NASA Research Launches a New 

Generation of Indoor Farming

One way Plenty Unlimited maintains plant health is by using robotics in nearly every step of the farming process. Proprietary technology grows the company’s Spicy Mizuna Mix, shown here, and relies on data to optimize growing conditions. The growing environment mimics the closed-loop environment developed by NASA in the Biomass Production Chamber that demonstrated how to grow plants without sunlight or open air.

Credits: Plenty Unlimited Inc.

The United Nations predicts Earth will have to feed another 2.3 billion people by 2050, mostly concentrated in urban centers far from farmland. Conventional agriculture may not be able to meet that demand, but luckily NASA has been working for decades to tackle food production both on Earth and in space. Feeding astronauts during long-term space exploration means stretching resources to grow plants in space – including minimizing water use and energy consumption and eliminating soil.

NASA initially pioneered these techniques on the ground by building the country’s first vertical farm. Inside a decommissioned hypobaric chamber left over from testing the Mercury space capsule, technologists stacked rows of hydroponic trays like bookshelves against the walls. Then systems for lighting, ventilation, and circulating water were added using off-the-shelf parts. Various crops were planted on the stacked trays to test how well they would grow in water and without the benefit of sunlight or open air.

This innovative approach to farming created a foundation for the industry of controlled environment agriculture, or CEA.

CEA combines plant science and environmental control to optimize plant growth and maximize efficiency, frequently incorporating vertical growth structures. Technology enables the filtering of contaminants from crop water and delivers precise nutrient balances. Artificial lighting provides only the necessary wavelengths at the right time, intensity, and duration. While environmental controls maintain ideal temperature and humidity.

This approach could help feed burgeoning future generations, said Nate Storey, chief science officer at Plenty Unlimited, one of several companies building on NASA’s plant-growth research.

Redefining Data Farm

Plenty uses less than 1% of the water of traditional farming, and the company's two-acre farm produces similar yields to a 720-acre outdoor farm.

Currently a global market worth $2.9 billion, some estimates project the vertical farming market could reach $7.3 billion by 2025.

“The entire industry is built on NASA research,” said Storey. Since its early days, NASA has explored bioregenerative life-support systems, with plants recycling waste, producing food and oxygen, and eliminating carbon dioxide. The Closed Ecological Life Support System program originated with the Life Sciences Division at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, funding university research to identify the best plants and their ideal growth conditions, and the agency built growth chambers to expand on those findings.

The interior of the Biomass Production Chamber at Kennedy replicated the closed growing environment astronauts will use in space or on other planets to grow fresh crops. As the first controlled environment vertical farm in the United States, the chamber helped NASA provide critical data for the indoor farming industry. NASA scientists Bill Knott, left, and Tom Dreschel examine the growth of crops.

Credits: NASA

“Growing crops is a multi-functional life-support approach,” said Ray Wheeler, a plant physiologist at NASA Kennedy. “But we needed to answer the question, can you do this in a closed environment like you have in space?”

Wheeler conducted multiple growth experiments in the Biomass Production Chamber, built in the 1980s. He said years of experimentation produced a “firehose of data,” all of which was made public.

From that work, Plenty adopted a type of “nutrient film technique” that the agency pioneered. This soil-free hydroponic system circulates a constant, minimal film of water around seedlings, containing all the necessary nutrients.

The approach produces fresher, healthier, more flavorful plants. Uniformity of lighting along with data-driven controls over all other variables tied to a plant community makes growth rates and output predictable, according to Storey. Harvesting young plants while they’re more tender and flavorful means the produce tastes better than plants that are allowed to fully mature. And because the time from farm to table is dramatically shorter, the plants retain the freshness and nutritive value typically lost during long-haul transportation.

By controlling every element of the environment, Plenty can avoid using harmful chemicals like pesticides and herbicides that also impact plant health.

Plant-Growth R&D

Green Sense uses LED lights in its vertical farms, adjusting the mix of red and blue light for each plant species. Lane Patterson, chief engineer, examines the successful cultivation of Italian basil. Patterson gained valuable experience in indoor farming when he worked at the South Pole Station, operating an indoor growth chamber that was partly funded by NASA.

Credits: Green Sense Farms Holding Inc.

Inside abandoned city buildings, Bowery Farming builds vertical farms that provide fresh produce to local retailers and restaurants. The closed system produces food all year, eliminating the problems that limit outdoor farming such as drought, winter temperatures, and bug infestations.

Credits: Bowery Farming Inc.

Different plants require different balances of water, nutrients, light, airflow, and more. NASA studied and documented ideal conditions for dozens of species, and now Green Sense Farm Holdings is using that research on Earth.

The company provides contract R&D services for plant-growth optimization in its climate-controlled vertical farm, which uses software to optimize conditions and collect plant-growth data.

