Russia’s Wagner chief says battle for Bakhmut has damaged his forces
March 29, 2023
A general view shows a building damaged by a Russian military strike in BakhmutYevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, speaks in Paraskoviivka
(Reuters) – The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group acknowledged on Wednesday that fighting for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut had inflicted severe damage on his own forces as well as the Ukrainian side.
Bakhmut, a small eastern city that has for months been the target of a Russian offensive, has seen intense fighting and destruction in what has become the longest, bloodiest battle of the war.
“The battle for Bakhmut today has already practically destroyed the Ukrainian army, and unfortunately, it has also badly damaged the Wagner Private Military Company,” Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio message.
Russian officials say their forces are still capturing ground in street-by-street fighting inside Bakhmut, but have so far failed to encircle it and force the Ukrainians to withdraw, as had seemed likely weeks ago.
British military intelligence said on Wednesday the Ukrainians had successfully pushed the Russians back from one of the city’s main supply routes.
Ask a cycling coach: ‘What’s the ideal heart rate to burn fat while cycling?’
James Spragg – March 29, 2023
Male cyclist riding a bike to burn fat
For a lot of us (myself included) it might be nice to burn off a little bit of excess body fat. How might we best go about that in our training? Is there a certain intensity we should target to burn the most body fat? James Spragg answers whether there’s anything you can optimize when training with heart rate, and separates the myths from the reality…
You may have heard people refer to the ‘fat burning zone’ – the cycling training zone in which your body is using fat as a fuel source – or substrate as coaches and sports scientists would say. You may have also heard of ‘fat-max’ the intensity at which the body is using the most fat per minute or hour of exercise.
Well, both these concepts are real physiological phenomena, but they might not help you lose that excess body fat! Let me explain…
In very simplistic terms, when we exercise at very easy intensities, we almost exclusively use fat as a substrate, and when we exercise at very hard intensities, we almost exclusively use carbohydrates as a substrate. In those middling intensities, we are using a mix of both fat and carbohydrates. Obviously, as we exercise harder, we use more fuel – just like your car uses more fuel when you drive faster. So logically at a specific intensity, there is a peak in fat usage. This is what we call ‘fat-max’. However, it’s not a fixed intensity and can be influenced by what we eat. For example, if we eat a lot of fructose before exercise then our bodies use that as a preferential fuel and our fat max might be a bit lower. Likewise, if we are glycogen depleted, i.e. we have low carbohydrate stores, then we tend to use more fat as there are only limited carbohydrates available.
Additionally, there is quite a lot of person to person variation in the intensity at which fat- max occurs. Typically, however, the better trained an individual is the higher their fat max.
So yes in theory there is an intensity at which we can maximise the amount of fat used during a training session. However, that intensity might differ depending on several factors including what you have eaten and, believe it or not, how much caffeine you have had that day. However, this intensity is quite different from person to person and therefore it doesn’t occur at a fixed heart rate or even a fixed percentage of max heart rate.
Ultimately it’s calories in versus calories out.
However, paradoxically, riding at this ‘fat-max’ intensity might not be the best way to lose a few pounds. We cannot look at weight loss and substrate utilisation simply when we are exercising. We need to look at the bigger picture. Ultimately it comes down to energy in versus energy used.
If you take in more energy than you burn off, then you put on weight. Burn more calories than you eat, and you will lose body mass. Therefore, if we go a little harder in our training sessions, maximising the amount of energy expenditure then we might actually find it easier to shift those extra pounds as we will simply be increasing the energy used side of the equation.
Conclusion
While there is an intensity at which we ‘burn’ the most fat per minute/hour it is not at a given percentage of max HR and it can move around based on our diet. Ultimately if we are looking to lose weight cycling then it’s much better to push on a bit more in your training sessions and eat a little less rather than packing your cycling training plan with sessions that target a very specific intensity on the bike.
