A scientist says he's found 13 Wuhan coronavirus sequences that were deleted from a US database - and claims they're a 'goldmine' for research into the virus' origins
gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean) 23 hrs ago

A man receives a nasal swab COVID-19 test at Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport . Mario Tama/Getty Images

A Seattle researcher said he's uncovered previously deleted data on coronavirus sequences from Wuhan, China.

The sequences were a "gold mine" for scientists researching the virus' origins, he said.

The data was initially uploaded to a US database by Chinese scientists before being deleted.

A researcher in Seattle claims he's discovered 13 partial coronavirus sequences from samples collected in Wuhan, China, that were deleted from a US database last year.

The discovery could mean scientists researching the origins of the pandemic have been working with incomplete data, he said.

Dr. Jesse Bloom, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, said Tuesday that he had recovered the deleted files from Google Cloud, and had reconstructed partial sequences of 13 viruses. He said they came from samples taken at the early stages of pandemic in Wuhan, where scientists first discovered SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The data initially came from a study by Wuhan University scientists, he said.

Bloom said his findings suggested the coronavirus was already circulating in Wuhan before being linked to COVID-19 outbreaks at the Huanan Seafood Market. They also suggested the sequences used in most studies into the virus' origins, including the joint WHO-China report, "are not fully representative of the viruses actually present in Wuhan at that time," he said.

Throughout the pandemic, Bloom has called for more research into the origins of the pandemic. But he told CNN that the new sequences alone didn't provide any further evidence about whether the virus spread naturally from animals to humans or was, as some claim, the result of a laboratory leak.

Bloom said that the samples, from early outpatients in Wuhan, were a "gold mine" for scientists wanting to understand the spread of the virus.

Bloom's findings, published in a paper, haven't been peer-reviewed by experts.

Read more: Experts explain why the mRNA tech that revolutionized COVID-19 vaccines could be the answer to incurable diseases, heart attacks, and even snake bites: 'The possibilities are endless'

Bloom said that there was "no plausible scientific reason" for the sequences being deleted from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) database. The NIH said that it had removed the sequences in June 2020 at the request of the person that added them to the database, and said that allowing this was standard practice, CNN reported.

Prof David Robertson, an expert on viruses at the University of Glasgow, said in a statement that it was difficult to "conclude this is a cover-up rather than a more mundane deletion of data," based on Bloom's paper. "We also know already that the Huanan market wasn't the sole spillover event and SARS-CoV-2 was probably circulating in late October/November," he said.

Prof Martin Hibberd, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said in a statement: "More work would need to be done to know how solid these findings are, particularly the accuracy and reasons for the sequence deletions, but it does look intriguing."

Bloom said that he was reviewing genetic data when he discovered a March 2020 study about 241 genetic virus sequences collected by scientists at Wuhan University. He said he couldn't find the research online publicly, but was able to access 13 sequences via Google Cloud.

Additional reporting from Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce

Renowned scientist recovers deleted SARS-CoV-2 data from Wuhan

Download PDF Copy

By Sally Robertson, B.Sc.

Jun 24 2021

Reviewed by Dan Hutchins, M.Phil

Renowned evolutionary researcher, Jesse Bloom from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has conducted a phylogenetic analysis suggesting that the early severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequences that were obtained from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, are not fully representative of the viruses circulating in the city at the time of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak.

Bloom’s findings are based on the identification and recovery of a dataset containing SARS-CoV-2 sequences from early on in the Wuhan epidemic that had been deleted from The National Institutes of Health’s Sequence Read Archive.

Bloom says the analysis suggests that the progenitor of known SARS-CoV-2 sequences differs from the Huanan Seafood Market sequences and is at least three mutations closer to SARS-CoV-2’s bat coronavirus relatives.

“The current study suggests that at least in one case, the trusting structures of science have been abused to obscure sequences relevant to the early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan,” writes Bloom. “A careful re-evaluation of other archived forms of scientific communication, reporting, and data could shed additional light on the early emergence of the virus.”

A pre-print version of the research paper is available on the bioRxiv* server, while the article undergoes peer-review.

Study: Recovery of deleted deep sequencing data sheds more light on the early Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. Image Credit: NIAID / Bloom
The origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains a mystery

Understanding the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan is essential to trace the origin of the virus.