Robert Colangelo, Green Sense president, said one example is testing the ratio of red to blue in LED lights, their intensity, and how long they shine. This approach, based on NASA research, means using only the light wavelengths a plant needs, which reduces electricity consumption.

Bowery Farming builds urban vertical farms, based on NASA’s data-driven model, built into existing structures such as vacant warehouses, and distributes produce locally to restaurants and grocery stores. The company constantly monitors crops and conditions to maintain an ideal environment, said Henry Sztul, chief science officer.

Bowery’s system uses artificial intelligence to make sense of crop data and manage growth cycles. Just as a person can learn to identify tip burn on a leaf of butter lettuce, computers can be taught the same kind of recognition. Using thousands of photographs, computers learn to identify problems and automatically adjust parts of the system, said Sztul.

Additional NASA expertise comes in the way of trained staff: several Bowery employees worked on NASA-funded plant tests in a simulated space habitat in Antarctica, as did the chief engineer at Green Sense Farms.

Specialized Spuds

CSS Farms uses a type of hydroponic growing system called nutrient film technique, developed by NASA to cultivate potato plants, peanuts, and other root crops. The company’s greenhouses are a different kind of controlled environment agriculture, relying on fresh air and sunlight to support the growing process, but data and technology still play an important role.

Credits: CSS Farms LLC

Vertical farms aren’t the only CEA businesses benefiting from NASA research. Potato farmers now use nutrient film technique in greenhouses. The agency first pioneered this method for root zone crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, said Wheeler, and it’s proven itself with record-breaking potato yields.

CSS Farms uses this technique to grow seed potatoes called minitubers in greenhouses. Unlike plants grown from seed, potatoes are grown from either cut potatoes or minitubers. These can be shipped and planted in fields, where they grow into plants that produce large potatoes for consumption.

Soil-growing methods typically yield five or six minitubers per plant. “We’ll harvest two or three times a week for a 12-week harvest period in three crops per year. In a nutrient film system, you can get 30 to 50 minitubers per plant,” said Matt Barrow, greenhouse manager with CSS Farms.

As NASA continues to advance life-support systems in preparation for missions to the Moon and Mars, these will support the further growth of the CEA industry.

NASA has a long history of transferring technology to the private sector. The agency’s Spinoff publication profiles NASA technologies that have transformed into commercial products and services, demonstrating the broader benefits of America’s investment in its space program. Spinoff is a publication of the Technology Transfer program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).

For more information on how NASA brings space technology down to Earth, visit:

www.spinoff.nasa.gov

By Margo Pierce
NASA’s Spinoff Publication

Immigrant workers at Alberta meat plants vulnerable to dangerous conditions, research finds

Author of the article:Jason Herring
Publishing date:Nov 25, 2021 •

Nearly 950 workers at Cargill's High River plant tested positive for COVID-19 in spring of 2020. PHOTO BY REUTERS/TODD KOROL

Migrant and refugee workers in Alberta’s meat-packing plants face dangerous working conditions and precarious employment, according to new research from York University.

The research, conducted by Bronwyn Bragg and Jennifer Hyndman alongside Calgary advocacy group ActionDignity, conducted interviews and surveys with immigrant workers in the facilities.

Those workers reported unsafe working conditions in meat-packing facilities, an issue exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-two per cent of survey respondents said they or someone in their home had tested positive for the virus, and 34 per cent reported other work-related injuries.

“This industry is a high-risk environment for the spread of COVID-19, but we also know once you dig into the literature and the data that this industry has a long history of being what we would call 3D work: dirty, difficult and dangerous,” Bragg said.

“There are high rates of worker injury, and that really came through in our data.”

The research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, began in the wake of Alberta’s first wave of COVID-19, when massive virus outbreaks ravaged two meat plants in the province.

Nearly 950 workers at Cargill’s High River plant tested positive for COVID-19, making it North America’s largest virus outbreak at the time. Three deaths were linked to the outbreak: workers Benito Quesada, 51, and Hiep Bui, 67, as well as Armando Sallegue, 71, the father of a worker. A separate outbreak at a JBS meat-packing plant in Brooks the same spring saw more than 650 workers test positive.

A mourner touches a photo at a memorial of Hiep Bui, a Cargill worker who died from COVID-19. 

PHOTO BY THE CANADIAN PRESS/JEFF MCINTOSH

All three of the COVID-19 deaths at Cargill involved migrant workers, a group which is overrepresented at Alberta meat-packing plants. Two-thirds of workers at the plants are considered immigrants, compared to just over a quarter of the province’s population. Resettled refugees make up 18 per cent of workers, despite only representing three per cent of Albertans.

Temporary foreign workers make up about 10 per cent of meat-plant workers, a number limited by a federal cap, though many of these workers gain permanent residency and continue working in the industry.

