on your back… Kelly: You have to be able to meet a bunch of specific qualifications, like running a mile and 1/2 in 10 1/2 minutes. You have to do a certain number of sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups. They do calisthenics like wall-sits and leg lifts. Kelly: I worked with several guys who have been marines and they said that being a hotshot was harder than being a marine. And I got that from another guy who'd been an army ranger. And just like any other elite team, they have a specific look. Yellow shirts, green pants, and here, the importance of their boots cannot be emphasized enough. Kelly: (laughs) Yeah… (laughs) The boots are a big deal. And there's really differing boot styles and opinions on boots, even from hot shot crew to hot shot crew. So, the crew that I was on was really big on super tall boots. Boots that came up pretty much to the knee, or at least mid-shin down like 16-inch boots. They're leather. And most hotshots that I know prefer a boot with a little bit of a stacked heel. It's easier to just stand on a super steep slope if you have a bit of a heel to the boot. All fire-resistant, of course. Hotshots are among the first in and the last out. Their main tasks are digging line – literally digging shallow trenches to form a physical border that can break the forward march of a wildfire. And preventative burning as needed. The point is to get rid of any potential fuel well in advance … or even down to the wire… Kelly: You are literally right next to the flames or within you know 10- 20 feet of the flames. And in that case you're digging line fast. So yeah, I've had situations where I was digging line and they're, you know, two or three-foot flames that are just a few feet away from me. And in that case, you really move. When the fire's finally out, the hotshots get to "mop up," turning over and testing every last inch of sometimes miles of where the fire was to make sure it's really out. After long days of this for at last two weeks at a time, everything hurts. Kelly: I had, like, sort of knots in my forearms. My hands started to go numb. And they didn't stop being numb until a couple months after the season ended. You also will get like a chafe in your armpits from the pack rubbing against your flesh, so the skin will like become raw and open, and you have to kind of like bandage it up or tape it up in order to keep working. So, this is more or the less the condition the crew is in the night they have to catch every last ember. Kelly: And it ended up taking until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. You know, at this time, we've, we've been on since 6:00 the previous morning. But we and, you know, not just our crew, but other crews and a couple of engines that have been sent to help us. And we're able to know that at least along that road, our burn has held, it's going to be OK and we've you know, hopefully been able to contain the main fire. They're all keyed up. They climb back into their buggy and head for the camp site… Kelly: And everyone's throwing Gatorades to everybody else. You know, you strip off your yellow shirt because we only wear those when we're on the line. We don't wear them to, like, hang out. We definitely don't sleep in them. So, you strip off that shirt and change into a dry cotton shirt and then sit down in the buggy and there's this amazing feeling of peace as the buggy just rumbles through the darkness back to where we're going to camp. This feeling of like we did it, and now we get to sleep for a while and we'll see what happens tomorrow. So there's, like, the first relief is you unlace the boots and pull them off. And it's like your feet are released from this straight jacket and then you pull off the sweaty socks and your feet are completely free and then you take off these salt and ash and sweat crusted pants and you put on long underwear. None of the clothing is clean at this point, but the semi-clean clothing against your body is just like an intense relief and just so comforting. And then you snuggle into your sleeping bag. And I think that night I didn't even need a melatonin or a Benadryl or anything, I just was gratified and tired, and looked up at the sky and just fell asleep. We'll be right back. PROMO BREAK Kathleen: You know I have to say, what's super striking about this interview is you're like are so happy telling me all of this. Kelly: (big laugh) I'm grinning, it's so true! Kathleen: (slight laugh) And I, I fully appreciate that. But I'm just like there's a bit of a disconnect for me. I'm like, wait, hold on… Kelly: It's so fun! It's so fun. It's the most fun job I've ever and probably will ever do. Kelly says it's crazy… and it really is, considering how tough her first fire season was. Not only did she get deployed to California's largest wildfire in history, the August Complex, but she says, that summer, her team racked up over 1,000 hours of overtime in less than five months. And it's very likely that a good number of the US's 100 or so hotshot crews had similar experiences that year. In 2020, the US came within just a few thousand acres of matching its worst fire season on record, which was 2015. Both times, over 10 million acres – or 4 million hectares – of land went up in flames. One thing stands out, though … The number of fires in 2020 was actually lower… going back to what experts are saying. These fast-moving fires are much more destructive. So, Kelly goes on to do a second, grueling year. She loves it, but she knows not everyone feels