THE LOST ART,2014

THE LOST ART

The daily star news

 

Once celebrated around the world for their creations, the artisans of Dhaka are now forgotten and neglected. This week the Star tries to find out how these artisans are still struggling to survive with their age-old profession.

Nowadays very few connoisseurs exist who appreciate Shabuj's intricate wood carvings. Photo: Prabir Das

When Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a French gem merchant arrived in Dhaka some 400 years ago he was astounded by Dhaka's splendour. According to him, it was a city of skilful artisans and art loving aristocrats. The city's booming industry of exotic artefacts like muslin, furniture of delicate design, exotic perfumes and jewellery in intricate patterns could not be found anywhere else on earth.

　

The heydays witnessed by Tavernier have come to an end centuries ago. Now in this city of plastics and pollution, searching for such works of art is an arduous task. Most of the artefacts like muslin are now forever lost.

However, in the gloomiest part of the city signs of it's rich past still glimmer.

In an isolated corner of the local souk of the old part of Dhaka's Sutrapur area, a handful of potters can be seen throwing clay at their traditional potter's wheel. In the dirty alley of old Dhaka's Shankhari Bazaar only three to four artisans still carry on the trade of their ancestors. They made and decorate shankha, a ritual bangle curved out of conch shell. But some of the artisans like rattan weavers and traditional carpenters have no such fixed address. They have become floating workers moving from one workshop to another in search of a living. In this time of automated industry they have become strangers in their own land.

When we reach Tapan's place in the remotest part of Sutrapur bazaar, we notice the worried faces of Tapan and his family members. It is something frightening they are whispering about. A neighbour of Tapan's workshop-cum-home informs us that local goons who 'control' the Sutrapur Bazaar have threatened Tapan with dire consequences an hour earlier as he has not paid his monthly "donation" yet. They have threatened to evict him from the bazaar if he fails to pay them the money that they have demanded. It takes a lot of time to make Tapan believe that we are not another party of extortionists.

Tapan's workshop, where he and his family members live, is made up of two ramshackle huts which are probably some of the last remnants of its kind in Dhaka. In one of the sheds, the potter's wheel which Tapan inherited from his ancestors is placed. Tapan says, "We belong to the Paal community of the Hindus. Pottery and making earthen statues is our traditional and religious profession. But nowadays it's hard to maintain this profession." Sign of his hardship is quite evident all over his place.

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How To Avoid Catching The Ebola Virus,2014

How To Avoid Catching The Ebola Virus
The daily star news

How is Ebola spread?
The Ebola virus is transmitted in the bodily fluids of people who are seriously ill, who are likely to be vomiting, bleeding or have diarrhoea. Blood, faeces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, and in late stages of the disease even tiny amounts can carry high loads of virus. But a nurse who got a patient's blood on their hands could wash it off with soap and water without any ill-effects. He or she would become ill only if they had a cut or abrasion on their hand or touched their mouth, eyes or nose, which would allow the virus to pass into their bodily fluids.

What about sweat – for example could I get Ebola from using gym equipment?
No. Nobody who had Ebola and was symptomatic, with intense muscle weakness and a fever in the early stages, would be well enough to go to the gym – and until they are symptomatic, they are not infectious. Sweat, anyway, is probably not a source of large amounts of virus – in fact, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says whole live virus has never been isolated from sweat.
How about saliva?
WHO says saliva at the most severe stage of the disease, and also tears, may carry some risk, but the studies are inconclusive. The virus has been detected in breast milk. A 2007 study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases is probably the most informative on where the virus hides.
Can I get Ebola from a toilet seat?
Yes – faeces from somebody with Ebola are a real hazard and the virus has also been detected in urine. But there would only be a danger if a seriously sick person had used the toilet and contaminated it and that is most likely in their home or hospital. Public toilets, in general, are very unlikely to be a risk.
Can it be sexually transmitted?
Yes, and the virus lasts in the semen of people who have recovered, maybe for as long as 90 days.
Could I catch Ebola from using a taxi that has taken a patient to hospital?
The virus can be transmitted on surfaces that bodily fluids have touched, so if somebody had bled or vomited on the seat, there would be a risk to anybody who had a cut or touched their face with contaminated hands. In Europe or the US, if a patient was diagnosed with Ebola, there would be a massive effort from the public health authorities to trace their movements as well as their contacts. Any taxi they had travelled in while sick would have to be decontaminated.