“Folks that are on these temporary work permits where they are restricted in terms of leaving their employer or fear being repatriated to their country of origin if they lose their job, they’re very disincentivized from speaking out against potentially unsafe working conditions,” Bragg said.

“(With the) resettled population, which is quite vulnerable and faces challenges around language and education, they bounce from precarious job to precarious job and end up ultimately in meat-packing, and once they have those jobs, they find it very hard to leave. So while they have a legal right to leave, to quit their job and go elsewhere, they struggle to find other employment and face a similar level of vulnerability.”

The York study included interviews from workers, who talked with researchers who spoke their first languages. According to a summary of the report , one worker said, “People will still stick around for this harsh and dangerous environment mainly to put food on the table for them and their family.” Another said they took the work because they “just wanted to … give a future to my only child.”

Though the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the meat-packing industry were in the first wave, the sector was in the spotlight again this February, when three deaths were reported at Olymel’s Red Deer pork slaughterhouse .

Concerns around health and safety are also at the centre of a contentious labour dispute at Cargill’s High River plant, where workers could go on strike as early as Dec. 6 if they cannot reach a deal with the company.

Bragg said her team’s research concluded legislative changes including greater oversight by Occupational Health and Safety are needed to boost safety at Alberta meat-packing facilities, saying the major outbreaks during the pandemic all followed similar patterns.

“Regardless of what is in the contract, if there’s not a significant policy and regulatory reform to ensure these workplaces are safe and unless there is policy reform to help workers secure their rights in the workplace, workers are going to continue to feel unsafe,” she said.

jherring@postmedia.com

Twitter: @jasonfherring

ALBERTA
Cargill union members could strike after 98 per cent reject contract offer

A strike would come as prices of red meat approach record highs in North America amid supply chain disruptions

Author of the article:Jason Herring
Publishing date:Nov 25, 2021 • 

A sign is shown outside the Cargill facility in High River, AB, south of Calgary on Wednesday, May 6, 2020.

 PHOTO BY JIM WELLS/POSTMEDIA
Article content

Unionized workers with Cargill have voted overwhelmingly against the company’s latest contract offer, putting them in a position to strike as early as Dec. 6.

UFCW Local 401, the union that represents about 2,400 workers at Cargill’s two Alberta meat processing and packaging facilities, said 98 per cent of its workers rejected the offer. The near-unanimous rejection shows the need for the employer to rebuild trust in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, said UFCW Local 401 president Thomas Hesse

“Ultimately, it’s counterintuitive for any worker to want to stand on the street, withdraw their labour, take on all the risks associated with that. That is provoked,” Hesse told Postmedia.

“Cargill has made some overtures and has reached out, and I believe bargaining sessions will galvanize between now and Dec. 6 . . . (But) the workers get to decide. If there is an offer of substantial improvement, the workers will get to reflect on that and vote on that as well, maybe before there’s a strike.”

The testy labour dispute heated up two weeks ago, when union leaders issued Cargill a notice that workers would hit the picket line if a new collective agreement cannot be reached.

A strike would come as prices of red meat approach record highs in North America amid global supply chain struggles. A shutdown at the High River facility would inject more uncertainty into that market, as that plant accounts for roughly 40 per cent of Canada’s beef processing capacity, employing roughly 2,000 workers across two shifts and processing about 4,500 head of cattle daily.

Hesse said he believes the workers have public sympathy during the dispute, raising the possibility of a beef boycott if workers go on strike.

In an emailed statement, Cargill spokesman Daniel Sullivan said the company is optimistic an agreement can be reached before the Dec. 6 deadline. He said the company’s proposal reflects the “tremendous skill and dedication” of plant workers.

“We are willing to keep meeting to avoid any labour disruption, which is in no one’s best interest during an already challenging time,” Sullivan said.

“While we navigate this negotiation, we continue to focus on fulfilling food manufacturer, retail and food service customer orders while keeping markets moving for farmers and ranchers. If necessary, we will shift production to other facilities within our broad supply chain footprint to minimize any disruptions.”

Cargill’s High River plant was the site of one of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in Canada in the spring of 2020. Three deaths were linked to that outbreak, and almost half of the plant’s workers tested positive for the virus.

UFCW Local 401 also represents nearly 400 workers at Cargill’s Case Ready meat packaging facility in northeast Calgary.

Hesse said safety and compensation are issues for workers, but said bargaining to date has largely been driven by emotion and conversations around trust.

YOUTH REVOLUTION
Despite deal, Sudanese rally to demand military rulers leave

By NOHA ELHENNAWY

1 of 10

Thousands of protesters take to the streets to renew their demand for a civilian government in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021. The rallies came just days after the military signed a power-sharing deal with the prime minister, after releasing him from house arrest and reinstating him as head of government. The deal came almost a month after the generals orchestrated a coup. Sudan’s key pro-democracy groups and political parties have dismissed the deal as falling short of their demands for a fully civilian rule. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)


CAIRO (AP) — Thousands of Sudanese took to the streets on Thursday in the capital of Khartoum, renewing their demand for a fully civilian government and denouncing the country’s military rulers who were behind the October coup.