Further Reading​
Preprints: how draft academic papers have become essential in the fight against COVID

The first reports outside of China at the end of December 2019 highlighted the Huanan Seafood Market as a site of zoonotic spread.

However, this theory became increasingly unlikely as reports of earlier cases in 2019 emerged that had no connection to the market.

For example, Professor Yu Chuanhua from Wuhan University told the “Health Times” that the records he reviewed included two cases in mid-November and one suspected case on September 29th.

Example of the process to delete SRA data. The image shows e-mails between the lead author of the pangolin coronavirus paper Xiao et al. (2020) and SRA staff excerpted from USRTK (2020).
Chinese CDC banned the sharing of information without approval

At around the same time, the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an order forbidding sharing information about the COVID-19 epidemic without approval. China’s State Council then issued a much broader order requiring central approval of any publication related to COVID-19.

In 2021, the joint World Health Organization (WHO)–China report dismissed all reported cases prior to December 8th 2019, as not COVID-19, and the theory that the virus may have originated at the Huanan Seafood Market was revived.

Although there is much debate surrounding how exactly SARS-CoV-2 infected the human population, it is universally accepted that the virus’s deep ancestors are bat coronaviruses.

The reported collection dates of SARS-CoV-2 sequences in GISAID versus their relative mutational distances from the RaTG13 bat coronavirus outgroup. Mutational distances are relative to the putative progenitor proCoV2 inferred by Kumar et al. (2021). The plot shows sequences in GISAID collected no later than February 28, 2020. Sequences that the joint WHO-China report (WHO 2021) describes as being associated with the Wuhan Seafood Market are plotted with squares. Points are slightly jittered on the y-axis. Go to https://jbloom.github.io/SARS-CoV-2_PRJNA612766/deltadist.html for an interactive version of this plot that enables toggling of the outgroup to RpYN06 and RmYN02, mouseovers to see details for each point including strain name and mutations relative to proCoV2, and adjustment of the y-axis jittering.

However, the earliest known SARS-CoV-2 sequences, which are mostly derived from the Huanan Seafood Market, differ significantly from these bat coronaviruses, compared with other sequences collected at later dates outside of Wuhan.


“As a result, there is a direct conflict between the two major principles used to infer an outbreak’s progenitor: namely that it should be among the earliest sequences, and that it should be most closely related to deeper ancestors,” writes Bloom.
What did the current study involve?

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Bloom identified a dataset of SARS-CoV-2 sequences isolated from outpatient samples collected early on in the Wuhan epidemic that had been deleted from the NIH’s Sequence Read Archive. He recovered the files from the Google Cloud and reconstructed partial sequences of 13 early epidemic viruses.

Phylogenetic analysis of these sequences, in conjunction with careful annotation of existing ones, suggested that the early Wuhan sequences from the Huanan Seafood Market that have been the focus of the joint WHO–China report are not fully representative of the viruses that were actually present in Wuhan at the time.

The RaTG13 coronavirus that infects the horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus affinis) has been identified as sharing the greatest genome sequence identity with SARS-CoV-2 to date.

However, the early Huanan Seafood Market sequences are more distant from RaTG13 than sequences collected in January from other locations in China and even other countries.


“All sequences associated with this market differ from RaTG13 by at least three more mutations than sequences subsequently collected at various other locations – a fact that is difficult to reconcile with the idea that the market was the original location of the spread of a bat coronavirus to humans,” writes Bloom.
More about the deleted sequences

Phylogenetic analysis of the deleted sequences revealed that four GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data) sequences collected in Guangdong that fall within a putative progenitor node were isolated from two different clusters of people who traveled to Wuhan in late December of 2019. These individuals then developed symptoms before or on the day that they returned to Guangdong, where their viruses were ultimately sequenced.


“All sequences from patients infected in Wuhan but sequenced in Guangdong are more similar to the bat coronavirus outgroup than sequences from the Huanan Seafood Market,” writes Bloom.

These deleted data as well as existing sequences from Wuhan-infected patients hospitalized in Guangdong, show that early Wuhan sequences frequently contained the T29095C mutation and were less likely to carry the mutations T8782C and C28144T than sequences in the joint WHO-China report.
Deletion of the data has important implications for future studies

Bloom says the deletion of such an informative data set has implications beyond those gleaned directly from the recovered sequences.