that way. Hugh Murdoch, up in British Columbia, mentions a big shift he's noticed. The fires are getting worse … and fire responders are caught between the pressure from the job and the pressure from the public to stop the unstoppable. Hugh says in his community about four hours east of Vancouver, the tension is "real and mounting." Hugh: You know, I would not wear a shirt that identified myself as employee of the British Columbia Wildfire Service. In certain communities … for certain. Kathleen: Really? Hugh: 100% and that's not uncommon. And yet, literally five years ago you'd wear it with pride, and now it's just like I don't want to get dumped on at the grocery store. […] And to be clear, there's not a lot of people that support what you're doing. But it's just not worth the attention at all. Kathleen: I mean, if you don't mind my asking, have you had somebody approach you before and chew you out or…? Hugh: Oh, 100%, yeah. We've got a cabin at a lake just east of here. It's an area where tourism is important and the forest industry is important. And we had a horrific fire there in 2023. When he does go to his cabin, he keeps a low profile. But some of his coworkers don't have that luxury, because the fallout can be felt within their own four walls. Hugh: You know that their families are irate with them. It's like made Thanksgiving dinners and Christmases and whatnot awkward for people. That year, nearly 2300 fires burned across British Columbia – causing more than $720 million in damages between August and September alone. 2023 was Canada's worst fire season ever recorded. Between mid-April and late October, there were times when fires were burning from coast-to-coast, destroying an area bigger than England. You might also remember those fires from images of the smoke that drifted down into the US and blanketed New York City. The smoke caused New York's temperature to drop by 3 degrees Celsius that June. Things got so bad that other countries sent in personnel to help. Hugh: We got an awful lot of assistance from the United States. Strange, like very, very strange that in Canada's busiest year, the United States is having one of their quietest years on record ever. That year, the US was able to send nearly 2500 people to help out. Which might not have happened if it had had as busy a fire season as Canada. To be clear, Canada relied on long-standing agreements with its other partners, too -- Mexico, Costa Rica, and crucially, three partners in the Southern Hemisphere – South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. But even that wasn't enough. When all was said and done 12 countries had to send help. If they hadn't, Hugh says… Hugh: I'm absolutely convinced the landscape would look very different today than it does. What comes up again and again with different fire experts from the US, Canada and Australia is that climate change is making wildfires more extreme. And this is pushing fire response to its limits, because, and they all agree on this, there is no technology in the world that can replace manpower. And manpower, of course, has its limits. Hugh: It's a daunting task, but you know we, we don't get asked to stop hurricanes or tornadoes or tsunamis. It would be naive to think that we can stop all forest fires, and that's partly how we got into this mess too, right? We've been very good at putting out fires when they're small for a very long period of time. But every year there's a buildup of more and more dead material on the ground, and there's a buildup of more and more resources that are vulnerable to fire, whether it's homes or cell towers or fence lines or recreational properties or businesses, so that there's more in front of these fires as well. But when a lightning system comes through and starts 100 fires in a very small area in one day … we just have to be realistic about the fact that we're not going to get all these fires put out in their infancy. Especially because, as Hugh mentioned before, extreme wildfires are creating their own weather and their own wind. Rick McRae has been watching this trend in Australia for decades... Rick: So when I left work just a few hours before New Year's Eve, our car park was very close to the airport control tower. I could barely see the airport control tower, which is never a good thing for an international airport. And it turned out at that point we had the worst air quality in the world. We're going to skip back in time for a moment to the days leading into 2020. Right smack dab in the middle of an Australian fire season that's gone down in history as "The Black Summer." That evening when Rick walks out to his car, Australia is in the middle of an outbreak of fire thunderstorms known as pyro-CBs (pronounces as pyro-sibs) What's a pyro-CB, you ask? Rick: Well first I've got to correct you, it's pyro C.B. My mistake …pyro Cb. The C.B. stands for cumulonimbus, the meteorological term for "thunderclouds." And pyro, for "fire," of course. Rick says meteorologists complain that pyro C.B. isn't actually the right term. Rick: They say, well, actually it's a yeah, "cumulonimbus flammagenitus." And strangely, that one that term never took off… That really would be a mouthful. So pyro Cb it is… Rick has decades of experience in bushfire response and now researches these types of phenomena alongside the fire research unit at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. What Rick's talking about is when the large smoke column from a wildfire goes extreme and becomes something