Could I catch Ebola from door handles a patient had touched?
Yes, if the handle was contaminated with blood, vomit or faeces, which would be more likely in the house where the patient had been living when they fell sick, or in the hospital. But if people have intact skin, do not touch their eyes, nose or mouth and frequently wash their hands, they will not get infected.
How long can the virus survive?
The virus is quite fragile and is easily destroyed by UV light, drying out, high temperatures (which is helpful in west Africa) and disinfectants including soapy water and alcohol gel. The longest it is likely to survive is a few days, if left in a pool of bodily fluid in a cool, damp place.
Is food safe?
Yes, if it is cooked. The Ebola virus is inactivated through cooking. Raw bush meat is a risk. Past outbreaks of Ebola in Africa came from the hunting, butchering and preparing of bush meat for people to eat.
Is Ebola virus airborne? Should I wear a mask?
No. The virus is not airborne. In spite of speculation, the UN Ebola Mission for Emergency Response says extensive studies of the virus have not shown any airborne transmission. Patients do not cough and sneeze a lot with this disease and the WHO states in an advisory notice: “Epidemiological data emerging from the outbreak are not consistent with the pattern of spread seen with airborne viruses, like those that cause measles and chickenpox, or the airborne bacterium that causes tuberculosis.”
What if somebody coughs or sneezes in my face?
There is a theoretical possibility that a person heavily infected with Ebola could cough violently and send wet, heavy droplets into the face of somebody nearby. The person most at risk of catching Ebola this way would be whoever is nursing the patient, and they would hopefully be wearing protective clothing including a mask.
Source: guardian

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US, Iraq draw up ground attack plan against ISIS,2014

US, Iraq draw up ground attack plan against ISIS
The daily star news

Coalition air strikes kill 553 militants, 32 civilians in Syria
Agencies
Militants of Islamic State (ISIS) stand just before explosion of an air strike on Tilsehir hill near Turkish border, at Yumurtalik village, in Sanliurfa province, yesterday. Photo: AFP
Militants of Islamic State (ISIS) stand just before explosion of an air strike on Tilsehir hill near Turkish border, at Yumurtalik village, in Sanliurfa province, yesterday. Photo: AFP

The United States and Iraq are drawing up a campaign plan for offensive operations by Iraqi ground forces to gradually reclaim towns and cities that have been occupied by ISIS, according to a senior US official.
The report came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday said US-led air strikes in Syria have killed 553 jihadists in a month. Thirty-two civilians have also been killed, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.

The plan, described as methodical and time-consuming, will not begin in earnest for several months and is designed to ensure that Iraqi forces do not over-extend themselves before they are capable of taking and holding territory controlled by the militants.
It may also include American advisers in the field with the Iraqis, should that be recommended by American military commanders, said the official, who updated reporters on administration strategy on the condition of anonymity. The advisers, the official said, would not participate in combat. President Barack Obama has said repeatedly that no US ground forces would be deployed to Iraq.
With few exceptions, the Iraqi army has concentrated largely on defence and efforts to prevent ISIS from claiming more territory since early June when the militant group took over Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and began moving south.
Despite some government gains, aided since early August by US air strikes, the militants control about one-third of Iraq, stretching from near Baghdad to the northwest, and across western Anbar province to the Syrian border.
On the ground, an AFP correspondent across the frontier in Turkey reported fierce clashes in several parts of Kobane early yesterday, with heavy gun and mortar fire.
The town's Kurdish defenders have been holding out against an assault by the ISIS militant group for more than a month, buoyed in recent days by a promise of Iraqi Kurd reinforcements and by US air drops of weapons.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said that 200 Iraqi Kurd peshmerga fighters would travel through Turkey to join the battle in Kobane, where about 1,000 ISIS militants are believed to be fighting.
Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers in their capital Arbil agreed on Wednesday to send their peshmerga fighters, after Turkey this week said it would allow them to travel to Kobane.
In Iraq, airstrikes hit ISIS targets including a large "unit" and a training centre. ISIS had again surrounded Mount Sinjar in the country's north where they had trapped thousands of civilians this summer, commanders in the area said.
The first siege of Sinjar was a key moment in the conflict with ISIS, with the plight of the people trapped on the mountain helping to prompt US to begin air strikes against the ISIS.
Meanwhile, the United Nations yesterday said ISIS has ordered all girls and women between the ages of 11 and 46 in and around Iraq's northern city of Mosul to undergo female genital mutilation. The “fatwa” would potentially affect 4 million women and girls, it added.