Ukraine Gets Its First Western Heavy Tanks. Here’s What to Know
Armani Syed – March 28, 2023
Ukrainian recruits and their British Armed Forces trainers pose for a photograph on Driver Tank Trainer (DTT) armored vehicles at a military facility, on Feb. 23, 2023 in Southern England. (Credit – Leon Neal – Getty Images)
The first heavy tanks from Britain and Germany have arrived in Ukraine as the nation’s army prepares for a spring offensive against Russian forces.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Olesksiy Reznikov tweeted a video Tuesday of himself taking a British Challenger 2 for a test drive, confirming the arrival of 14 tanks. “These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions,” he wrote, thanking U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Defense Minister Ben Wallace, and the British people.
The tweet comes a day after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks had successfully been delivered to Ukraine.
Reznikov also announced the arrival of American Cougar armored trucks and American Stryker and German Marder fighting vehicles in a Facebook post on Monday. In the image shared by Reznikov, Ukrainian defense leaders and members of the armed forces posed in front of the military hardware while holding U.S., U.K., and German flags.
Ukraine has long called for heavier weapons to bolster its war efforts. But the decision to provide Western-made heavy tanks such as the Leopard 2s and Challenger 2s to Ukraine was not taken lightly by NATO allies, with many fearing it would provoke Russia into further escalating the war.
Below, what to know about Ukraine’s growing supply of Western-made tanks.
What are the British Challenger 2s?
In January, Britain became the first nation to pledge Western battle tanks—in this case 14 Challenger 2 tanks from its supply of 227 to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Sunak “for the decisions that will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners.”
The tanks were built in the late 1990s by BAE Systems and Land Armaments and can carry up to four people. The heavy vehicle weighs over 65 tons and are equipped with a 120 mm rifled gun. The tank’s merit lies in its ability to shock enemies with rapid fire.
In addition to tanks, the U.K. is also providing 20 Bulldog armored troop carriers and 30 AS-90 self-propelled artillery guns, offering Ukrainian forces a competitive upgrade.
On Monday, Ukrainian crews returned from several weeks of training in Dorset, England, where they learned how to operate and fight using Challenger 2s.
Wallace, Britain’s defense minister, said the soldiers “return to their homeland better equipped, but to no less danger.”
What are the German Leopard 2 tanks?
First made during the Cold War, there are now 2,000 Leopard 2 tanks scattered across Europe. Germany was initially reluctant to send its own supply of the tanks but said it would not get in the way of other nations wishing to send their stock of the German-made vehicle.
Other nations sending these tanks were required to obtain Germany’s authorization before doing so. Poland became the first nation to deliver German-made tanks to Ukraine on the one-year anniversary of the war on Feb. 24.
But in late January—after intense global pressure—Germany U-turned on its decision and announced that it would send 14 of its own tanks.
On Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Berlin had supplied 18 “very modern” Leopard battle tanks, four more than originally planned.
“Our tanks arrived as promised and punctually in the hands of our Ukrainian friends,” Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in a statement.
“I’m sure they can make a difference on the pitch,” he added.
When are the U.S. Abrams 1 tanks arriving?
In January, the Biden administration reversed its call to not send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The vehicle has a powerful engine that makes it mobile while carrying its gun and heavy armor. They can run at speeds up to 42 mph and carry up to four crew members.
The U.S. previously feared that the tanks required too much maintenance for Ukrainian forces to handle. But after mounting pressure both Germany and the U.S. announced on Jan. 25 that they would send heavy tanks, with Biden pledging 31 American battle tanks as part of a $400 million package of military aid.
It was previously expected to take a year or more for the tanks to arrive, but on March 21, the U.S. announced that it will expedite the process by sending M1-A1, an older model of the tank.
The delay in sending more modern M1-A2 versions stemmed from the need to build new tanks or upgrade existing older vehicles, as well as training Ukrainian forces on its systems. Now, the tanks could arrive as early as fall this year.