more on par with a volcanic plume. A pyro CB can be seen from far off, but not so well up close… Rick: So most people's direct experience is that eerie blackened sky at in the early afternoon and the red glows and the embers starting to brew up. Rick says the land is becoming "fully flammable" and that's creating the conditions for infernos that generate fire thunderstorms. That year, Australia had just experienced two years in a row of dry conditions, and was in the grips of one of its hottest and driest years on record. All of that fuel created hot air powerful enough to punch right through the atmosphere and into the stratosphere. Rick: So, you can end up at the top of the cloud, 15,16 kilometers above sea level, which is really extraordinary stuff. And the base of this thing might be 20 square kilometers, and because it's expanding as it goes, it's the size of a very large thunderstorm. Now the temperature at the top of the cloud can get to say - 60 Celsius. And once it passes - 40 -, 40 Celsius as it rises, it can create lightning pyrogenic lightning, and this even has the ability to start new fires downwind. Over the span of about a week, Australia's bushfires spawn 18 of these massive firestorms. The air quality index in Canberra hits 5400– 23 times levels considered safe. By the time Australia's unprecedented fire season comes to an end, nearly 50 million acres have burned. 33 people have died. And billions of plants and animals have been lost to the flames. We'll be right back. PROMO BREAK Kelly's second year is intense and just as eventful as the first… maybe even more so. She watches firsthand as more than one crew member nearly gets killed by a falling tree. And her body starts to rebel. Kelly: So I decided to step away for what I thought was one summer because I had some health problems that I wanted to address. She develops an autoimmune disorder and can't help but wonder – was it the stress? The overexertion? The smoke? There's very little data on how many wildland firefighters have left, but Kelly seems to be just one of many. US media reports point to a growing attrition rate of around 45% and application rates dropping by half in the past few years. The Canadian media has reported similar problems. As for Australia – AFAC, the country's fire and emergency management council, says its robust firefighting network of professionals and volunteers is pretty stable in urban areas. But numbers are starting to decline slightly in rural areas – due in part to an aging population and the pressure of cost of living. Hugh and Rick can attest to how much harder these jobs are getting. And a big part of that is because of anthropogenic climate change. An international study by the World Weather Attribution found, for example, that climate change made Canada's wildfires in 2023 inferno twice as likely. And if conditions stay as they are, that type of event will become seven times more likely in the future. Add to this even more tragic examples, like Los Angeles – where an unstoppable fire swept a mile and a half across the urban edge. A new record, Rick says. Or a sudden, increased risk of extreme fires in areas that didn't use to make headlines – like South Korea. The good news is there are solutions, and one of them is bolstering personnel with firefighters from different countries. Like what Hugh described a few minutes ago. Hugh: And I would say that you know that difference, whether it's 50 people or 500 wherever those people are, they're making a difference. So, if it's 50 people onto one fire or 10 groups of 50 onto 10 different fires. It's pretty fantastic to have to help. It's one way to share the load, the equipment… and also knowledge. Hugh himself spent time in Australia during the Black Summer. He also went down to Los Angeles during those fires in January. He says there's always something new to learn. And especially when it comes to the Santa Ana winds that drove LA's fires, Rick says, sharing that knowledge internationally will be vital for places like Australia where there's been an uptick in these wind patterns, too. Kelly ultimately takes an indefinite hiatus from the hotshot crew. With good reason, too -- she became a mom. Kelly: I'm no longer a hotshot. I'm a washed up former hotshot but I do miss the job all the time. I, like, would love to go back to the in some capacity and it just is hard to see a way that that would be compatible with having a family. And I know a lot of people, including men who struggle with this and you know, there's a crisis of attrition in the profession. There's always a staffing shortage with federal wildland firefighters and I think a huge part of that is how hard it is on families and on people who want to be parents. So long-winded way of saying when I left (big laugh). There was one other thing Kelly did when she left the hotshot crew – she wrote book, so if you want to know more about her story and what it takes to fight wildfires, you can check that out. It's called "Wildfire Days: A woman, a hotshot crew and the burning American West." If after hearing this episode you're wondering about to prepare for a wildfire, we've dropped a few links in the show notes to help get you started. What did you think of this episode? We want to know! You can send us an email at or drop us a comment on Apple podcasts. This episode was written, produced, and soundscaped by me, Kathleen Schuster. It was edited by Neil King. Our sound engineer was Jürgen Kuhn. Living Planet is produced by DW in Bonn, Germany.
