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Washington Watch

Dirty, deadly and no cleaner legacy from Rio Games

By Brad Brooks

io de Janeiro’s air is dirtier and deadlier than por- trayed by authorities and the Olympics’ prom- Rised legacy of cleaner winds has not remotely been met, an analysis of government data and Reuters’ own testing found. Brazil declared in its official bid for the Olympic Games, which open on Friday, that Rio’s air quality was “within the limits recommended by the World Health Organization.” That was not true when Rio won the right to host the Games in 2009 and it is not true now. Rio for years has surpassed WHO limits for the most dangerous air pollutant - called particulate mat- With Khans, has Trump finally gone too far? ter (PM) - spewed from millions of vehicles clogging the city’s roads. Thousands die annually in Rio’s metro- By Lisa Lerer maintain our dignity,” even as the couple kept up a round father of a Marine, Pence said Sunday that he and Trump politan area of 12 million people because of complica- of TV appearances. Said his wife: “My religion or my family believe Capt Khan is a hero and his family “should be cher- tions related to the air. People exposed to the pollu- n a defensive crouch, complained yes- or my culture never stopped me from saying what I want ished by every American.” Last week, Pence said Russia tion have higher risks of lung cancer, heart attacks, terday about being “viciously attacked” by the father of to say. I have all the rights as a wife, as a mother, as a would face “serious consequences” for meddling in US strokes, asthma and other diseases. “This is definitely Ia decorated Muslim Army captain killed in Iraq, persist- daughter.” At last week’s convention, Khizr Khan criticized elections at roughly the same time Trump appeared to not ‘Olympic air’,” said Paulo Saldiva, a University of Sao ing in an emotionally charged feud that has left him Trump for proposing to freeze the entry of foreign encourage it, telling reporters he would welcome Russia Paulo pathologist and member of the WHO committee increasingly isolated among fellow Republicans. Trump Muslims into the US and accused him of making no sacri- unearthing emails that Democratic nominee Hillary that set tougher global pollution standards in 2006. broke a political and societal taboo over the weekend fices for his country. Clinton deleted from the private servers she used while “A lot of attention has been paid to Rio’s water pol- when he criticized Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the bereaved Both House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority secretary of state. lution, but far more people die because of air pollution parents of Capt , who was awarded a Leader Mitch McConnell issued statements over the week- Pence’s statement late Sunday came after an afternoon than the water,” he said. “You are not obligated to drink Bronze Star and a after he was killed in Iraq end praising the couple’s son. Though neither mentioned of debate among his aides as to whether he should find a water from Guanabara Bay but you must breathe Rio’s in 2004. Trump stoked outrage by implying Ghazala Khan Trump, the congressional leaders pointedly denounced his way to dissociate himself subtly from Trump’s comments, air.” Rio’s contaminated Olympic waterways have drawn did not speak while standing alongside her husband at proposed restriction on foreign Muslims, a policy he had according to a person familiar with the internal campaign attention as the city suffers endemic levels of gastroin- last week’s Democratic convention because she is a altered in recent weeks. The episode risked setting back conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity testinal diseases from a lack of sewage collection. Muslim woman. whatever progress Trump made during his convention at because the person was not authorized to discuss them Reuters recently reported that Rio’s Olympic water ven- The outcry has been swift and bipartisan. Yesterday, winning over the independent voters who will probably publicly. At last week’s Democratic convention, the ues and favorite beaches also tested positive for drug- Republican Sen John McCain said in a statement that the be key in the fall election. -born Khizr Khan told his son’s story, questioned resistant “super bacteria.” fact Trump won his party’s nomination doesn’t give him Yet he’s repeatedly made inflammatory statements at whether Trump had ever read the constitution and said But there has been no talk of Rio’s air pollution, “unfettered license to defame those who are the best little apparent political cost - and sometimes to his benefit “you have sacrificed nothing.” During the speech, Ghazala three-quarters of which is caused by exhaust fumes among us.” McCain added pointedly: “I’d like to say to Mr - going back to the beginning of the campaign when he Khan stood