Ukraine defense minister thanks UK for sending ‘fantastic’ tanks
March 28, 2023
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Reznikov poses for a picture in front of a British Challenged 2 tank in an unknown location in Ukraine
KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov gave Britain the thumbs up as he took a ride in what he said was the first British Challenger 2 main battle tank to arrive in Ukraine.
Britain said in January it would send 14 of the tanks to Ukraine, which is preparing for a possible counter-offensive against Russian forces that invaded 13 months ago.
Reznikov wrote on Twitter that the tanks had “recently arrived in our country” and posted a video that showed him sitting in one of a long line of tanks in an open field, all of them flying Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag.
“It was a pleasure to take the first Ukrainian Challenger 2 MBT (main battle tank) for a spin,” Reznikov wrote. “These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions.”
In the video, he gave the thumbs up sign and thanked British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace for the tanks.
“Marvellous, Ben,” he said in English. “It’s…very good stuff. Thank you very much from Ukraine to the United Kingdom.”
Germany’s defence ministry said on Monday that 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks and 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles had also arrived in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
The Ultra-Processed Canned Foods No One Over 40 Should Be Eating Anymore
Georgia Dodd – March 28, 2023
Canned food is convenient, budget-friendly, and shelf-stable. It’s a way of processing food to extend its shelf life. The canning process is usually done within hours after picking. Some examples of canned foods include canned peaches, pears, corn, beans, noodle soup, evaporated milk, tuna, and so much more. But not everyone loves canned food. It has a reputation for being over-processed and less flavourful than its fresh and frozen counterparts. Some canned foods contain harmful chemicals that can have a detrimental effect on gut health, increase blood pressure, and the high sodium content may also lead to water retention that can cause weight gain.
To learn more about the worst kinds of canned food for women over 40, we spoke with Michelle Saari, registered dietitian and founder of The Dietitian Prescription. She said that the most ultra-processed canned foods no one should be eating anymore are canned fruit in syrup and canned meats that’ve been cured (like pork, beef, and fish). This is because they have an incredibly high sugar and sodium content which can lead to health problems like weight gain, diabetes, increased blood pressure, and more. Read on to learn more!
Canned fruit like peaches, pears, and pineapple can be a convenient alternative to fresh fruit. But, not all canned fruit are created equally. Fruits that are canned in syrups can be especially unhealthy because of their incredibly high sugar content. Saari says, “While fruit does have natural sugars called Fructose when the fruit is canned in syrup it’s just added sugar. The added sugar is typically corn syrup, which if the body doesn’t use it just turns to fat. It doesn’t provide any added nutrients, it’s simply there to sweeten up the fruit, which by nature is already sweet.” Adding excessive sugar to your diet provides barely any nutritional value.
Saari says that it’s ok to have canned fruit every once in a while. “It’s fine to have a sweet treat every so often, but if we’re looking at eating for long-term health, we should limit it. Instead of reaching for canned fruit, reach for either fresh or frozen. Frozen fruit can provide the same nutritional value as fresh, but will save you some money!” she explains. Check out the best types of fruit to eat for a healthier body over 40.
Canned Meat
Another canned food that Saari recommends women over 40 avoid is canned meat. Canned meats, she says, can have an incredibly high amount of sodium. “If you choose a canned meat like pork, for example, you may be getting half of your daily recommended amount of salt in one serving,” she notes. “A recommended daily salt amount would be 2,300 milligrams, for someone with heart disease this number will be even lower. Canned meat can have as high as 1,400 milligrams of sodium.” Yikes! And, experts point out that canned tuna is usually packed with oil that is high in saturated fat and alarmingly high mercury content which can lead to neurological side effects.
When it comes to long-term health, canned meats like pork, beef, and fish won’t provide you with the nutrition your body needs. “If you need less expensive protein options, look for canned beans, lentils, and legumes as an alternative. You can find these in the canned vegetable aisle. These will have little to no sodium, and will provide protein and fiber, which can actually have cardiovascular protective factors,” Saari explains. We guess it’s best to just avoid canned meats and opt for fresh meat from the grocery store.