Since the takeover, protesters have repeatedly taken to the streets in some of the largest demonstrations in the past years. Sudanese security forces have cracked down on the rallies and have killed more than 40 protesters so far, according to activist groups.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese Doctors Committee, which is part of the pro-democracy movement, said that 17 people were killed in clashes between Arab and non-Arab tribes in the restive province of West Darfur last week. The tribal violence is unrelated to the anti-coup protests.

The U.N. mission to Sudan on Thursday expressed serious concern over reports of the killings in the Darfur area of Jebel Moon. It appeared that reports of the violence were only now emerging due to the near-complete communications blackout imposed after the coup.

Thursday’s demonstrations followed the military’s signing of a power-sharing deal with the prime minister, after he was released from house arrest and reinstated by the generals as head of government. The agreement came almost a month after the generals orchestrated the coup that deposed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and detained dozens of politicians and activists.

Hamdok’s reinstatement was the biggest concession made by the military since its Oct. 25 coup but leaves the country’s transition to democracy mired in crisis. Sudan’s key pro-democracy groups and political parties have dismissed the deal as falling short of their demands for a fully civilian rule.

Sudan has been struggling with its transition to a democratic government since the overthrow of autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019, following a mass uprising against three decades of his rule.

Protesters marched Thursday through Khartoum, beating drums and waving Sudanese flags. Many chanted: “The people want to bring down the regime” and “Woe to the military!”

The Sudanese Professionals Association, the group that spearheaded the uprising that culminated in al-Bashir’s ouster, had called for the rallies and vowed to carry on with protests until “the corrupt military junta is brought down and prosecuted for their crimes.”

Similar protests were held elsewhere in Sudan, including in the provinces of Kassala, North Darfur, West Kordofan and Northern Sudan. Activists circulated videos on social media showing tear gas being fired at protesters. There was no immediate word of any injuries.

The deal that Hamdok signed with the military on Sunday envisions an independent, technocratic Cabinet to be led by the prime minister until new elections are held. However, the government would still remain under military oversight though Hamdok claimed he will have the power to appoint ministers.

The agreement has angered Sudan’s pro-democracy movement, which accuses Hamdok of allowing himself to serve as a fig leaf for continued military rule.

The deal also stipulates that all political detainees arrested following the Oct. 25 coup be released. So far, several ministers and politicians have been freed. The number of those still in detention remains unknown.

On Wednesday, Hamdok told a local Sudanese television channel that unless all are released, “the deal will be worthless.”

The statement by the doctors committee on the tribal violence said clashes on Nov. 17 in West Darfur’s Jebel Moon killed 17 and wounded at least 12.

Earlier, Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local organization that helps run refugee camps in Darfur, told The Associated Press that the conflict grew out of a land dispute. He alleged that Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary unit controlled by the country’s second most powerful general, had eventually intervened on behalf of Arab tribes. The clashes subsided on Friday, he said.

The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday that 9,800 people have been displaced in the area of Jebel Moon. Some fled to nearby villages and others crossed the border into Chad. At least six villages were affected, some of them were burned down, according to the U.N. migration agency.

In January, tribal violence killed 470 people in Darfur, in one of the worst episodes since the vicious war of the 2000s there. The latest bloodletting has sparked fears the region could slide back into conflict and raised questions over the government’s ability to implement a peace deal and protect civilians.

Al-Bashir had waged a scorched-earth counterinsurgency in Darfur against ethnic minority rebels who blamed the government for economic and political marginalization. Government forces and primarily Arab militias known as janjaweed are accused of widespread atrocities in the conflict, which killed over 300,000 people and forced 2.7 million to flee. Al-Bashir, now imprisoned in Khartoum, was indicted for war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court for the Darfur violence.

The fighting in Darfur gradually declined but violence continues to flare, as Arab militias roaming the provinces remain heavily armed and retain control over land they seized.

France calls for European aid after 27 migrant deaths at sea

By OLEG CETINIC and JOHN LEICESTER

1 of 11

A damaged inflatable small boat is pictured on the shore in Wimereux, northern France, Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021 in Calais, northern France. Children and pregnant women were among at least 27 migrants who died when their small boat sank in an attempted crossing of the English Channel, a French government official said Thursday. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin also announced the arrest of a fifth suspected smuggler thought to have been involved in what was the deadliest migration tragedy to date on the dangerous sea lane.(AP Photo/Michel Spingler)

CALAIS, France (AP) — Helicopters buzzed above the waves and vessels were already scouring the cold waters when French maritime rescue volunteer Charles Devos added his boat to the frantic search for a flimsy migrant craft that foundered in the English Channel, killing at least 27.

