Category Archives: Life Extension

Families are the heart of our communities and educational programs serving the needs of Texas families are at the heart of the work carried out through Texas Extension Education Clubs that is a part of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. Extension Education clubs provide members with opportunities for education, leadership and community service.

Parker County Extension Educations Clubs meet regularly for educational programs and community service. These activities strengthen our community by providing information that focuses on family, education and service. The clubs meet monthly from September through May for education, fun and fellowship.

Some of the major activities Extension Education club members are involved in include club, county, district and state activities. These include Home for the Holidays, Spring Fling, cooking schools, workshops, fun and games, educational trainings, community service, district, and state conference and more.

There are three clubs in Parker County. You are invited to come be a part of these groups.

Country Crossroads Extension Education Club meets the third Thursday of each month at 9:30 a.m. They meet in members homes and various locations. Contact: 970-424-2596 or 817-597-8192.

Bethel Harmony Extension Education Club meets the second Tuesday of each month, September through May. They meet in members homes or at the Harmony Baptist Church. Contact: 817-454-5096 or 817-682-412-6384.

Springtown Extension Education Club meets the second Wednesday of each month at 10 a.m. They meet at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center in Springtown. Contact: 817-343-1337 or 817-614-7773.

Parker County Extension Association meetings are the first Thursday of every other month from October through August at 10 a.m. at the Parker County Extension Office. Contact: 817-598-6168. These are meetings where the club presidents, council delegates and association officers meet. All members and guests are invited to attend and participate in these meetings.

There is always an opportunity to organize new clubs in the county. If you are interested in a club in your community or neighborhood, the Parker County Extension Office can provide you help in getting started. If anyone and their friends would like to organize a club, there is help from members from other clubs. Just call the Parker County Extension Office.

For questions or more information about the Parker County Extension clubs, call the Parker County Extension Office at 817-598-6168.

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Get involved with Parker County Extension Education Clubs - Weatherford Democrat

Editors note: The following information was provided by UW-Madison Extension.

WeCOPEis designed to help you discover strategies that will help you to become more aware of the mind-body connection and gain skills to respond to stress you may experience in your daily life. You will learn several skills such as mindfulness, positive reappraisal, savoring, and gratitude, among others.

WeCOPEisa 7 session,evidence-based program that helps adults cope with life stress.WeCOPEis based on the work ofDr. Judith Moskowitzand has been shown to reduce stress and depression, increase positive affect, and improve health behaviors in randomized trials.Dr. Moskowitzs workis based on the research that even in the context of life stress such as serious illness or death of a loved one, positive emotions can and do occur and have unique coping correlates and adaptive consequences.

Our workshops are designed with you in mind. We offer multiple opportunities for you to reflect on your personal life and circumstances and share with other participants if you would like. You will never be asked to disclose anything that you do not want to share. We also offer opportunities for you to practice with mindful breathing and meditation. We encourage you to engage where you feel comfortable.There is no role playing or mandatory sharing in our workshop. We welcome you to attend just as you are for each session.

You can attend this FREE classes from the comfort of your home or wherever you are, as the class will be offered via Zoom, and participants will be able to connect via computer or dial in by phone. The program will take place Mondays and Thursdays11 am Noon September 9th 30th2021. Please register atgo.wisc.edu/WeCOPEkrw.

If you have any questions please contact:

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension provides affirmative action and equal opportunity in education, programming and employment for all qualified persons regardless of race, color, gender, creed, disability, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marital or parental, arrest or conviction record or veteran status. To get additional contact information for your local Extension office, go to http://counties.extension.wisc.edu.

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UW Extension: It's been a tough last year WeCOPE Program to be offered FREE virtually! - whitewaterbanner.com

By using a Charitable Unitrust Remainder Trust (CRUT), philanthropic minded donors can gift to a charitable cause while maintaining a lifetime benefit. A CRUT is an irrevocable agreement that will provide an income stream to the donor or a named beneficiary for life or a term of years. At the end of this period, the trust will pay the remainder to a designated charity, donor-advised fund, or private foundation.

A CRUT pays a fixed percentage of at least 5% of the trusts value to the income beneficiary, which is redetermined annually. That means that the payout from a CRUT is adjusted each year as the value of the trust assets go up or down.

Various assets such as cash, stock, securities, real estate, and even artwork can be funded to a CRUT. Certain assets like shares in a S corporation are rarely funded to a CRUT in order to avoid jeopardizing S corporation status. Also, a CRUT can accept additional contributions after the initial funding of the trust.

A CRUT is an excellent vehicle for gifts of appreciated stock or property because the trust is tax-exempt and does not pay capital gains tax on the sale of assets. The full sales proceeds remain in the trust to provide a payout to the income beneficiaries, which is generally taxable to them.

One benefit of a CRUT is that the donor will receive an income tax deduction in the year the trust is funded. This deduction is based on the present value of the interest that will pass to the charity in the future. If the CRUT is funded with cash, the donor can claim a charitable deduction of up to 100% of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) in 2021, with the extension of the charitable contribution provisions of the CARES Act (typically the limit is 60%) Furthermore, if the donor cannot use the whole deduction in the year the trust is funded, the deduction may be carried forward for five years.

A CRUT can be designed for the particular asset being gifted to the trust. There are two variations to a standard CRUT:

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Extension of CARES Act Incentives Relating to Charitable Giving: Planning with a Charitable Unitrust Remainder Trust (CRUT) - JD Supra

As the hustle and bustle of the Lawrence County 4-H Fair season ended in July, August is always a time of reflection.

