Online trolls targeting transgender Olympian: Kiwi official



Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

New Zealand's Laurel Hubbard 

ADRIAN DENNIS AFP

Tokyo (AFP)

New Zealand Olympic officials vowed Friday to shield transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard from a tsunami of negative social media comments as the weightlifter prepares to make history at the Tokyo Games.

Hubbard is set to become the first openly transgender woman at the Olympics when she competes in the +87kg category on Monday, sparking heated online debate.

The 43-year-old was born male and competed as a man before transitioning to female in her 30s, taking up the sport at elite level again after meeting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines for transgender athletes.

New Zealand Olympic Committee spokeswoman Ashley Abbott said Hubbard was keeping a low profile in Japan, despite the "particularly high level of interest" in her Olympic debut.

Abbott said not all the interest on social media had been positive.

"Certainly we have seen a groundswell of comment about it and a lot of it is inappropriate," she told reporters.

"Our view is that we've got a culture of manaaki (inclusion) and it's our role to support all eligible athletes on our team.

"In terms of social media, we won't be engaging in any kind of negative debate."

While she acknowledged Hubbard's appearance raised complex issues, Abbott also pointed out: "We all need to remember that there's a person behind all these technical questions."

"As an organisation we would look to shield our athlete, or any athlete, from anything negative in the social media space," she said.

"We don't condone cyberbullying in any way."

- 'Challenging balancing act' -

The intensely private Hubbard has been a reluctant trailblazer, insisting during rare media interviews that she just wants to be left alone to pursue her sport.

In a statement released by the NZOC Friday she said: "The Olympic Games are a global celebration of our hopes, our ideals and our values. I commend the IOC for its commitment to making sport inclusive and accessible."

Hubbard entered the Games ranked 16th in the world but is rated a reasonable chance of a medal as the Covid-19 pandemic has prevented many higher-ranked rivals attending.

An International Weightlifting Federation spokesman said that Hubbard would be under no obligation to speak to journalists after her event.

Critics argue Hubbard has an unfair advantage over female rivals due to physical attributes locked into her body during her formative years as a male.

Supporters say her appearance is a victory for inclusion and trans rights.

Under current IOC guidelines, introduced in 2015, a trans woman can compete provided her testosterone levels are below 10 nanomoles per litre.

Previously, trans athletes had to undergo gender reassignment surgery followed by at least two years of hormone therapy.

The IOC is reviewing its guidelines, which are expected to be published in the next few months.

IOC spokesman Christian Klaue said the new framework would be an "evolution" that was sure to be revised again eventually as more data about trans athletes became available.

"It will be a very challenging balancing act of all the different points we need to take into account - fairness, inclusion, safety," he said.

"There needs to be a sweet spot to achieve what we need and wherever that sweet spot is, it is probably going to be criticised by some -- it's not going to be the ultimate solution."

IOC medical director Richard Budgett played concerns that trans athletes could come to dominate women's sport, saying Hubbard was the only trans athlete to reach the Olympics since eligibility was first thrown open in 2003.

"If you're prepared to extrapolate a bit from the evidence there is (and) consider the fact that there's been no openly transgender women at the top level until now, then I think the threat to woman's sport is probably overstated," he said.

© 2021 AFP

China nuclear reactor shut down for maintenance after damage

Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

The reactor is located in Taishan in China's southern Guangdong province, not far from Hong Kong PETER PARKS AFP/File

Beijing (AFP)

A reactor at a nuclear plant in southern China has been shut down because it is damaged, the operator said Friday, but it insisted there were no major safety issues.

Chinese authorities last month blamed minor fuel rod damage for a build-up of radioactive gases at the Taishan plant in Guangdong province, describing it as a "common phenomenon" with no need for concern.

French nuclear firm Framatome, which helps operate the plant, last month reported a "performance issue" which caused the US government to look into the possibility of a leak.

"After lengthy conversations between French and Chinese technical personnel, Taishan Nuclear Power Plant... decided to shut down Unit 1 for maintenance," China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) said Friday in an online statement.

The company added that "a small amount of fuel damage" had occurred.

CGN said both reactors at the plant have "maintained safe and stable operations throughout" and that the faulty unit is "completely under control".

Engineers will now "find the cause of fuel damage and replace the damaged fuel", the statement added.

There are more than 60,000 fuel rods in the reactor and the proportion of damaged rods is "less than 0.01 percent", China's environment ministry and nuclear regulator previously said.

They called the damage "inevitable" due to factors including fuel manufacturing and transportation.