quietly by his side. from the 2.7 million vehicles on its roads, according to and Mrs Khan: Thank you for immigrating to America. challenged the heroism of McCain, a prisoner of war in Trump responded in an interview with ABC’s “This Rio state’s environmental protection agency, Inea. Its We’re a better country because of you.” Trump tweeted Vietnam, and branded Mexican immigrants rapists and Week,” saying: “If you look at his wife, she was standing data shows that since 2008, Rio’s air has consistently yesterday that “Mr Khan, who does not know me, viciously criminals. Many of his supporters have been drawn to his there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she been two to three times above WHO’s annual limit for attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over tendency to say the politically unthinkable. The question wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.” Ghazala Khan PM 10 - so called because the particulate matter has a TV doing the same.” He said the focus should be on “radi- is whether this, finally, is a step too far. wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post that she did not speak diameter of 10 microns or less, seven times smaller cal Islamic terrorism,” not the parents. For the second time in a week, Trump’s running mate, because talking about her son’s death remains difficult. than that of a human hair. That means Rio has the dirti- Khizr Khan told CNN yesterday that “We want to be out Indiana Gov Mike Pence, issued a statement that appeared “Every day, whenever I pray, I have to pray for him, and I est air of any Olympic host city since scientists began of this controversy. That is not our style. ... We want to designed to put some space between the two men. The cry,” she wrote. — AP consistently tracking PM 10 in the late 1980s, with the exception of Beijing in 2008. Tania Braga, head of sustainability and legacy for the Rio Olympics organizing committee, said, “When Sole Afghan woman gov in a man’s world you talk about air quality, it cannot be judged on PM data alone, and Rio’s other pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide are comfortably within By Anuj Chopra problems too,” he said, setting off a ripple of titters. “We Ebbing international donor funding has exacerbated WHO’s limits.” Though accurate, Saldiva said “the health really are worried about men’s rights.” Muradi’s struggles. “Anyone in that position - man or damages associated with PM pollution are the most urrounded by male advisors and condescending woman - would struggle with dwindling resources,” said severe of all pollutants” and, because of that, Rio’s air is “mansplainers”, Masooma Muradi holds her own Sexist Wisecracks Habibullah Radmanesh, Daikundi’s deputy governor. For of poor quality. The WHO says on its website that “PM Sagainst a deep underswell of sexism in a society “Paying lip service to women’s empowerment is one his part, Ghani has appointed four female ministers since affects more people than any other pollutant,” that out- unaccustomed to women exercising authority. Breaking thing but real empowerment comes with deference to a he came to power in 2014, risking political capital. Last door pollution caused 3.7 million premature deaths new ground as Afghanistan’s only female governor, woman leader’s authority,” the UNDP official later said, year, for the first time in Afghanistan’s history he nominat- worldwide in 2012 and that those deaths were due to Muradi’s ascent to the top post in remote Daikundi referring to Muradi’s struggles. Muradi, who holds a degree ed a woman to the supreme court, but when she was exposure to PM 10. The UN body did not respond to province is a remarkable feat in Afghanistan, where stub- in business administration but lacks political clout, stands rejected by parliament he appointed a man instead. He requests for comment on Rio’s air quality. born patriarchal traditions are at odds with progressive in strong contrast to warlords and strongmen who govern also dismissed the only other woman governor, of central Using the WHO’s methodology on estimating ideas about a woman’s place in the world. But barely a year other provinces amid a deep-rooted system of patronage Ghor province, after protests from religious conservatives. mortality, Saldiva calculates some 5,400 people died in after President Ashraf Ghani appointed Muradi, her job politics. The antipathy towards her, observers say, high- “To genuinely give women a role in governance, Ghani Rio because of air pollution in 2014, the most recent hangs by a thread, with growing calls for her ouster from lights not just sexism but also clashing political interests. needs to push forward when he encounters opposition,” year that data is available. By comparison, Rio’s infa- religious conservatives and opponents. Daikundi is among the most challenging of said Heather Barr, a women’s rights researcher at Human