What Devos found was gruesome. But not, he later sorrowfully acknowledged, wholly unexpected. With migrants often setting off by the hundreds in flotillas of unseaworthy and overloaded vessels into the busy shipping lane crisscrossed by hulking freighters, and frequently beset by treacherous weather, waves and currents, Devos had long feared that tragedy would ensue.

That came this week, with the deadliest migration accident to date on the dangerous stretch of sea that separates France and Britain.

“We picked up six floating bodies. We passed by an inflatable craft that was deflated. The little bit of air remaining kept it afloat,” Devos told reporters.

“I’d been somewhat expecting it because I’d say, ‘It’s going to end with a drama,’” he said.

France and Britain appealed Thursday for European assistance, promised stepped-up efforts to combat people-smuggling networks and also traded blame and barbs in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly sinking that again shone a light on the scale and complexity of Europe’s migration problems.

French President Emmanuel Macron appealed to neighboring European countries to do more to stop illegal migration into France, saying that when migrants reach French shores with hopes of heading on to Britain “it is already too late.”

Macron said France is deploying army drones as part of stepped-up efforts to patrol its northern coastline and help rescue migrants at sea. But he also said that a greater collective effort is needed, referring to France as a “transit country” for Britain-bound migrants.

“We need to strengthen cooperation with Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, but also the British and the (European) Commission,” he said on a visit to Croatia. “We need stronger European cooperation.”

Migration is an explosive issue in Europe, where leaders often accuse one another of not doing enough to either prevent migrants from entering their countries or from continuing on to other nations.

Ministers from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain and EU officials will meet on Sunday to discuss increasing efforts to crack down on migrant-smuggling networks, Macron’s government announced.

They will convene in Calais, one of the French coastal towns where migrants gather, looking for ways to cross to the British coast that is visible from France on clear days. Seaside communities on both sides of the channel were reeling Thursday from the sinking’s horrific toll.

“This was unfortunately something that could have been foreseen, a scenario of horror that we’d feared and dreaded,” said Ludovic Hochart, a police union official in Calais.

Across the channel, in the British port of Dover, small business owner Paula Elliot said: “It’s dreadful that people have lost their lives.”

“The vessels that they take, are traveling in, are not fit for purpose,” she said. “They probably don’t understand how arduous the journey is going to be, and especially at this time of year, it’s so much colder than in the summer.”

Devos, the rescue volunteer, told reporters in comments broadcast by coastal radio Delta FM that the flimsy craft used by migrants for the crossing are increasingly overloaded, with as many as 50 people aboard.

Macron described the dead in Wednesday’s sinking as “victims of the worst system, that of smugglers and human traffickers.”

France has never had so many officers mobilized against illegal migration and its commitment is “total,” he said.

Ever-increasing numbers of people fleeing conflict or poverty in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Eritrea or elsewhere are risking the perilous journey from France, hoping to win asylum or find better opportunities in Britain.

The crossings have tripled this year compared to 2020. French authorities said Wednesday’s was the deadliest migration tragedy in the channel since seven migrants died in October 2020. Shipwrecks on that scale, however, are not uncommon in the Mediterranean Sea, where just this year about 1,600 people have died or gone missing, according to U.N. estimates.

The French prosecutors’ office tasked with investigating the sinking said the dead included 17 men, seven women and two boys and one girl thought to be teenagers. Magistrates were investigating potential charges of homicide, unintentional wounding, assisting illegal migration and criminal conspiracy, the prosecutors’ office said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said children and pregnant women were among the dead. Two survivors from the sinking were treated for hypothermia. One is Iraqi, the other Somali, Darmanin said. He said authorities are working to determine the victims’ nationalities.

Macron’s government vowed to bring those responsible for the tragedy to justice, piling pressure on investigators. Darmanin announced the arrests of five alleged smugglers who he said are suspected of being linked to the sinking. He gave no details about the alleged links. The prosecutors’ office investigating the deaths confirmed five arrests since Wednesday but said they didn’t appear to be linked to its probe.

Darmanin said a suspected smuggler arrested overnight was driving a vehicle registered in Germany and had bought inflatable boats there.

He said criminal groups in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain are behind people-smuggling networks. He called on those countries to cooperate better against smugglers, saying they don’t always respond fully to French judicial requests for information.

“Britain and France must work together. We must no longer be, in effect, the only ones able to fight the smugglers,” the minister said.

In their immediate response to the sinking, French authorities initially gave differing figures on the number of dead, from at least 27 to 31. The figure that Darmanin used Thursday morning on RTL radio was 27.

The minister also took a swipe at British government migration policies, saying France expels more people living in the country without legal permission than the U.K. Illegal migration from France’s northern shores to Britain has long been a source of tension between the two countries, even as their police forces work together to try to stop crossings. The issue is often used by politicians on both sides pushing an anti-migration agenda.