At the end of the day, Saari says that while canned foods by nature get a bad rap. However, there are some canned foods that can actually provide the same nutritional value as their fresh counterparts. “If you want to buy canned vegetables, fruits, or meats, just look at what they’re ‘soaking’ in. For canned fruits look for some that are not canned in syrup, this is typically right on the front label. For canned vegetables, you want to select those that have no added sodium. The same goes for canned meats, look for the low to no added sodium options,” she recommends. Noted!
Could wild blueberries help burn fat during exercise?
Vishwam Sankaran – March 28, 2023
Consuming a cup of wild blueberries daily for two weeks can help the body burn more fat during exercise, according to a new study.
The research, published recently in the journal Nutrients, is the first to examine the fat-burning effects of wild blueberries during exercise in non-elite athletes.
The blueberries can help accelerate fat oxidation in the body, the process by which fatty acid molecules are broken down for energy, found scientists, including those from the California Polytechnic State University in the US.
However, citing some of the limitations of the study, researchers said it included only 11 males and no women.
The 11 healthy, aerobically trained males were instructed to follow a diet that included consuming 25 grams of freeze-dried wild blueberries each day for two weeks.
Each participant exercised on a bike for 40 minutes at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Human Performance Lab, and their urine and blood samples were collected before and after cycling. Their blood samples were collected every 10 minutes during the workout as well.
The findings suggest the participants notably burned more fat after consuming the blueberries.
The fat oxidation rate rose by about 20 per cent, 43 per cent and 31 per cent at 20, 30 and 40 minutes after cycling, according to the study.
The berries, known previously as a superfood, accelerate fat burning and also decrease the use of carbohydrates by the body – a metabolic change which scientists said could be significant for athletes.
“Increasing the use of fat can help performance, particularly in endurance activities as we have more fat stores to keep us going longer than we do carb stores,” study co-author Taylor Bloedon explained.
Researchers said saving stored carbs also helps when exercise intensity needs to be increased, particularly towards the end of a race or training session.
“At these higher intensities we cannot rely on fat to fuel us as fat cannot be used as a fuel source for high-intensity activities,” Dr Bloedon said.
The scientists also found that drastically cutting carbs when people want to burn more fat “may lead to negative health and performance outcomes”.
They say anthocyanins – the compounds which give fruits and vegetables their blue, red and purple colors – may be responsible for the increased fat oxidation.
“Women tend to have a greater ability to oxidize fat naturally so it will be interesting to see the results,” Dr Bloedon said.
“Results indicate that wild blueberries may increase the rate of fat oxidation during moderate-intensity activity in healthy, active males,” said the study.
The Physical Toll Systemic Injustice Takes On the Body
Arline T. Geronimus – March 28, 2023
abstract portrait symbolizing depression and psychotherapy. Profile of a woman with a road and tears
Credit – Getty Images
The pathologists who performed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s autopsy noted he had the heart of a 60 year old, although he was 39 when he died. His damaged heart was duly noted in the official record as a curiosity, but there was no question as to the cause of death: homicide; indeed, assassination. A racist hate crime.
But if we were to try to understand the poor condition of his heart, we might be flummoxed. Our general repertoire for understanding the early onset of heart disease points us to demographic and behavioral risk factors like poverty, low education, family breakdown, unhealthy diet, and little exercise. King certainly looked physically fit, capable of leading miles-long civil rights marches. He was well-educated, not impoverished. He grew up in an “intact” household and had a strong father figure. His faith was unswerving, as was his sense of purpose. He had a loving wife and family.
We might ask, did he partake of a particularly unhealthy diet? Did he have a genetic predisposition, a family history of heart disease? We can neither rule out nor rule in such possibilities for King. Yet, the more likely explanation, according to data on the prevailing causes of heart conditions, is that chronic stress or exhaustion took a toll on his heart. But what does that really mean? Would his heart have been healthy if he had managed his stress with meditation? (We don’t know that he didn’t.) Or if he reduced his travel and public engagements to get more rest? Perhaps marginally. But those strategies alone would not have addressed the source of his most severe and chronic stressors—the fact that he lived continuously on alert to threats, maintaining his composure, nonetheless, and in survival mode. This chronic vigilance and adaptation takes a huge health toll on the human biological canvas—a condition known as “weathering.”