The Lawrence County Junior Fair has impacted the lives of at least 550 4-H and FFA youth, yearly, for many summers.

Throughout their 4-H project experience, youth learn life-skills, responsibility, commitment, leadership, communication, etc. Then, they showcase their project at the county fair.

Extension staff, youth and volunteers reflect by contributing their thoughts on the 2021 4-H Fair Season:

The Junior Fair board shared they feel Together. 4-H offers a feeling of togetherness through displays of sportsmanship and leadership in all events at the county fair. The Junior Fair board provides an opportunity for teens to connect from all over the county sharing a similar passion. Together, they work to get the fair ready. Together they celebrate one anothers accomplishments and together they continue the traditions of 4-H!

Parents and volunteers share they feel as though they are part of a Family. The 4-H families come together as one family each year, often cooking together in the campground, celebrating their kids together and having fun together. The camaraderie of this group leaves a lasting impression on all lucky enough to be a part during the fair season.

The OSU Extension, 4-H Youth Development educator and staff feel thankful as the office provides leadership and organization to the Junior Fair division of the county fair.

It takes many hands to design and manage the events built to encourage 4-H members and volunteers to excel, learn, grow and have fun. 120 4-H volunteers give their time, energy and expertise to encourage confidence, skill building and personal development.

Many other community members dedicate their time, knowledge and experiences to evaluate the many 4-H projects exhibited during the fair and provide feedback for potential growth.

Community businesses and other supporters contribute financially to the success of our youth and their projects at our 4-H Showcase, 4-H Project Silent Auction, Junior Fair Board Sweet Tooth Auction and the Junior Livestock Sale.

OSU Extension, 4-H Youth Development in Lawrence County is grateful for the many contributions of all involved and the Lawrence County Agricultural Society for their continued partnership to allow our youth the opportunity to make the best better.

Rachel Fraley is the OSU Extension Educator for Lawrence County.

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Rachael Fraley: After bustle of the fair, is time for 4-Hers to reflect - The Tribune | The Tribune - Ironton Tribune

This week the world has witnessed the stunning, historic takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban forces, marking a dramatic end chapter to roughly two decades of American-led war.

As recently as May, the United States maintained a network of bases across the country, supporting the government it had backed for nearly 20 years in an ongoing war. This week, the number of troops deployed by the United States has quadrupled from the 2,500 it was in May. Meanwhile, the area of US control has shrunk to just Hamid Karzai International Airport, where the United States is overseeing evacuations of foreigners and vulnerable populations out of Afghanistan.

The flights out have seen heroic feats, like the C-17 transport that carried out hundreds of people. There have also been fresh tragedies, with Afghan witnesses reporting between three and four people falling from the outside of a plane, before crashing onto houses near the airport. Human remains were also found inside the wheel well of a C-17 after it landed at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, according to an Air Force spokesperson.

The airport, located in the countrys largest city and capital, is named for the long-serving former president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, a government that existed in July and may not anymore. The Taliban, a group that once ruled most of the country and waged a decades-long insurgency to reclaim it, proclaimed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan today.

The shocking events are the latest chapter in a war that saw the direct arrival of American troops in October, 2001, when the United States arrived leading a multinational invasion against the Taliban. This invasion followed the 9/11 terror attack by al Qaeda on the United States, which was planned and coordinated from training camps inside Afghanistan.

[Related: The Taliban have seized crucial US military equipment, including data on Afghans]

But for Afghans, their long years of war began far before that, with a palace coup in 1979, which then led to a decade-long occupation by the Soviet Union, who fought that entire time against a coalition of armed insurgents in Afghanistan. After the USSR left in 1989, regional warlords fought and factions coalesced, with the Taliban consolidating their control over most but not all of the country by 1996.

With an advance timed to the planned and negotiated US withdrawal from the country by September 11, 2021, the Taliban swept from a position controlling roughly a third of the country at the start of 2021 to virtually all of it by August 16, 2021. The week of August 9 to August 16 alone saw cities capitulate so quickly one after another that media reports and maps of the conflict became outdated within hours of publication.

Over the nearly two decades of direct US involvement in this war, between the eras of Taliban rule, over 170,000 people were killed in the violence. These numbers include an estimated 66,000 Afghan national military and police, and estimated 51,000 Taliban and other insurgent fighters, and a minimum of 47,000 Afghan civilians. (A higher estimate, by the Costs of War project at Brown University, places the total dead in fighting that spanned Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan at 241,000 people, with at least 71,000 of those civilians.)

Observers are still figuring out what led to the rapid collapse of the Afghan National Defense Forces, which came just over a month after the United States had vacated the massive Bagram Air Base it used to headquarters much of the war effort. It is a rout with both immediate and likely much deeper seeded origins. The consequences of that abrupt end, from feared reprisals to the diminished futures under a deeply different vision of government, have led to a rapid exodus from the country, especially among Afghans who worked with the United States.

The rapid advance of the Taliban, from partially contested territory to seemingly total sovereignty over the whole of the country, is the second such rapid advance by soldiers in the country since October 2001. That first advance, by the US and allies and in support of other militias opposed to the Taliban, took place from October through December 2001.

In February 2002, PopSci took a look at the machinery of the US war in Afghanistan. Titled War Report, it was written as troops were on the ground and phase 1 of the war was ending.

As the likely last phase of the US role in the war in Afghanistan draws to a close, it is time to revisit those weapons. The story of the war is much more than the machines used in fighting itwars are prosecuted by people, of coursebut the machines matter because they are a broader part of that process. Looking at how the weapons were used and heralded on their first use in the war in 2001 offers some insight into what changed, and what didnt, in the intervening decades of combat.