The Print
12-05-2025
- Business
- The Print
IMF loan shows Pakistan has a slogan—beg, borrow, steal, don't give up on supporting terrorism
The Pakistani poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz recorded this bloody chapter in the subcontinent's history through his famous poem, Subh-e-Azaadi , or the Dawn of Independence. The nation of Pakistan was born of a bloody divide, tainted with the supreme sacrifice of millions. An ethnic cleansing of Hindus gave birth to the two-nation theory—when Punjabis from West Pakistan and Bengalis from East Pakistan were divided in the name of religion. A nation birthed with the blood of millions of Indians, is not likely to find any peace. There are two defining images of the India-Pakistan conflict. On our side of the border is the photo of a newly-wed woman sitting next to her husband's lifeless body in Pahalgam. And on the other side of the border is the image from the funeral of terrorists, with Pakistani army top brass attending in uniform and a casket draped in the country's flag. It clearly shows what each country is fighting for. The subsequent $1 billion IMF loan to Pakistan makes it clear the country is committed to its slogan—beg borrow steal; but do not give up supporting terrorism. 'This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom, we had set out in sheer longing, so sure that somewhere in its desert the sky harbored a final haven for the stars, and we would find it.' How easily we forget that Osama Bin Laden was harboured not by his native Saudi Arabia, but was given a safe haven in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. He was eventually flushed out by Navy Seals from here. Also read: Ceasefire was Pakistan's chance to retry winning. India saw through it A stark contrast in development In Budget 2024-25, Rs 42,277 crore was allocated for various development projects in Kashmir, including 130 crore for 624 MW Kiru Hydroelectric Project, Rs 476.44 crore for the 800 MW Ratle Hydroelectric Project. In June 2024, PM Modi initiated projects worth Rs 3,300 crores in J&K to transform the hitherto backward state. In 2020, IIM opened a campus in Srinagar. This April, there was a palpable air of hope, economic well being and development. The state was looking forward to an unprecedented boom in the tourist numbers, when this Hindu genocide put an end to the upcoming tourist season. Pakistan could not face the fact that Kashmir was prospering. It is in stark and sad contrast to the dismal and disastrous state of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, which has remained nothing more than a training ground for Pakistan's mainstay industry of terrorism. PM Modi has huge infrastructural plans for Kashmir, including all-weather roads, tunnels, and the much awaited rail connectivity. What plans does Shehbaz Sharif have for the development of PoK? Also read: India is not just reacting to terrorism. It is redefining the global response to it Where are the audits? The IMF has disbursed $2 billion within Pakistan's $7 billion program. It will once again be used to sponsor terrorism across the border as has been done in the past. But snakes in a backyard cannot remain hidden as can be seen in the case of Osama Bin Laden, who was the face of the Twin Towers attack, and the American journalist Daniel Pearl whose ruthless murder was also avenged by India's Operation Sindoor strikes. Bilawal Bhutto, Pakistani political royalty of sorts, has acknowledged that 'Pakistan has a past as far as extremist groups are concerned'. Even Pakistani Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif conceded that the country has 'harboured links to terrorist groups in the past'. IMF must introspect on what basis a nation known for its defaults and terrorist networks is being given loans? Islamabad has partaken of the IMF's generosity over 25 times since 1950. And as of 31 March 2025, Pakistan owes the IMF $6.2 billion. These figures are publicly available on the IMF website. The World Bank has separately provided $48 billion to Pakistan. We haven't yet counted the loans given by China. Multilateral agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank have robust lending policies in place to ensure that the aid is used for developmental activities such as climate research, sustainable development, poverty eradication, export promotion and have a definitive methodology for seeking compliance of its policy initiatives. But Pakistan has committed 'economic suicide' by focusing on its main export, terrorism, rather than building its economy through various measures as has been done by India. The Indian Rupee and Pakistani Rupee started off on par in 1947, but the PKR has seen a steady and strong decline and stood at 1 INR=3.23 PKR before the two countries went to war this week. Pakistan has been standing on the precipice of a disastrous bankruptcy, with its external foreign debt at a staggering $130 