West Australian mining executives apologise to mine site sexual assault victims

By David Weber

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy says the most most significiant issue on mine sites is ensuring they are safe for female employees.

(Supplied: Rio Tinto/Christian Sprogoe Photography)

WA mining company executives have held an unprecedented media conference to apologise to those who have been sexually assaulted or harassed on the state's mine sites.

Key points:

Two BHP workers have been charged with separate sexual assaults

Women make up about 22 per cent of Australia's mining workforce

WA Premier Mark McGowan has supported calls for an inquiry

Managers from BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), Woodside and Newmont said they had a "zero tolerance policy" on assault and harassment and were committed to ensuring their workplaces were safe for female employees.

And the WA Premier said the government would support an inquiry into the safety of female workers.

It comes after two BHP workers were charged with sexual penetration over separate incidents, and FMG revealed it was assisting police investigating an incident of alleged indecent assault.

Chamber of Minerals and Energy (CME) chief executive Paul Everingham said it was the most significant issue on mine sites.

"I just wanted to put on the record on behalf of the resources industry in Western Australia our very strong stance opposing any and all forms of workplace rape, assault or harassment at any time," he said.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy in the resources sector.

"Health and safety has for a long time been our most important tool on all of our sites and this includes personal safety, and safe and responsible behaviours.

Women make up about 22 per cent of Australia's mining workforce.

(ABC News: Rachel Pupazzoni)

"I'd also like to express my apologies on behalf of the sector for people who've been impacted by sexual assault, harassment and or rape.

"And also I would like to apologise if anyone has felt they haven't been able to come forward to put on record instances or allegations."
Sector must be 'completely inclusive'

A recently established Safe and Respectful Behaviours Working Group will focus on a code of conduct for employees of the chamber's member companies, behaviour at external events, after hours on site, and social media activities.

The role of alcohol use at work sites will also be considered.

FMG director of people Linda O'Farrell said her company's most important values were family and safety.

"Any kind of harassment, any kind of victimisation is completely at odds with those values," she said.

"[It] has no place in our company, in our sector, in our society.

WA Premier Mark McGowan has supported calls for an inquiry

.(Supplied: Rio Tinto)

"We welcome this opportunity to collaborate together as an industry."

She said the task was not over until the sector was "completely" inclusive and everyone felt safe.

BHP head of WA iron ore Brandon Craig said it was "critical" to take positive steps to prevent incidents of sexual assault.

"We're going to work incredibly hard over these coming months and into the future at making sure that this type of issue is eradicated from our industry and our workplace," he said.

The views were echoed by Woodside executive vice-president Fiona Hick, Newmont regional chief financial officer Felicity Hughes, Rio Tinto's iron ore chief executive Simon Trott, and BHP general manager integrated production Jessica Farrell.
Premier supports inquiry

Women make up about 22 per cent of Australia's mining workforce.

Mr Everingham said he did not have data on whether harassment and ill treatment of women was more prevalent in mining than in other industries.

"To me, in a way, it's irrelevant," he said.

"It's happening in our industry and we're doing something about it."

The CME and mining company representatives said they would co-operate with any parliamentary inquiry into the safety of women on sites.

WA Premier Mark McGowan said the government would support an inquiry.

"It's not to examine individual cases. That's a matter for the police," Mr McGowan said.

"It's to examine the overall issue and how we make the environment — bear in mind it's a long way from home and [there is] a large number of people gathering — as safe as possible for everyone involved."

Rare tornado, storms rip through southern Czech Republic, killing three

By Metro US
Posted on June 25, 2021

Aftermath of rare tornado in Czech Republic

MORAVSKA NOVA VES, Czech Republic (Reuters) -A rare tornado and strong storms struck along the Czech Republic’s southern border on Thursday to destroy parts of some towns, killing at least three people and injuring dozens more, emergency services and media said.

The tornado, reported in towns around Hodonin, along the Slovak and Austrian borders and 270 km (167 miles) southeast of Prague, the capital, may have reached windspeeds above 332 kph (206 mph), a Czech Television meteorologist said.

That would make it the strongest in the modern history of the central European nation and its first tornado since 2018.

Strong storms ripped roofs off houses and other buildings, blew out windows, overturned cars and scattered debris through the streets.

Workers of emergency services rested amid debris in the market town of Moravska Nova Ves, after having worked through the night.

A spokesperson for the South Moravia region’s ambulance service told Czech Television three people died in the storms and dozens were treated for injuries.

Czech TV reported as many as seven small towns were “massively” damaged, citing an emergency services spokesperson. An official of one municipality, Hrusky, said half of the town was practically levelled to the ground.

Search and rescue teams fanned out in the area, with neighbouring Austria and Slovakia also sending emergency units to help.