Five aircraft were featured prominently in War Report for their role in the dawn of the war. Many of them are still flying today, at the sunset of the war.

The Air Forces longest-serving bombers were already old by the start of the October 2001 invasion, and are now practically ancient. As War Report acknowledged, the newest of the B-52s used in Afghanistan was built in 1962, long before many U.S. airmen were even born.

In the 2002 story, the B-52 is stated as capable of unloading up to 37,000 lbs of bombs in one run, while a 2019 Air Force fact sheet says the capacity is now up to 70,000 lbs of weapons, counting bombs and missiles. The Internal Weapons Bay Upgrade program is largely responsible for that increased capacity, and is just one of a host of life-extension upgrades for the plane. The B-52 fleet still regularly sees service, including an attempt to halt the Taliban advance across Afghanistan as recently as August 6.

Also flying above the skies of Afghanistan this August were AC-130 gunships, which first flew into action against the Taliban in 2001. Operating almost like an 18th-century ocean-going ship, the AC-130U Spooky gunships that flew in 2001 had three big guns sticking out of the left side of the craft, which it would fire while circling people, buildings, or vehicles below. These weapons include a gatling gun for use against light vehicles (like trucks), an anti-aircraft cannon that can be fired at longer range than the gatling and with somewhat more accuracy, and a howitzer artillery piece, used to destroy buildings.

The Air Force formally retired the AC-130U gunships in 2019, replaced by the similar AC-130J Ghostrider. The Ghostrider features a similar array of guns, and adds to that package several bombs and missiles, including the Hellfire missile common on armed drones.

Alongside the B-52s and AC-130 gunships that attacked Taliban forces this summer were MQ-9 Reaper drones, the direct descendant of the more-famous Predator drone. (The lineage is so direct that Reapers flown by Customs and Border Patrol are known as Predator-Bs.) In 2001, Predators flew above Afghanistan.

Predators had seen war before, flying above Bosnia and Kosovo and other countries in the Balkans in the 1990s. In fact, Predator drones based in Uzbekistan even flew over Afghanistan in the summer and fall of 2000. These Predators were operated by both the Air Force and the CIA, and were unarmed surveillance planes, useful for directing other aircraft to a target but incapable of launching attacks with weapons of their own.

Arming Predators with anti-tank hellfire missiles, which were lightweight and fast and could kill clusters of people as well as destroy vehicles, fundamentally changed the role of drones in the war. By February 2002, remote pilots using Predator drones had successfully launched fatal attacks against people linked to al Qaeda in Afghanistan, a role Predators would pursue there and above countries like Yemen and Somalia for years, until all Air Force Predators were retired in March 2018, with their job replaced by Reapers. (The Gnat, an even earlier drone that led to the Predator, was also flown over Afghanistan in 2001).

The Global Hawk is as massive as drones go, and capable of flying for over 30 hours continuously. (As a remotely piloted vehicle, that means switching remote pilots multiple times while the Global Hawk is airborne.) The cameras on the Global Hawk allow it to scan vast sections of terrain, letting one vehicle keep watch over entire battlefields.

Global Hawks are still in use today; one older model was famously shot down over the Strait of Hormuz near Iran in 2019. The Air Force is actively trying to retire more of its older models in less dramatic ways, though Congress has prevented that effort out of a concern that the absence of surveillance by these drones would impede US missions. Beyond cameras, the Global Hawk drones use high-resolution radar to track movements below.

Looking like a business jet with a long bulge underneath the fuselage, the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JointSTARS) is a modified Boeing 707 jet. The E-8C saw action in the 1991 invasion of Iraq. Its flight crew of four keep the plane airborne, while a mission crew of people across the Air Force and Army operate the sensors inside. The long radar built into the belly of the craft is the chief tool of the plane, and it can look for vehicles moving on the ground up to 150 miles away.

The radar system acts much like a VCR in the hands of one of the 18 operators onboard the plane, said Popular Science in a phrase that perfectly dates the story to 2002, who can fast-forward through images recorded during the previous 6 hours or run them backward to show, for example, where a column of vehicles originated.

Radar is built to track movement, so if a vehicle stops moving, the human crewing the radar can record the stop for when movement starts again. Once the E-8Cs arrived over Afghanistan in 2001, they stayed in the broader Middle East for 18 years, moving on to other theaters and other missions in 2019. The Air Force plans maintenance and upgrades to keep the fleet flying into the 2030s.

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The US weapons of war in Afghanistan, explained - Popular Science

New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS): As the heart-wrenching images from Kabul airport went viral in the media, the Afghans living in India were anxiously praying for the well-being of their near and dear ones in their home country. While there cannot be any measure for their trepidation and pain, there was some solace at having secured a dignified life and social security in India, a country which embraces diversity with love and warmth.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there were approximately 40,000 refugees and asylum-seekers registered in India in 2019. At 27 per cent, Afghans were the second-largest community amongst them.

Most of the Afghan refugees living in India are concentrated in New Delhi. The capital's Lajpat Nagar, a colony originally built for partition refugees from Pakistan, acts as a home for many Afghans. Those living here seem to have integrated themselves into the local customs and traditions, part of India's rich and syncretic cultural heritage.

Men wearing Pathani salwar kurtas and women clad in abayas can be seen here, expressing themselves freely without any inhibitions. Additionally, the Afghan community has also become an important part of the local economy, running restaurants and stores, flocked by people, with signboards written in both English and Dari languages.

