About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 9, 2018)
6C Sunday, December 9, 2018 The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com WORLD Tangerines BEN CURTIS I Associated Press A man walks on a mountain of plastic bottles as he carries a sack of them to be sold for recycling, Wednesday, Dec. 5, in the Dandora slum of Nairobi, Kenya. Africa’s solid waste is growing, posing a climate threat BY TOM ODULA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya - No one would envy a life of scavenging in Kenya’s biggest landfill, but Daniel Kiarie says he would never leave it. Birds circle overhead and dogs scuffle as the 35-year-old moves through the filth of Nairobi, intent on useful finds. Ground-up garbage, from used hos pital needles to battered toys, crunches under his feet. Thirty pungent acres stretch out before him at the center of the city’s poorest slums. “This is like any other job,” Kiarie said. “I would not leave it for a cozy office.” In blue overalls, he oversees a hill of plastics he has salvaged to sell to recycling companies. “And I am not mad.” As the world meets again to tackle the growing threat of climate change, Africa expects to suffer the most from ris ing tempera tures. And it is least equipped to fight back. How the continent will tackle the solid waste produced by its more than 1.2 billion resi dents, many of them eager consumers in growing economies, is a major question for environ mentalists and governments alike. Most African countries lack the resources needed to process the growing amount of solid waste, said Maria Leonor Sales, a consultant with the Afri can Development Bank. Nearly 20 of the world’s 50 biggest dumpsites are on the continent, according to Waste Atlas. On top of that, Africa is now a dumping ground for waste from other, devel oped, countries, U.N. Envi ronment pointed out in a report earlier this year. The fastest-growing regions for waste gen eration are sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where it is expected to triple and double, respec tively, by 2050, the World Bank said in a September report. By then, the regions will be producing 35 per cent of the world’s trash. Much of the waste in low- income countries, about 90 percent, is openly dumped or burned. That contrib utes to worsening air qual ity while the poor are most affected, the World Bank said. The burning of waste is a key contributor to climate change. In 2016, 5 percent of global emissions were generated from solid waste management, excluding transportation, the bank’s report said. Safe, sustainable solid waste management could be an engine for eco nomic growth, Sales said. Recycling and innovative products could create jobs while addressing social and environmental issues. But governments would have to sign on and recog nize the value of landfill pickers like Kiarie and the roughly 600 others who join him there every day. “Perceptions are one of the main challenges as people do not view waste as a resource,” said Catherina Schenck, a professor with the University of the Western Cape in South Africa who has researched waste pickers. “This includes the policymak ers down to the consumers.” Transition ing to a greener economy and sustainable waste man agement will require infor mal workers like Kiare to become part of a recognized system, following health and envi ronmental guidelines and receiving stable incomes and benefits in return. Experts say recycling companies then can be more efficient and have a guaranteed supply of raw materials. Africa has the opportu nity to unlock at least $8 bil lion every year in resource value into the economy by changing the way we think about waste, said Professor Linda Godfrey, an expert on waste management with the South Africa-based Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The African Union has said member countries should divert 50 percent of the waste they produce to recycling, reuse and recov ery by 2030. Currently, the continent recycles only 4 percent. ‘Perceptions are one of the main challenges as people do not view waste as a resource.’ Catherina Schenck Professor, University of the Western Cape After defeat in Iraq, IS fights on in last enclave in Syria BY QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA AND BASSEM MR0UE Associated Press BAGHDAD — A year after it was routed from Iraq in a war that left entire neighborhoods and towns in ruins, the Islamic State group is fighting to hang on to its last enclave in eastern Syria, engaging in deadly battles with U.S.-backed forces. Cornered in the desert near the Iraqi border with nowhere to run, the militants are putting up a fierce fight, inflicting hundreds of casual ties among their opponents and releasing a stream of beheading videos reminis cent of the extremist group’s terrifying propaganda at the height of its power. In Syria, the battle for the area of Hajin has dragged on for three months, high lighting the difficulty of eradicating an extremist group determined to sur vive. Across the border, in Iraq, there is rising concern that the group may stage a comeback. IS sleeper cells have recently launched deadly attacks against secu rity forces and abducted and killed civilians, mostly in four northern and cen tral provinces that were once part of the group’s self- declared caliphate. “There is still major dan ger for Iraq and Syria espe cially in areas close to the border when it comes to Daesh,” a senior Iraqi intel ligence official said, using an Arabic acronym to refer to the extremists. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not autho rized to speak to the media about security matters. He said IS lost most of the income it once made from oil and taxes imposed in areas it controlled. The group now relies on selling gold and other reserves that they had accumulated after declaring their caliphate in June 2014. He said the money is being used to buy weapons and finance attacks in Iraq and Syria. Another Iraqi intelligence official said IS has begun restructuring its command, relying more on non-Iraqi commanders after most of its leaders were killed in coali tion strikes. The Islamic State group once held an area the size of Britain across vast ter ritories straddling parts of Iraq and Syria, running a so-called caliphate and plan ning international attacks from its headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa. Tens of thousands were killed in both countries as an array of local forces, some backed by a U.S.-led coalition, eventu ally drove the extremists out of virtually all the lands they once held. Iraq’s then-Prime Minis ter Haider al-Abadi declared final victory over the group on Dec. 9,2017. Two months earlier, the coalition, work ing with Kurdish-dominated fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, liber ated Raqqa after a bombing campaign that decimated much of the city. The area that IS still holds in Syria represents less than 1 percent of the territory it controlled at its height. HUSSEIN MALLA I Associated Press Arab and Kurdish fighters with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), move to the front line to battle Islamic State group militants, July 22, 2017, in Raqqa, Syria. The pocket is home to some 15,000 people, including IS fighters and their families. The U.S. military estimates there are about 2,000 remain ing IS fighters there. The SDF launched their offensive to retake Hajin on Sept. 10. It has been a gru eling campaign, with sand storms and fog at times grounding coalition aircraft, allowing the militants to launch counteroffensives that have killed hundreds of SDF fighters. IS has also taken scores of prisoners and civilians hostage. “It is very difficult because we are in the last stages, where almost every ISIS fighter is a suicide belt,” Brett McGurk, the White House envoy for the war against IS, said at a security conference held recently in the Gulf nation of Bahrain. The extremists, besieged near the border, have no place to go. They are sur rounded from the east and north by SDF fighters while from the south and west, Syr ian government forces and their allies have closed roads to the surrounding desert. The Britain-based Syr- ‘It is very difficult because we are in the last stages, where almost every ISIS fighter is a suicide belt.’ Brett McGurk White House envoy for the war against IS ian Observatory for Human Rights says since the fighting began nearly three months ago, 1,616 people have been killed, mostly fighters from both sides. It said the dead include 827 IS gunmen, 481 SDF fighters and 308 civilians. The fighting is now believed to be in its final stages, with SDF fighters said to have broken IS defenses and taken the fight into the town. The fall of Hajin will end the group’s hold over any significant territory in Iraq or Syria, but sleeper cells in both countries will con tinue to stage attacks amid attempts to regroup. IS affili ates in Libya, Afghanistan and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula continue to stage regular attacks. The group’s savage legacy, meanwhile, will stay on for years to come. Huge parts of Iraq and Syria are still in ruins, with little cash and — in Syria’s case — little international political will to rebuild. Emerging from the more than three years of war, Iraq estimates that $88.2 billion is needed to rebuild the coun try. An international donors’ summit held early this year in Kuwait gathered pledges of $30 billion that mainly came in the form of loans, but no progress has been made to fulfil the pledges. “The biggest problem we have is the lack of funds,” said Mustafa al-Hiti, the head of a government-run recon struction fund. “What we spent till now is about 1.5 percent of what we need and that came as loans and donations,” al-Hiti added. Santa loves reading the newspaper, and there's no better way to get his attention than with a Letter to Santa published in The Times. Send us your letter to the jolly ol' elf bv Dec. 15. and we will print them in The Times beginning with the Dec. 19 edition. 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