Astronomy's Headache: Night-Sky Illumination

"When a satellite crosses what we observe, it makes a bright streak on our image, zapping whatever is behind it."

"For the past few years, this has been happening -- but it is still manageable."

"But if we go from 14,000 to 1.7 million [orbiting satellites], we are really going to have problems."

"[Whether in France, the Sahara Desert or Chile, the sky] would no longer be clear, resembling instead the sky seen in the suburbs of a city."

"[And in light-polluted cities the satellites] would be the only 'stars' visible in the night sky." 

Olivier Hainaut, European Southern Observatory 

 

"Astronomy generates huge value for humankind, including scientific, technical, economical, and educational, and helps us understand our place in the Universe."

"The large number of planned satellites in low-Earth orbit challenges that capacity, underscoring the need to limit future satellite launches and for astronomers, engineers, satellite operators and other stakeholders to work together to adopt strict mitigation measures."

ESO Director General Xavier Barcons 

One hour of satellites over the northern Atacama Desert in Chile (October 2025) (Credit: F. Kamphues, ESO/M. Kornmesser)

 

 

Astronomers have known for many years that such a catastrophic event for viewing the night sky was imminent as more and more satellites were sent into orbit year after year, and plans to increase those numbers dramatically would be in the works, blocking their access to viewing the night sky, New research has once again warned of "devastating consequences for astronomy" in view of, and taking account of Earth's orbit in coming years drowning in swarms of huge, extremely bright satellites that represent an "existential threat" to telescopes viewing the universe.

 

The latest research, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics through the European Southern Observatory (ESO) warns that the loss of the observable night sky would represent a dreadful loss to humankind. The team of researchers from ESO who produced the study urge for a re-consideration, that no greater number than 100,000 satellites should be launched, to preserve the capacity for astronomy to continue making findings explaining more about the universe and our place in it. 

 

This is the first study to calculate how the visual disturbance of large, particularly bright satellites in released constellations would impact astronomical observations through producing a night sky that is no longer the dark heaven that nature intended, but one bright enough to critically interfere with the observable universe that ever more powerful telescopes make possible. Currently, there is an estimated 14,000 satellites orbiting Earth, many of which have been launched by Space X's Starlink internet constellation. 

 

Falcon 9 launches 24 @StarLink from California, Space X

 

 Plans to launch over a million satellites by 2028 to serve as data centres powering the boom in artificial intelligence has been announced by Space X. Additionally, projects such as the 'Cinnamon' plans of start-up E-Space and Chinese constellations CTC-1 and CTC-2 would add other hundreds of thousands more satellites. Reflect Orbital, another U.S. startup, plans to launch 50,000 huge satellites using giant mirrors to reflect sunlight back down to Earth with the intention of providing light over a night-darkened Earth.

 

The prospect for the near future is that over 1.7 million satellites could conceivably light the night sky and in the process obscure or blot out views of ground-based telescopes. Essentially the Reflect Orbital satellites alone pose a particularly significant threat to the dark night skies. The light they scatter will make each one as bright as Venus, even when their mirrors are not pointed at the observer. 

 

The ESO observers concluded that images captured by the largest camera ever to have been built, part of the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, would be rendered invalid. Moreover, concerns over making space a junkyard of revolving satellites, many of which might collide, along with parts and pieces that fall to Earth, represents a potential dilemma of immense proportions. 

 

A Soyuz rocket lifts off from a launch site in Vostochny, 5 November, 2024 AP Photo

 

"Sending thousands of satellites has implications: economical, ecological, and astronomical."

"[Light pollution from very bright satellite constellations can impact the health and functioning of life on Earth, by disrupting biological clocks and ecosystems. Large constellations also have direct impacts on air quality from the numerous launches required to send and maintain thousands of satellites, as well as from the atmospheric pollution caused as they burn up on re-entry at the end of life]."

"My job is astronomy, so I quantify the effects on astronomy. I hope others will evaluate the other impacts in their field of expertise."

"Low Earth orbit is a celestial seashore that provides immense value to modern life, from global connectivity to our clear access to the Universe. However, we must manage the footprint of mega-constellations — from the light pollution affecting astronomy to the atmospheric effects of satellite re-entry — to ensure this resource remains pristine and accessible for future generations."