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After almost 40 years of research in public health and a lifetime of wrestling with questions of racial and class injustice, I have concluded that a process I call “weathering” is critical to understanding why someone like King, whom we’d consider young and healthy by all conventional measures, would have the damaged heart of someone in late middle age. Weathering afflicts human bodies—all the way down to the cellular level—as they grow, develop, and age in a systemically and historically racist, classist, stigmatizing, or xenophobic society. Weathering damages the cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, immune, and metabolic body systems in ways that leave people vulnerable to dying far too young, whether from infectious diseases like COVID-19, or the early onset and pernicious progression of chronic diseases like hypertension. Because of the physiological impacts of unrelenting exposure to stressors in one’s physical and social environment, as well as the high physiological effort that coping with chronic stressors entails, weathering means that relatively young people in oppressed groups can be biologically old.
Take Erica Garner. She became a tireless advocate for racial justice after her father, Eric Garner, was murdered by a New York City in 2014 police officer who placed him in an illegal chokehold for the crime of selling untaxed cigarettes. Her father’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. Afterward, though she was initially apprehensive, Garner became a major force in the movement for police accountability. She died at age 27 in 2017, only three and a half years after the death of her father, and four months after the birth of her second child. Her own difficulty breathing, due to asthma, precipitated a major heart attack that killed her. According to her doctors, the pregnancy had stressed Garner’s already enlarged heart, so her death was classified as a maternal death. But why did she have an enlarged heart at her young age?
In the weeks before her death, Garner described the stress, exhaustion, and frustration she suffered as a spokeswoman for the Black Lives Matter movement. “I’m struggling right now with the stress and everything,” she said. “This thing, it beats you down. The system beats you down to where you can’t win.” Or as her sister, Emerald Snipes Garner, described it a week after Garner’s death, “It was like a Jenga”; they were “taking out pieces, taking out pieces, ripping her apart.”
Weathering is a life-or-death game of Jenga. The Jenga tower appears strong and upright as the first pieces are removed, one by one. To all appearances, it continues to stand strong as pieces keep being taken away until the removal of one last fateful block exposes the many weaknesses of its interior, and the tower collapses. In spring 2020, COVID-19 turned out to be that last fateful block for tens of thousands of people of color. Every day, towers collapsed, as they continue to do, before our eyes.
“The only thing I can say is that she was a warrior,” Garner’s mother, Esaw Snipes, said after she died. “She fought the good fight. This is just the first fight in 27 years she lost.” After she had spent 27 years of battling headwinds, fighting the same system that had killed her father for selling a few cigarettes, those headwinds took their toll and killed her too. She was weathered to death.
I think the same could be said of Fannie Lou Hamer, the 1960s voting rights activist who famously observed at age 46 that she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” She died 13 years later at age 59, of breast cancer and complications of hypertension. I think she intuitively understood the price she paid for her years of activism. After failing the literacy test in her first attempt to register to vote, she told the registrar of voters, “You’ll see me every 30 days till I pass.” In later years, as she reflected on her persistence, her words suggest she knew she was being weathered: “I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d have been a little scared—but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kind of seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.”
“A little bit at a time,” piece by Jenga piece, the assaults on the body continue to accumulate as weathering. You don’t have to be a high profile political activist to experience weathering. Any marginalized person who persists daily to survive or overcome and to see to their family’s and community’s needs in the face of long odds and systemic barriers will weather, to greater or lesser extent. Through my decades of research, I have seen how cultural oppression and economic exploitation move from society to cells in the bodies of people of color, working-class people, political refugees, the deplored or stigmatized, and the impoverished who sustain ferocious hope as they work hard and play by the rules.
