Bits and Bites from Around the World > Beetles cause town to go dark; American bugs invade Sochi; Pregnant, single Journo welcomed by Taliban, but not NZ;

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Town goes dark amid massive bug infestation

Unusual rains and heat saw beetles reproducing in larger numbers

and invading a small town in Argentina

FILE PHOTO: A town during a blackout. © AFP / Yuri Cortez

The Argentinean town of Santa Isabel has been forced to shut off its lights for several days in an effort to persuade the millions of bugs that have invaded its streets to leave and look for another place to stay.

The town of some 2,500 in Argentina’s central province of La Pampa has been plagued by swarms of beetles for over a week. “They’re everywhere – in the houses, in the shops,” Deputy Mayor Cristian Echegaray complained to the media.

Local law enforcement agents have blamed the beetles for damaging the police station, residential buildings, and vehicles, as well as plugging the drains at a gas station, among other inconveniences.

Residents have documented the infestation in videos uploaded to social media, showing thousands of bugs in the roofs of their houses and huddling in dark holes.

Some have been filling huge boxes with the insects, driving them out of town in their cars, and dumping them, so as to be able to go on with their daily routine without the insects’ hindrance.

The authorities attribute the infestation both to unusually heavy rains for the time of the year and the heatwave that recently hit Argentina, which saw temperatures rise to almost 40C (104F).

Those conditions were perfect for the reproduction of the bugs, the larvae of which develop below ground.

Millions of adult beetles then flocked to Santa Isabel, attracted by its streetlights. The insects don’t bite or sting, but they’re protected by a sturdy shell and have a tendency to hit things as they fly, so locals were recommended to cover their faces while outside to avoid injury.

Santa Isabel eventually decided to turn off its streetlights and the lights in public building to make the bugs “go away and find another town,” Echegaray told the AP news agency on Saturday.

The town has been dark for the past three days, with the move proving effective. The number of beetles has decreased dramatically during the blackout, he said.

When you think of American bugs in Russia, it's usually listening devices that come to mind.

Call the ‘Men in Black’! Huge cockroaches invade

Russian resort of Sochi

Note: dated story - 30 Jul, 2019

They sowed fear in moviegoers after being seen bolstering an alien invasion in ‘Men in Black’ and now American cockroaches have been spotted in the Russian resort of Sochi. Scientists warn they won’t be going away.

Actor Will Smith on the Men in Black II movie poster. © AFP / Yoshikazu Tsuno;

American cockroach. © AFP / Sam Yeh

With their body length reaching up to 5cm and a full length of 9cm with whiskers, the American incarnation of the bugs are considered the largest common cockroaches on Earth. They have wings and are very skilled at flying, something their Russian counterparts never do.

Is this an example of American exceptionalism?

The insects are dangerous pests; they spread diseases, cause allergic reactions in humans and damage not only food supplies but also the buildings that they infest.

These are the new neighbors that residents of Sochi, the famous resort on the Black Sea will have to get used to from now on. Numerous red-brownish bugs have been spotted in homes and green areas of the 2014 Olympic capital, scientists from Sochi National Park said.

American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) © Sochi National Park (9cm = about 3.5in)

As for how an invasion by an alien species occurred, they explained that “the American cockroaches are often held in terrariums as an exotic large insect and also used as a food for terrarium animals: lizards and certain species of snakes.” The scientists believe that roaches simply escaped from their terrariums to start populating Sochi.

The species, which got its name after being transferred to America on trade and slave ships in the 17th century, originates from tropical Africa. So, the conditions in Sochi are perfect for it. The Russian resort has a humid, subtropical climate, with the thermometers reaching plus 30 Celsius in summer and annual average temperature of plus 18.4 Celsius. American tourists, who visit the resort often, refer to it as “Russian Miami.”

Despite its being new in Sochi, the adaptive American cockroach has spread across the globe in areas with tropical climates. It’s often encountered in Southern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with the nickname of a “little hard-to-kill pest” given to the insect in China.

The Asians have even learned to derive benefit from the pests. The roaches are an important ingredient in Chinese medicine, with one pharmaceutical company operating a farm that breeds around six billion of them every year. Restaurants in China, Vietnam and other countries also serve their customers a range of dishes that offer American cockroach as a protein.

