Hello, Contaminated waters are the focus of today’s newsletter as communities across Southeast Asia and the Caribbean struggle to tackle health issues caused by toxic rivers and rainwater. We’ll be unpacking an in-depth graphic-led Reuters story that explores the experiences of residents and farmers based along the Mekong River and then turning to Jamaica following the devastation from Hurricane Melissa, as the Caribbean nation has declared an outbreak of the bacterial disease leptospirosis, suspected of causing six deaths in late October.
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Thailand's Pollution Control Department officers collect samples from the Kok River in Tha Ton sub-district north of Thailand REUTERS/Chalinee Thirasupa. |
Contamination along the Mekong River |
The Mekong River, Asia's third-largest, supports the livelihood of more than 70 million people and the global export of farm and fisheries products. It used to be seen as a clean river system, according to Brian Eyler, senior fellow at the U.S.-based Stimson Center think tank, which produced the first comprehensive study of potentially polluting mines in mainland Southeast Asia. Researchers analysed satellite imagery to identify mining activity, including 366 alluvial mining sites, 359 heap leach sites, and 77 rare earth mines draining into the Mekong basin. Across mainland Southeast Asia, more than 2,400 mines – many of them illegal and unregulated – could be releasing deadly chemicals such as cyanide and mercury into river water, according to the Stimson Center report.
Most alluvial mining sites are gold mines, though some also extract tin and silver. Heap leach mining sites include those for gold, nickel, copper, and manganese extraction.
"I just want the Kok River to be the way it used to be – where we could eat from it, bathe in it, play in it, and use it for farming," said 59-year-old farmer Tip Kamlue, who has irrigated her fields in northern Thailand with the waters from the Mekong River tributary. "I hope someone will help make that happen." | |
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Jamaica’s leptospirosis crisis |
Over in the Caribbean, after the Category 5 hurricane slammed into Jamaica on October 28, the resulting stagnant, contaminated water has become a breeding ground for leptospirosis, officials said.
Health Minister Christopher Tufton announced that nine cases were confirmed between October 30 and November 20, with 28 additional suspected cases.
Leptospirosis is spread through water or soil contaminated by the urine of infected animals, such as rodents. The infection can enter the human body through cuts in the skin or through the eyes, nose, and mouth.
While initial symptoms, such as fever, headache and muscle aches, can be mistaken for the flu, the disease can progress to a severe and potentially fatal form. It can cause kidney failure, liver damage, meningitis and severe internal bleeding. Keep scrolling for today’s ‘Talking Points’ focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion and governance stories from around the world. |
Survivors and siblings Viola Fletcher and Hughes Van Ellis attend the 100 year anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant |
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Obituary: Viola Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, died on Monday at the age of 111, the city’s mayor, Monroe Nichols, said. Fletcher was seven at the time of the massacre that began on May 31, 1921, when white attackers killed as many as 300 people, most of them Black, in Tulsa's prosperous Greenwood neighborhood. Fletcher recalled the violence she witnessed the night of the attacks during a testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2021, saying she could still see bodies in the street and smell the smoke nearly 100 years later.
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Trump v DEI: U.S. officials will consider enforcement of diversity, equity and inclusion policies and state subsidies for abortion as infringements in the State Department’s annual human rights report. Under President Donald Trump’s administration, human rights issues have been repurposed to fit his priorities in favor of economic dealmaking and appeal to his MAGA base. Click here for the full Reuters article.
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G20 declaration: The Group of 20 major economies scored a rare victory this weekend for multilateralism after overcoming the boycott and objections of its most powerful member, the United States. Critics doubted South Africa, this year's G20 president, would secure a declaration. The show of unity was aimed at supporting the hosts and decrying the United States' refusal to engage in the G20's first African summit, said one delegate.
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African Union summit: African and European Union leaders assembled in Angola's capital for the first-ever summit between the two blocs to discuss ways to improve debt restructuring and financing instruments after the G20 committed to improving payment plans. Plus, the European Investment Bank is pledging more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) of financing for clean energy projects on the African continent over the next two years, including hydroelectric, solar and wind power plants.
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EU LGBT rights: Speaking of the European Union, the EU's highest court ruled that same-sex marriages must be respected throughout the bloc and rebuked Poland for refusing to recognise a marriage between two of its citizens that took place in Germany. In predominantly Catholic Poland, the campaigning for LGBT equality for years was branded by those in power as a spread of dangerous foreign ideology, but the current government has been working on a bill to regulate civil partnerships, including same-sex unions.
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Cuban biologist Andres Hurtado holds a manjuari, a critically endangered fish, at Zapata Swamp, Cienaga de Zapata, Cuba. REUTERS/Norlys Perez |
Animal conservation takes today’s spotlight as scientists in Cuba are on a mission to save a “biological relic” that’s been around for as long as the dinosaurs.
In a lagoon deep in the Zapata Swamp, the Caribbean's largest intact wetland, lives the manjuari, or Cuban gar. The garfish – long, slender, its snout filled with sharp teeth - is considered “critically endangered," earning it a spot on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list since 2020.
"They`re a biological relic that has lived 140 or 150 million years and only now is at critical risk of extinction," said park biologist Andres Hurtado as he traipsed through a mangrove forest and fended off a descending swarm of mosquitoes. |
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Sustainable Switch was edited by Tomasz Janowski. |
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