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Peru races to save birds threatened by oil spill

AFP

A Lima zoo is racing to save dozens of seabirds, including protected penguins, after 6,000 barrels of crude oil spilled off Peru’s coast due to waves from a volcanic eruption in the South Pacific.

More than 40 birds, including Humboldt penguins — listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature — were brought to the Parque de Las Leyendas zoo after being rescued from polluted beaches and nature reserves.

“We have never seen anything like this in the history of Peru,” biologist Liseth Bermudez told AFP, while tending to a bird.

“We didn’t think it was going to be of this magnitude.”

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A team of veterinarians is caring for the birds, bathing them with special detergents to remove the suffocating oil.

The animals have also been given anti-fungal and anti-bacterial drugs, as well as vitamins.

“The birds’ prognosis is unclear,” Bermudez said. “We are doing everything we can.”

Peru has declared an environmental emergency after almost 264,000 gallons (1.2 million liters) of crude oil spilled into the sea last Saturday when a tanker was hit by big waves while offloading at a refinery.

The abnormally large waves were triggered by the eruption of an undersea volcano near the archipelago of Tonga, thousands of miles (kilometers) away.

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The spill near Lima has fouled beaches and harmed the fishing and tourism industries, with crews working non-stop to clean up the mess.

The environment ministry said Sunday that more than 180 hectares — equivalent to around 270 soccer fields — of beach and 713 hectares of sea were affected, as sea currents spread the spilled oil along the coast.

The health ministry has warned would-be bathers to stay away from at least 21 affected beaches.

– Bird food contaminated –

Biologist Guillermo Ramos of Peru’s Serfor forestry service said more animals will die if the oil spreads.

“There are species here that feed on crustaceans and fish that are already contaminated,” he said.

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Serfor staff have found many dead birds and sea otters on beaches and in natural reserves since the spill, he added.

More than 150 bird species in Peru depend on the sea for nutrition and reproduction.

Among the birds rescued alive but in need of help are different types of cormorants and six Humboldt penguins.

Juan Carlos Riveros, scientific director of rescue NGO Oceana Peru, said the oil could affect the reproductive capacity of some animals and cause birth defects, especially in birds, fish and turtles.

The government has sought compensation from Spanish oil company Repsol, which owns the tanker.

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But the company denies responsibility, saying maritime authorities had issued no warning of abnormal waves after the Tonga eruption.

On Sunday, Jaime Fernandez-Cuesta, president of Repsol in Peru, said the Spanish company was doing everything it could to mitigate the environmental damage.

“We are doing everything possible, without sparing any expense, to remedy this entire disaster as soon as possible,” Fernandez-Cuesta told the TV show Punto Final.

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International

The number of deaths rises to 111 in Gaza in one of the most violent days of the month

The Palestinians killed throughout Sunday in Gaza rose at the end of the day to 111, according to the local news agency Wafa, which makes yesterday’s one of the most violent days in the Strip in the last month.

According to the daily report sent by the Ministry of Health, the total number of deaths as of today amounts to 43,922 people and 103,898 the number of injured in 13 months of war.

This high number of deaths in the punished enclave is mainly due to the massacre with 72 dead committed by the Israeli Army when bombing several buildings in Beit Lahia, in the northern region of Gaza that has remained besieged for six weeks.

The Israeli offensive in the northern Strip

Beit Lahia has been the scene of two of the bombings with the most victims of the war in the last month, the result of the campaign of air raids and the ground incursion that the Israeli Army undertook there, as well as in Yabalia and Beit Hanoun, between October 5 and 6.

On October 29, another airstrike against a five-story building ended the lives of 93 Gazans, according to figures from the health authorities, although residents of the area said at the time that they had buried 103 corpses.

On the 20th, another bombing that according to the armed forces was “precision” killed another 73 people in Beit Lahia.

For more than six weeks, the Army has maintained a military siege in the north that has caused more than 2,000 fatalities, according to estimates by the Government of the Belt, and has drastically worsened the already deficient conditions in which its population lived, having limited access to humanitarian aid to the region to minimal levels.

In addition, the Army has besieged and attacked the three active hospitals in the north: Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesia, the latter having to cease its activity.

Israel attacks a “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza

“We are without electricity, we only have four hours of generator operation and for three hours we use batteries, the rest of the day we have no electricity,” Mohammed Salha, acting director of Al Awda, denounced to EFE.

Salha warns that he has not received a shipment of fuel for 40 days that allows them to operate the generators to have electricity, since it is in the Kamal Adwan but has not managed to coordinate with the Army to allow the transfer of gasoline to Al Awda.

Last night, the Wafa agency collected a new bombing against Beit Lahia of which no victims have yet been reported.

In the south, an attack against the “humanitarian zone” where most of Gaza’s displaced people are (90% of the population at the moment) killed a couple and their two children, and seriously injured another daughter of the couple.

Israel established part of southwestern Gaza, along the coasts of Al Mawasi, Jan Yunis and Deir al Balah, as a “safe zone” for the almost 2 million displaced people because of its offensive, although it has been the subject of multiple attacks throughout the year.

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International

More than 20 dead and a hundred injured in several missile attacks against residential areas of Odessa and Sumi

At least 11 people have died and 89 others were injured in the Ukrainian city of Sumi by the impact of a Russian missile against a residential building last night, local authorities reported on social networks.

The Ukrainian first lady, Olena Zelenska, has condemned the attack and explained that among the fatalities are two children.