In the 1997 sci-fi comedy hit ‘Men in Black,’ the American cockroaches were allies with an extraterrestrial bug, who landed on Earth to capture the powerful device called the Galaxy. But it was his soft spot for the local insects that eventually allowed Agents K and J to defeat the alien and foil his plans.

The residents of Sochi are unlikely to be using the roaches to diversify their diet, but they are, of course, no strangers to exotic insects. Sochi National Park had recently shared pictures of rare sawyers, which were made on its territory. Those bugs are also considered pests due to feeding on trees or wooden structures, but some of them look absolutely beautiful.

Established in 1983, the Sochi National Park is the second oldest in Russia. It covers a vast area of 1,937 sq km, starting from the Black Sea shore and going all the way up to the Caucasus Mountains. The reserve hosts a variety of rare plants and animals, with the Persian Leopard reintroduced there in 2009.

Pregnant foreign reporter asks Taliban for refuge after

being rejected by home country

One has to be in a truly “messed up” situation to seek an offer of safe haven

from the Taliban, a New Zealand journalist pointed out

The Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s Maymana. © AFP / Elise Blanchard

A New Zealand reporter, who ended up pregnant and unmarried while working in Qatar for broadcaster Al Jazeera, has revealed that she had to turn to the Taliban for help after her own country said she couldn’t return due to Covid-19 curbs.

Charlotte Bellis had previously become famous when she attended the Taliban’s first press conference after the radical group took power in Afghanistan last August and asked its leaders: “What will you do to protect the rights of women and girls?”

Now, she’s making headlines again after finding herself in an unexpected conundrum, which the reporter detailed in a bombshell opinion piece for the New Zealand Herald on Friday.

In September, when Bellis returned from Afghanistan to Qatar’s capital Doha, where Al Jazeera is based, she found out that she was pregnant from her partner Jim Huylebroek, a photographer who contributes to the New York Times and who had also been in Kabul.

It was a huge surprise as doctors had always been saying that she was incapable of having kids, but it also meant that the reporter couldn’t stay in Qatar anymore, as being pregnant and unmarried was illegal under that Muslim country’s laws.

Bellis resigned from Al Jazeera, hoping to give birth sometime in May in New Zealand, which shut itself from the outside world during the pandemic but planned to reopen its borders for residents in February.

The duo went to Belgium –Huylebroek’s home country– to wait until regular flights to New Zealand became available. The reporter knew her nationality meant she couldn’t stay in the EU for too long, so she’d also been trying to win a spot in a Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facility in New Zealand, but with no luck. 

And when the reopening of the borders was delayed by the authorities in Wellington due to the emergence of the Omicron variant, Bellis was left with just one destination she could travel to – Kabul. Both she and Huylebroek and still had visas that allowed them to live in Afghanistan.  

The reporter said she organized a meeting with senior Taliban contacts, asking them if there’ll be “a problem” if she comes to the Afghan capital with her partner, considering the fact that she’s pregnant and that they weren’t a married couple.

“No, we’re happy for you, you can come and you won’t have a problem,” a Taliban official responded, according to Bellis. “Just tell people you’re married and if it escalates, call us. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

“When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman – safe haven, you know your situation is messed up,” she wrote.

The reporter is currently in Kabul, but she doesn’t want to actually give birth in Afghanistan due to the turbulent situation and poor state of healthcare in the country.

With the UN expecting an extra 50,000 Afghan women to die in childbirth by 2025, “getting pregnant can be a death sentence” there, she pointed out.

But those arguments didn't seem too convincing to the authorities in New Zealand, who rejected Bellis’ emergency MIQ spot application on Monday. Among other things, the pregnant woman was told that she “did not provide any evidence” of having a scheduled “time-critical” medical treatment in New Zealand and that she couldn’t access the same treatment in her “current location.”

Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed, I think.

The reporter confessed that she was “in shock” after getting such a response. She started contacting lawyers and some other important people in New Zealand to make it clear that she was going to fight back against the ruling – by appealing and taking it to the media.

But, on Wednesday, the status of her application on the MIQ website switched from “deactivated” to “in progress.” The next day, her partner received an email, saying that he could now also apply for an emergency MIQ spot.

According to Bellis, the turnaround occurred after New Zealand’s Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins was informed of their case. And she wasn’t happy to be “getting preferential treatment” from the government, which only wants to avoid “an incoming political headache.”