However, as the Reverend William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, asserted in June 2020, “Accepting death is not an option anymore.” He emphasized that the imperative extends far beyond the issue of police brutality. Echoing Fannie Lou Hamer, he said, “In everything racism and classism touch, they cause a form of death.”
Barber’s words read as metaphor, but they are the literal truth. The country is waking up to what Black Americans have known for centuries and what public health statistics have shown us for decades: systemic injustice—not just in the form of racist cops, but in the form of everyday life—takes a physical, too often deadly toll on Black, brown, and working-class or impoverished communities. Contrary to popular opinion and accepted wisdom, healthy aging is a measure not of how well we take care of ourselves—but rather of how well society treats and takes care of us. When society treats our community badly, it doesn’t just “cause a form of death,” it causes damage that can literally age and kill us.
The US housing market is crashing and soaring at the same time. It all depends on where you live.
Matthew Fox – March 28, 2023
Mortgage rates could fall as low as 5% this year but may not be enough to significantly boost home sales.Thomas Northcut/Getty Images
The US housing market is crashing and soaring all at the same time as pockets of the market see divergent trends.
Home prices on the West Coast have plunged as much as 10%, while homes in the East have surged.
The home price trends have been driven by mortgage rates, little supply, and broader economic trends.
The US housing market is experiencing both a crash and a boom at the same exact time, and it all depends on where you live.
According to data from Black Knight, home prices on the West Coast are plunging at the same time home prices on the East Coast are surging. The split between rising fortunes or sinking home values essentially depends on whether the home is located east or west of the Rocky mountains.
From January 2022 to January 2023, home prices fell 7.5% in Seattle and dropped 10.3% in San Francisco. At the same time, home prices surged 12% in Miami and jumped 9.3% in Orlando. Even Buffalo, NY saw home price values rise 8.3% on an annual basis in January.
Except for Austin, Texas, 37 of the biggest metro areas east of Colorado saw home prices rise year-over-year in January. Meanwhile, all 12 of the major housing markets west of Texas saw home prices fall over the same time period.
Such a split in the US housing market is unprecedented. In the US housing crisis of 2007 and 2008, home prices dropped in 134 out of the 153 metropolitan areas, and the select few pockets of strength saw home prices stay essentially flat, not rise like they are today.
“We’ve never seen anything quite like this where it’s so stark, west to east,” Black Knight vice president Andy Walden told The Wall Street Journal.
The unprecedented nature of the bifurcated housing market is driven by a number of factors that stem from the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a boom in housing demand at a time when the supply of homes was limited.
Fast forward to today, and supply is still low, while mortgage rates have soared to levels not seen in more than a decade, making it more expensive for prospective home buyers. That means housing markets that have a supply of relatively affordable homes, such as Buffalo, NY and Hartford, Connecticut, have seen steady price gains.
But in areas of the market that were already suffering from sky-high home prices, like in San Francisco and Los Angeles, there has been room for home prices to fall. And a wave of layoffs at high-profile technology companies that are mostly concentrated in West Coast cities has removed potential buyers from the market and has likely sparked an uptick in homes for sale.
To be sure, West Coast home prices had room to fall after experiencing dizzying gains over the past decade. Home prices in San Francisco soared 112% between 2012 and 2020, nearly doubling the national gain of 58% during that same time period, according to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices.
That’s as long as mortgage rates don’t surge even higher. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was at 6.42% last week, well below its one-year high of 7.08%, according to data from Freddie Mac. That represents some relief for prospective home buyers.
Bulgaria can provide Ukraine with ammunition that can ‘turn the tide of war’, ex-Defense Minister
The New Voice of Ukraine – March 28, 2023
Ammunition for howitzers during a training exercise at a German military base in Munster, May 10, 2022
Bulgaria will transfer old ammunition worth nearly EUR 175 million ($190 million) to state-owned military plant VMZ, who will forward them to Ukraine through intermediaries, Noev said.