Olivier Hainaut, ESO study lead author  

Planned 1.7 million satellites 'devastating' for astronomy by making night sky brighter AP Photo

 

 

 

The Abandonment of Palestinians in Gaza

"For the past several days, our reporters and several of Gaza’s most prominent anti-Hamas activists have been subjected to an intense campaign of surveillance and intimidation by Hamas." 

"And we’re hearing about many activists who have been effectively placed under house arrest by Hamas. They’ve made it clear their number one goal is to prevent any anti-Hamas demonstrations from taking place in Gaza."

"What the world doesn't really know, is that there is a strong opposition movement inside Gaza today that's developing against Hamas."

"A lot of people are fed up from the war, fed up from Hamas's wrong choices, and they want to protest [demanding that Hamas disarm, and leave the Strip] in order to stop the war, to stop the Israeli attacks, and to rebuild Gaza."

"[At least half of Gazans want Hamas out], so they  can get a better future, a better life. [The same number were in retrospect] unhappy with the October 7 attacks." 

Hadeel Oueiss, editor-in-chief, Jusoor News 

 

"Hamas was much better prepared than we were [they were tipped off]."

"[Hamas has] the weapons, the force and the means to intimidate people. They threatened families and reportedly paid money to influential clan leaders to publicly announce that they would disown any family member who participated in t he demonstration."

"[The opposition movement wants Hamas to disarm] so that reconstruction can begin ... [and] living conditions can improve."

Mohammad Hussein Lafi, protest organizer 

Members of Hamas cracking down on Gazans. Photo: Screenshot from X account of Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

 

"The situation in Gaza is very difficult. They are kidnapping people and threatening people. The level of terror is high."

"There are fatwas calling for killing and fatwas declaring people infidels in the mosques, and calls saying the protest movement has been postponed."

"Things are very difficult. Since the morning, they’ve been arresting people and kidnapping people from the streets. Things are very bad."

Name withheld by request 

 

"[Hospitals across Gaza had been turned into] makeshift police stations, interrogation sites, and torture centers."

"Families are being threatened, people placed under house arrest, and Hamas’s al-Qassam brigades [the forces responsible for October 7] have been fully mobilized to reinforce police and intelligence units with explicit shoot-to-kill order."

"[The mainstream media has failed to report on the campaign] apparently because Israel is not involved – so no Jews, no news."

"This is what the abandonment of Palestinians in Gaza looks like. Shame on all who stay silent in the face of jihadi, ISIS-like violence against the very people they claim to champion."

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, humanitarian activist originally from Gaza, now living in the U.S.

 

"The fact that organizers announced the protest weeks in advance made it easier for Hamas to prepare, intimidate people, pressure families, and silence the movement before it reached the streets."

"In Gaza, protest movements have often been more successful when they were organized quietly and appeared suddenly."

"This time, the early announcement gave Hamas the time and pretext to suppress it."

Ahed al-Hendi, senior fellow, Center for Peace Communications  

To all Western media, including pro-Palestine outlets: right now, thousands of Palestinian civilians are taking part in massive anti-Hamas protests across the Gaza Strip. Stand with them. Carry their voices. Don't abandon them. Ihab Hassan 

 

Hadeel Oueis, a U.S.-Syrian-based journalist, editor of Arabic-language Jusoor News reporting on Middle East news, has been informed by many dissidents in Gaza through phone interviews that the mass protest dubbed "Day of Rage" scheduled to take place on June 26, with the demand that Hamas disarm and step down, had their plans crushed before they even took to the streets. Although smaller protests elsewhere proceeded in some areas, organizers were warned by the terror group that anyone among the would-be demonstrators attempting to join would be subject to violent reprisals. 

 

One of the protest group's organizers, Mohammad Hussein Lafi described his arrival at a designated gathering point in central Gaza: it was already filled with Hamas security forces openly displaying their weapons. He was informed that cellphones had been confiscated from anyone suspected of being part of the protest movement; some among them physically assaulted and detained. A year earlier Lafi, a graduate of the Faculty of Physical Education at Gaza's Aqsa University, was arrested by Hamas accused of speaking out against the October 7 attacks among his friends.

 

He was "severely beaten and tortured during detention", which convinced him that an end must come for Hamas's rule in Gaza. With the scheduled protest deferred due to threats, a more discreet 'soft protest' took place on Friday at 10:00 p.m. that saw Gazans banging pots and pans, and whistling for an hour from within displacement camps and tents in response to an online call by organizers. An ad hoc demonstration the following day independent of organized plans took place by others.  