(Reporting by David Cerny in Moravska Nova Ves and Jason Hovet in Prague; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Aftermath of rare tornado in Czech Republic

AUSTRALIA
Gulf of Carpentaria the 'poor cousin' of Great Barrier Reef in climate change action
ABC North West Qld /
By Kemii Maguire
Posted Yesterday 

Hundreds of kilometres of mangroves in Queensland's Gulf Country have turned a ghostly white.( Supplied: James Cook University)

While attention has focused on the Great Barrier Reef this week, scientists warn Gulf of Carpentaria mangroves are also being devastated by the effects of climate change.

Key points:

Mangrove dieback in the Gulf of Carpentaria is being overlooked in climate discussions

Scientists say devastation in the Gulf directly correlates to Great Barrier Reef bleaching

Calls for better appreciation of climate change impact on mangroves

The World Heritage Committee, which sits under UNESCO, has proposed moving the Great Barrier Reef to the 'in danger' list because of the impact of climate change.

Mangrove ecologist Norman Duke from James Cook University (JCU) said while mangroves did not carry the same classifications as the reef, the climate change impacts were comparable.

"They go hand in hand," he said.

JCU researchers studying the Queensland Gulf region found more than 7,500 hectares of mangrove dieback since 2015.

"Weather conditions were not only enough to heat up the water and bleach the Great Barrier Reef, but it also has meant significant changes for mangroves," Dr Duke said.

"In this case, the mangroves have died from a lack of water and rain, but the events are synchronous, and that's the point."

7,500 hectares of mangroves have died in the Gulf of Carpentaria at Karumba.

(ABC North West Queensland: Lucy Murray)

Despite the severity of the dieback, no specific endangered or environmental listing had been applied to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

"What is currently happening with the Great Barrier Reef is because it is World Heritage-listed," Dr Duke said.

Unlike the Barrier Reef, which had federal government and global responsibility, the Gulf's environmental condition was controlled by local and state governments.

"The Queensland government has a general rule for mangrove disruption and the Northern Territory have their own rules," he said.
Mangroves not as controversial

Dr Norm Duke has been mangrove ecologist for more than 38 years.

(ABC Gold Coast: Ashleigh Stevenson)

The Barrier Reef's in danger listing saw a major backlash from politicians and local tourist operators.

Dr Duke said he had not found the same response to mangroves.

"Curiously enough, when people walk up to me the questions they ask is more about their concern with the mangroves," he said.

"It's not like they're saying nothing's happening and why we should be worried.

"Usually it's because something has happened and they want it explained.

"They simply need to know if they should be worried about it."

He said that climate discussions are not restricted to the Great Barrier Reef or coastal areas.

"We'd would encourage more appreciation for what these changes are, so we can better manage them."

Mangroves grow close to tourist hotspots including Karumba in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

(ABC News: Kelly Butterworth)

Dr Duke said the four-year-study into Gulf of Carpentaria mangroves would be released in the next coming weeks.

"There will be a lot of significant results that will be worth hearing about for people in the Gulf," he said.

"It's definitely a watch this space."

UAE chess champion faces one of the biggest games of his life

Emirati Salem Salah could win $100,000 on Saturday, but first he has to beat world champion Magnus Carlsen


Emirati chess champion Salem Salah is preparing for a speed chess tournament on Saturday, when he'll come up against the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen. Antonie Robertson / The National







Georgia Tolley
June 25, 2021


It was clear from a young age that Salem Saleh had startling talent, and an extraordinary mind.

The Arab chess prodigy started winning professional championships aged only 10, and was named a grandmaster by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) when he was 16, a title currently held by 1,721 other players in the world.

As Arab and Asian chess champion and the UAE's top player, Mr Saleh is used to coming first, but this weekend he will face some of the top minds in chess, including the world champion, Magnus Carlsen from Norway, woman world No 1 Hou Yifan from China, and several grandmasters from India including Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi, Gukesh D and Adhiban Baskaran.


The Queen's Gambit was like a bomb in the chess world - it created a huge shift in interest

Salem Saleh

"I enjoy playing but I enjoy winning more. I'm also competitive, and I hate to lose," said the 28-year-old Emirati.

"I'm really ambitious and I work really hard. My goal is to be No 1. That is what I'm hoping for – I don't shoot for No 20, I shoot for the top."


Mr Saleh could win $100,000 (Dh370,000) in the Goldmoney Asian Rapid, a virtual speed chess tournament where the competitors have only 15 minutes plus an additional 10 seconds per move to beat their opponent, but he said he does not think about the prize fund.

"When you're playing the game, you just forget about everything else, you just think about the moves," he said.

"In my head, I see a picture of the positions, and I start moving the pieces. The board, basically, is in my head."