billion. It's surviving on dole from China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar along with the IMF and World Bank. The Pakistani economy was expected to 'recover' with an expected growth rate of 2.7 per cent (India's projected rate is 6.7 per cent). The IMF needs to take a hard close look to understand where this dole is being utilised. Do they really want to taint their hands with the blood of innocents like Vinay Narwal? Also read: Did India achieve deterrence? Depends on whether Pakistan was psychologically bruised Why did IMF approve the loan? India abstained from the vote at IMF meet. India believes that rewarding continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism sends a dangerous message to the global community, exposes funding agencies and donors to reputational risks, and makes a mockery of global values. Fungible inflows from international financial institutions, like IMF, could be misused for military and state sponsored cross border terrorist purposes. It would have been appropriate to conduct audits and delay the funding as the timing of the disbursement is very inopportune. At the very least, the sanctioning of the loan could have been used as a 'carrot' to persuade Pakistan to abstain from sponsoring terrorism. This state sponsored terrorism had led to the suspension of military aid to Pakistan during Trump's first stint. It was on the grounds that Pakistan was providing a safe haven to the Afghani Taliban and the 'vicious' Haqqani group which had been targeting the American forces in Afghanistan. One is left wondering about the lack of will of the governing board of the IMF to condemn Pakistan or give it a rap on its knuckles. The IMF suggests the promotion of tourism is an economic opportunity to make a country self-sufficient. It would be pertinent to note that the IMF has itself strangled the nascent Rs 12,000 crore industry in Kashmir which contributes 7-8 per cent of the region's GDP, in a swift debilitating move to grant Pakistan aid. We hope and pray that wisdom prevails and truth is learned. Meenakshi Lekhi is a BJP leader, lawyer and social activist. Her X handle is @M_Lekhi. Views are personal. (Edited by Theres Sudeep)
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
US one step closer to ‘100%' deal with Mexico ending decades-long sewage crisis gripping vacation hotspot: EPA
The U.S. and Mexico are one step closer to permanently ending a sewage crisis spewing from across the border into waters off the coast of San Diego, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin announced. "This week, EPA transmitted to Mexico a proposed '100% solution' that would PERMANENTLY END the decades-old crisis of raw sewage flowing in to the U.S. from Mexico. Next, technical groups from both nations will be meeting to work through the details necessary to hopefully reach an urgent agreement," Zeldin posted to X on Friday. Zeldin visited San Diego last month, where he announced talks with his government counterparts in Mexico to end the decades-long issue. The problem, blamed on outdated wastewater infrastructure, has persisted for decades, but has spiraled in recent years as Tijuana's population skyrocketed. The sewage water has not only threatened San Diego's massive tourism industry and local residents, but also poses a national security risk as it pollutes the waters where U.S. Navy SEAL members and candidates train, Fox Digital previously reported. Epa Chief Zeldin Launches Talks With Mexico To End Sewage Hitting San Diego, Navy Seals: 'Out Of Patience' The U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command is headquartered in San Diego and is where Navy SEAL candidates complete their arduous six-month Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. Read On The Fox News App In February, the Department of Defense's inspector general released a report finding that the Naval Special Warfare Center reported 1,168 cases of acute gastrointestinal illnesses among SEAL candidates between January 2019 and May 2023 that were attributed to the contaminated water. Veterans who spoke to Fox News Digital in April described the contaminated water as a national security crisis. "This is a huge national crisis," Navy SEAL vet Jeff Gum, who was sickened by the water when he was working through SEAL training in 2008, told Fox Digital in a Zoom interview last month. "Like half the SEAL teams are located in San Diego; the other half are in Virginia Beach. So when you've got half the SEAL teams who are getting exposed to this, then it's a major issue." Epa Chief Takes On Mexican 'Sewage Crisis' Flowing Into Us Waters Where Navy Seals Train Zeldin said last month that he and his counterparts in Mexico had launched good-faith talks to update infrastructure and water management facilities, adding that he zeroed in on the "specifics," including drafting a "comprehensive list of everything that we believe with full confidence is going