“Clearly, immigration is badly managed in Britain,” Darmanin said.

He also suggested that by hiring people living in the country illegally, British employers are encouraging illegal migration to English shores.

“English employers use this labor to make the things that the English manufacture and consume,” he said. “We say ‘reform your labor market.’”

U.K. officials, meanwhile, criticize France for rejecting their offer of British police and border officers to conduct joint patrols along the channel coast with French police.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday it was clear that French operations to stop migrant boats leaving French shores “haven’t been enough.”

He and Macron spoke after the tragedy and agreed “to keep all options on the table to stop these lethal crossings and break the business model of the criminal gangs behind them,” Johnson’s office said.

Macron advocated an immediate funding boost for the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, according to his office.

“France will not allow the Channel to become a cemetery,” Macron said.

___

Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France. Lori Hinnant in Paris and David Keyton in Dover, England, contributed.

___

Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

'They are treated like animals': Calais associations undeterred in their fight to protect migrants

Video by:Wassim Cornet

Activists and members of associations defending migrants' rights gathered on Wednesday night outside the port of Calais, northern France, after at least 31 migrants bound for Britain died when their boat sank in the English Channel. FRANCE 24's Wassim Cornet reports from Calais.

1,600 migrants lost at sea in Mediterranean this year
By KARL RITTER

Migrants and refugees enter in the port of Roccella Jonica, Calabria region, southern Italy, Sunday, Nov. 14, 2021. The Italian Coast Guard rescued Sunday morning off the cost Calabria over 250 young men and boys, mostly from Egypt. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)


ROME (AP) — The sinking of a boat with more than 30 people on board this week is the deadliest migration tragedy to date in the English Channel.

Migrant shipwrecks of that scale, however, are not uncommon in the waters surrounding Europe’s southern borders.

This year alone, U.N. officials estimate that 1,600 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean Sea, the main gateway to Europe for migrants trying to enter the continent with the help of human smugglers.

The death toll is higher than last year, but by no means unique. The International Organization of Migration estimates that 23,000 people have perished since 2014 while trying to cross the Mediterranean in rickety boats or rubber dinghies, peaking at more than 5,000 in 2016. In the same seven-year period, about 166 people have died in the English channel.

Just last week 85 people died in two separate incidents while trying to reach Italy from Libya, said Flavio di Giacomo, the IOM’s spokesman in Italy. Those tragedies barely got noticed in Europe.

“I think it’s a question of proximity,” di Giacomo said. “I think the media attention of what happened between UK and France is also because this is new. Europe is not used to have that inside the continent; usually it’s on the external borders.”

This year the busiest and deadliest migrant route to Europe is the central Mediterranean where people travel in crowded boats from Libya and Tunisia — and in some cases all the way from Turkey — toward Italy. About 60,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea this year, and some 1,200 have died or disappeared on the journey, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

The number of missing is an estimate partly based on information from survivors of shipwrecks.

Migrant rescue activists on Thursday said a boat in the central Mediterranean with 430 people on board was taking in water and called on European authorities to assist. Another boat operated by charity Sea-Watch was looking for a safe port to disembark 463 rescued migrants.

Meanwhile, since last year traffic has increased on an even more dangerous route in the Atlantic Ocean where migrants set out from Senegal, Mauritania or Morocco in simple wooden boats with the hope of reaching Spain’s Canary Islands. Some boats sink not far from the coast of Africa and others disappear further out, in some cases missing the Canaries and drifting deep into the Atlantic.

“The route from western Africa is very long and very dangerous,” di Giacomo said.

IOM has registered 900 deaths on the Canaries route this year, he said, but the true number could be double “and no one is paying a lot of attention.”

More than 400 people were rescued this week while trying to reach the island group.

Human rights groups often criticize European governments for not doing more to rescue migrants trying to reach the continent on unseaworthy vessels. European rescue efforts led by Italy in the central Mediterranean were scaled back a few years ago and more emphasis was placed on training and equipping the Libyan coast guard to intercept migrant boats before they can reach European waters. Critics say Europe is turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in Libyan detention centers for migrants.

Noting that nine out of 10 refugees have fled to neighboring countries, Carlotta Sami of UNCHR in Italy said the agency is pushing for EU governments to provide “safe passageways” for refugees “to diminish the number of those who attempt to make the extremely risky journey.”

____

AP writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

Hope takes root with tree planting in war-wrecked Iraq city

Iraqi volunteers started planting the first of thousands of trees in war-ravaged Mosul on Thursday, hoping to green the former Islamic State group stronghold.

© Zaid AL-OBEIDI Iraqi volunteers plant trees at Mosul's Technical University in the northern city on November 25, 2021

They placed the first 300 acacia, lemon tree and cypress saplings into the ground in a project that aims to plant 5,000 new trees in the northern city, much of which still lies in ruins.