Firstly, samples from early outpatients in Wuhan represent a gold mine for anyone seeking to understand the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

Secondly, genomic epidemiology studies of early SARS-CoV-2 must focus on the provenance and annotation of the underlying sequences as much as they do technical considerations.

In addition, future studies should devote equal effort to going beyond the annotations in GISAID to carefully trace the location of patient infection and sample sequencing, says Bloom.


“In addition, I suggest it could be worthwhile to review e-mail records to identify other SRA [Sequence Read Archive] deletions.”


*Important Notice

bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Journal reference:

Bloom J. Recovery of deleted deep sequencing data sheds more light on the early Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. bioRxiv, 2021. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.18.449051, https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.18.449051v1

U.S. says ban on Chinese firm's solar products will not slow clean energy progress

by Reuters

Thursday, 24 June



Biden administration says import bans on polysilicon and solar products allegedly made with forced labor in Xinjiang will not block progress on clean energy goals


By David Lawder, David Shepardson and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - The Biden administration said Thursday it banned U.S. imports of a key solar panel material from Chinese-based Hoshine Silicon Industry Co , but stopped short of imposing a ban on all imports of silica from Xinjiang and said the action would not harm U.S. clean energy goals.

The Commerce Department separately added five Chinese entities to the U.S. economic blacklist over forced labor allegations in Xinjiang -- including Hoshine. The White House cited the G7's recent pledge to clean up the global supply chain as part of its actions.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the import bans on polysilicon and solar products made with forced labor would not hamper the Biden administration's clean energy goals.

"Our environmental goals will not be achieved on the backs of human beings in a forced labor environment," Mayorkas said at a press briefing. "We're going to root out forced labor wherever it exists."

The import ban covers products made overseas that use Hoshine materials, including any solar panels produced abroad with polysilicon from Hoshine.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, reacting to earlier reports of the U.S. action, said on Thursday that China would take "all necessary measures" to protect its companies' rights and interests.

Hoshine Silicon Industry said on an interactive investor platform that it backed the Chinese foreign ministry's reaction, adding that the firm does not export industrial silicon to the United States directly and the impact on its business would be limited.

Asked whether the Hoshine ban could be expanded into a region wide ban on all polysilicon from Xinjiang, Mayorkas and CBP officials downplayed any similarities to the agency's recent region-wide import bans on Xinjiang-produced cotton and tomato products over forced labor.

Ana Hinojosa, CBP's executive director for trade remedy law enforcement, said any expansion would depend on the substantiation of evidence that forced labor is being used.

Hinojosa said CBP identified $6 million of direct imports from Hoshine and $150 million of downstream products using Hoshine materials over the past 2.5 years.

The United States is also restricting U.S. exports of "commodities, software, and technology" to Hoshine, three other Chinese firms and the paramilitary Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), saying they were involved with the forced labor of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in the western Chinese region.

Representative Dan Kildee, a Democrat active on trade issues, said the announcement was an "important signal of the administration's intent to enforce the law and as a first step." He said he expects other companies in Xinjiang producing silica will likely be subject to further enforcement actions.

The White House said the entities' practices ran counter not only to American values but also tipped the scales against U.S. workers "by exploiting workers and artificially suppressing wages."

John Smirnow, general counsel and vice president of market strategy at the Solar Energy Industries Association, the main U.S. solar industry association, said the group fully supported the Biden administration's move.

"The fact is, we do not have transparency into supply chains in the Xinjiang region, and there is too much risk in operating there," Smirnow said.

Polysilicon analyst Johannes Bernreuter with Germany-based Bernreuter Research said the CBP order could have a broad impact on the U.S. solar industry, noting that the world's top eight polysilicon manufacturers, which produced more than 90% of the solar-grade polysilicon output in 2020, have all been mentioned by Hoshine as customers.

"That means they source at least some of their silicon metal needs from Hoshine. Solar panel importers into the U.S. have to prove that the polysilicon for their panels was not made with any silicon metal from Hoshine," Bernreuter said.

The Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics said in a report on Thursday that China accounts for nearly half the global production of polysilicon.

'PROVE IT'

The new measures are the latest in a series of steps under President Joe Biden to secure U.S. supply chains in the face of allegations of rights abuses in China, and also the growing economic challenges posed by the United States' top geopolitical rival.

Beijing has dismissed accusations of genocide and forced labor in Xinjiang as lies.