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Printing food for consumption,2014

Printing food for consumption!

The daily star news

CONSIDER yourself as a publisher, and you have to be at the press for twenty four hours to ensure accurate and timely publication of a book!  Do you have to go hungry? Or you wished to savour the most delicious meal of a restaurant at the other end of the world but you do not have the ability to go there. Would you go drooling? Well, a solution to such problem is on the way!
A three-dimensional or 3-D printer in the press next to your 2-D printer will make pizza, pancake or ice cream at the touch of a button. The same 3-D printer should also make the most delicious meal if its recipe is fed into the machine's memory, say from Seattle in Washington state! 
A printer will make food? Yes, not only food, a 3-D printer theoretically will make anything you want -- toy, fabric, or ornament, or even your heart, not sweetheart though!  Soon you should be able to make your eye or kidney if one becomes defective. Of course you will need a surgeon because although you can eat the food by yourself, you should not do a replacement or transplant surgery on yourself. These later biological devices can be made in what is called 3-D bioprinters.
Our normal printers can write only in two dimensions lengthwise and widthwise. A 3-D printer adds a height or thickness above length and width. You must have seen the simplest 3-D printing in embossed wedding cards. The 3-D printing being discussed here uses a virtual model of almost anything in the memory of the printer. The printer is hooked with reservoirs of plastic, colours, metal, ceramic, cell, cellular or food components, or anything that is contained in the virtual model.
In bioprinting, aggregates of tens of thousands of live cells are “printed” or layered on top of another in a specific pattern, and allowed to fuse together naturally.
Founder of Modern Medow, a company pioneering bioprinters said that our current meat consumption requiring 60 million farm animals will nearly double by 2050, pushing us to the limits of the earth's land, water, carbon and other resources. His proposed solution is to create a 3-D bioprinting machine that would use cultured cells as “ink”. 
Once a cell mass has been excised from an animal, it is possible to keep on making the same cell in the laboratory for months! The “ink” will be digitised and layered one on top of the other for tissue growth. The tissue then can be given the form of a stake, or further processed as minced or sausage. Flavour, colour or specific taste materials can be added during or after the 3-D printing process to cater all types of consumers. Making meat this way will avoid consumption of live animals, and therefore, of earth's resources.
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An article published in the Popular science magazine on November 1 mentioned of an EU study which predicted that If produced in large scale, lab grown meat would use 99.7%, and 94% less land and water, respectively, than farm meat, and would contribute 98.8% less green house gasses.
The main step in the Modern Medow's concept has already been realised. In a major breakthrough in February, researchers were able to fabricate a 3-D bioprinting machine using human embryonic stem cells as “ink” to consistently produce high quality spheroidal aggregates. This success has the great potential of making unlimited supply specialised tissues and human organs should it become necessary. 
The second step of the Modern Medow's concept is already in the market. You can have a personalised chocolate of flavour, taste, colour, shape and design, and even have your name printed on it. A recipe and demonstration for making pancake or cookie is already available free in the net!
What is remaining is the actual meat product with a mouth watering taste.
In another development, the US space agency NASA has awarded a grant to a private company to device a 3-D printing machine to produce fresh meals for astronauts while in space. This technology is based on layering one component on top of another, for example, dough, then oil, then minced meat or other nutritionally rich components. Therefore making pizza or sandwich or hot dog will be the first step. Developer of the technology envisions a much wider user in feeding the hungry millions in famine and disaster-prone areas.
So let us have patience for a meal from a 3-D printer, but for now you can buy a printer at less than $500!

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A DIFFERENT SIDE of Satyajit Ray,2014

A DIFFERENT SIDE of Satyajit Ray

The daily ster

 
Honestly, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in this planet who doesn't know about Satyajit Ray. For those rare few who don't know, he was a bangali filmmaker, regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of world cinema. But, first and foremost, he was one of the most brilliant storytellers ever known, be it on paper or on the silver screen. Ray was born in the city of Calcutta into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist 1948 film Bicycle Thieves during a visit to London. He directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, music composer, graphic designer and film critic. He authored several short stories and novels, primarily aimed at children and adolescents. Feluda, the sleuth, and Professor Shonku, the scientist in his science fiction stories, are popular fictional characters whose stories are read widely and loved around the world. He was awarded honorary doctorate by the Oxford University, the only other film personality to have received the honour after Charlie Chaplin. We know all about this great man through the works he had left behind, but the other side of his life, his personal life isn't something that many people know much about, much less see. But one woman managed to capture this other side of this creative genius. That woman is Sayeeda Khanum, the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of Celebrating Life 2014. She had spent three decades of her life trying to capture a side of Satyajit Ray few had rarely seen and through an exclusive interview; she tells us all about it.