With the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, however, the "Afghan colony" in Lajpat Nagar and Bhogal that has many shops, travel agencies and restaurants catering mostly to Afghan students, medical tourists and refugees are in the grip of fear with people making desperate enquiries about each other's families back home. Though most of them do not want to go back home, the worry for the safety of those left behind is not letting them sleep.

Today, there are over 16,000 Afghan students pursuing higher education in India, and during the last two decades, over 60,000 graduates, post-graduates and other professionals have returned to Afghanistan after completing their training in the country.

For the 150 Afghan students presently studying in Osmania University in Hyderabad, the conquest by Taliban has almost dashed their hopes of returning to their homelands. They form the majority of around 200 Afghan students in Telangana out of which 10-12 students are females. These students have now started enquiring about the extension of their Indian visas.

Also, 92 Afghan students studying in the University of Mysuru have already sought for an extension of their stay in India, as they feel safer here.

Interestingly, out of 2,000 visa extension applications from international students, over 1,300 were from Afghans. Media also reported a plea by President of the Afghan Students Association, Md Yousaf for the urgent extension of visas. "We request the Indian government to extend the visas and provide some financial help," he said.

Then there are students stuck in Kabul who want to return to India. With the Indian Embassy closed, the students are desperately hoping for a window to escape.

In the past, India has also provided refuge to several Afghan leaders and their families during times of conflict. Afghan chief negotiator Abdullah Abdullah's family currently lives in India and others such as former President Hamid Karzai have also lived and studied in the country.

This time too, the country is trying to provide refuge to Afghan citizens facing threats or fearing persecution from the Taliban.

Among those who are likely to be granted refuge are political leaders, activists, human rights workers, media personnel, and members of minority communities. In this direction, India has already announced a new e-visa system to fast-track applications amidst this grave humanitarian crisis.

Some big political names have already landed in India during the last few days. These include Wardak MP Wahidullah Kaleemzai, Parwan MP Abdul Aziz Hakimi, MP Abdul Qadir Zazai, Senator Malem Lala Gul; former MP and Karzai's cousin Jamil Karzai, Baghlan MP Shukria Esakhail, Senator Mohamamd Khan, former Finance Minister Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal, former Vice-President Younus Qanooni's brother Mohammad Sharif Sharifi, MP Mariam Solaimankhail, and Senior Advisor to Afghanistan's Upper House, Qais Mowafaq.

The people-to-people relationship between Afghanistan and India is centuries old. This makes India a unique place for vulnerable Afghans who managed to escape from the misery of the war that has gripped their homeland. The compassion and understanding they find prevailing in Indian neighbourhoods is difficult to match when compared to other countries.

They have also witnessed the development brought up by the humanitarian assistance provided by India for the reconstruction of their homeland in all provinces, cutting across ethnic lines. As per official estimates, the total Indian assistance to Afghanistan is estimated at $3 billion during the last twenty years. Going beyond the economy and by extending the hand of friendship, India has always been a partner to Afghanistan. Naturally, the country offers solace for the vulnerable people escaping from the persecution of Taliban. It has done so in the past and is committed to do so in these turbulent times too.

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Escaping war: Persecuted Afghans finding solace in India - Daijiworld.com

As we watch the tragedy of Afghanistan continue to unfold, thousands of Cambodian refugees in America and across the globe are freshly triggered by scenes of Taliban fighters toting AK-47s in truck beds, victorious smiles etched on their faces, and of over 800 terrified Afghans crouching elbow-to-elbow in an American C-17 meant to transport less than a quarter of that number.

The events in Afghanistan over the past week have evoked comparisons to the U.S. war in Vietnamperhaps most poignantly, the infamous scramble to evacuate the embassy in Saigon in 1975. But just a few weeks prior to that, the U.S. also evacuated its embassy personnel from Cambodias capital city of Phnom Penh, just 140 miles to west, as Communist Khmer Rouge soldiers closed in, preparing to take power.

Those refugees who were able to escape with American colleagues on April 12, 1975, as well as those like my family who fled by sea five days later, saw history repeating itself this week. The echoes can be heard not just in the years of failed U.S. intervention and the mad dash to get out, but also in the new lives that many refugees, scarred both by what they saw and what they will not be able to witness unfolding back home, are about to begin.

For the Afghans who are lucky enough to leave, if their experience turns out like mine, what will follow them out of their burning country is survivors guilt and the kind of trauma that will live not only in their minds and hearts, but in their bodies. They will need to make a new life in a country where some will welcome them with open arms and others will treat them as outsiders. I know. It happened to me and my family.

On April 17, 1975, it was my family jostling to find space aboard an overcrowded Cambodian naval ship when the U.S.-backed Lon Nol government capitulated to the Khmer Rouge. Because my father worked as an accountant in the Cambodian Navy, our family was allowed one of the coveted spots on the U.S.-made vessel. Then-President Richard Nixon, with Henry Kissinger as his secretary of state, had illegally extended the Vietnam War into neighboring Cambodia, bombing villages along my home countrys border in an effort to rout Vietcong and Khmer Rouge soldiers. But the American pilots often missed, obliterating villages and killing hundreds at a time; as many as 500,000 Cambodians had died in Americas secret bombing campaign by 1974.