An Emirati champion

Mr Saleh, who grew up in Sharjah the youngest of three brothers, was fortunate in that his father was involved in the management of the Sharjah Cultural and Chess Club.

The organisation was established in the 1970s, and still hosts to a vibrant community of chess enthusiasts.

Mr Saleh spent much of his childhood playing at the club, and still practises for six to eight hours a day with a coach, while also working for Dubai Police in quality control management. His professional chess skills mean he always thinks several steps ahead in his work as well.

"Generally I'm always planning and anticipating something; I create scenarios, I always imagine what will happen if this, or if that," he said.

"So I think chess influenced my thinking in my normal life, for sure."

Mr Saleh's areas of expertise encompass classical chess, speed chess and blitz chess, all of which have different rules and require different skillsets.

The classical format of the game allows two hours for each player for the game, with a 30-second increment for every move.

These games last about four hours, but can last as long as seven or even eight.

Rapid games are four times faster than the classical games and last an hour, and the blitz games are four times faster than the rapid games, lasting only 15 minutes.

The faster the game, the more the players rely on instinct to make their moves, and this is where Mr Saleh excels – he was ranked 19th in the world at one stage. In classical chess his world ranking is 53, but he is training to improve.

"First of all you can get better at chess itself, by improving different aspects. In the game, we have the opening, middle game and end game," he said.

"You can study more openings, you can find your own ideas, analyse with a computer and study different games, so you can improve in each aspect, by training, and by playing.

"When you play you find your weaknesses and you can work on that, and also your strengths, you can get better at them.

"There is the other part – the psychological part. In chess there is a lot of psychology – when you become a leader in a tournament, it feels different than at the start of the tournament; or when you lose two or three games in a row, you have to react differently.

"So with experience you become much more stable psychologically.

"You also need physical strength, because the games can sometimes last for six, seven hours, and the tournament can be two weeks sometimes, so you have to be physically very strong."

The chess world and The Queen's Gambit

Anya Taylor-Joy stars as chess prodigy Beth Harmon in Netflix show, 'The Queen's Gambit'. Phil Bray / Netflix

Mr Saleh's next major tournament is the FIDE World Cup in July, which will be his first in-person professional event for many months because of the pandemic.

The delayed 2020 FIDE World Chess Championship will also take place this year, in the UAE as part of Expo 2020 Dubai.

At the event the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen, will defend his title against the winner of the Candidates Tournament, Ian Nepomniachtchi, with a $2.5m (Dh9 million) prize fund at stake.

Both events are certain to have a much bigger audience this year than ever before, thanks to the popularity of the blockbuster TV series, The Queen's Gambit, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as orphaned chess prodigy Beth Harmon.

READ MORE

Giant chess pieces, Cold War intrigue and an Emirati gold: the story of Dubai's 1986 Chess Olympiad

Bahrain's 'Queen’s Gambit': Why more people than ever are playing chess on the small Gulf island

'The Queen’s Gambit' and nine more of the most famous chess moves in history

When it was released, the Netflix show made the top 10 in 92 countries and ranked No 1 in 63 countries, including the UK, Argentina, Israel and South Africa.

Chess sets sold out during the global lockdowns of 2020, with unit sales increasing by 87 per cent in the US in the three weeks after the programme premiered.

"It was like a bomb in the chess world – it created a huge shift in interest," Mr Saleh said.

"I have so many friends who knew that I was a chess player for so many years, and no one ever talked to me about chess.

"But when this Queen's Gambit came everyone seemed to be very interested, and they asked me about many things, and they started to like chess and play online."

To watch the real thing, the tournament starts at 3pm on Chess 24 on Saturday, with Mr Saleh against Hou Yifan in round one, Wesley So in round two, Peter Svidler in round three, Levon Aronian in round four and world champion Magnus Carlsen in round five.

Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani to invest $10.1bn into clean energy

The move toward green by the Mumbai-based giant offers a glimpse of the new order awaiting some of the world’s major fossil-fuel producers

Mr Ambani's Reliance Industries, which gets 60% of its revenue from oil refining and petrochemicals, plans to invest in four “giga factories” to produce solar modules, hydrogen, fuel cells and to build a battery grid to store electricity. Reuters

Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani unveiled an ambitious push into clean energy involving 750 billion rupees ($10.1bn) of investment over three years, marking a new pivot for one of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel billionaires.

Reliance Industries, which gets 60 per cent of its revenue from oil refining and petrochemicals, plans to spend 600 billion rupees on four “giga factories” to produce solar modules, hydrogen, fuel cells and to build a battery grid to store electricity. An additional 150bn rupees will be invested in value chain and other partnerships, Asia’s richest man told shareholders on Thursday.