HOW WE MET
I met Satyajit Ray back in the year 1962. I used to work for Chitrali which was a weekly Bengali film magazine which was established a long time back and was immensely successful. It's something that not many people know about now but it was a very big thing back in its day and back then, it was considered incredibly out of place for a girl to work as a photojournalist. I have done other forms of creative photography as well and have received awards for those as well, but cine journalism was my primary interest and that's why I went to Calcutta. The editor for Chitrali sent me on an assignment to photograph Uttam Kumar and other famous actors and actresses. After I was done, I requested my editor to arrange a meeting with Satyajit Ray for pictures and a small interview. He told me that Mr. Ray was a very popular figure and from a Lord's family and he may not give me much importance or agree to meet. But, I was thinking that a man who could direct a film like Pother Panchali which centers on human values can't possibly be like that at all. So, I managed to gather the confidence to make the call and settled an appointment two days later. When I went to his house and entered his study, he told me to sit down without looking up to see me, and kept on writing something. After what felt like two hours, he suddenly asks “So what is it that you want to know about me?” I was immediately a bit taken aback because I was so young and he was this international figure and he's physique was also very intimidating as he was really tall and had this very firm and heavy voice. Honestly, I was so intimidated that I just wanted to say that I wasn't going to interview him, apologize and run away. I said I wasn't really expecting such a complex question and I didn't really prepare beforehand so if you don't mind I would like a moment to think what I may ask. So he very kindly said sure, take your time, but as he said that, I could see that he was observing me very carefully. After a while, we started speaking normally and I got more and more comfortable talking to him and finally, near the end, I asked if I could take his picture as I was first and foremost, a photographer. He agreed and as I was taking his picture, and the flash went off, his wife, Bijoya Ray came rushing in thinking there was a fire in the room (photography wasn't as common back then as it is now and flash certainly isn't something one sees every day). From then on, I became close to Bijoya and very soon I was accepted into their closely knit family. I never understood whether Satyajit Ray saw me as a friend or a sister, but one thing I can say for sure though, is that he genuinely cared about my wellbeing. This was the beginning of my 30 years of knowing Satyajit Ray. I wasn't being paid to take pictures of him mind you, I was doing it because I admired him for his genius and felt honored because he treated me like family.

CHARUTALA, MOHANAGAR AND KAPURUSH O MOHAPURUSH
Satyajit was very methodical, calculating and organized and he doesn't allow too many people around when he is working on a project. This is something that the whole of Calcutta, India and even the world knew. However, due to the way I had bonded with him and his family, I was able to be part of the making of three wonderful films. Despite the incredible hospitality, I would always be terrified because I didn't want to cross any boundaries and offend him in any manner. But happily, whenever I came to Calcutta, he would ask me whether I wanted to take pictures during the shoot or if I wanted to watch the shoot. Because of the fact that he had asked me himself, I understood that he obviously believes I wouldn't be a hindrance, so I accepted. I was sent there as part of my assignment from Chitrali and during my stay there, whenever I was on a shoot, Satyajit would send a car for me to take me from and drop me off at my residence during shoots. Other than me, there was also a British journalist allowed there as well during the shoot of Charulata, which in Satyajit's own words, is his best work ever. Charulata required such great focus from Ray that many thought that this film turned out in such a way that it almost felt that Rabindranath Tagore himself directed the film. I was present for the other two films as well and a little known fact: Under direct request from Satyajit himself, I did a small cameo scene in Kapurush O Mohapurush. However as luck would have it, my scene was discarded during the editing process because Bangladesh and India were two separate countries and Satyajit was concerned about the proper permissions required.