I was a baby when I was severed from my homeland. Growing up in the safety and beauty of a small town in Oregon, where strangers filled our apartment refrigerator with food and volunteered to help my parents and relatives find jobs, and enroll us kids into school, I nonetheless felt the weight of my familys escape from war. I felt it in the way my mothers whole body heaved with grief when news arrived in the 1980s of relatives who had died in the genocide. (The Khmer Rouge killed about 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.) I felt it in my fathers absence from our lives as he dedicated all of his energy and evenings to filling out immigration forms to bring survivors of the genocide to America. I felt it in my mothers sense of indebtedness to the United Statesa complicated debt toward a country that bombed ours, but then allowed us asylum so we could start new lives.

In America, my parents trauma became mine, passed down like inheritance. My mother keeps three freezers full of discount meat, rationalizing that we must always be preparedbut I know its because hunger hunted her for the 23 days we spent at sea. I do the same, relentlessly anxious there will not be enough food. My father and I both flinch when we hear a sunglass case slam shut, simple, everyday sounds that come into our ears too much like the pop of shots going off. Trauma rivets itself to both memory and muscle. When my mother called on Monday, I felt the fear that had lodged somewhere deep inside her all those years ago when she, like the Afghan women she saw on the news, was clutching a baby and a bag and sprinting for safety.

That traumaand a relentless need to tell the story of warwas one of the reasons I became a journalist. Thats how I found myself in Kabul in 2008. I worked with media professionals in a training program focused on building investigative reporting skills. After class, the female students nervously approached me and whispered into my ear: the Taliban left another night letter, threatening their lives for doing the job of a man. They kept coming to my trainings and writing their stories anyway.

Over the past week, my mother and I have lost sleep for different reasonsher, because the memories of fleeing Cambodia have raced back, crystal clear; me, because I worry about her and how she is being triggered, and about the female journalists I worked with in Afghanistan, who showed me a deeper kind of courage, who are now among the Talibans top targets.

Soon, the news cycle will shift, the images of a crumbling Afghanistan replaced by the next natural disaster, the next pandemic, the next war. For Americans who have never had to flee their homes, whose hearts do not reverberate with the thud of bombs and staccato of gunfire, this day, these images are easy enough to forget. For refugees, like me and my family, it is one more reminder of the elongated limbs of war, how it reaches greedily across the years, contaminating subsequent generations with trauma.

I think about the disorientation and dislocation the Afghan refugees may feel, and worry about the discrimination they may face as they begin to settle in communities across the U.S., particularly when our nation remains so polarized over issues of immigration. I fear that as they begin new lives in America, they will one day learn of the human catastrophe unfolding back home and weep helplessly, as my mother did.

I grew up in a culture that gave my parents, and by extension me, no outlet to convey the stress and strain of starting over in a foreign country and the homesickness that comes with being a refugee. I grew up in a family that lacked both the vocabulary and license to speak of topics like depression and PTSD, even though I eventually found my way to these words that described the chaos and conflict inside of me. In bigger cities, like Seattle, culturally sensitive support groups were set up to help Cambodian refugee women process their emotions and experiences of war. But where I grew up, such programs did not exist.

I hope for Afghan refugees who arrive in America, there will be a place or a person to help them process the pain of being torn from their country and loved ones.

Im buoyed when I hear from a friend there is already a sign-up to volunteer to help Afghan refugees who have arrived in recent days in Washington State. I sign up and spread the word.

You must go, my mother says. People helped and welcomed us.

Let it be this way then, that we do all that we can to help and welcome the Afghans who must make new lives in our midst, far from home. It is the least we can, and the thing we must, do.

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Opinion | My Family Fled Cambodia as the Americans Evacuated. Here's What I Hope for Afghan Refugees. - POLITICO

It was a conversation with a farmer about his imperfect patty pans that struck Professor Suzan Oelofse about how food is wasted in South Africa.

Oelofse, a principal researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), was doing research for a study that she led, which shows how in South Africa an estimated 10.3-million tonnes a year of edible food does not reach peoples stomachs.

This farmer sells patty pans, which grow quickly once the fruit starts forming, she says. They harvest [from] Monday until lunchtime on Saturday and every day the patty pans are the same size. But by [the following] Monday morning, theyre sometimes nearly double the size because now a day and a halfs growth has happened.

These patty pans are too large for retailers, Oelofse says.

They want 10 or 12 per punnet that they can package because this is what they perceive the consumer wants. The over-sized ones are either donated or sent to the informal market where they sit outside in the sun, so the shelf-life is shortened and they often go to waste.

Oelofse says consumers have been trained by retailers to demand perfection and uniformity in shape, size and colour.

I always say that people tend to forget that fresh fruit and vegetables dont come out of a factory with a mould for only round tomatoes or straight cucumbers.

Although she has sympathy with retailers, because a bunch of crooked cucumbers dont fit easily into a crate and this makes it difficult to transport, Oelofse believes South Africa can do a lot more to improve its supply chain.

According to the study, which was funded by the department of science and innovation, South Africas food waste is equivalent to 34% of local food production, but because the country is a net exporter of food, the losses and waste are equivalent to 45% of the available food supply.

This also has economic, environmental and climate implications.

Sixty-eight percent of this wastage unfolds in the early stages of production, with 19% occurring during post-harvest handling and storage and 49% during processing and packaging. Cereals contribute half of the overall losses and waste, followed by fruit and vegetables (19%), milk (14%) and meat (9%).

A lot of the fresh produce is diverted to animal feed, which is a win-win in a way, but if you consider the amount of people that still go hungry, then you cannot justify diverting food waste to [animal] feed rather than to consumers, Oelofse says.

Globally, food production must increase by 70% by 2050 to meet the demand. Yet nearly one third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year.

