On Wednesday, astronomers released what they said were the most detailed images ever taken of the surface of our sun.

[…]

Here, 93 million miles from the nearest star — the one we call the sun — the creatures of Earth eke out a living on the edge of almost incomprehensible violence. Every second, thermonuclear reactions in the center of the Sun turn 5 million tons of hydrogen into pure energy. That energy makes its way outward, through boiling gas pocked with magnetic storms that crackle, whirl and lash space with showers of electrical particles and radiation.

[…]

The images were taken as part of the initial test, known as“first light,” of the Inouye telescope, which was built by the National Science Foundation atop Haleakala, an ancient cratered volcano, sacred to native Hawaiians, on the island. Haleakala means “house of the sun” in Hawaiian. What better place to build the world’s biggest telescope devoted to the sun?

[…]

Consider the context of the text to analise the following sentences:

I - The violence mentioned in the text refers to the way some creatures behave on Earth.
II - Hydrogen is transformed into gas.
III - The observation of the Sun is made from a telescope in the base of a mountain in Hawaii.
IV - Haleakala has to do with the Sun.

The diary of a young girl

As you can no doubt imagine, we often say in despair, "What‘s the point of the war? Why, oh, why can‘t people live together peacefully? Why all this destruction?"

The question is understandable, but up to now no one has come up with a satisfactory answer. Why is England manufacturing bigger and better airplanes and bombs and at the same time churning out new houses for reconstruction? Why are millions spent on the war each day, while not a penny is available for medical science, artists or the poor? Why do people have to starve when mountains of food are rotting away in other parts of the world? Oh, why are people so crazy?

I don‘t believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have rebelled long ago! There‘s a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over again!

In the last paragraph of her text, Anne Frank proposes a social and political investigation on the reasons of the war. Although she does not mention any kind of political regime, her ideas are clearly delineated in order to denounce a certain political ideology.

In food-rich Brazil, people go hungry as pandemic rages (Part II)

The pandemic is accentuating a trend seen in the last six years in Latin America’s largest economy, which is one of the world’s major food suppliers. In mid-2020, the director of the World Food Program’s Brazil office, Daniel Balaban, warned that Brazil was moving quickly toward returning to the world hunger map, which it left in 2014. Countries figure on that list when more than 5% of their population live in extreme poverty.

The World Bank said then that 5.4 million more Brazilians would fall into that category in 2020, for a total of 14.7 million. The total population is 212 million. "This is clearly the scariest moment we have been through in the fight against hunger,"said Rodrigo Afonso, director of an NGO called Accion Ciudadana.

Afonso said that when the organization was founded in 1993 to combat hunger, the problem was concentrated in the north and northeast of the sprawling country. "Today, anywhere you go you will find huge numbers of families that cannot feed themselves,"said Afonso, and "things are getting worse."

A poll in November by the Getulio Vargas Foundation found that nearly a third of those surveyed suffered from food insecurity. The government of right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the pandemic, started paying a third of the population about 600 reals a month starting in April of last year. The aid was cut to 300 reals in October and eliminated in January. That money was a big help, but the neediest people in Brazil have now been without it for three months in an economy with the highest unemployment rate in nearly a decade – 13.5 percent as of the end of 2020 – steadily rising prices and the most devastating chapter yet of the pandemic.

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Average westerner’s eating habits lead to loss of four trees every year

The average western consumer of coffee, chocolate, beef, palm oil and other commodities is responsible for the felling of four trees every year, many in wildlife-rich tropical forests, research has calculated.

Destruction of forests is a major cause of both the climate crisis and plunging wildlife populations, as natural ecosystems are razed for farming. The study is the first to fully link highresolution maps of global deforestation to the wide range of commodities imported by each country across the world.

The research lays bare the direct links between consumers and the loss of forests across the planet. Chocolate consumption in the UK and Germany is an important driver of deforestation in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the scientists found, while beef and soy demand in the US, European Union and China results in forest destruction in Brazil.

Consumption in G7 states accounts for an average loss of four trees a year per person, the research says; the US is above average with five trees being lost per capita. In five G7 countries — the UK, Japan, Germany, France, and Italy — more than 90% of their deforestation footprint was in foreign countries and half of this was in tropical nations.

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Brazil is brilliant at vaccinations. So what went wrong this time?

When it comes to Covid-19 vaccination programs, there are some countries that have exceeded expectations and others that have fallen surprisingly short. And then there is Brazil. Vaccinating over 210 million people may sound daunting, but for Brazil it really shouldn’t be. With one of the largest universal, free-of-charge public health systems in the world, the country has a distinguished track record of vaccinations and disease control. The National Immunization Program, founded in 1973, helped to eradicate polio and rubella in the country and currently offers more than 20 vaccines free in every municipality.