 

A funeral procession nearby planned protest sites took place with mourners carrying signs reading "God willing, Hamas out", "We are not pawns", and chants of "enough with the destruction" also took place. Hamas, according to Mustafa Asfour, a Gaza activist living in the U.K. for four years and one of the June 26 demonstration organizers, "launched a media campaign to discredit the movement, accusing it of betrayal and targeting anyone" participating. 

 

In the days leading up to the planned protest, Hamas pressured prominent families "to hold press conferences denouncing the June 26 movement"'; pro Hamas media then circulated statements presuming to be the names of major clans with the claims they opposed the protests. "Many of these families later issued official statements saying they had never released such declarations and rejecting the statements attributed to them", explained Mustafa Asfour. Threatening phone calls were received by families with warnings not to allow their children to participate, and displaced people were informed anyone who joined the protests would b e expelled from the camps.

 

NGO silence, argued Asfour, has emboldened Hamas. He and others had reached out, he explained, to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, drawing their attention to the planned protests, warning against repression. Their efforts bore no fruit. Other than for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, no response was ever received, but the Center's response was four lines to say the "matter raised by you is under follow-up"; a stock, non-committal response. 

 

Ms. Oueis accuses Hamas of making everyday life for Gazans miserable through aid diversion, heavy taxation and a harsh crackdown on dissent. In "The worst days of hunger and lack of food in Gaza", she said, residents were interviewed who alleged that Hamas "Hijacked every truck that came with food to Gaza, stored it in its own storage, stole this aid that's coming from international organizations, and kept it." The aid was handed out selectively "only to their soldiers", and pro-Hamas communities; those lacking a fighter in the family "won't get aid".

 

Hamas "captured and arrested" close to 200 activists and dissidents since the start of the ceasefire last fall, many accused of collaborating with Israel; some tortured to death. One of Jusoor's reporters was arrested, beaten "very badly and left unable to walk. He's paralyzed because he made this coverage, anti-Hamas coverage from Gaza", emphasized Ms. Oueis. Her reporting team interviewed Gazans who were tortured for posting criticism of Hamas on Facebook.  

 

Palestinian Hamas stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/File Photo

  

"Most of the Islamists of Gaza are pro-Hamas. Many deeply religious Muslims [are among those calling for change], a lot of the people who are going to protest and taking initiative in spreading the word against Hamas are religious Muslims [who reject Islamist politics."

"[Some Gazans openly argue that] It's time to stop the wars between Israel and Palestinians, and it's time to have peace with Israel." 

Hadeel Oueiss, Jusoor News

 

"[My motivation for helping with demonstrations is the] belief that civilians in Gaza have the right to express their voices peacefully, and to demand dignity, safety, and a better future."

"[The world should know that they demand] accountability, and the right of people to have a voice in decisions affecting their lives."

"I lost my home during the war, like many other families in Gaza. My experience, like many Palestinians here, has been shaped by years of difficult circumstances, but also by a strong sense of community and the desire to build a better future."

Kareem Joudeh, 30, formerly of northern Gaza, displaced to central Gaza, working with World Central Kitchen 

Hamas stand guard on the day of the release of Keith Siegel, a US-Israeli dual national hostage held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

 

Canadian Cannabis Consumption

"What followed commercialized legalization was a rise in cannabis addition as well as increases in hospital admissions for psychosis, including cases where psychotic disorders occurred alongside cannabis addiction."

"The emergence of a for-profit cannabis industry can result in commercial interests being prioritized over public health, just as we have seen with the alcohol and tobacco industries."

"Increased availability of cannabis products, greater product strength and active marketing of these products can increase the risk of harm."

Tom Freeman, psychologist, University of Bath

Cannabis-related hospitalizations associated with later mortality  Recovery Research Institute

 

The Liberal government of Canada gifted Canadians with MAID -- Medical Assistance in Dying. A program whose original protocol of accessibility was to ensure that patients' ebbing lifeforce was imminent, to spare them further pain and suffering. That soon changed, with guidelines for approval becoming more openly 'benevolent', where applicants eventually could simply decide life wasn't worth living any longer; poverty and lack of adequate medical care prompted some to end their lives. The latest 'improvement' on the guidelines was to include those suffering solely from mental illness; a decision still in abeyance.