CAPTURING SATYAJIT RAY
Satyajit Ray had been my subject for almost 30 years. Late Nimai Ghosh was the official photographer for all of Satyajit's production stills and he also didn't work for money. He took pictures because of the same reason I did: admiration of a genius. Sure, sometimes Satyajit would pay him, but it's not like they had a binding contract or anything. You can understand that 30 years' worth of pictures amounts to an enormous collection of pictures, and each and every one of those pictures meant the world to me because no one else was allowed to snap pictures of Satyajit in his house and daily life. I was so welcome, that I didn't even need an appointment. I could visit his house like family. The freedom that Ray granted me allowed me to take pictures which were so wholesome that whenever I went through the pictures, I felt like I was looking at my own family album. I finally decided that I wanted to do an exhibit on Satyajit Ray mainly focusing on his life outside the world of media, in Calcutta. I was silently worried because critiques in Calcutta are known to be very open about their feelings: be it positive or negative. Thankfully, everyone appreciated it and even went on to say that through my pictures, they had a new way of looking at Satyajit Ray. For me, the ultimate goal was to show the world how a man like Satyajit Ray had accepted me in his inner circle and my appreciation for this gesture through the pictures I took, and I felt like I had succeeded.

AFTERTHOUGHT
Through my journey in photography, I had a  privilege to meet wonderful new people and famous celebrity figures  such as Ustad Allauddin Khan, Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen etc. But to me, Satyajit Ray will always be special. I never once thought that I would be able to get so close to him and be considered a part of his family. One example of this bond is that when Satyajit was in hospital during the final days of his life, he had lost most of his memories and wasn't able to recognize even close friends and family. I went to visit him of course, but before I got in, Bijoya Ray stopped me and told me about his condition and memory loss and told me that he may not recognize me and I shouldn't get too upset about it. I walked into the room and waited for him to regain consciousness. When he did, he looked at me, called me by my nickname Badal and asked about my health and family. That just reaffirmed my faith in how well he accepted me in his life and how, even at that time, he didn't forget who I was. This goes to show how wonderful he was because, if you think about it, a man of his status and popularity wouldn't just accept anyone into his life because everyone wanted to, but if he didn't allow it, it wouldn't be possible. And that's precisely why I feel like I am blessed that I got the chance of a lifetime to meet one of the most creative, caring and inspirational human beings.

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Airbnb Listings Mostly Illegal, State Contends ,2014

Airbnb Listings Mostly Illegal, State Contends
The new york time

Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, found nearly three-quarters of all Airbnb rentals in the city were illegal.
Airbnb, the pioneering home rental service, presents itself as useful and virtuous, but the reality is far less benign, according to a report that Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, is releasing on Thursday.

The report will say nearly three-quarters of all Airbnb rentals in the city are illegal, violating zoning or other laws. Commercial operators, not hard-luck residents, supply more than a third of the units and generate more than a third of the revenue. At least a handful of landlords are running what amount to illegal hostels.

Property owners on Airbnb are indeed making money, but it is not being spread around. Most rentals are in three high-profile Manhattan neighborhoods. Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island barely figure.

Airbnb declined to aggressively dispute the numbers in the report, which draws on four years of data it provided to the attorney general after a court fight.

“We need to move forward,” an Airbnb spokesman, Nick Papas, said. “We need to work together on some sensible rules that stop bad actors and protect regular people who simply want to share the home in which they live.”

Airbnb, which is most likely contemplating a public offering in the next few years, seemed eager to avoid another fight. Its latest round of fund-raising put its valuation at $10 billion.

The housing broker and its imitators, like the taxi service Uber and its clones, have been prompting upheaval just about everywhere they go.

Admirers say these stars of the so-called sharing economy are breaking up monopolies that have grown greedy and lazy. They are empowering individuals. Critics say that the start-ups are unsavory efforts to avoid regulation and taxes, and that the very term “sharing economy” is ridiculous.

In some contentious spots, like San Francisco, where the local government endorsed a plan last week to essentially legalize Airbnb, a resolution may be in sight. But in New York, where real estate is often viewed as a blood sport, the battle is only deepening.

Mr. Schneiderman and city regulators will also announce Thursday a joint enforcement initiative to shut down illegal hotels. Various regulators will investigate violations of building and safety codes and tax regulations.

“Anyone operating an illegal hotel should be on notice that the state and city will take aggressive enforcement actions in this area,” said Mr. Schneiderman. “A slick advertising campaign doesn’t change the fact that this is illegal activity.”

He was careful, however, to speak of “illegal hotels” rather than “illegal rentals.” Airbnb is already too popular to dislodge completely, no matter what the housing laws say. It also delights travelers, who get a cheaper and usually more interesting place to stay.

“Most of our hosts are regular New Yorkers, and the overwhelming majority live outside of Manhattan,” Mr. Papas said.