The move toward green by the Mumbai-based giant, which reported an annual revenue of $63bn, offers a glimpse of the new order awaiting some of the world’s major fossil-fuel producers. Global giants such as Exxon Mobil and TotalEnergies have been under pressure to pare their carbon footprint, as governments, investors and consumers join to fight climate change and global warming.

Speaking at the company’s online annual meeting, Mr Ambani gave scant details of how he would execute the plan. He was ranked No. 4 among global fossil-fuel billionaires by Bloomberg Green last year. The $10bn in green investment over three years compares with Fitch Ratings’ estimate – published Wednesday – of $7.4bn in annual average capital expenditure by the Reliance group through March 2025.

BP and Reliance Industries start production from second phase of India's largest offshore project

Reliance Industries' $3.4bn bid for Future Group's retail assets thwarted by high court ruling

Shares of the company fell 2.4 per cent on Thursday in Mumbai, the most in more than two months.

“There is an apprehension that the new initiatives, especially green energy projects, will require high gestation period and may also result in fresh debt for the capex plans,” said Kranthi Bathini of WealthMills Securities. He expects these initiatives to benefit the company over the long term.

Mr Ambani isn’t entirely turning his back on his legacy oil and petrochemicals business. On Thursday, he said that a delayed plan to bring Saudi Arabian Oil Company as an investor in the energy division –announced two years ago – will be finalised this year. He didn’t elaborate. In a move to reassure investors, he also said Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance.

The proposed green transformation aligns with the priorities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has been debating aggressive climate targets that would cut net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by mid-century, a decade before China. Though fellow tycoon Gautam Adani, who built a coal-centered conglomerate of ports and power plants, is already pursuing a similar path expanding his presence in wind and solar energy, Mr Ambani’s plans are bigger in scope.

“The world is entering a new energy era, which is going to be highly disruptive,” said Mr Ambani, 64. “The age of fossil fuels, which powered economic growth globally for nearly three centuries, cannot continue much longer. The huge quantities of carbon it has emitted into the environment have endangered life on Earth.”

One of Reliance’s “giga factories” will manufacture solar modules, enabling 100 gigawatts of solar energy by 2030, including on rooftop installations in villages across the country; the second involves large-scale grid batteries to store electricity, for which Reliance will collaborate with global leaders on the technology; and, the third will build and install electrolysers for separating green hydrogen from water.

“I envision a future when our country will be transformed from a large importer of fossil energy to a large exporter of clean solar energy solutions,” Mr Ambani said.

The fourth factory would be for fuel cells, which use oxygen from the air and hydrogen to generate electricity – a technology that’s being promoted by carmakers including Hyundai Motor but famously dismissed as “mind-bogglingly stupid” by Tesla’s Elon Musk.

The announcement comes the year after India’s most valuable company raised more than $30bn selling stakes in its technology and retail units, and through a sale of shares to existing investors. Reliance brought on board Silicon Valley giants such as Google and Facebook to help grow its digital and e-commerce footprint in a $1 trillion retail market of more than 1.3 billion people.

The investment inflows, which Mr Ambani called “vote of confidence” in his businesses, have helped Reliance’s stock almost double in value since the beginning of April 2020. Mr Ambani’s net worth is about $84bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.

The Adani-led group is also raising its game in clean energy goals. Adani Green Energy agreed last month to buy SoftBank Group’s $3.5bn renewable power business in India, in a bid to achieve its goal of having 25 gigawatts of renewable power capacity by 2025. The green focus has led to a share rally with Adani Green jumping more than 580 per cent and Adani Total Gas – a joint venture with TotalEnergies – by 670 per cent since the beginning of last year.

Reliance last year set itself a target of becoming a net-zero carbon company by 2035 – a shorter time frame compared to the self-imposed 2050 cut-off of many of its global peers including BP and Royal Dutch Shell. Mr Ambani’s group bought its first cargo of carbon-neutral crude oil in February and said it was looking for more such partnerships.

India’s government plans to expand its renewable energy capacity nearly fivefold to 450 gigawatts by 2030, as the nation aims to reduce its dependence on coal.

”Reliance’s strategy on energy, data and consumer will ensure the company continues to grow sustainably bucking all cyclical trends,” said Sunil Chandiramani, chief executive at Nyka Advisory Services. However, “it will need to navigate challenges of technology innovation, talent acquisition, investor expectations and global turmoil”, he said.

Gas infrastructure across Europe leaking planet-warming methane: report


EURACTIV.com with Reuters

Currently, the EU does not regulate methane emissions in the energy sector, meaning companies running the sites surveyed by CATF are not breaking laws because of leaks or venting. [CutMethaneEU]

The potent greenhouse gas methane is spewing out of natural gas infrastructure across the European Union because of leaks and venting, according to video footage made available to Reuters.

