“I think it’s a good idea to prepare for the effects of air pollution,” says Roshini Kassie of Health Canada’s Air and Water Quality Bureau.

This year, the wildfire season started very early in New Brunswick, but especially in Nova Scotia, where large fires raged, destroying 150 homes and forcing 16,000 people to evacuate.

Smoke knows no borders, Kassie reminds us, pointing out that this smoke can be carried hundreds or even thousands of kilometers.

For example, smoke from wildfires in Ontario and Quebec can affect air quality in the Atlantic provinces. The problem may also be exacerbated by heat events like the one the region is currently experiencing.

This smoke consists of a complex gas mixture and, in addition to fine particles, also contains pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide.

Wildfires are far from the only thing that can lead to deteriorating air quality. Ms. Kassie points out, among other things, the emissions from motor vehicles and the combustion of wood.

On Monday, the fire spread in the Mistissini sector in north-du-Québec.

Photo: Radio Canada

Everyone is at risk from air pollution, Health Canada’s spokesman notes.

However, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with heart or lung conditions are more at risk.

In fact, they are the ones who must do something to protect their health. But like I said, everyone is at risk, adds Ms. Kassie.

Limit outdoor activities

Mild symptoms associated with wildfire smoke exposure include headache, mild cough, eye pain and nasal irritation. More serious symptoms include dizziness, severe coughing, and chest pain.

To curb symptoms, Health Canada only recommends limiting smoke exposure and reducing outdoor activities and vigorous physical activity.

Smoke rises from the Tantallon wildfire near homes in Bedford, Nova Scotia.

Photo: Portal/Eric Martyn

Air pollution accounts for 15,300 premature deaths in the country, according to data from Ottawa. This pollution, which includes traffic, leads to the development and worsening of asthma symptoms in children and causes lung cancer in adults, according to Health Canada.

Environment Canada regularly measures air quality (New Window) in several cities across the country. On Friday, the Atlantic health risk was low in all communities in the region where air quality is measured, except for Labrador City, where the risk was very high due to wildfires in Quebec.

Health risks related to air quality are also very high in Montreal and Yellowknife on Friday.

With information from Karine Godin of Téléjournal Acadie

Uruguay will mark next Tuesday the 50th anniversary of the 1973 coup, which was rocked by the publication on the Internet of thousands of military intelligence documents created during the dictatorship and also during the democracy. It is about 1,600 rolls of microfilm containing previously reserved and partially unknown information that was leaked by an anonymous source and released in the middle of this month. “It is historical testimony of great value in understanding the workings of terrorist networks,” reads the text presenting the material published on the archive.org website under the title The Uruguayan Terror Archives. Upon learning of the news, the Department of Defense filed a complaint with prosecutors to establish the veracity and provenance of these files, which include personnel files, political prisoner records, interrogations and wiretapping, and thousands of other documents.

According to the unknown author of this leak, the date chosen for publication would be due to the proximity of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the civil-military dictatorship of Uruguay, which took place on June 27, 1973 anniversary as only analysts are not convinced by the mobile phone since the declassification of documents coincides with a bill that the executive branch sent to parliament in May, aiming to make previously limited access to these files universal.

In this sense, experts point out that it could be an intelligence maneuver to get ahead of and damage the ruling Conservative coalition. For its part, the government does not speak of any political intention and believes that its proposal to make these documents available to the public has led to the matter now being at the forefront of the information scene.

Since June 15, when El Observador newspaper reported this leak, experts have determined that the material released mostly corresponds to the Berrutti archive, which consists of intelligence documents seized in a military unit in 2006 during the first Broad Front government . (Middle left ).

That year, then-Defense Secretary Azucena Berrutti ordered the digitization of the thousands of surviving documents to be kept in the nation’s General Archives, the Presidential Office and Defense. Copies of this material were later also obtained by the National Institution of Human Rights (INDDHH) and some other entities. What is new about the disclosure at archive.org is that it reveals previously unknown documentation, namely rolls of microfilm, which were missing from the official Berrutti archive.

“We have identified several hundred scrolls that we do not own on the Internet Archive website,” the INDDHH said in a statement. In a joint message with the University of the Republic, the institution points out the importance of knowing the origin of this documentation and assessing its reliability. “If this is checked, it would mean the appearance of new documents, which the victims, their families and society as a whole are constantly asking for without success.” Both institutions inaugurated last Wednesday the 21st the Luisa Cuesta Repository, a place for storage , organizing and providing digital information related to human rights violations and state terrorism between 1968 and 1985.

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The anonymous text accompanying the documents published on archive.org indicates that they “were prepared by the police and military since the 1960s and cover the period of civil-military dictatorship (1973-1985)”. And he adds that espionage continued even after democracy was restored, “with the political complicity of governments, at least until 2004.” The available materials include personnel files, interrogations, arrest files of politically persecuted persons, telephone conversations, surveillance of journalists. The author or authors of the leak warn that among these documents “could be found manipulated, false information obtained under torture or threats, provided by paid whistleblowers and many other unreliable sources”.

It is still unclear whether these 1,600 rolls of microfilm with thousands of digitized pages contain clues or relevant information that could help clarify the fate of the almost 200 prisoners who disappeared during the dictatorship. Defense Secretary Javier García hopes these and other questions will be clarified in the prosecutor’s investigation. “We do not know its origin and have therefore filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office to analyze whether these documents can be used for the complaints that are being investigated with regard to human rights,” he told a press conference. According to the minister, the prosecutor’s office will also investigate the origin of this leak, which has given rise to all sorts of speculation. One of them suspects that a person with ties to the military is behind both the form and substance of this operation.

Identified a victim’s gender

Amid expectations raised by the disclosure of these files, the Association of Mothers and Relatives of Missing Detainees reported Thursday that the skeletal remains found on June 7 at Battalion 14 (in the south of the country) belonged to a woman. This information was provided by Alicia Lusiardo, leader of the INDDHH team of anthropologists, who was unable to ascertain other data such as the victim’s age and height. “We have no doubt that this is the funeral of a missing prisoner,” said Lusiardo.

The identity of this person will be known within about a month once the DNA tests have been carried out in Argentina. Since 2005, the bodies of six of the 197 prisoners who disappeared during the dictatorship have been found on Uruguayan territory.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country is facing an insurgency by the Wagner paramilitary group, called his Belarusian and Kazakh counterparts, Moscow allies, on Saturday to update them on the situation.

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These are Mr Putin’s first international contacts since the start of this rebellion, launched by Wagner boss Evguéni Prigojine on Friday night.

“The Russian president this morning called Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Moscow’s closest ally, to update him “about the situation in Russia,” Belarus’ state-run Belta news agency quoted the press service as saying.

The Kremlin boss then telephoned his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whose country is also an ally of Moscow, particularly within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led military alliance, the press service of the Kazakh presidency said in a statement with.

“Vladimir Putin informed[the Kazakh President, editor’s note]about the situation in his country” and “thanked him for his understanding,” the same source says.

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stated in this interview that “the current events are an internal matter of Russia” and stressed that “constitutional order and the rule of law are a sine qua non for maintaining order in the country,” specified the Kazakh President.

When unrest broke out in Kazakhstan in January 2022, Tokaev called on Russia for help. The latter took over the leadership of a contingent of “peacekeepers” whose arrival put an end to the unrest that almost led to Mr. Tokayev’s fall. These riots had officially resulted in 238 deaths within nine days.