Bulgaria will replace the shipment with newer ammunition.
“This is the largest rearmament of the Bulgarian land forces in recent history. That’s a huge amount of ammunition – hundreds of thousands. There is a huge increase in the price of ammunition, and VMZ will sell this ammunition through intermediaries to Ukraine. This is an amount of ammunition that can turn the tide of the war in some directions on the Ukrainian front,” Euroactiv quoted the former minister as saying.
Bulgaria possesses old Soviet-era ammunition the Ukrainian Armed Forces need for their tanks, howitzers, anti-tank grenades, multiple rocket launchers, and AK-47 assault rifles.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said that Sofia sells weapons and ammunition to European countries on the condition of not transferring them to Ukraine.
His claims contradict the parliament’s Dec. 2022 decision to provide Kyiv with direct military aid. Radev dissolved the parliament in early Feb. 2023 and ordered the government to suspend supply until elections are held.
The VMZ plan should be able to work around the president’s commitment to not supply Ukraine, Euroactiv explained.
Bulgaria has already covertly supported Ukraine in one of the most crucial periods of the Russian full-scale invasion.
Bulgaria covered up to one third of the Ukrainian army’s needs, as well as up to 40% of tanks, cars, and diesel fuel supply for the military from April to August 2022, German news site Welt reported.
See Stunning Photos of How Climate Change Is Altering Our World
Molly Taft – March 27, 2023
Photo: Paolo Patrizi
Beautiful and troubling photographs of how the world is changing and heating up are part of a competition to pressure one of the world’s leading camera companies to drop its controversial views on climate.
Business accountability watchdog Action Speaks Louder launched the “Cameras Don’t Lie” competition in February in order to pressure photography giant Canon to distance itself from the climate denial the group says is being perpetuated at a nonprofit Canon supports.
“Canon has two faces; while branding itself as an environmentally-friendly and socially responsible company, it has created a think tank, the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS), which is a platform for climate denial,” the campaign’s website reads.
The Canon Institute for Global Studies was founded by Canon in 2008 “with the aim of contributing to the development of Japan and the rest of the world,” according to a company press release. As the Guardian reported last year, a fellow at the Institute, Taishi Sugiyama, has written multiple blog posts for the Institute that question the science behind climate change and endorse content and theories from prominent denier-led groups and institutions. A report released by a think tank last year also found that Canon has significantly lower climate ambitions than competitors like Nikon, Sony, and Panasonic, and recently lowered its emissions reductions targets.
Earther reached out to the Canon Institute as well as Canon for comment but did not hear back by time of publication. Multiple articles mentioned in the Guardian piece from Sugiyama, including one article calling Thunberg a communist as well as a description of a children’s book he wrote that encourages kids to “investigate the effects of global warming based on facts,” remain live on the site.
“The statements referred to by Action Speaks Louder are those published by Mr. Sugiyama, who is affiliated with CIGS. CIGS operates independently and is unrelated to the business activities of Canon. The research and statements published by Mr. Sugiyama are solely his own,” the company told PetaPixel early last month. “Therefore, Canon is not in a position to officially respond to inquiries from Action Speaks Louder. Global environmental issues are one of Canon’s management core pillars, and Canon remains committed to contributing, through a variety of means, to the realization of a net-zero CO2 emissions society.”
The finalists here were selected from more than 180 entries from 30 countries. The winning image, “Vanishing Island of Dhal Chor Bangladesh” by photographer Paolo Patrizi, shown above, was on display in Times Square in New York City in March, ahead of Canon’s shareholder meeting.
Click through to see the winning photograph and other finalists in the campaign.
Vanishing Island of Dhal Chor, Bangladesh
Photo: Paolo Patrizi
“Rapid erosion and rising sea levels are increasingly threatening the existence of islands off the coast of Bangladesh. Dhal Chor, Monpura and Bhola are some of many islands on the bay of Bengal affected by increasingly rapid erosion and some of the fastest recorded sea-level rises in the world,” Patrizi said of his photo. “These ‘vanishing islands’ are shrinking dramatically.”