Along with the infrastructure to distribute vaccines, there’s also the expertise to do so: in 1980, the country vaccinated 17.5 million children against polio in a single day. In 2010, over 89 million doses of the swine flu vaccine were administered in under four months. And last year, more than 70 million Brazilians received their annual shot against influenza.

But despite these advantages, Brazil’s vaccine rollout has been painfully slow, inconsistent and marred by shortages. The nationwide program began on Jan. 18, later than over 50 countries, and its current rate will take more than four years to complete. Several major cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, have already had to stop their campaigns because of problems in supply. In a country where the pandemic has wrought terrible damage, the failure amounts to a disaster. So what went wrong? Perhaps we should look to "Zé Gotinha", Joe Droplet: He seems to know exactly who to blame.

From the beginning, Mr. Bolsonaro’s government downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. The president fought against masks and social distancing measures, comparing the coronavirus to rain that would fall on most people while drowning just some of them. ("It’s no use staying home crying," he recently said, after the country registered 1,452 deaths on a single day.) In the middle of the outbreak, he managed to get rid of two health ministers - both doctors - who threatened to contradict him, replacing them with an army general.

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One of the abiding images of any virus outbreak is people in surgical masks. Using them to prevent infection is popular in many countries around the world, most notably China during the current coronavirus outbreak where they are also worn to protect against high pollution levels.

Virologists are sceptical about their effectiveness against airborne viruses. But there is some evidence to suggest the masks can help prevent hand-to-mouth transmissions.

Dr David Carrington, of St George’s, University of London, told BBC News “routine surgical masks for the public are not an effective protection against viruses or bacteria carried in the air”, which was how “most viruses” were transmitted, because they were too loose, had no air filter and left the eyes exposed. But they could help lower the risk of contracting a virus through the “splash” from a sneeze or a cough and provide some protection against hand-to-mouth transmissions.

Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said: “In one well controlled study in a hospital setting, the face mask was as good at preventing influenza infection as a purpose-made respirator.”

Respirators, which tend to feature a specialised air filter, are specifically designed to protect against potentially hazardous airborne particles.

“However, when you move to studies looking at their effectiveness in the general population, the data is less compelling - it’s quite a challenge to keep a mask on for prolonged periods of time,” professor Ball added.

Dr Connor Bamford, of the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, at Queen’s University Belfast, said “implementing simple hygiene measures” was more effective. “Covering your mouth while sneezing, washing your hands, and not putting your hands to your mouth before washing them, could help limit the risk of catching any respiratory virus,” he said.

Read the following text:

U.S.A. FOR AFRICA - We Are The World (1985) - YouTube

There comes a time
When we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
Oh, and it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

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Humans may need to “wait for decades” to see the results of large emission cuts on global surface temperatures, scientists have said. Researchers in Norway used computer simulations to analyse various scenarios that looked at the effects of rapid reductions in several types of greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane.

They found that although large-scale emission cuts are needed to achieve the global climate goals, it may take decades before the effects of the reductions on temperatures can be measured.

The researchers estimated that even for the most optimistic scenarios, it will take at least 15 years to establish the impact of emission cuts on climate change.

Bjorn H Samset, of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (Cicero) in Oslo, said: “Humaninduced climate change can be compared with a tank ship at high speed and in big waves. If you want the ship to slow down, you will put the engine in reverse, but it will take some time before you start noticing that the ship is moving more slowly. It will also rock back and forth because of the waves.

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Time to envision legal recourse for climate refugees

As gradually worsening climate patterns and severe weather events prompt an increase in human mobility, people who choose to move will do so with little legal protection. The current system of international law is not equipped to protect climate migrants, as there are no legally binding agreements obliging countries to support Climate migrants.

While climate migrants who flee unbearable conditions resemble refugees, the legal protections afforded to refugees do not extend to them. In the aftermath of World War |l, the United Nations established a system to protect civilians who had been forced from their home countries by political violence. Today, there are almost 20.4 million officially designated refugees under the protection of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), but there is an additional group of 21.5 million people who flee their homes as a result of sudden onset weather hazards every year.

The UNHCR has refused to grant these people refugee status, instead designating them as “environmental migrants,” in large part because it lacks the resources to address their needs. But with no organized effort to supervise the migrant population, these desperate individuals go where they can, not necessarily where they should. As their numbers grow, it will become increasingly difficult for the international community to ignore this challenge. As severe climate change displaces more people, the international community may be forced to either redefine “refugees” to include climate migrants or create a new legal category and accompanying institutional framework to protect climate migrants. However, opening that debate in the current context would be very difficult. Currently, the atmosphere in Europe and the U.S. would most likely lead to limiting refugee protections rather than
expanding them.

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