The three other companies added to the Commerce Department's blacklist were Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Co, a unit of Daqo New Energy Corp; Xinjiang East Hope Nonferrous Metals Co, a subsidiary of Shanghai-based manufacturing giant East Hope Group; and Xinjiang GCL New Energy Material Co, part of GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd.

Several of the companies are major manufacturers of monocrystalline silicon and polysilicon used in solar panel production.

Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Co, in an email to Reuters, said it had "zero tolerance" towards forced labor, and does not directly sell or buy from the United States so there would be no "significant impact" on its business.

The other companies or their parent firms, including XPCC, did not reply to requests for comment, or could not be reached.

Separately, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to the full Senate on Thursday. Proposed by Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, the bill - should it become law - would ban all products from Xinjiang unless importers could show they were not produced with forced labor.

"This is slavery. Simple as that," Rubio told the committee. "American companies argue that their supply chains are clean, and what this bill says is: prove it."

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld, David Lawder, David Shepardson, Michael Martina, Richard Valdmanis and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; Emily Chow in Shanghai and Min Zhang, Gabriel Crossley, Shivani Singh in Beijing and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich and Daniel Wallis)

Iran dismisses Canadian report finding Tehran 'fully responsible' for downing of Flight PS752

Iran's military claims it shot down the Ukrainian airliner by mistake.

(AP: Mohammad Nasiri)


Iran has criticised as "highly politicised" a report by Canadian forensic experts that accused the country of incompetence and recklessness over the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane last year.

Key points:
While not pre-meditated, the Canadian report said Iranian officials were reckless,

 incompetent and ultimately responsible for the downing of flight PS752

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Iran still owes the victims' families answers

Iran has decried the expert report as "illegal" and "highly politicised"

The report found that while the shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was not premeditated, it did not absolve Iranian officials of responsibility for the incident.

The doomed flight, from Tehran to Kiev, crashed on January 8, 2020 shortly after takeoff with 176 people on board, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.

Three days later, the Iranian armed forces admitted having shot down the aircraft "by mistake".
The wreckage of the MH17 disaster holds a message for Iran


The chance of a swift and honest outcome for those killed on Flight PS725 remains remote but we can be sure of one thing, writes Philip Williams.Read more

The Canadian expert report acknowledged that the forensic investigators, who examined all the evidence that was available to them, "found no evidence that the downing of Flight PS752 was premeditated".

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the report had nevertheless concluded Iran was "fully responsible" for shooting down the plane.

"The report highlights the Iranian authorities' recklessness, incompetence, and wanton disregard for human life," he said in a statement.


"Iran still owes these answers to the victims' loved ones so they can have a measure of closure.

"Canada will vigorously pursue full reparations for the downing and the harm that Iran has caused to the victims and their families."

Canada says Iran is fully responsible for the deaths of 176 people in the 2020 plane crash.(AP: Chris Young via The Canadian Press)

Iran slams report as 'highly politicised'

Canada and other countries are seeking reparations for victims' families.

Canada does not have formal diplomatic relations with Iran, making the process lengthy and complex.

"From a legal standpoint, they (Canada) lack any authority to conduct a unilateral or arbitrary report or comment on an air crash outside their jurisdiction," Mohsen Baharvand, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister, was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

"If this highly politicised and illegal behaviour by Canada became the norm, all countries, even the civil aviation industry, would be the main victims."

Newlyweds and students among Canadian plane crash victims in Iran

Academics, students and a couple that travelled to Iran to get married, are among the 63 Canadians killed when a Ukrainian passenger jet crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran.Read more

On the night of the tragedy, Iran's air defences were on high alert, since it had just attacked a base used by the US military in Iraq in response to the US drone strike five days earlier in Baghdad that had killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran's regional strategy.

In its final report released in March, the Iranian Civil Aviation Organisation exonerated the Islamic Republic's armed forces.

Ukraine slammed those findings as a "cynical attempt to hide the real causes" and Canada denounced the "incomplete" report without "hard evidence".

Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau said that while the Canadian report found Iran had not premeditated shooting down the plane, it nevertheless "does not get off the hook in any way whatsoever".

"It is totally responsible for what happened due to a combination of incompetence, lack of accountability, a total failure of their command and control system, a total failure to properly assess the risk," he told a press briefing.


"The facts are clear, Iran is responsible for the deaths of 176 innocent people."

ABC/wires
Posted 2hhours ago

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.

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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.

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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.


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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.


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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.”

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