The environmental effects of food waste in the country are staggering, she says. If you take into account all the food produced for consumption that is not consumed, it means that all the input material to produce that food is also wasted. That includes the water, the energy, and the diesel that is used on farms, and all the emissions associated with the entire supply chain.

The decomposition of wasted food disposed of at landfills generates methane, a greenhouse gas more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change.

You also have the potential for water and air pollution and we are running out of landfill space, especially in the big metro areas.

The study shows how food waste in the consumption stage has soared from 5% in 2013 to 18% in 2021. According to the CSIR and the department of forestry, fisheries and the environments food waste prevention and management guideline for South Africa, on average each person in Johannesburg disposes of 12kg of food a year into the municipal bin, and in Ekurhuleni it is 8kg a person a year.

The bulk of our consumers sit in urban areas. We dont produce our own food and buy it in the shop, Oelofse says. We are further removed from the farm. Then you also sit with the consumer buying food without using a shopping list or sticking to it and falling for the specials, like the buy four for R100.

This sounds cheap but people dont realise that these special offers are a way for the retailers to avoid food waste at the retail level and they are therefore pushing it to the consumer who often ends up wasting it.

Food is wasted because people are not aware of its implications, Oelofse says. The moment you start thinking about food waste in your own household, you think differently about how you handle food and how much you buy, to try to avoid unnecessary wastage. Best of all, in the end you save yourself money.

Retailers Shoprite, Woolworths and Pick n Pay are aligned to the United Nations sustainable development goals, specifically with goal 12.3, which aims to halve global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along the food chain by 2030.

The Shoprite Group told the Mail & Guardian that it recognises the social, environmental, and economic effects of food loss and food waste in the regions where it operates.

Apart from the social issues related to food losses and waste in a region where significant numbers of people go to sleep hungry, Shoprite acknowledges the wastage of embedded resources (water, energy, land, labour and capital), and the generation of greenhouse gases from landfilling of food waste.

The group, it said, adopts a hierarchical approach in dealing with food losses and food waste, reviewing our entire value chain, from research and design, and sourcing to consumption (that is, from farm-to-fork) to identify opportunities to reduce food losses and waste.

This includes collaborating with other organisations equally committed to addressing the challenges and training and developing people across the organisation to become champions in the reduction of food losses and food waste.

Shoprite is a core signatory of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africas food loss and waste voluntary agreement. Pick n Pay and Woolworths, too, are core signatories of the agreement, which was launched in September 2019 to drive a sustainable commitment from local food manufacturers, distributors and retailers to prevent and reduce food waste.

Shoprite said as its data analytics develop, we are able to identify food waste hotspots and intervene to reduce food waste.

In the past year, it had made great progress in reducing food waste by optimising the range of products offered in our delis. After analysing customer behaviour, it removed foods that showed no appeal to customers and subsequently created food waste. We removed 60% to 70% of low-volume lines, the company said, explaining how this cut food waste in its delis by 11%.

Its bakeries, too, have shifted from large-batch production in its stores to buying high-quality frozen products that only require baking. This enables us to bake smaller batches, which guarantees freshness, availability and less food waste.

To improve its forecasting and ordering capabilities in fresh fruit and vegetables, the group reviews its range seasonally, helping to reduce food waste year on year.

Various business departments have worked together to implement an advanced forecasting model, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically place accurate replenishment orders for individual stores based on a multitude of event parameters and predictive analytics. The objective of the project is to forecast future demand and make sure that what stores order reflects real customer demand. This will ultimately reduce food waste.

Employees are trained to refrigerate perishables, frozen produce, fruit and vegetables and convenience products within 10 minutes of delivery, while employees in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal have been trained on surplus food donations in the last year.

Through this training intervention we have seen an increase in the amount of surplus food donated Our delis use cooking oil in high volumes, which is sent to a centralised location where it is converted to bio-diesel.

Organic waste from its stores and distribution centres are increasingly managed through on-site composters and off-site biodigesters, which provide a clean and simple solution to managing organic and wet waste.

The Shoprite group donates surplus food that is fit for consumption daily. It creates an environmental benefit by reducing waste and a social benefit by alleviating hunger. Reusable surplus food collection boxes are used to transport food, helping to further reduce the environmental impact of food waste.

It set a target of supporting 450 local beneficiary organisations with R100-million in surplus donations, including non-food donations. We are proud to have met these targets by supporting 452 beneficiary organisations with donations to the value of R138m in the last year. These donations have enabled the Shoprite Group to provide more than 40-million meals in the last year, from 29 million meals in 2020.

Donations reduce food waste, but wastage often occurs at the agricultural level in the groups supply chain. Its fruit and vegetable procurement and distribution arm, Freshmark, has started to link beneficiary organisations directly with fresh produce suppliers. In the last year, Freshmark facilitated direct donations to the value of R1.6 million to 11 beneficiary organisations.

Pick n Pay spokesperson Tamra Veley told the Mail & Guardian: As a retailer with thousands of suppliers and millions of customers, we are mindful of our broad reach and the environmental impact we have across our value chain.

To reduce food waste, Veley said, Pick n Pay is reducing excess food in its stores and working with food suppliers to upscale collective efforts to reduce food waste. In our previous financial year, Pick n Pay diverted more than 60% of all waste from landfills, reduced our food waste year on year by 20% and donated more than 800 tonnes of food to NGOs.

It has a range of initiatives to prevent food waste, which includes more accurate replenishment, better cold chain management and several shelf-life extension projects. A key deliverable is to ensure that food that has passed its sell-by date, but not its expiry date, is donated to registered beneficiary organisations.