 

Living the good life, courtesy of the Liberal government introduced legalized marijuana, and the licensing of cannabis shops throughout the country where the 'weed' and products flavoured with cannabis, some in shapes appealing to children were available. Leading to children being seen at hospital emergency rooms having consumed those appealing tidbits. Government argued that commercializing pot's easy availability would see the end of the illegal black market through regulation. Things haven't exactly worked out that way, with seasoned users still buying on the street at prices more than rivalling commercial outlets.

 

 NSLC's lone exclusivity cannabis-only outlet is seen on Clyde Street in Halifax on Thursday, July 2, 2026. The NSLC also operates cannabis dispensaries inside its alcohol selling stores across Nova Scotia. Photo by Tim Krochak /The Chronicle Herald

 

Now a global study recently published in the Lancet Journal of Psychiatry points out that the widespread commercialization of cannabis in Canada has seen an explosion of hospital visit for psychosis, psychiatric disorders, and addictive use of the product. Elsewhere globally where legalized cannabis is available, a tighter regulatory regime has been instituted not involving widespread commercial availability and as a result other countries where pot has been legalized don't face the pot-related problems that Canada does.

 

Titled International Cannabis Policies and Their Association with Cannabis Use, Cannabis Use Disorder, and Other Psychiatric Disorders, the study represents a global research survey of the policy of legalization of cannabis. As such studies go, this is the most recent research that raises concerns over health effects resulting from Canada's 2018 cannabis legalization and the commercialization that followed. 

 

Seniors are among the fastest-growing age group for using cannabis in Canada. Meanwhile, the number of seniors ending up in emergency departments with cannabis poisoning has also risen sharply since legalization, new research shows. (Travis Dolynny/CBC)

 

Most troubling, society has seen teens and young adults to be the most affected. This, when science also warned that up to age 21, the human brain is still maturing, and exposure to the chemicals in cannabis is harmful to that development. A 2019 study published in Lancet Psychology, advanced the result of regular use of strong cannabis (20 milligrams per gram or higher), increases the potential of a psychosis by up to 1,000 percent among teens and young adults.

 

Data from Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. indicates as of 2023 that close to half of its sales were of cannabis products. Those products having a THC content of 20-25 mg/b (10 times stronger than the old weed), 30 percent of sales represented with 24-30 mg/g and just over 10 percent reflected a potency of over 30 mg/g. Further, according to the 2022 Canadian Cannabis Survey, youth in Nova Scotia (age 16 to 19) saw the highest use of marijuana in the country.

 

Halifax's wastewater tests contained the highest rate of cannabis metabolites per capita of any city in Canada. The Canadian Wastewater Survey testing for drug metabolites in wastewater, tracks consumption trends throughout the country. 

 

As pot becomes more potent and more convenient to purchase, emergency doctors are reporting more cases of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome. Photo by Getty Images

 

Canadian Justice: Ease off on Abusers, Leave the Abused to Fend for Themselves

"The only way to make myself feel safe was to remove myself and get as far away from the threat as possible."

"I feel safer here [Mexico] because the person that attacked me does not live here. That's just basic common sense."

"I feel safer because I'm very far away. ... It could have been Germany, it could have been Peru, it could have been the USA." 

Anne Welyki, The Elevate Report 

 

"All eight charges, five in the provincial and three in the federal were stayed against my ex."

"I can't say his name, because it will forever be known as 'alleged' abuse."

"I can't live in Canada anymore, because it's not safe for me." 

Cait Alexander, now resident in California

The caption for this photo posted to X on June 5 reads: "Thank you Pierre Poilievre for taking the time to chat. I would have loved the opportunity to share in detail why I left Canada and how I believe it can be fixed." (Credit: Lioness0817/X)

 

The infamously intractable issues of violence against Canadian aboriginal women has been a matter of shame, but not much mystery in the matter of 'Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women' in Canada. With government vowing time after time that this tragic civilizational assault against the most basic of human rights for women of Indigenous heritage must stop. This is an issue well enough known, that for the most part injuries and deaths and absences of aboriginal women are the result of a cultural abomination, when they are victimized by none other than their intimate partners, aboriginal men.

 

In Canadian jurisprudence it has become a fait accompli that when judging aboriginal men for crimes they must  be viewed through the prism of colonialist trauma. Prison sentences meted out to aboriginal men who commit crimes and are convicted of those crimes must take into account their aboriginal backgrounds and the assumption that they are victims of racism, poverty and lack of opportunities in the white society that colonized Canada thus victimizing the Indian tribes already settled in the country. In penalizing Indigenous men to a lesser degree than their crimes warrant, Indigenous women are doubly victimized.