mous murder levels resulted in 3,117 deaths last year. It highlights the travails of being the only woman in an Afghanistan’s 34 provinces to govern. Cut off from the out- Rights Watch. “This hasn’t been happening.” There are fears From 2010 to 2014, metropolitan Rio had an annual overwhelmingly male preserve. “People claim to be open- side world by heavy snow for several months of the year, its that Muradi might meet the same fate. But she can count average PM 10 reading of 52 per cubic meter of air, minded but many cannot bear having a woman in this meagre almond harvests, mainstay of the local economy, on the unbridled support of at least one person - her hus- according to Inea statistics. The WHO’s limit for the position,” Muradi, 37, told AFP, sinking into an overstuffed are dependent on the brutal vagaries of weather. Rampant band. Late one evening, after Muradi returned home, Khalil annual average is 20. sofa in her office in the capital Nili, decorated with faux joblessness is a ticking time bomb and most development Hashem walked into the room and said something you Jamie Mullins, a professor of resource economics sunflowers and a large portrait of a pouting child. “I won’t plans are just on paper. “There are schools but most don’t would seldom hear an Afghan husband, traditionally blind at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, estimates allow men to hush me up - society is not used to that from have buildings, there are hospitals but many don’t have to domestic details, say to his wife: “Dinner has been that for every 10 units above the WHO limit on PM 10 a woman,” she added. doctors,” said Haji Rasouli, a grocery seller in Nili. “I support served.” But he has also been at the receiving end of sexist levels, track athletes across all events see their per- Barely five feet tall, Muradi’s diminutive frame and soft women’s empowerment but will having a woman governor wisecracks. “People call me her secretary, her baby sitter,” formances diminished by 0.2 percent. Mullins based demeanor belies her steely instinct for survival. The moth- solve all these problems?” he said. “But I am very proud of her.” — AFP that calculation on an examination of nearly 656,000 er-of-two was handpicked by Ghani in Kabul to lead results from U.S. track athletes over eight years, and the Daikundi, a mosaic of rolling hills and boulder-strewn air pollution during each. ridges in central Afghanistan, hemmed in by insurgency- During the Beijing Olympics, the PM 10 level was wracked provinces. But protests erupted even before she 82 - well above Rio’s. When London held its Games in arrived in Daikundi, with political opponents - almost all 2012, the PM 10 level was 23, government data men -pillorying her lack of governance experience. showed. The PM level was 44 during the 2004 Muradi has since managed to hold on to the job, but Olympics in Athens, 24 in Sydney in 2000 and 28 in the resentment was palpable when she recently stepped Atlanta in 1996, said Staci Simonich, a professor at out in Nili with AFP, trailed by Kalashnikov-toting guards. Oregon State University who published a 2009 study “Useless,” one man barked as she passed by. “Maybe she on pollution at the Beijing Games. — Reuters should be a governor just for women,” another growled.

Boys’ Club Women have made giant strides since the Taleban All articles appearing on these regime was ousted in 2001, but they are still so absent from public life that the pages are the personal opinion of #WhereAreTheWomen has gained traction in Afghanistan. the writers. Kuwait Times takes no “The attitudes throughout Afghanistan still are such that not everyone is ready to be governed by a woman,” said responsibility for views expressed Douglas Keh, Afghanistan country director at the United therein. Kuwait Times invites read- Nations Development Programme. “Women leaders need all the support they can get,” he added. ers to voice their opinions. Please Daikundi’s administration has long been a boys’ club, which was apparent at a recent provincial council meeting, send submissions via email to: opin- attended by more than a dozen men but just one woman. [email protected] or via snail Swaddled in a blue scarf, she sat at the edge of the room doodling on the sofa upholstery using her finger as an mail to PO Box 1301 Safat, Kuwait. imaginary pen. When she tried to talk, the man chairing The editor reserves the right to edit the meeting stuck his palm up to make her stop. Only when a woman UNDP official attending the meeting asked any submission as necessary. for her view, was she able to speak. “I recently replaced a This photograph taken on May 11, 2016 shows Afghan Hazara tribe female governor of Daikundi province man in the provincial council,” she began. A council mem- Masooma Muradi walking in a bazaar in Nili, capital of Daikundi province. — AFP ber interjected with a smirk. “Say something about men’s