Robin McKie’s article rings alarm bells for world well being and our failure to manage airborne pathogens (“What virus will trigger the following pandemic? It’s flu, say scientists”).
We’re rightly trying with concern on the unfold of H5N1 and the chance it poses to people, however we’ve nonetheless not utilized the hard-won classes realized from Covid 19. Whereas all businesses and consultants now (belatedly) admit to Covid’s airborne unfold, little or no has been completed to make indoor areas safer for us all, and the clinically weak specifically, for whom retailers, workplaces, eating places, and even medical settings have turn into high-risk areas.
With new Workplace for Nationwide Statistics information exhibiting 2 million individuals reporting lengthy Covid, we have to get up to the necessity to enhance indoor air high quality via higher air flow, filtration or UV disinfection. This needs to be excessive on the agenda of the negotiating group crafting the pandemic settlement, to be unveiled at subsequent month’s World Well being Meeting. However it stays silent on these important public well being protections. With out world dedication to motion (and accountability) we’ll proceed to be weak to waves of lethal and debilitating illnesses, with disastrous penalties for society, economic system and well being companies.
Desmond Whyms
Le Dresnay, Côtes-d’Armor, France
Marching to a distinct tune
Fifty years in the past, I used to be in Portugal (“How Portugal’s 1974 Eurovision entry toppled the nation’s fascist regime”). Two weeks into a brand new job, driving to Faro to choose up my spouse and child daughter on the airport. Greeted by tanks on the runway blocking plane touchdown and Angolan troopers with mirrored sun shades brandishing AK47s within the arrivals terminal.
There was nothing on the radio a couple of pop music linked to the revolutionary left. The rallying name of the revolution was A Life on the Ocean Wave, the anthem of the Royal Marines. I do not know why. On 25 April 1974 that was performed repeatedly on the radio, and for a lot of days after. Each time there was a hearsay of a counter coup, A Life on the Ocean Wave was broadcast on state-controlled radio, mobilising shotgun-armed farmers within the Alentejo and Algarve to blockade roads to Lisbon and mobilising college students armed with AK47s in Lisbon to profession across the streets in military vans. Everytime you heard the anthem, it was time to remain residence along with your head down.
Christopher Walton
Launceston, Cornwall
In negativity, no person wins
Stewart Lee is spot on (“Andrew Neil must be extra Vorderman, much less Voldemort”). The rationale this world is in such a multitude is completely because of greed, ignorance, lack of religion in ourselves, poverty, overbreeding and worship of cash. The humanitarians are doing their greatest to climb mountains. The charities are saving lives. George Monbiot is elevating consciousness of the accountability all of us should handle the planet.
The factor all of us have is a capability to create. If we select positivity and good works, we flourish. If we wallow in negativity, no person wins. Finally, all of us have a possibility to decide on life, well being and happiness over dying and destruction. The one actual energy we’ve is our signature, and our skill to vote. Contemplate your personal conscience and your personal household and associates. Don’t settle for the lies advised with out checking the information. The world can do higher.
Julie Taylor
Kippax, Leeds
The Observer has traditionally been the automobile and stimulus for a lot of modifications for the higher within the UK. May you not provoke a motion to ask Stewart Lee to be accountable for, you recognize, all the things?
Brian Smith
Berlin
Denim, legacy of empire
“Does this portray show denim predates Levi’s by 200 years?” asks your article. Denim is a legacy of empire. Removed from being western, the origins of denim return to India within the sixteenth century to the port of Dongri, from the place we get the phrase dungarees. Sailors on the ships utilizing Dongri wore this hardwearing blue cloth and the manufacturing of cotton and indigo on this a part of the world was primarily by slave labour. This was fantastically depicted by The Singh Twins of their piece entitled Indigo: The Color of India as a part of their Slaves of Style exhibition (2018).
Jenny Payne
Colchester
Change debt assortment regulation
On condition that the elemental precept of English regulation is that one is harmless till confirmed responsible, ought to debt assortment businesses not be required to show past all affordable doubt their accusations in opposition to individuals whom they declare owe cash (“Unregulated ‘id tracers’ harass individuals for money owed they don’t owe”)? One remembers the tragic case of Beryl Brazier, who was falsely accused and harassed by one such company over a debt and in 2012 was pushed to suicide. Whereas regulation of debt assortment businesses is to be welcomed, a change within the regulation is required instantly.
Chris Waller
Bristol
Why the silence on Qatar?
Thanks to Kenan Malik for mentioning the shutdown of the congress for Palestine in Berlin on 12 April (“Left silences proper, proper silences left. However censorship stops us pushing for change”). As a German nationwide, I discover it troublesome to consider how little protection the shutdown and the muzzling of Yanis Varoufakis was given within the German media. I additionally discover it stunning how little protest there may be in opposition to the state of Qatar, which is fortunately giving refuge to the leaders of Hamas. The place are the calls to close down ties with Qatar for supporting Hamas? Or is it that there’s simply an excessive amount of capital concerned in Qatar and due to this fact Qatar is past criticism?
Dr Britta Kleinsorge
Cambridge
A royal improvement too far
Rowan Moore’s article on Faversham is just not the primary and I concern won’t be the final (“Is Kent prepared for the following Poundbury?”). In the previous few years, the city has grown enormously; in actual fact, it’s encircled by new developments. I’ve at all times revered King Charles’s foresight on environmental points, however to construct a Poundbury mark 2 on our city’s boundary, utilizing up but extra productive land, is a travesty. With Poundbury, some extent has been made as to how new developments could possibly be. Go away it at that.
With respect to his majesty, he’s not a property developer, nor ought to he be.
Carol Isern
Faversham, Kent
Warring households
(“When royals marry amongst themselves, it brings an surprising peace dividend”). Nonetheless, the case of Queen Victoria and her grandchildren proves the converse; it didn’t forestall Russia and Germany going to struggle in August 1914 adopted by Britain.
Andrew Hudson
Ulverston, Cumbria
Elementary, my expensive Rodney
In “Revealed: the following Sherlock Holmes writer, with a twist within the story”, Vanessa Thorpe compares the longevity of Holmes and his deerstalker with the now unrecognised “boxing gloves of Rodney Stone” (one other Doyle hero). Not stunning, Stone was a bare-knuckle fighter. I ought to know; I used to be named after him by my late father, Fleet Avenue legend, Peter Wilson.
Rodney (Steve) Wilson
Wantage, Oxfordshire