To support collective change, Pick n Pay, Veley said, takes part in local and international initiatives that align with the 12.3 goal. Pick n Pay was the first South African retailer to sign up to the 10x20x30 Food Waste initiative launched in September 2019. The initiative brings together more than 10 of the most influential retailers globally and involves working closely with at least 20 of their largest suppliers towards a 50% reduction in food loss and waste by 2030.

Woolworths told the M&G that as part of its Good Business Journey, the company is committed to finding ways to reduce food waste and promote food security. This includes, but is not limited to, our surplus food programme in stores and across our supply chain from our farms and factories working in partnership with our suppliers and local NGOs.

We adopt the food waste utilisation hierarchy, which prioritises food utilisation and food waste avoidance or reduction in the first instance, and secondly the redistribution of surplus food for human consumption. Our goal is to ensure that no edible food should end up in a landfill.

Useful tips

Check your refrigerator and cupboard to identify what you already have ;

Make a shopping list (in conjunction with meal planning);

Stick to the shopping plan;

Avoid impulse buying;

Buy from small local shops or grow your own food;

Buy seasonal food;

Buy small amounts; and

Avoid buying in bulk.

Best-before labels indicate the date at which the product is at its optimum quality. According to the Foodstuff, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act, products may be sold and consumed beyond this date.

The sell-by date is the last day on which the product should appear on a store shelf. It is safe to consume the product beyond this date if it looks and smells fine, but care must be still taken that it has not spoiled due to broken packaging or because the cold chain was interrupted.

Source: Food waste and prevention management guideline for South Africa

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South Africa wastes 10 million tons of food a year - Mail and Guardian

MELBOURNE (Reuters) -Newcrest Mining Ltd said on Thursday it had committed A$246 million ($181.4 million) to expand open pit mining at its Telfer operations in Western Australia, which will extend the operations for at least two years.

Australias largest listed gold miner said in a filing it had entered into a contract for work to proceed from one pit to the next at the gold, copper and silver mines in the states remote Paterson province.

This... is an investment in Telfers future which will ensure the operation is able to continue for at least the next two years, Chief Executive Officer Sandeep Biswas said.

With additional drilling, we believe there is the potential for further mine life extensions in the open pit and the underground beyond this time.

Telfer hosts the largest gold processing facility in the states remote Paterson Province where it produces gold dor and a copper-gold concentrate, and has capacity to process more.

But as the open pit mines have neared end of life, concerns have grown that its processing facility would run out of feed and become uneconomic.

The announcement signals increasing confidence around Newcrests big exploration find Havieron, which is nearby, said RBC in a note, which could feed into the Telfer processing circuit and lengthen its life.

We believe this opens up long-term optionality with Havieron and potential mine-life extension (at Telfer). The announcement today flags NCMs confidence in Havieron, it said in a report.

RBC values Havieron at around A$800m or ~A$1/sh for its 60% share in the project, which it owns with London-listed Greatland Gold and in which it can earn up to a 70% interest if it meets certain commitments.

Production stripping for the cutback will start next month, with first ore production expected to be delivered to the Telfer mine in March 2022, Newcrest said.

The announcement comes weeks after the miner reported a 5.4% drop in its June quarter output, following unplanned downtime at its Lihir mine in Papua New Guinea.

($1 = 1.3561 Australian dollars)

Reporting by Tejaswi Marthi in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Michael Perry

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Australia's Newcrest invests $181 million to expand open pit at Telfer mine - Reuters

If 100 is already the new 80, what about living till youre 150 years old? Growing up, my dad, a doctor obsessed with the idea of immortality, would tell how his grandparents back in Lebanon had lived well past the 100-year mark. How? They simply ate well, he used to say, as if their secret was no mystery at all. But back in the mid-19th century, they were the exception to the rule: People generally died much, much earlier.

Today, as humans continue to lust after any number of material and immaterial objects, scientists are researching radical life extension technology like never before. Amazing, right? Lets see. Read on to learn about the great, the weird and the downright costly behind our quest for eternal existence.

Editors note: OZYs all about bringing you the new and the next . . . in fresh ways. Were trying a new look for your favorite newsletter to make your experience even more delicious. Please share your thoughts on the new look below.

Probably. Think about it: 200 years ago, there was no such thing as an active 90-year-old. Fast forward 20 decades, and photos of people breaching the 100-year barrier have become almost routine. Vaccines, antibiotics and a better understanding of what is good for our bodies and minds have taken us far. By 2050, the U.N. estimates there will be 3.7 million centenarians around the world, a major bump from the nearly 600,000 today. How can we push our biological clocks even more, keeping our minds sharp and bodies healthy for longer? One departure is to treat aging as an illness. Thats right. A tribe of scientists, including Steven Austad, a biologist at the University of Alabama, says the key to drastically longer life lies in altering the processes that prevent our very molecules from growing old.

Scientific progress looks promising. Experts have already successfully applied an antifungal used during organ transplants to extend the lives of mice. Just think what that might mean for a human. Thats not all. A string of revolutionary health treatments on the horizon is poised to change how our bodies deal with aging. Heard of a pill that mimics the benefits of exercise? Or drugs that trick our internal clock into thinking its younger? How about nano-robots that find and destroy disease inside our bodies and cell reprogramming? The future of anti-aging medicine is mind-blowing. But dont rush to your doctors office just yet. Despite such theoretical advances, some experts believe our bodies have a built-in expiration date. Not to mention theres a host of issues preventing humans from living longer that must be tackled, starting with poverty, violence, pollution, climate change and traffic accidents.