Assembly of First Nations

 

But this uneven application of the law has also been extended to include people of colour as well as migrants without status. Indigenous men and Blacks are over-represented in Canadian prisons despite that they represent a minority in Canada. Their penchant for committing crimes against society is higher than other groups in society, including the majority. That their numbers are over-represented in comparison to their minority numbers within the population is viewed as a fault in Canadian society, rather than as a possible reading that these groups tend to gravitate in greater numbers to the commission of crimes.

 

To sentence a migrant, refugee or undocumented person in Canada to a prison term long enough for them to be incarcerated in a federal prison is  to consign them to a removal order by Canadian Border Services, leading judges to opt for lesser sentences through the compassionate lens of 'fairness' to a presumed underdog. Invariably all too frequently those who commit criminal acts tend to take advantage of the situation, where bail is also readily available, enabling them to return to the commission of criminal acts resulting in minimal punishment.

 

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre happened to describe an encounter he had with a woman from Vancouver who left the country for her personal safety under duress. At Vancouver International airport the woman had approached Mr. Poilievre to briefly inform him that she had left Canada to escape from an attacker. "You're my favourite Canadian", she told him. Then she described her reason for leaving Canada.  "I said I'd like to come home, and he said, in return 'We're going to get you home'," she later explained during an interview on the podcast The Elevate Report.

 

For his part, Mr. Poilievre mentioned the encounter with an anonymous woman when he responded to a question during a Vancouver press conference about public safety. "I met a lady at the airport the other day who told me that she moved from Vancouver to Mexico so that she would feel more safe", he stated. Online mockery over the statement was quick to follow. Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association wrote on social media: "Of all the things that did not happen, this one did not happen the most."

 

Doubts over the veracity of Mr. Poilievre's statement was raised again when a reporter, after speaking to World Cup fans in Vancouver relayed to him that they felt "pretty safe"; that "data shows that Mexico is far more unsafe than Vancouver". Mr. Poilievre was not to be shaken; he responded that the encounter at the airport really had occurred, that "there are a lot of women who frankly feel very unsafe in Canada today. And there are cases we've had of women testifying before parliamentary committees that they have left Canada because their partner, their violent partner, has been released from prison despite crime after crime after crime." 

 

End Violence Everywhere

Cait Alexander who had testified to the Status of Women Committee in 2024, founded the group End Violence Everywhere. She had been brutally beaten by an intimate partner who was freed on bail the following day. She lives now full-time in California.  

"I left the country for certain reasons and I'm upset about it. I love my country."

"Do you think this would be my first choice. Or do you think I would rather be at home with my friends and family?"

Anne Welyki 

Weight Loss? No Easy Answers

"Usually when a new medicine happens, we have time to learn how to use it. [But with GLP-1 drugs], everyone is kind of iterating in real time." 

"For the first time, we have medications that target obesity at its root, reshaping how the brain and gut regulate hunger and impact metabolism. These breakthroughs are game-changing, but major barriers remain: high costs, insurance hurdles, lack of real-world data in diverse populations, and persistent stigma."

"Both of them [Ozempic and Wegovy] slow stomach emptying. Both of them decrease appetite. Both of them work at the level of the pancreas and at the level of the brain and other organs in the body."

"It is a blockbuster in the works. [The weight loss it produces is] profound [and might be a good fit for people with a very high BMI]."

Dr. Melanie Jay, director, N.Y.U. Langone Comprehensive Program on Obesity 

 

"Not everybody responds to GLP-1." 

"[Other] people are having tolerance to it. … Over time, somebody who responded to Wegovy really well at the beginning, five, 10, 20 years from now, probably will need some other more powerful or different acting medication."

"For somebody who has a lower BMI of 30, this might be overpowering."

Dr. Shauna Levy, medical director, Bariatric and Weight Loss Center, Tulane University, New Orleans 

 

"Just as there are many classes of medications for diabetes or for blood pressure, there will be many different classes that target different mechanisms of the disease of obesity."

"They are all hormones that communicate to our brain. How hungry are we? How full are we?"