"Mosul was a disaster province," said one volunteer, 23-year-old beekeeper Aysan Samir, at the first site, Mosul's Technical University campus. "Replanting green spaces brings hope and life back to the city." 

© Ludovic MARIN A view of the destruction in the old city of Mosul, in the northern Nineveh province, in a picture from August 29, 2021

Oil-rich Iraq, devastated by decades of war and chaos, is also one of the countries most threatened by climate change and already faces intense summer heat, water stress and frequent droughts 

.

© Zaid AL-OBEIDI "The objective is to fight against desertification in Mosul," said one volunteeer, "especially as we don't have many green spaces, many of which have disappeared with the war."

The country of 40 million could suffer a further 20-percent drop in water resources by mid-century, the World Bank warned in a report Wednesday.

"In recent years we have seen the impact on the environment and climate in Mosul," said Abdel Aziz al-Saleh of Mosul Eye, the citizen media group carrying out the French-funded project.

"There is less rainfall, groundwater is drying up, temperatures are rising."

The Mosul Eye collective was created initially while the city was under the brutal rule of the IS, whose jihadists were eventually driven out in 2017 after gruelling urban battles.

Saleh said the volunteers are also planting pines, neem trees and small flamboyant trees called the king's whiskers in Arabic.

"The objective is to fight against desertification in Mosul," he said, "especially as we don't have many green spaces, many of which have disappeared with the war."

str/tgg/fz

Fire in Siberian coal mine kills 11; dozens trapped



A rescue team prepares to enter a coal mine near the Siberian city of Kemerovo to attempt to save trapped miners.
(Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations)

BY DARIA LITVINOVA
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NOV. 25, 2021
MOSCOW —

A fire at a coal mine in Siberia killed 11 people and injured more than 40 on Thursday, with dozens of others remaining trapped, Russian authorities said.

Efforts to rescue those trapped in the mine were halted on Thursday afternoon because of an explosion threat, and rescuers were rushed out of the mine, administrators of the mine told the Interfax news agency.

The blaze broke out in the Kemerovo region in southwestern Siberia. Russia’s state Tass news agency reported, citing an unnamed emergency official, that coal dust caught fire, and smoke quickly filled the Listvyazhnaya mine through the ventilation system.

A total of 285 people were in the mine at the time of the incident, Kemerovo Gov. Sergei Tsivilyov said on the messaging app Telegram. He said 35 miners remained trapped underground, and their exact location was unknown

Tsivilyov said in another post that 49 people with injuries had sought medical assistance, down from anearlier toll of 60, while Russia’s acting minister for emergency situations, Alexander Chupriyan, said 44 miners were hospitalized with injuries. The differences in injury tolls couldn’t be immediately reconciled.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the fire on charges of violating safety regulations that led to deaths.

President Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the families of the killed miners and ordered the government to provide all necessary assistance to those who were injured.

Putin was in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Thursday afternoon to meet with his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, who also offered condolences to the families of the victims. Putin noted that the situation at the mine “unfortunately, is not getting easier.”

“There is a danger to the life of the rescuers. ... Let’s hope that [they] will manage to save as many people as possible,” Putin said.

In 2016, 36 miners were killed in a series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia’s far north. In the wake of the incident, authorities analyzed the safety of the country’s 58 coal mines and declared 20 of them, or 34%, potentially unsafe.

The Listvyazhnaya mine in the Kemerovo region wasn’t among them at the time, according to media reports.

The latest inspection of the mine took place just a week ago, on Nov. 19, Interfax reported, citing officials from Rostekhnadzor, Russia’s state technology and ecology watchdog. The report didn’t offer any details on the results of the inspection.

According to Tass, the regional branch of Rostekhnadzor also inspected the mine in April and registered 139 different violations, including breaching fire safety regulations.

Dozens of people, including rescuers, killed in coal mine accident in Siberia

Issued on: 25/11/2021 - 

Ambulances and fire trucks at the Listvyazhnaya coal mine out near the Siberian city of Kemerovo, about 3,500 kilometres east of Moscow, on November 25, 2021. 

© Stringer, AP

A gas leak in a Siberian coal mine killed at least 52 people on Thursday, Russian news agencies said, including six rescuers who were sent down to try to bring out dozens of men in what was one of Russia’s worst mining disasters in more than 10 years.

The regional Investigative Committee said three people, including the director of the Listvyazhnaya mine and his deputy, had been arrested on suspicion of violating industrial safety rules.

It said miners had suffocated when a ventilation shaft became filled with gas. State television said prosecutors believed there had been a methane explosion.

The fatalities include 11 miners who had already been confirmed dead, 35 who had been reported missing, and the six rescue workers.

Dozens of people were hospitalised, at least some of them for smoke inhalation. Four were in critical condition.