“They rejected us, like they have so many thousands of other desperate New Zealanders, and seemingly because of who we are, and the resources we have,” she argued.

The reporter said she decided to share her troubles because “the decision of who should get an emergency MIQ spot is not made on a level playing field, lacks ethical reasoning and pits our most vulnerable against each other.”

She called for the system to be changed, adding that it was time for the authorities in New Zealand, not the Taliban, to answer what would they do to protect the rights of women.

Hipkins later confirmed to The NZ Herald that he was told about the reporter's situation by “a senior National Party MP” and ordered to check “whether the proper process was followed” regarding her emergency MIQ application.

I'm not sure how clever this story is - outing the Taliban for telling her to lie about being married, outing possible special consideration by New Zealand. If both of these entities react negatively to the publicity, where will Charlotte go then? 

El Salvador Teen Rape Victim to Appeal 30-year Sentence for Stillbirth

I dislike abortion intensely, but when people of power and responsibility act in such a cruel and vindictive manner, it only feeds the impetus of those seeking liberal abortion rights. The judge didn't believe she was raped - seriously! We're talking El Salvador here, aren't we? Meanwhile, the gang-banger who impregnated her is walking free without a care in the world. Does that sound fair in any way?

It's like the judge is stuck in a pretense that El Salvador is a righteous country. He must be aware that - Criminal youth gangs dominate life in El Salvador; an estimation of at least 60,000 young people belong to gangs. El Salvador experiences some of the highest murder rates in Latin America; it is also considered an epicenter of the gang crisis, along with Guatemala and Honduras. - Wikipedia.

Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz was sentenced on Friday to 30 years for aggravated homicide after she says was raped, became pregnant and miscarried. 

A network of activists in El Salvador say they won't stop fighting for Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, a young woman who was handed a 30-year prison sentence last week for aggravated homicide after she gave birth to a stillborn baby.

"That is an injustice and we're going to fight. We're going to appeal the case and also we are going to fight until the end," Sara Garcia told As It Happens guest host Laura Lynch.

Garcia — a member of the Colectiva Feminista and Citizens Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion in El Salvador — was in the courtroom with Hernandez's mother when the 19-year-old was sentenced.

San Salvador, El Salvador

"She was really sad and she broke into sobs in that moment.… She had a hope that that day she was going to be released and that didn't happen," Garcia said. "Her mother was really, really sad, upset. She was saying, 'They are lying. My daughter is innocent.'"

Hernandez was convicted of aggravated homicide under El Salvador's hardline anti-abortion laws after she suffered a third-trimester stillbirth in a bathroom in April 2016. 

The judge accepted the prosecution's argument that her failure to seek medical attention before or during childbirth was tantamount to murder. 

But Hernandez maintains she didn't know she was pregnant at the time.

In the months before, she said, she'd been repeatedly raped by a gang member in the small community where she lived. She said she did not report the attacks out of fear — of both gang violence and the criminal justice system.

"The judge did not believe what Evelyn said — did not believe that she did not know she was pregnant," Garcia said.

An activist holds a sign reading 'Legal Abortion' on International Women's Day in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 8, 2017. (Jose Cabezas/Reuters)

Hernandez is one of dozens of women who have been jailed in El Salvador after suffering from complications during childbirth. Garcia said she knows of at least 20 such cases.

Miscarriages and stillbirths in El Salvador are often treated as suspected abortions, which have been considered murder under Salvadoran law since 1997.

Even if a baby survives childbirth complications, the mother can be charged with attempted murder.

Garcia said Hernandez's supporters will keep fighting for her and for all women in her situation.

"We really want to change this reality of injustice in El Salvador," she said.

‘MI6 Boss Who Rendered Me Claims to be a Christian’ – Gaddafi Torture Victim

Abdul Hakim Belhadj © Youssef Boudlal / Reuters

Former MI6 chief Mark Allen is mistaken if he thinks that a recent article he wrote for a Christian magazine means his “account is settled with God,” according to a man the spy boss rendered to Libya’s torture chambers along with his pregnant wife.

In 2004, Abdul Hakim Belhaj was kidnapped in Hong Kong with British complicity, along with his pregnant wife, and rendered back to his native Libya. He was then held and tortured by the Gaddafi regime for six years.