Dr. Ania Jastreboff, director, Yale Obesity Research Center

Alvvino

 

World-wide, tens of millions of people take prescribed drugs like Ozempic. A situation that represents a type of real-time experiment offering substantially greater data than would be the case with even carefully controlled clinical trials. Originally prescribed as a weight-loss drug for people with diabetes, the drug has greatly expanded in use beyond diabetes and obesity. Some of the class have been approved for the new purpose of reducing risk of heart attacks and allied cardiovascular issues as well as for the treatment of sleep apnea, severe liver disease, and kidney disease.

 

While the drugs' use has been expanded now to treat a wider variety of health conditions, it is widely acknowledged that it is their weight loss performance that drives their wider use. On the other hand researchers subscribe to the belief that the drugs provide benefits other than weight loss. Leading that  belief is a theory that the drugs' effect diminishes the opportunities for inflammation, involved in many chronic health conditions.

 

Those patients who decide to cease taking the drugs tend to regain weight to a significant degree. Clinical trials of the injectable drugs now in circulation have noted that people lose some 15 to 20 percent of their body weight on average after roughly 72 weeks; numbers supported by other studies. Depending on the drug and the study other real-world  trials indicate average weight loss to range between 8 and 17 percent. 

 

When people  decide to stop taking the drugs it is most often attributed to the result of unwanted side effects, or the costs involved. At least some of the dropped weight will be regained. Records of 180,000 patients underwent an analysis that found over half of those who took semaglutide -- the working substance of Wegovy -- or tirzepatide -- the compound in Zepbound -- retained at least some lost weight or even additional weight two years post-cut-off. 

 

GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and weight loss have proven to be very effective, but they do have side effects. Among those side effects is "Ozempic face," where skin on the face sags and wrinkles. "Ozempic face" was coined in reference one of these drugs, although any rapid weight loss can cause it. Harvard Health

 

Patients stopping use of the drugs frequently select other methods to maintain weight loss, including intense exercise, bariatric surgery or other weight-loss medications, according to Hamlet Gasoyan at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, who studies these drugs. Unexpected downsides can result with many people on the drugs experiencing side effects reported in clinical trials, such as nausea, fatigue and digestive issues like vomiting and diarrhea.

 

With ever greater numbers making use of the drugs, additional concerns crop up, such as "Ozempic breath" (dehydrated patients whose dampened appetites cause them to consume fewer liquids), and "Ozempic face" that results after fat loss leaves a hollowed-out appearance on the face. More serious issues have also emerged with doctors seeing dialled-down appetites sufficiently extreme to end up with some patients developing nutritional deficiencies.

 

The loss of muscle mass in some patients, another issue -- with many young, healthy patients able to recover or preserve muscle by strength training and consuming more protein, according to doctors. Older adults, however become more frail on these medications, and the risk of falls becomes more troubling. There are some who use the drugs who claim to feel more confident, able to exercise and move about with greater ease. 

 

Other patients claim, according to Marie Spreckley, a researcher at University of Cambridge, that they feel emotionally flatter, abandoned by the delight they once held for food, leaving them less connected to the social element of eating with others. Even others report personalities that feel dull, or being left feeling lethargic under the influence of the drugs. 

 

For many years, patients struggling with weight loss were told that success simply required more willpower – eat less, exercise more and the weight would eventually come off. But recent advances in medical science prove it’s often not that simple. The Science of Health

 

Britain's Enduring Shame

"[British and Scottish political parties leery of accusations of racism combined with fear of loss at the ballot box took] precedence over the protection of British children."

"[A recently launched official government inquiry into grooming gangs may be a time-waster and there is] no guarantee that it will adequately address the politically sensitive ethnoreligious nature of the phenomenon." 

Rape Gang Inquiry Report, Britain

Woodhouse says she became pregnant at 14 and was forced to have an abortion. When she became pregnant again at 16, she was allowed to keep the child. Photo supplied/Woodhouse

 

Chaired by British MP Rupert Lowe, and led by survivor Sammy Woodhouse, the Rape Gang Inquiry Report has exposed the horrors of systematic grooming and sexual exploitation of mostly white British girls, by predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs. It has been a shocking open secret for years that vulnerable white British girls have been used and savagely sexually abused by these grooming gangs, and though there have been citizen-calls to formally investigate the situation and put a stop to it, while prosecuting the malefactors, nothing was done for far too long.