Can you imagine what you would do if you could live your peak years your 20s and 30s, say over and over? Maybe we use the [extra] years to reimagine the trajectory of life, just like we did 100 years ago, when we invented childhood and retirement, Austad said in a TED Talk. John Davis, a philosophy professor at California State University, Fullerton, brings a similarly philosophical lens to the question. I think people get wiser as they get older, he tells OZY. Given time and life experience, people become more patient, more aware of what a wise choice and a foolish choice looks like, and less violent. So we might find that a society that lives longer is a better society.

Now for the bad news. Increased pressure on already overstretched global health care systems and an inadequate supply of jobs, food and housing are just some of the challenges we face if we were to live for as long as wed like. Longer, healthier lives translate to expanding populations worldwide, a change the planet might not be able to withstand. We are already facing the consequences of overpopulation, Davis says. Its called climate change. The solution there remains controversial and might require something more radical than eternal life.

Outside the lab, futurologists have been putting forth their own takes on life extension. But be warned: you would need deep pockets to access them. Ray Kurzweil, a resident futurist at Google a company currently investing in the study of aging claims that by 2029, medical advances could start adding an additional year, every year, to peoples life expectancy, at least to those who can afford it. Researcher Aubrey de Grey posits that by 2036, many people with access to the right therapies (e.g., working to make our molecules younger) could avoid aging-related diseases or maladies entirely. Is there a catch? Unfortunately, yes. To reach the 150-year-old mark, you might need to live in an environment free of stressors and a wad of cash to cover what will be costly treatments. Tempted by whats being offered by Libella Gene Therapeutics, which claims to reverse aging by up to 20 years? Be prepared to fork over a whopping $1 million.

The price tag may be shocking, and it points to another disturbing truth: Longevity is set to become the new standard-bearer of inequality. And its not strictly a rich-country-versus-poor-country distinction, or even race, which is a major determinant of life expectancy in the U.S. A study by Northwestern University in Illinois found that Americans with a higher net worth at midlife live longer than their poorer counterparts. Even among brothers and sisters, those with greater wealth tend to outlive their siblings. Thats even taking into account identical genetic profiles, meaning the only factor that separates them is money.

Unless, that is, you happen to live in one of the worlds blue zones: a select group of countries in which people have been living longer for reasons unrelated to their bank account. Take Nicoya, for example. Centenarians in this lush Costa Rican peninsula say their secret to a long life is robust social networks and strong family ties. On the other side of the world, Japans super-senior citizens claim that healthy diets and exercise have paved the way to a lengthy and happy existence. Even if Kane Tanaka, the worlds oldest person at 118, admits she loves chocolate and soda. Money, however, can play a role. Just look at Monaco, the uber-wealthy principality where residents live on average to nearly 90 years old.

Dont live in any of those places? Dont despair. Someday there may be another option for those who want to live a lot, lot longer: Upload your consciousness, Black Mirror style. While we are still far from transferring our minds onto a chip, Artificial Intelligence advances could make this sci-fi-sounding proposition a reality. Some people have already signed on to a program to freeze their brains and bodies in liquid nitrogen coffins to preserve the essential parts of their personalities. Cryonics preserves the body until science has progressed to a point where a person could be reanimated and cured of whatever diseases they suffered from. In 2016, a 14-year-old girl with a rare form of cancer won the right to be cryogenically frozen after she died, in the hopes shell be brought back to life once a cure for her disease is discovered.

Yeah, we all know this one. Harvard researchers have found that increasing the amount of red meat you consume may, in some cases, raise the risk of early death. Participants in the experiment who increased their meat consumption by just half a serving per day (around 1.7 ounces) over eight years had a 10% higher risk of dying over the subsequent eight-year period. The studys authors also claim a significant benefit to replacing a portion of your weekly meals with non-meat options. Its not just good for you, its good for the planet. But Jeralean Talley, who lived to 116, might prove the authors wrong. This American super senior told Time in 2013 that one of the secrets to her longevity is a pork-rich diet, especially pigs ears and feet.

Walking an extra 1,000 steps a day could increase your chances of living a long life, according to the American Heart Association. The benefits of incorporating walking into your daily routine were consistent across people who took one long stroll and those who opted for shorter bursts throughout the day. That included going shopping or walking to your car. Heading out for a walk should be a priority for everyone, especially now that remote work is forcing many to park their butts for long stretches. Each increase of 1,000 steps was linked to a 28% decrease in the risk of early death.

When American Loreen Dinwiddie died in 2012 at age 109, she was the worlds oldest vegan. She credited her diet for helping her reach that milestone and for giving her a pep in her step. Its well-known that eating greens keeps you healthy day to day, but it also helps you live longer. Consuming five servings of fruits and veg every day translates to a 13% lower risk of early death. But dont despair, some fun is also allowed. Misao Okawa, the oldest person on the planet before she passed away in 2015 at age 117, said the secret to her long life was simple: eating delicious things including sushi and noodles.

You keep me young isnt just a sweet phrase. A study by researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine in 2014 found that late motherhood can lead to a longer life for women who delivered their last child after 33. In fact, they are twice as likely to live to 95 than those who had their last kid by 29. Furthermore, the New England Centenarian Study, published in 2014, concluded that women who bore children after turning 40 were four times more likely than younger mothers to reach 100 years old. Theres a caveat, though: Just delaying pregnancy wont make you live longer; growing old depends on your genes too. Read more here.

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What Does It Mean to Live Forever? - OZY