The coal-producing region of Kemerovo, roughly 3,500 km (2,200 miles) east of Moscow, has suffered fatal mining accidents for years.

The Listvyazhnaya mine is part of SDS-Holding, owned by the privately held Siberian Business Union. The owner had no immediate comment.

Some 285 people were inside the mine when smoke spread through the ventilation shaft, the Emergencies Ministry said. Authorities said 239 had made it to the surface.

President Vladimir Putin said he had spoken with the governor and emergency officials, and the Kremlin said he had ordered the emergencies minister to fly to the region to help.

Kemerovo declared three days of mourning.

In 2007, the region was the site of the worst mining accident since the collapse of the Soviet Union when an explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine claimed the lives of more than 100 people. In 2010, explosions at the region’s Raspadskaya mine killed more than 90 people.

(AP)

PHLIPPINES

Two minors among 'overworked, underpaid' workers rescued from Navotas warehouse

Allegedly maltreated and underpaid workers, including two minors, have been rescued from a warehouse in Navotas City.

Navotas warehouse

According to Marisol Abdurahman's report on "24 Oras", the authorities acted on the complaint of workers who escaped and conducted a raid on the warehouse of used clothes.

The victims told the authorities that they worked 12 to 14 hours a day and that they were also underpaid.

“Hindi na po namin kaya. Overworked talaga, halos 12 hours to 14 hours everyday. P300 lang po sa kanila,” Gino Narvaez, victim, said in Marisol Abdurahman’s “24 Oras” report on Thursday.

(We are so overworked, almost 12 hours to 14 hours everyday. Only a P300 salary was given for them.)

They also said that they were also detained inside the warehouse.

“Naka-padlock. Sobrang hirap. Bigat. Tapos sobra sa oras. Simula umaga hanggang gabi,” another victim Ruel Antong said.

(We were padlocked. It was very difficult. We were overworked from morning until night.)

The law enforcers arrested their employers who are three Chinese nationals.

“Hindi tama yung pagbigay ng sahod yung overtime pay wala po at may ginagawang maltreatment din po sa kanila. Kaya po inevaluate po natin yung kaso,” Police Colonel Randy Glenn Silvio, regional chief of CIDG-NCR, said.

(There is no overtime pay and they are also being maltreated. So we evaluate the case.)

Meanwhile, one of the employers denied the allegations against them, including the hiring of minors.

The employers will face charges for violation of Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.

Personnel of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group – National Capital Region (CIDG-NCR), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) conducted the joint operation and raided the warehouse of secondhand clothes in Navotas City. -Richa Alyssa Noriega/NB, GMA News

This article Two minors among 'overworked, underpaid' workers rescued from Navotas warehouse was originally published in GMA News Online.

Egypt unveils renovated 'Avenue of the Sphinxes' in Luxor


By HAGGAG SALAMA , THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted Nov 25, 2021 

People visit the Luxor Temple in Egypt, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. Egypt has announced the discovery in the southern city of Luxor of a pharaonic tomb belonging to a royal goldsmith who lived more than 3,500 years ago during the reign of the 18th dynasty. Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anani hopes the discovery will boost the country's slowly recovering tourism industry. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) — Egyptian authorities were unveiling Thursday a renovated ancient promenade in the city of Luxor dating back 3,000 years, the latest government project undertaken to highlight the country’s archaeological treasures.

Egypt has struggled to revive its tourism industry, battered by years of political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, and more lately, the coronavirus pandemic.

The ancient walkway — known as the Avenue of the Sphinxes, but also dubbed the Way of the Rams and the Path of the Gods — connects the famous Karnak and Luxor temples in what was the city of Thebes, which used to be Egypt’s capital in antiquity. It is believed to have been the path that pilgrims trod to visit the temples and pay tribute to their deities.

Lined with statues of rams and sphinxes on pedestals, the ancient road in Luxor, which sits on the banks of the Nile River and is located about 650 kilometers (400 miles) south of Cairo, stretches for several miles and had been under excavation for more than 50 years.

President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi attended the made-for-TV event, a late evening ceremony complete with the reenacting of an ancient holiday, along with other senior officials.

Mohamed Abd el-Badei, a top Egyptian archeology officials, said the oldest ruins along the pathway are six structures built by Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt’s only woman pharaoh, that date to 1400 B.C.

He said that according to hieroglyphics on the walls of one of the temples, the holiday was known as “Opet” and was marked by parades and dancers in celebration of the bounty that the Nile’s annual flooding brought to the fields. There was also a flotilla of sacred boats that made their way to the temple, according to the transcriptions.

Thursday’s event is the second glitzy ceremony this year to honor Egypt’s heritage. In April, the government hosted a procession to mark the transfer of some of the famous mummies from the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo to the newly built museum south of the Egyptian capital.

Haggag Salama , The Associated Press