 

It took a widely-publicized campaign by one of the world's most recognizable names, when the wealthiest man in the world wielded his own notoriety to highlight the assaults on young British girls, demanding that Great Britain finally respond to the human rights outrage and rescue any future victims from the fate that had befallen their earlier counterparts, to hone international outrage. The squeamishness of British government agencies including politicians, to confront the issue head on admitting that it was Muslim men who were persecuting, mocking and grooming female children for sex reflected an unwillingness to be labelled 'racist' and perhaps worse in their opinion, 'Islamophobic'.  

"[A pre-release briefing states of the inquiry that it is required to] consider how the ethnicity, religion and culture of both perpetrators and victims may have influenced offending patterns, as well as institutional responses to abuse."

"Men of Asian ethnicity are over-represented as perpetrators in group-based child sexual exploitation." 

Official Government Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs  

Undeniably, Muslim Pakistani grooming gangs in towns and cities across the United Kingdom have been engaged in the grooming and exploitation of young girls in Britain. On June 15, the 219-page independent report titled the Rape Gang Inquiry was released, a crowdfunding project where a campaign raised 794,677 pounds, thanks to over 20,000 Brits who responded to fund the inquiry. In the report, stories of girls systematically groomed as young as 11 by gangs were recorded.

 

More than 800 recommendations relating to grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation and abuse dating back to the 1990s have been identified by the inquiry. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters

 

Befriended, introduced to alcohol and drugs, young girls were often taken from schools and care homes to be subjected to repeated rape, gang rape, trafficking and torture.  In some instances girls in the throes of sexual abuse were recorded on video, informed they were 'white trash'. Miscarriages, forced abortions were endured by girls whose rapes resulted in pregnancies. Other young girl who gave birth had them taken by the state, while yet others were taken to the Middle East to be part of arranged marriages.   

"[Over 250,000 girls were trafficked since the first recorded case in 1955], when four Bradford-based Pakistanis were charged with raping a 15-year-old girl from Middlesbrough." 

Rape Gang Inquiry Report  

Sammy Woodhouse was groomed at age 14 by a 24-year-old, Arshid Hussain, ringleader of a Pakistani-heritage child exploitation gang. Neither the police, social services, the National Health Service nor schools intervened at any time to rescue girls and to spur investigations into the ongoing abuse. Anyone who did make an effort to report the rapists were labelled racists or Islamophobes. The gangs acted with complete impunity. Urged to launch an inquiry the Labour government refused, until sufficient pressure was exerted to acquiesce.

 

When the government did launch an official independent inquiry, it was handed 65 million pounds to get the job done by March 31, 2029. The inquiry has not been given prior specific instructions on ethnicity, religion or any similar identifying demographic. Whereas the Rape Gang Inquiry Report tackles the issue head on, adding that the grooming gangs represent an immigration screening problem. 

 

Ethnicity data was found not to have been recorded for two-thirds of grooming-gang perpetrators, according to a 2025 audit examining available national databases and police data. This was highlighted by Baroness Casey of Blackstock in the audit. All the Casey report's recommendations have since been  accepted by the British government. It is yet too early to discern whether politicians will revert to their usual catering to groups in their constituencies in avoidance of being labelled racist and Islamophobic.  

Victims as young as 10 – often those in care, or children with learning or physical disabilities – being singled out for grooming precisely because of their vulnerability.

Perpetrators still walking free because no one joined the dots or because the law ended up protecting them instead of the victims that they had exploited.

Deep rooted institutional failures, stretching back decades, where organisations who should have protected children and punished offenders looked the other way - and Baroness Casey found “blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions” all played a part in this collective failure.

Baroness Casey audit

Deadly Haemorrhagic Fever Outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo

The latest outbreak of the Ebola virus in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—the country’s 17th since 1976—has resulted in more than 1,000 confirmed cases and over 250 deaths. The number of cases has risen faster for this outbreak than any other Ebola outbreak to date. The Red Cross says that the epidemic has not yet peaked and could last a year. The United States Centers for Disease Control projected the outbreak could reach at least 20,000 cases in a worst-case scenario without intervention. Areas at greatest risk are nearby provinces in eastern DRC, neighboring South Sudan, and the border regions of Uganda.

The outbreak is concentrated in northeastern DRC, with more than 97 percent of all cases in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu Provinces. Only 19 cases have been reported in neighboring Uganda, and they are largely associated with individuals who traveled from the affected regions in the DRC. Uganda’s public health system has actively responded to the outbreak—both in Uganda and across the border in the DRC—by supporting surveillance, testing, and care.