to end the crisis" on both the U.S. side of the border and Mexico's. "Now, if you don't do all of the other projects and all you do is clean up the current contamination, that feel-good moment will last about a day," Zeldin said during a press conference in San Diego last month. "We have to stop the flow in. Mexico needs to fulfill its part in cleaning up the contamination that they caused." Mexico Is Poisoning Southern California In A Border Crisis Almost No One Knows About"We need Mexico to not just commit to all the projects that will stop the flow, but in order to actually finish this project, they're going to need to commit to that final cleanup," he added. Zeldin first addressed the sewage problem in March before previewing the trip to take on the issue. "I was just briefed that Mexico is dumping large amounts of raw sewage into the Tijuana River, and it's now seeping into the U.S.," he posted to X on March 8. "This is unacceptable. Mexico MUST honor its commitments to control this pollution and sewage!" Local leaders have been sounding the alarm on the sewage problem. Imperial Beach's Mayor Paloma Aguirre sent a letter to Zeldin in March describing how the raw sewage has sparked one of "America's most horrendous environmental and public health disasters," as billions of gallons have polluted the Pacific Ocean since 2023 alone. Mexican Sewage Gushing Into Navy Seal Training Waters Is Us' 'Next Camp Lejeune,' Vets Warn "The toxic sewage coming across the border from Mexico into South San Diego County is among America's most horrendous environmental and public health disasters," Aguirre's March 3 letter to Zeldin, published online, reads. "Since 2023, over 31 billion gallons of raw sewage, polluted stormwater and trash have flowed across the Mexican border, down the Tijuana River, through the cities of San Diego and Imperial Beach and into the Pacific Ocean." "Our residents, are getting ill due to polluted air," the letter continued. "Workers, including Navy Seals training in the area, have been sickened on the job by waterborne and aerosolized diseases. Many homeowners have been forced to place air quality monitors on their property so they know whether or not it's safe to go outside. And the economic impact is profound, with the sewage crisis hurting area tourism, maritime industry jobs and local property values." San Diego is one of the nation's top cities for tourism – behind other national treasures such as New York City, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. – attracting roughly 32 million tourists to the city in 2024, the San Diego Tourism Authority previously reported. San Diego Suburb Faces 'Sewage Crisis' From Local Beach During his visit to San Diego last month, Zeldin vowed to bring an end to the issue as Californians run out of patience with the crisis. "The Americans on our side of the border who have been dealing with this… for decades, are out of patience," Zeldin said at a Tuesday press conference in San Diego. "There's no way that we are going to stand before the people of California and ask them to have more patience and just bear with all of us as we go through the next 10 or 20 or 30 years of being stuck in 12 feet of raw sewage and not getting anywhere." "So we are all out of patience," he continued. "There's a very limited opportunity. We're in good faith, both on the American side and also on the Mexican side, what's being communicated by the new Mexican president is an intense desire to fully resolve this situation."Original article source: US one step closer to '100%' deal with Mexico ending decades-long sewage crisis gripping vacation hotspot: EPA
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Veterans awareness march to pass through Greenville on May 24
By Travis Hairgrove thairgrove@ On May 24 during Memorial Day weekend, Hunt County will once again be on the path of Carry the Load, an annual walk with the mission of raising awareness of America's veterans, especially those who died in the line of duty or took their own lives due to PTSD or other struggles. Carry the Load is a nationwide event that started coming through Greenville 11 years ago as part of the walk's East Coast Relay, which moves from West Point, New York to Dallas. In addition to supporting the country's military veterans, the walk also honors first responders. Carry the Load is a nonprofit that was founded by a group of former Navy Seals to raise funds and awareness for both veterans and their surviving families. The founders, in particular, designed the event with hopes of reminding communities of the meaning of Memorial Day. So far, as the walk passes through Hunt County and Rockwall County on May 24, planned stops include the Greenville Farmers Market at around 12:30 p.m. and the Rockwall County Courthouse at 6 p.m. After passing through Rockwall, the group will continue on its path to Reverchon Park in Dallas for the Dallas Memorial March on May 25.