“It is an attack not only against Ukrainians but against the very concept of humanity. And against all those who believe that the enemy can be stopped with concessions instead of by force,” Zelenska wrote on her social network account X.

According to Ukrainian emergency services, there are eleven minors among the injured.

Sumi is located next to the border with Russia and is regularly attacked by Kremlin forces.

At least 10 dead in another missile attack against Odessa

A few hours after the daylight attack on Sumi, at least 10 people died, including seven policemen and a health worker, in a Russian missile attack against a residential area of the city.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned this attack against Odessa on his social networks.

“Russian terrorists hit with a ballistic missile against Odessa, against a residential area,” Zelenski wrote on his Telegram channel.

According to the Ukrainian president, the missile has fallen into a park and has caused damage to a residential building, a university and an administrative building.

Zelenski added that it is not “an accidental attack” and described the bombing as “exemplary.”

Zelenski: Russia is only interested in war

“After the calls and meetings with Putin, after all these words in the media about his supposed ‘renunciation’ of the attacks, Russia shows what it is really interested in: only in the war,” Zelenski said in reference to the calls that the US president-elect, Donald Trump, and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, would have had in recent days with the Russian president.

Zelenski asked the leaders participating in Brazil at the G20 summit to “listen” to the message sent by Putin’s attack.

Monday’s attacks follow a day, Sunday, in which Russia launched 120 missiles and 90 drones against several regions of Ukraine.

This massive combined attack in which hypersonic missiles and other types were used was directed against Ukrainian electrical infrastructure.

The destruction caused has forced the authorities to reschedule power cuts throughout the country.

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International

The presidential candidates in Uruguay promised in a debate not to raise taxes

The candidates for the Presidency of Uruguay for the ruling National Party, Álvaro Delgado, and the opposition Frente Amplio, Yamandú Orsi, presented their proposals in a televised debate, in which both politicians promised that they would not raise taxes.

The debate between the candidates prior to the second round next Sunday, was broadcast on national radio and television, and is stipulated by Law 18,827, promulgated in September 2019.

A debate in Uruguay with counterpointing

It began with opposing messages from the aspirants. While Orsi pointed out that Uruguay is “a stagnant country,” Delgado pointed out that the government model ensures “future and development.”

“Next Sunday we will have to choose between two options: that of a stagnant country, that of unfulfilled promises or that of a sure change. A change that will certainly not be radical and that involves the well-being of our people,” said the Frenteamplista.

Delgado stressed: “Here two models of country are compared, a model that retreats with ideology and with uncertainties. And a model – ours – that ensures guarantee, certainties, future and development.”

From human development to work

In the 90-minute debate, the candidates presented their views on five thematic blocks: human development, security, economy, knowledge and work.

In the first of these, both agreed on the importance of giving “quality of life to citizens.”

In terms of security, Delgado pointed out that the current government will leave the next, for the first time since 1984, fewer crimes reported, something that was achieved, he said, by trust in the police.

Although he said that they are not satisfied with what has been achieved, he reviewed with a graph numbers in the decrease in robberies (42%), thefts (22%), abigeato (57%) and homicides (3%); he said that “is the way.”

In addition, he mentioned the importance of repression, rehabilitation and reintegration.

Orsi, for his part, spoke of the victims “fruit of violence” in Uruguay, and gave as an example that every 15 days a child enters a hospital for a gunshot wound.

In that sense, he said that the pillars of his security policy will be the active exercise of authority, the defense of victims of crime and crime, in addition, he supported the police and the incorporation of more technology.

When talking about the economy, the Frente Amplio candidate recalled that when that party governed, between 2005 and 2020, the Gross Domestic Product increased by 73.2%.

Taxes: key point

“We are not going to increase taxes. In this period in which I will have to be Government, we are especially going to support small and medium-sized enterprises,” Orsi said.

On the contrary, Delgado said that the Government of the Frente Amplio gave the country with an inflation “of almost two digits” and that currently this is half, while pointing out that the real salary “is the highest in 49 years.”

He also said that an eventual government headed by Orsi will raise taxes, since, he said, this is what the Frente Amplio program says, and that on the contrary the ruling coalition will not do it.

“We are not going to raise taxes, we are going to generate investment incentives and we are going to open Uruguay to the world with pragmatism and without ideology,” Delgado said.

Delgado added that he intends “a cheaper Uruguay to live and to produce.”

When Orsi intervened again, he reiterated that he will not raise taxes.

He spoke of unemployment in the country, detailed that unemployment at the level of young people is close to 26%, the highest in the region, he said.

The National Party candidate said, on the contrary, that the unemployment rate in the country is 8.1% and among young people it is almost 2.5% higher.

The final message

The debate, carried out exactly one week before the second round of the elections, closed with a final message from each of the candidates.

“Here people can buy two country models and two leaderships. Our model that is a model of certainties, with economic growth, with security, with guarantees and with freedom. And the other model that is to return to the past with a lot of ideology, with more uncertainty, with surely more taxes, but surely with less freedom and with many more risks,” Delgado said.

He offered his experience and added that he is prepared and tested to govern the country.

“There’s one week to go. You will all have to choose between two proposals, two projects: the one of broken promises or the country of commitments. The country of commitments is one that implies a sure change,” emphasized the opponent Orsi.

He reiterated that he wants to become the next president of the Uruguayans and that, just as he knew how to do it when he governed the department (province) of Canelones (2015-2024), he will know how to do it at the head of all of Uruguay.

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