In addition to the lack of a proven vaccine for the Bundibugyo variant, the current Ebola response is particularly challenging because of the region’s remoteness and the ongoing insecurity caused by dozens of armed groups operating in the area. The outbreak is estimated to have circulated within the community for weeks—and possibly months–before it was detected and confirmed on May 15, 2026. Now, public health officials are racing to contain the spread, provide care, trace and monitor contacts, and deploy public health messaging campaigns throughout the region and neighboring countries.

Africa Center for Strategic Studies 

Health officials and humanitarian workers undergo temperature screening and handwashing before entering an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara, Ituri. (Photo: AFP/Jospin Mwisha)

 

 

"[Figures on the number of patients who have recovered and those being treated, as well as deaths, indicate 297 people who tested positive are unaccounted for]. This is a concern that we have. Where are these people?"

"[30% of new cases are among known contacts of confirmed cases, indicating] huge, huge community transmission." 

"[Bed occupancy in Ebola treatment centres is at 95% and] we didn’t reach the peak yet."

"[Camps in which displaced people were living] have cases, and because we don’t have access to these camps, we cannot have the contact tracing. We cannot have a photo of what’s happening there."

"We cannot stop this outbreak, without resolving the humanitarian issue."

Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

In a little over a month after the Ebola epidemic was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over 300 lives have been lost to the virus. Spreading through direct contact with bodily fluids, the deadly viral disease causes severe bleeding and organ failure in many of those morbidly afflicted. Out of 1,115 confirmed infections since its detection as an outbreak on May 15, 304 people have died in the Congo. This represents a mortality rate of 26.3 percent, according to the National Public Health Institute, an increase from the 202 deaths confirmed on June 18. At that time, the African Union's health agency confirmed 875 infections with a mortality rate of 23 percent.

 

The deadly haemorrhagic fever outbreak has yet to peak and it may continue to wreak havoc for up to a year as efforts to contain it are pursued, cautions the Red Cross. Hopeful news came in the form of  an announcement by Congolese authorities in early June that treatment of seven Ebola patients had resulted in a cure for that number. This is the 17th epidemic to wreak havoc on the huge, destabilized central African country. There are no approved vaccines or treatment for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus implicated in this latest Congo outbreak. 

 

Health workers disinfect a coffin at Kigonze displaced persons camp in Bunia, DRC last week. More than 1 million people live in similar camps to which health workers have no access. Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters

 

 The situation has been hugely exacerbated by the fact that Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, the three outbreak-afflicted provinces in eastern Congo, have been for the past three decades mired in conflict resulting in miss displacement of people. A total of a million people living in refugee camps, many inaccessible to health workers, are vulnerable, given the circumstances. Neighbouring Uganda has employed successful containment measures after the outbreak spread there. Twenty confirmed cases were reported countrywide, including two deaths, since May 15; those infected mostly Congolese nationals travelling to Uganda.

 

A French-Congolese doctor working in the Congo for the international medical aid NGO ALIMA, became the outbreak's first confirmed case of Ebola outside Africa, France reported. Despite which according to the World Health Organization, there is minimal risk of the virus spreading in Europe, and no need to declare travel restrictions, which still led Air France to suspend all flights for several days to Kinshasa.

 

The mineral-rich province of Ituri is where the vast majority of Congolese cases have been detected; an area plagued with unrest linked to a bevy of rival armed groups causing frequent population movements. Creating the perfect storm to hasten the spread of the disease where over 91 percent of all infections have been registered in the provincial capital, Bunia, along with over 82 percent of all deaths. 

 

Health care facilities in Ituri lack basic equipment and supplies, including personal protective equipment and chlorine. Clinics organized by the WHO and aid agencies, are close to being overwhelmed by ebola patients. Up to 78 health care workers were infected with the virus, 18 of whom died of its effects. To complicate matters even further, leading to preventable transmission, medical aid workers have been confronted with deep mistrust from local communities.

 

Families which have demanded that hospitals release the bodies of the deceased, failing to comprehend that even touching the body places them at risk of contamination. In such environments, the readily-communicable virus is set to thrive as it moves from host to victim. 

 

Dz’na Lipe Jean‑Marie, secretary of Kpangba displacement camp in the DRC, holds an Ebola awareness session on 13 June 2026. Photograph: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere/Reuters