Using a €100,000 infrared camera, non-profit Clean Air Task Force (CATF) found methane seeping into the atmosphere at 123 oil and gas sites in Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Romania this year.

Methane, the biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide (CO2), is the main component of natural gas and over 80 times more potent than CO2 in its first 20 years in the air.

Currently, the EU does not regulate methane emissions in the energy sector, meaning companies running the sites surveyed by CATF are not breaking laws because of leaks or venting.

While some member states require firms to report some emissions there is no overarching framework forcing them to monitor smaller leaks, or fix them.

That’s set to change.

The EU is proposing laws this year that will force oil and gas companies to monitor and report methane emissions, as well as improve the detection and repair of leaks.

In the energy sector, methane is emitted intentionally through venting and by accident from sites such as gas storage tanks, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, pipeline compressor stations and oil and gas processing sites.

CATF visited over 200 sites in seven EU countries and filmed emissions with the infrared camera in public vantage points to detect hydrocarbons invisible to the naked eye, such as methane.

“Once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” said CATF’s James Turitto, who filmed the emissions. “If we have any hope of achieving only a 1.5 Celsius rise in average global temperatures, we must stop these leaks.”

Altogether, CATF counted 271 incidents, with some sites leaching methane from several places.

Turitto said over 90% of the sites he visited in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Romania were emitting methane while his hit rate in Germany and Austria was lower.


EU Commission paves way for regulating methane emissions in 2021

The European Commission has opted for a “holistic” approach to address the global warming impact of methane, putting the emphasis on international cooperation first before regulating emissions in sectors like energy and agriculture.

Leaks and holes

A selection of the CATF thermography, which shows hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds, was reviewed by five technical experts contacted by Reuters.

Given emissions were at installations handling natural gas – and methane is its main component – they concluded the emissions recorded by CATF were almost certainly methane.

At one gas plant owned by Italy’s Eni near the town of Pineto on the country’s Adriatic coast, methane appears to be leaking from a rusty hole in the side of a tank.

The footage captures a snapshot of each site’s emissions on a given day so it cannot quantify the amount of methane being emitted over longer periods.

What it does reveal is emissions that could be avoided if infrastructure owners used commercially available measurement and abatement technology, emissions experts said.

“If there are cracks in the storage tanks, it is a relatively easy fix to patch the tanks,” said Jonathan Dorn, an air quality expert at Abt Associates.

Turitto said he called an emergency number for reporting leaks at the Eni site but the line was dead.

Eni said the leak at Pineto was from a water tank which would have had negligible amounts of gas and that it had been detected and fixed during regular maintenance.

“We are strengthening our efforts in the implementation of periodic leak detection and repair monitoring campaigns,” Eni said, adding that it was supportive of EU regulations to address methane emissions.

Companies on notice

Brussels put energy companies on notice in October that it would target them with new rules on gas leaks and was also considering restrictions on venting or flaring of methane.

“The Commission calls on companies in the oil, gas and coal sectors to set up more robust leak detection and repair programmes to prepare for upcoming proposals for legislation that would make such programmes mandatory,” it said.

An EU official told Reuters this month that because the EU has few methane “super emitters”, the legislation would focus on tackling the smaller but far more frequent emissions that occur throughout energy sector infrastructure.

“The first thing is to really try to address these more diffused emissions of methane, covering the whole energy sector,” the official, who declined to be named, said.

Experts say the new rules will shake things up for every oil and gas firm in Europe, not least because the EU is considering forcing companies to find and fix even the smallest leaks.

“Each company has a lot to do,” said Andris Piebalgs, professor at the Florence School of Regulation and a former EU energy commissioner.

It is unlikely the new rules would take effect before 2023 but Brussels wants to get them in place early enough to contribute to its goal of cutting net emissions of all greenhouse gases by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels.


EU working on plans to expose climate impact of natural gas

The European Commission is preparing a strategy to curb methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, including fracked LNG imported from the US. But the timing is uncertain because officials are still busy collecting data on which to base …

Intentional emissions

The EU is not alone. US President Joe Biden’s administration plans to propose new rules this year to reduce methane emissions.

The New York Times used an infrared camera to identify large methane leaks at US oil and gas sites in 2019 while satellite footage made available to Reuters revealed massive methane leaks from Russian gas pipelines.

CATF’s footage shows Italian energy company SNAM was venting hydrocarbons consistently over three dates during a two-week period from two stacks at its Panigaglia LNG terminal near La Spezia on the Mediterranean coast.

Tim Doty, a consultant in thermographic imaging in the energy sector and a former official at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the footage showed the stacks were “openly venting hydrocarbon emissions”.

At a SNAM underground storage facility at Minerbio near Bologna, the infrared footage showed a plume of methane flowing out of a vent stack.