As for the 72 percent of listings that Mr. Schneiderman said were illegal, Mr. Papas said it was hard to tell what was going on.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

“Every single home, apartment, co-op and living space in New York is subject to a myriad of rules, so it’s impossible to make this kind of blanket statement,” the spokesman said. “That kind of uncertainty and lack of clarity is exactly why we’re advocating for clear, fair rules for home sharing.”

The report, Airbnb in the City, draws on anonymized data on 497,322 private stays in 35,354 unique places that were for less than 30 days and did not involve a shared room.

The report said the service was dominated by large-scale operators, finding that 6 percent of the hosts made 37 percent of the revenue — or $168 million. The number of units they administered ranged from three to 272. The individual with those 272 units charged an average of $358.19 a night, yielding $6.8 million, the report says.

Some of these operators may be gone already. In April, in the midst of Airbnb’s negotiations with Mr. Schneiderman over turning over its data, the company said it was expelling hosts with 2,000 listings in New York because they “weren’t providing a quality, local experience to guests.”

Some of the large-scale operators that remain are as upset with Airbnb as they are with Mr. Schneiderman. Over a hundred hosts were told by Airbnb over the summer that Mr. Schneiderman had requested information about them, and that the company would turn over the data unless a court prevented it.

A group of the hosts has now filed a lawsuit against Airbnb under the name New Yorkers Trying to Make Ends Meet in the Sharing Economy.

“It is not O.K. for a website that has gathered sensitive personal and financial data in order to market and profit from short-term rentals to turn around and hand this private data over to a politically motivated attorney general, simply to save its own hide,” said the president of the group.

He declined to be identified because he said it would make his properties a target for the regulators. All his units are legal, he said.

A Quinnipiac poll last month revealed sharp divisions among New Yorkers about companies like Airbnb. Asked whether city residents should be able to rent rooms to strangers like a hotel, 56 percent of the respondents said yes and 36 percent said no.

“Airbnb allows longtime residents to stay in their homes by earning just a little extra money to help make ends meet,” the company states in its promotions. It stresses that only 18 percent of its New York rentals are “where the hotels are,” which it defines as Midtown. The other 82 percent are “outside of traditional tourist zones.”

But the attorney general’s report says rentals in three areas in Manhattan — Lower East Side/Chinatown, Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen and Greenwich Village/SoHo — accounted for 40 percent of private stay revenue, or $187 million.

Reservations in Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx accounted for only 3 percent, or $12 million.

The report also indicates that an increasing number of units were being rented out on a more or less permanent basis. While still small in absolute numbers — about 2,000 units are rented for six months of the year or more — affordable-housing advocates have warned that this trend could push up prices for long-term residents as units disappear from the housing stock.

A dozen buildings had 60 percent or more of their units used as rentals for at least half the year, “suggesting that the buildings were operating as de facto hotels,” the report says.

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The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons,2014

The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons
The new york time

A controlled detonation of recovered mustard shells near Taji, Iraq, on Aug.
The soldiers at the blast crater sensed something was wrong.

    From 2004 to 2011, American and Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and at times were wounded by, chemical weapons that were hidden or abandoned years earlier.

It was August 2008 near Taji, Iraq. They had just exploded a stack of old Iraqi artillery shells buried beside a murky lake. The blast, part of an effort to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs, uncovered more shells.

Two technicians assigned to dispose of munitions stepped into the hole. Lake water seeped in. One of them, Specialist Andrew T. Goldman, noticed a pungent odor, something, he said, he had never smelled before.

He lifted a shell. Oily paste oozed from a crack. “That doesn’t look like pond water,” said his team leader, Staff Sgt. Eric J. Duling.

The specialist swabbed the shell with chemical detection paper. It turned red — indicating sulfur mustard, the chemical warfare agent designed to burn a victim’s airway, skin and eyes.

All three men recall an awkward pause. Then Sergeant Duling gave an order: “Get the hell out.”

Five years after President George W. Bush sent troops into Iraq, these soldiers had entered an expansive but largely secret chapter of America’s long and bitter involvement in Iraq.

From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Andrew T. Goldman in North Topsail Beach, N.C. In August 2008, Mr. Goldman was part of a team near Taji, Iraq, that was trying to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs. While holding a cracked shell, he noticed a strange smell.
The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.

The New York Times found 17 American service members and seven Iraqi police officers who were exposed to nerve or mustard agents after 2003. American officials said that the actual tally of exposed troops was slightly higher, but that the government’s official count was classified.