Hatonuevo mining complex, Colombia
Photo: César David Martínez
Martínez told the campaign: “The biggest open pit mine in Colombia and one of the biggest in the world, shows the deep impact that the extraction of one of the worst polluter and greenhouse gases causes in nature and environment: The coal.”
Amami Oshima Island, Japan
Photo: Hisayuki Tsuchiya
Tsuchiya described his photograph: “The breeding and calving of humpback whales are gradually moving northward due to global warming. Microplastics are also increasing, and the ecosystem of whales is changing.”
Lake Abashiri, Hokkaido, Japan
Photo: Kanade Endo
“While traveling alone in Hokkaido, I noticed a strong smell of decay on the shore of Lake Abashiri. The source of the smell was diatoms that had grown so abnormally that they filled the sand of the lakeside and the rotting corpses of salmon,” Endo said.
Presqu’ile Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada
Photo: Katherine Cheng
Cheng said of her photo: “On the first day of 2023, the Presqu’ile Provincial Park and its coastal trails were flooded with water. Typically on January 1, the ground and nearby lake would be covered in ice and snow in Ontario. However, record-high temperatures have been broken across the province this year, leaving many trails, river ice rinks and ski hills closed.”
Mt. Zao, on the border of Yamagata and Miyagi Prefectures, Japan
Photo: Kazuaki Koseki
“On a clear night at the end of May, when the snow had melted from the trees, I looked up wistfully at the withered ice and the starry sky, and continued to gaze at these trees, clasping my hands and praying,” Koseki said. “Global warming and climate change are believed to be one of the reasons for the death of these trees. Other possible reasons include the impact of tourism development and attraction of tourism.”
Yosemite National Park, California, USA
Photo: Marcin Zajac
“I came to Yosemite to photograph something completely different and when I arrived to the park it was covered in smoke,” Zajac told the campaign. “I considered going back home to avoid camping in smoke, but eventually I stayed around. When at night the smoke cleared for a bit it was surreal to see the fire burning in the valley. The thick smoke didn’t seem to discourage climbers though – if you look carefully you can see lights from their headlamps as they climb up El Capitan.”
Ishigaki Island, Okinawa, Japan
Photo: Marie Abe
“In the summer of 2022, rising sea temperatures caused the coral reefs around Ishigaki Island to almost completely die after large-scale bleaching,” Abe said. “This is the appearance of the bleached coral with dazzling pastel colours that will be attractive for a little while before it decays.”
San Francisco, California, USA
Photo: Patrick Perkins
Perkins said of his photo: “The day before I took this photo, there had been severe fires all up and down the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. My sister’s house had burned down, and my father’s house had been threatened. My father told me that they had woke up at 2am to fight the fire from spreading onto their land, and my sister had drove home the next day to find her house burned down in a separate fire. The day after I heard that, the sky in San Francisco where I live turned orange from all the smoke. I went out with my camera to try to document what felt like a biblical event. This shot won Unsplash’s photo of the year in 2020.”
Kolkata, India
Photo: Satyaki Acharya
“A waterbody in Kolkata, India has dried up due to the intense heat event before the summer season has set in properly,” Acharya said. “The million footprints are proof of the struggle people undertake everyday for some water.”
Nyaung Oo Township, Mandalay Region, Myanmar
Photo: Wai Maung
“This photo shows the local people in central Myanmar were combating climate change by forest restoration and rehabilitation (i.e., planting trees in a barren land near their village),” Maung said of his photo. “Before planting, rectangular pits (trenches) were dug for capturing and storing sufficient rainwater. Cow dung & bio fertilizers were put inside the pits. The purpose of tree planting is to restore the watershed area and to create a fuel wood supply plantation. For survival and subsistence, planting trees is one of the local strategies to cope with harsh climatic and edaphic conditions.”