SNAM said it was a member of the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP), a voluntary group of energy companies that is committed to improving methane measurement and abatement. Eni is also a member.

“Emissions recorded by CATF at the Minerbio and Bordolano storage sites are fugitive emissions resulting from blowdown valves that are internally leaking … the full replacement, starting in 2021, will be completed in 2024,” SNAM said.

“The (Panigaglia) emission recorded by CATF at the vent stacks was due to the temporary mechanical failure of an air compressor,” it said. “We are confident to be able to fix the air compressor during the second half of 2021.”

Hunting the source

An expert with nearly two decades of experience at major oil companies who advises US firms and authorities on methane emissions said the CATF footage showed the EU had a problem.

“There is this urban legend that the U.S. natural gas system is disproportionately leaky compared to the rest of the world,” said the expert, who declined to be named. “When I look at these videos, they don’t seem very different than the United States.”

Globally, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is rising. The UN said in April that without deep cuts in methane emissions this decade, the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 Celsius would slip out of reach.

Once methane is in the atmosphere, it is all but impossible to trace it back to a specific source which means better monitoring at the point of emission is key.

A growing web of satellites searching for methane means major leaks of thousands of tonnes a year are easier to identify but many smaller leaks go unnoticed.

In Hungary, the footage showed a MOL site which separates gas from oil venting emissions.

The Hungarian energy company said it was aware of the emissions and they were an unavoidable part of normal and safe operations to avoid pressure building up in storage tanks.

MOL said there were no existing regulations requiring it to measure or report emissions but it aimed to end routine methane emissions from gas activities by 2030.

In Austria, at an OMV oil facility near onshore wells north of Vienna, the camera showed a number of smaller leaks.

OMV said it fully supported new EU methane rules. It said the minor leaks at the site had been fixed and it was planning to replace pressure regulation systems that release methane with equipment that stops such emissions.

“The presence of these emissions indicates that this site has ongoing maintenance issues,” said Doty, pointing to four different sources. “These emissions are very troubling.”

Urgent methane cuts needed to rein in climate change, UN says
Deep cuts in methane emissions, including from the fossil fuel industry, are urgently needed to slow the rate of global warming and keep it beneath a threshold agreed by world leaders, according to a UN report due to be released next week.

‘They All F*cking Hate Me!’ – Trump’s Rant About ‘The Blacks’

By Fisher Jack
June 19, 2021

Donald Trump (Getty)

*We’ve learned that now ex-President Donald Trump regretted not taking a harder line against protesters in the wake of the late George Floyd’s death, lamenting that “the Blacks” hated him and would never vote for him anyway.

Mike Bender, a Wall Street Journal reporter, has an upcoming book called “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost” coming out shortly. It was excerpted by Politico Playbook and it pictures Trump as seething in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, and regretting the criminal justice reform he supported because of his son-in-law Jared Kushner. (Thank God for Kushner.)

MORE NEWS ON EURWEB: A$AP Rocky Admits He Feared Trump’s Support During Sweden Arrest Would ‘Jeopardize’ His Case

Snoop – Trump – HarryO  (who Trump pardoned from prison before he left office)


“For Father’s Day in 2020, what DONALD TRUMP mostly wanted was to avoid his son-in-law. It was JARED KUSHNER who had talked the president into hiring BRAD PARSCALE to run a campaign that was now, just months before the election, in freefall. And when most Americans rejected Trump’s unreasonably truculent response to the civil unrest that was sweeping the country, the president also blamed Kushner. … Trump privately told advisers that he wished he’d been quicker to support police and more aggressive in his pushback against protesters.

“Trump had staked nearly his entire campaign in 2016 around a law-and-order image, and now groaned that the criminal justice reform that Kushner had persuaded him to support made him look weak and — even worse — hadn’t earned him any goodwill among Black voters.

“‘I’ve done all this stuff for the Blacks — it’s always Jared telling me to do this,’ Trump said to one confidante on Father’s Day. ‘And they all f—— hate me, and none of them are going to vote for me.’”

Trump Impeachment / Getty

If you paid any kind of attention, you know that Trump denounced the unrest around Floyd’s murder, continuously praised the National Guard crackdown on protests in Minneapolis. On the other hand, when white insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol, Trump opposed deploying the National Guard, and praised the invaders while the assault was in progress.

In November, 87 percent of voters Trump refers to as “The Blacks,” cast their ballots for now-President Joe Biden, according to exit polls.

UK

Vow to end NHS reliance on foreign staff criticised

POLITICAL POSTURING? Baroness Dido Harding formally applied to succeed Simon Stevens as the head of NHS England last week. (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Lauren Codling

24 June, 2021

HEALTHCARE leaders have warned that the NHS will not survive without the contribution of overseas staff, following reports a life peer was vowing to end the
health service’s reliance on foreign workers.

