NEW DELHI: New Delhi’s homeless will be given cotton masks to help them survive in the world’s most polluted major city, officials said Monday, although experts said the basic coverings would be useless against deadly smog particles.
Each winter the capital of 20 million chokes through haze so extreme that levels of airborne pollutants eclipse safe limits by more than 30 times.
The poor and homeless suffer the worst, through constant exposure to a toxic brew of car fumes, factory exhaust and construction dust.
Measures to curb the smog — from reducing heavy goods traffic and firecrackers to banning farmers from using fire to clear their fields — have failed to clear the skies.
Bipin Rai from Delhi’s city government told AFP that 10,000 face masks would be given “to homeless families, women, patients and children as pollution levels are on the rise.”
But experts said these masks offered little to no protection against the most poisonous pollutants in the air — particles known as PM2.5 so small they can penetrate the heart and cardiovascular system.
“These masks are redundant, as fine particles harmful to the human body will not be filtered out,” Vivek Chattopadhyay from the Center for Science and Environment told AFP.
“It is ineffective, and the government should instead offer medically approved masks.”
Rai, from Delhi’s Urban Shelter Improvement Board, defended the scheme.
“Has any expert who is commenting on the masks and their durability tested them? How can they comment on something they’ve not tried,” he said.
Levels of PM2.5 measured by the US embassy in Delhi on Monday showed readings hit 378 — more than 15 times safe limits.
The World Health Organization last year said exposure to air pollution killed 600,000 children around the globe every year.
Tiny particles in the air can be absorbed into the bloodstream and have been linked to chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and heart disease.
The report found that children in poorer countries are far more at risk, with a full 98 percent of all children under five in low- and middle-income countries exposed to PM2.5 levels above WHO air quality guidelines.
Delhi homeless to be given masks as smog worsens
Delhi homeless to be given masks as smog worsens
- The poor and homeless suffer the worst, through constant exposure to a toxic brew of car fumes, factory exhaust and construction dust
- Delhi government said 10,000 face masks would be given “to homeless families, women, patients and children as pollution levels are on the rise”
Trump pays respects to 2 Iowa National Guardsmen and interpreter killed in Syria as they return home
Trump pays respects to 2 Iowa National Guardsmen and interpreter killed in Syria as they return home
- The two guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware: President Donald Trump on Wednesday paid his respects to two Iowa National Guard members and a US civilian interpreter who were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, joining their grieving families as their remains were brought back to the country they served.
Trump met privately with the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before the dignified transfer, a solemn ritual conducted in honor of US service members killed in action. The civilian was also included in the transfer.
Trump, who traveled to Dover several times in his first term, once described it as “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.
The two guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and have been hailed as heroes by the Iowa National Guard.
Torres-Tovar’s and Howard’s families were at Dover for the return of their remains, alongside Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and leaders of the Iowa National Guard. Their remains will be taken to Iowa after the transfer.
A US civilian working as an interpreter, identified Tuesday as Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, was also killed. Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were injured in the attack. The Pentagon has not identified them.
They were among hundreds of US troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Daesh group.
The process of returning service member remains
There is no formal role for a president at a dignified transfer other than to watch in silence, with all thoughts about what happened in the past and what is happening at Dover kept to himself for the moment. There is no speaking by any of the dignitaries who attend, with the only words coming from the military officials who direct the highly choreographed transfers.
Trump arrived without first lady Melania Trump, who had been scheduled to accompany him, according to the president’s public schedule. Her office declined to elaborate, with spokesperson Nick Clemens saying the first lady “was not able to attend today.”
During the process at Dover, transfer cases draped with the American flag that hold the soldiers’ remains are carried from the belly of a hulking C-17 military aircraft to a waiting vehicle under the watchful eyes of grieving family members. The vehicle then transports the remains to the mortuary facility at the base, where the fallen are prepared for burial at their final resting places.
Iowa National Guard members hailed as heroes
Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, has said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out.” He said Howard had wanted to be a soldier since he was a boy.
In a social media post, Bunn, who is chief of the Tama, Iowa, police department, said Howard was a loving husband and an “amazing man of faith.” He said Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, would escort “Nate” back to Iowa.
Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” family-oriented person who always put others first, according to fellow Guard members who were deployed with him and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.
Dina Qiryaqoz, the daughter of the civilian interpreter who was killed, said Wednesday in a statement that her father worked for the US Army during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Sakat is survived by his wife and four adult children.
The interpreter was from Bakhdida, Iraq, a small Catholic village southeast of Mosul, and the family immigrated to the US in 2007 on a special visa, Qiryaqoz said. At the time of his death, Sakat was employed as an independent contractor for Virginia-based Valiant Integrated Services.
Sakat’s family was still struggling to believe that he is gone. “He was a devoted father and husband, a courageous interpreter and a man who believed deeply in the mission he served,” Qiryaqoz said.
Trump’s reaction to the attack in Syria
Trump told reporters over the weekend that he was mourning the deaths. He vowed retaliation. The most recent instance of US service members killed in action was in January 2024, when three American troops died in a drone attack in Jordan.
Saturday’s deadly attack followed a rapprochement between the US and Syria, bringing the former pariah state into a US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group.
Trump has forged a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.
Trump, who met with Al-Sharaa last month at the White House, said Monday that the attack had nothing to do with the Syrian leader, who Trump said was “devastated by what happened.”
During his first term, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a US Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.