A note faxed from Allen to the Libyan authorities told the regime’s spy chief Moussa Koussa: “I congratulate you on the safe arrival of… the air cargo.”

On August 4, a day before the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided it would not press charges against Allen, the ex-spook published a piece in the Catholic Herald on “Christian” approaches to terrorism.

Belhaj’s response, which had been offered to the Herald, was published on the website of the Reprieve human right charity on Friday.

“His words on the power of faith to see us through bloodshed are too rich to swallow,” the torture victim wrote in reference to the now infamous “air cargo” fax.

“It is staggering to read such sentiments from a man whose approach to the ‘war on terror’ – best summarized as ‘the ends justify the means’ – helped create the mess we find ourselves in.

“Perhaps he believes that if you feel regret, or confess it in private, your account is settled with God. Excuse me if I speak plainly: this is wrong and hypocritical… We cannot show the world that torture is wrong without owning up to our errors,” Belhaj insisted.

He said that he and his wife Fatima Boudchar, who gave birth in captivity, were “ready to forgive” as they also worshipped the “God of Abraham,” but “he must be prepared to look on us as humans, no different from himself, and say, honestly, what happened and apologize.”

Allah is not the God of Abraham; not even close!

“We trust in his faith to guide him. We are ready. But what about Sir Mark?” Belhaj asks.

His lawyer, Cori Crider, also commented on the group’s website, wondering “how a Christian paper can, in good faith, run articles from Sir Mark about ‘the greater order of Love’ while batting away the views of his victims.

“Perhaps Sir Mark thought no one would notice. The piece in the Herald was his first turn in the public eye since the world read his fawning note to Moussa Koussa, celebrating the rendition of Belhaj and his pregnant wife,” she said.

“Confession and repentance are key tenets of Catholicism. All Abdul Hakim and Fatima ask is an apology. The offer is still there.”

And they deserve an apology for sure. However, these days an apology is considered an admission of guilt and leaves one open to lawsuits if not prosecution. Most people are not so ready to atone for their sins. Sir Mark would do well to seek forgiveness from Abdul Hakim and Fatima, it would be the godly thing to do, but it is not essential to his salvation. He needs only the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. 

‘Abortion is Murder’ Initiative Could be Headed to Ohio Voters

FILE PHOTO © Rick Wilking / Reuters

Three Christians in Ohio are defiantly trying to overrule the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade by proposing a voter referendum that would classify abortion as “aggravated murder.”

Those who procure or carry out an abortion could be facing 15 years to life in prison, if the initiative makes it on the ballot and passes.

This will, of course, start a bunch of people running around in circles with their hair on fire screaming that women have a right to their bodies. They do! They have the right to not be pregnant if they want and there are many ways to ensure that. But once a woman is pregnant, that right ends. A woman's right to her body is superseded by a child's right to live. That is the only thing that makes any sense whatsoever. 

The proposal, which was submitted to Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office this month, details how it wants to "criminalize the killing, known as ‘abortion,’ of all pre-born human beings in the Ohio Constitution.”

Its aim is to “prohibit abortion of all unborn human beings, without exception, and classifying it as aggravated murder in the state of Ohio."

The proposal describes an "unborn human" as "an individual organism... from fertilization, whether fertilization occurs inside or outside of a human, until live birth."

There were an uncounted number of signatures attached to the proposal, with 1,000 valid signatures of registered voters needed for approval, according to the Cleveland Dispatch.

The proposed law would not affect “genuine contraception,” human eggs or in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

Anthony Dipane, one of the three who proposed the bill, explained to the newspaper that they are "just three Christians in Ohio” who are not connected to any anti-abortion rights groups.

“We don't take donations. We don't pay people. We're financing this out of our pockets at this point,” he said.

DeWine, a Republican known for his opposition to abortion, has until September 12 to determine if the wording of the proposal is accurate, fair and truthful, as well as to verify the signatures.

If all is in order, it’s then passed onto the Ballot Board. The amendment's proponents would have to secure just under 306,000 signatures to secure its place on the ballot, which would most likely be in November 2017.

From this stage, pro-choice advocates could then challenge the amendment, with the Ohio Supreme Court having exclusive jurisdiction over its constitutionality.

The proposal is only the second of its kind across the US, with Oklahoma’s Supreme Court rejecting a similar measure in March 2016, ruling that would be in contravention of Roe v Wade.