Baroness Dido Harding has apparently pledged to make the NHS less reliant on non-UK workers, if she becomes head of the NHS. Harding, the former head of the NHS’s Test and Trace programme, formally applied to succeed Simon Stevens as the head of NHS England last week.

The Times claimed Harding would challenge the “prevailing orthodoxy” in government that staff are better sourced from abroad. Around 14 per cent of the NHS workforce are non-UK nationals, according to the House of Commons Library.

Reacting to the claims, British Medical Association (BMA) council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said the NHS would not survive without the contribution of overseas health workers. Non-UK staff played a “critical role” in supporting the health service, he argued.

“Their contribution to saving lives and caring for patients during the pandemic has been invaluable,” he said.

Professor (Dr) Kailash Chand, a former deputy chair of the BMA, echoed his remarks. “The NHS is so reliant on immigrant workforce that it would not survive without the contribution of overseas healthcare workers,” he told Eastern Eye. “We should be celebrating their contribution and thanking them for the difference they have made to the NHS. A NHS without a non-UK workforce input is, to say the least, unrealistic.”

Dr Chand argued Harding’s comments “demeaned the contributions (of overseas medics)”. “It is a slap on our faces and those who’ve sacrificed their lives protecting the public serving the NHS since its inception,” the Manchester-based doctor said. “Foreign vs indigenous is a discriminatory and devious way to describe cultural relationships and does not bode well for multicultural global Britain.”

Both doctors noted the severe staffing shortages within the NHS. The Kings Fund said hospitals, mental health services and community providers reported a shortage of nearly 84,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff, affecting key groups such as nurses, midwives and health visitors.




Dr Nagpaul said: “With serious staffing shortages within the NHS, we must be doing all we can to attract and retain hardworking doctors and healthcare workers, both from overseas and within the UK, as that is what is needed to care for patients amid an enormous backlog of care.”

Dr Chand added: “Instead of demonising foreign staff, (Baroness Harding) should ask the government to improve the pay and conditions of NHS workers so home grown medics don’t emigrate to places like Canada and Australia.”

Dr Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), agreed the NHS would struggle without the contribution of foreign doctors. Although he noted Harding was “ethically right” in acknowledging India needs more doctors than the UK, he said: “Since Dido is applying for the top NHS job, it may be her political posturing.”

Dr Mehta warned the Tory peer should resist from “making rash statements”. “She has certainly antagonised foreign-trained doctors in the NHS who provide sterling service and have stood by the NHS during the Covid disaster, even risking their lives,” he told Eastern Eye.

BAPIO’s national chairman, Dr JS Bamrah, said it was “regrettable” Harding had “failed to recognise our contributions, making many of us feel that we are an unwanted and undesirable part of the NHS workforce”.

“She would have done better to say she would do her utmost, if selected to be the boss of the NHS, to increase the uptake in UK medical schools and provide nurse bursaries to induce more nurses to join the NHS, so that the 100,000 vacancies in jobs can be filled,” he told Eastern Eye.

Others have also criticised Harding’s remarks. In response to the reports, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said the NHS “was built on internationalism, not xenophobia”, while Labour’s Angela Rayner called the vow “misguided and close to impossible”.

“It is also deeply offensive to all the NHS staff who have risked their lives during the pandemic,” said Rayner, the deputy leader of the opposition.

Simons was confirmed to be standing down as the NHS chief executive in April. Other reported frontrunners for the role include NHS England’s chief operating officer, Amanda Pritchard.

Lawyer: Death of John McAfee surprised the US mogul’s family


BY ARITZ PARRA ASSOCIATED PRESS
JUNE 25, 2021


John McAfee, creator of McAfee antivirus software is seen on a screen while testifying via video during an extradition hearing at the National Court in Madrid, Spain, on June 15, 2021. McAfee has been found dead on Wednesday June 24, 2021, in his jail cell near Barcelona in an apparent suicide, hours after a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States to face tax charges which may have been punishable by decades in prison. Inset photo bottom right is a view of the courtroom. (Chema Moya, Pool photo via AP) CHEMA MOYA AP

MADRID

Authorities in Spain say a judge has ordered an autopsy for John McAfee, the gun-loving antivirus pioneer, cryptocurrency promoter and occasional politician who died in a prison cell pending extradition to the United States for allegedly evading millions in unpaid taxes.

A court spokeswoman for the Catalonia region said Thursday that a forensic team would need to perform toxicology tests on McAfee's body to determine the cause of death and that results could take “days or weeks.”

Authorities say everything at the scene indicated that the 75-year-old tycoon killed himself.

The judicial investigation is being handled by a court in Martorell, a town northwest of Barcelona with jurisdiction over the prison where McAfee died. The spokeswoman wasn't authorized to be identified by name in media reports.