The secrecy fit a pattern. Since the outset of the war, the scale of the United States’ encounters with chemical weapons in Iraq was neither publicly shared nor widely circulated within the military. These encounters carry worrisome implications now that the Islamic State, a Qaeda splinter group, controls much of the territory where the weapons were found.

The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harm’s way and from military doctors. The government’s secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war’s most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds.

Eric J. Duling at his home in Niceville, Fla. The cache that contaminated his explosive ordnance disposal team in 2008 was not the first discovery of chemical weapons in the war.

“I felt more like a guinea pig than a wounded soldier,” said a former Army sergeant who suffered mustard burns in 2007 and was denied hospital treatment and medical evacuation to the United States despite requests from his commander.

Congress, too, was only partly informed, while troops and officers were instructed to be silent or give deceptive accounts of what they had found. “ 'Nothing of significance’ is what I was ordered to say,” said Jarrod Lampier, a recently retired Army major who was present for the largest chemical weapons discovery of the war: more than 2,400 nerve-agent rockets unearthed in 2006 at a former Republican Guard compound.

Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of “wounds that never happened” from “that stuff that didn’t exist.” The public, he said, was misled for a decade. “I love it when I hear, ‘Oh there weren’t any chemical weapons in Iraq,’ ” he said. “There were plenty.”

The report led to Operation Guardian, when an American soldier from a technical escort unit, wearing a protective suit and mask and carrying a detector, reopened the shipping container.

A detector’s alarm immediately rang, warning of mustard agent, said Staff Sgt. Paul Yungandreas, one of the American techs assigned to recover the shells.

Inside were stacks of M110-style shells. “We carried out the rounds, one by one, and put them on plastic tarps,” he said.

The operation’s planners had expected 150 to 200 shells. The disposal technicians found nearly 400.

Many of the shells were empty. Others still contained mustard agent. Most showed signs of age and decay.

Many had been wrapped in plastic — a powerful indicator, several techs said, that they had been collected elsewhere by an American or an Iraqi unit, which then failed to secure them properly.

Like most incidents in which American troops encountered chemical weapons in Iraq, Operation Guardian was not publicly disclosed.

By then adherence to the international convention, and the security of the stock, was not much longer a Pentagon concern.

The United States had invaded Iraq to reduce the risk of the weapons of mass destruction that it presumed Mr. Hussein still possessed. And after years of encountering and handling Iraq’s old chemical arms, it had retroactively informed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2009 that it had recovered more than 4,500 chemical weapons.

But it had not shared this data publicly. And as it prepared to withdraw, old stocks set loose after the invasion were still circulating. Al Muthanna had still not been cleaned up.

Finding, safeguarding and destroying these weapons was to be the responsibility of Iraq’s government.

Iraq took initial steps to fulfill its obligations. It drafted a plan to entomb the contaminated bunkers on Al Muthanna, which still held remnant chemical stocks, in concrete.

When three journalists from The Times visited Al Muthanna in 2013, a knot of Iraqi police officers and soldiers guarded the entrance. Two contaminated bunkers — one containing cyanide precursors and old sarin rockets — loomed behind. The area where Marines had found mustard shells in 2008 was out of sight, shielded by scrub and shimmering heat.

The Iraqi troops who stood at that entrance are no longer there. The compound, never entombed, is now controlled by the Islamic State.
Documentary
Chemical Secrets of the Iraq War

Participants and victims of this secret chapter of the Iraq war discuss exposure to chemical weapons.
Documents

    Medical Records of U.S. Casualties of Iraq’s Chemical Weapons
    U.S. Intelligence Documents on Chemical Weapons Found in Iraq
    Iraq’s Disclosure of Chemical Weapons Findings to U.N.
    Duelfer Report on Chemical Weapons in Iraq
    Army Report Says Only 500 Munitions Found in Iraq
    Senate Committee Report Understated The Scale Of Chemical Weapons Recovered in Iraq
    American Firms’ Supplying Iraq’s Chemical Weapons Production
    United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission Report on Iraq
    U.S. Army Regulations For Treating Chemical Warfare Casualties
    U.S. Navy Technical Manual on Chemical Munitions
    Iran Spars with the U.S. and Britain Over the Countries’ Handling of Chemical Weapons
    Iraq’s Plan To Entomb Remnant Chemical Weapons In Bunker Complex
In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

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