McAfee's Spanish lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the entrepreneur's death had come as a surprise to his wife and other relatives, adding he would seek to get “to the bottom” of his client's death.

“This has been like pouring cold water on the family and on his defense team," Villalba told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Nobody expected it, he had not said goodbye.”

Although Villalba said he had no evidence of any foul play but blamed the death on “the cruelty of the system” for keeping a 75-year-old behind bars for economic, not violent, crimes after judges refused to release him on bail.

”We had managed to nullify seven of the 10 counts he was accused of and even so he was still that dangerous person who could be fleeing Spain if he was released?" the lawyer said. “He was a world eminence, where could he hide?”

Spain's National Court on Monday ruled that McAfee should be extradited to the U.S. to face charges for evading more than $4 million in taxes in the fiscal years 2016 to 2018. The judge dropped seven of the 10 counts in the initial indictment.

Villalba said McAfee had learned about the ruling on Tuesday and that his death on Wednesday didn't come in the heat of the moment. He also said McAfee and the legal team had been preparing an appeal to avoid being extradited.

A penitentiary source told the AP that McAfee was sharing a cell in the Brians 2 jail where he had been put in preventive detention since he was arrested in October last year on a U.S. warrant, but that at the moment of his death he had been alone.

Prosecutors in Tennessee accused McAfee of failing to report income from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consulting work, earnings made in speaking engagements and for selling the rights to his life story for a documentary. The criminal charges carried a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

The British-born entrepreneur led an eccentric life after selling his stake in the antivirus software company named after him in the early 1990s. He twice made long-shot runs for the U.S. presidency.

McAfee often professed his love for drugs and guns in public remarks. And some of his actions landed him in legal trouble beyond Tennessee, from Central America to the Caribbean. In 2012, he was sought for questioning in connection with the murder of his neighbor in Belize, but was never charged with a crime.





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FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015, file photo, John McAfee announces his candidacy for president in Opelika, Ala. McAfee, the outlandish security software pioneer who tried to live life as a hedonistic outsider while running from a host of legal troubles, was found dead in his jail cell near Barcelona , Spain, on Wednesday, June 23, 2021. His death came just hours after a Spanish court announced that it had approved his extradition to the United States to face tax charges punishable by decades in prison, authorities said. (Todd J. Van Emst/Opelika-Auburn News via AP, File) TODD J. VAN EMST AP

Mumford & Sons’ Banjoist Quits After Andy Ngo Praise Controversy

Winston Marshall provoked a backlash in March after tweeting his support for a book by Ngo, a right-wing provocateur.


BY ABID RAHMAN

JUNE 24, 2021

Winston Marshall TIM MOSENFELDER/WIREIMAGE

Winston Marshall, the banjoist and guitarist of Mumford & Sons, has quit the Grammy-winning British band months after provoking a fan and public backlash following his support for a book by right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo.

In a post on Medium, Marshall outlined the reasons he is leaving the band he had been a part of since they were founded in 2007. He expands on his initial apology but also says he could not continue to “self-censor” his views. “I have spent much time reflecting, reading and listening. The truth is that my commenting on a book that documents the extreme far left and their activities is in no way an endorsement of the equally repugnant far right,” Marshall writes.

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“For me to speak about what I’ve learnt to be such a controversial issue will inevitably bring my bandmates more trouble. My love, loyalty and accountability to them cannot permit that.” he added. “I could remain and continue to self-censor but it will erode my sense of integrity.”

He continued, “I hope in distancing myself from [the band] I am able to speak my mind without them suffering the consequences.”

On Twitter, the official Mumford & Sons account tweeted: “We wish you all the best for the future, Win, and we love you man.”

In March, in a now-deleted tweet, Marshall, who also goes by the music aliases Country Winston and WN5TN, congratulated Ngo on the publication of his book Unmasked, which promises to take the reader “inside ANTIFA’s radical plan to destroy democracy.”

“Finally had the time to read your important book. You’re a brave man,” Marshall tweeted, before deleting the message following a backlash and intense mockery of the band.

Ngo, a conservative journalist who rose to prominence filming left-wing protests in Portland, has become notorious for his associations with the neo-fascist white nationalist groups the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer.

A few days after his tweet, Marshall announced he was “taking time away” from the band.

While a member of Mumford & Sons, Marshall courted controversy for associating with notorious right-wing personalities. In 2018, Marshall invited Canadian academic Jordan Peterson, who has been accused of transphobia, misogyny and Islamophobia, to visit the band’s London studios.

After pictures of Peterson and members of the band appeared on social media, Marshall told a Canadian radio station, “I don’t think that having a photograph with someone means you agree with everything they say.” He added, “Primarily I’m interested in his psychological stuff, which I find very interesting.”