French energy giant EDF -- the majority owner of Framatome -- also previously blamed the build-up of radioactive gases on deteriorating coating on some uranium fuel rods.

EDF said it was first informed about the fuel rod problem in October, but only learned about the gas build-up in mid-June.

Official environmental monitoring data shows a slight increase in radiation near Taishan compared with other nuclear plants in China, but experts say this remains within the normal range of environmental radiation levels in Guangdong.

- 'Permanently monitored' -

The shutdown follows the French firm stating last week that it would have shut down a nuclear reactor in France if it suffered problems similar to those reported at the Taishan plant.

"Based on analyses, EDF operating procedures for its French plant would have led it to shut down the reactor to fully understand the problem and halt its development," the company said in a statement.

However, they noted that the situation was "not urgent".

The radioactivity levels in the water of the reactor's primary circuit "remain below regulator levels in place for Taishan, which are in line with international standards", they said.

But based on earlier data provided by Chinese officials, the deterioration of the structural integrity of some fuel rods "appears to be continuing, and is being permanently monitored", the firm added.

The problem is the latest blow to the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) design, which is being used to build power plants in France, Britain and Finland that have racked up delays and billions of euros in cost overruns.

© 2021 AFP

Hong Kong protester sentenced to nine years in first conviction under national security law



Issued on: 30/07/2021 -

Tong Ying-kit, seen through a car window on July 6, 2020, is the first person to be convicted and jailed under a new national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong. © Isaac Lawrence, AFP (file photo)

Text by: NEWS WIRES

The first person convicted under Hong Kong’s national security law was sentenced to nine years for terrorist activities and inciting secession, judges said on Friday, in a watershed ruling with long-term implications for the city’s judicial landscape.

Former waiter Tong Ying-kit, 24, was accused of driving his motorcycle into three riot police last year while carrying a flag with the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our times.”

Judges Esther Toh, Anthea Pang and Wilson Chan - picked by city leader Carrie Lam to hear national security cases - ruled on Tuesday that the slogan was “capable of inciting others to commit secession”.

On Friday, the judges sentenced Tong to 6.5 years for inciting secession and 8 years for terrorist activities. Of these, 2.5 years will run consecutively, resulting in a total term of nine years.

“We consider that this overall term should sufficiently reflect the Defendant’s culpability in the two offences and the abhorrence of society, at the same time, achieving the deterrent effect required,” they said in a written judgment.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have criticised Tong’s conviction, saying it imposes new limits on free speech, as well as the precedents set by the trial, which they say contrast with Hong Kong’s common law traditions.

Tong was denied bail in line with a provision of the national security law that puts the onus on the defendant to prove they would not be a security threat if released. Tong also did not get a trial by jury because of “a perceived risk of the personal safety of jurors and their family members or that due administration of justice might be impaired”.

The Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hong Kong and Chinese authorities have repeatedly said that all the rights and freedoms promised to the former British colony upon its return to Chinese rule in 1997 were intact, but that national security was a red line. All cases have been handled in accordance with the law, both governments have said.

(REUTERS)

US begins evacuation of Afghan interpreters, others who risk retribution from Taliban


Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

Former Afghan interpreters who worked with US troops in Afghanistan demonstrate in front of the US Embassy in Kabul, June 25, 2021. © Stringer, Reuters
Text by: NEWS WIRES


Some 200 Afghans were set to begin new lives in the United States on Friday as an airlift got under way for translators and others who risk Taliban retaliation because they worked for the United States during its 20-year war in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

The operation to evacuate U.S.-affiliated Afghans and family members comes as the U.S. troop pullout nears completion and government forces struggle to repulse Taliban advances.

The first planeload of 200 evacuees arrived at Fort Lee, a military base in Virginia, for final paperwork processing and medical examinations.

The Afghans are being granted Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) entitling them to bring their families. As many as 50,000 or more people ultimately could be evacuated in “Operation Allies Refuge”.

“These arrivals are just the first of many as we work quickly to relocate SIV-eligible Afghans out of harm’s way — to the United States, to U.S. facilities abroad, or to third countries — so that they can wait in safety while they finish their visa applications,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a separate statement that the U.S. would continue to use “the full force of our diplomatic, economic, and development toolkit” to support the Afghan people after the United States’ longest war.

The first group of arrivals is among some 2,500 SIV applicants and family members who have almost completed the process, clearing them for evacuation, said Russ Travers, Biden’s deputy homeland security adviser.

The Afghans were expected to remain at Fort Lee for up to seven days before joining relatives or host families across the country.

The evacuees underwent “rigorous background checks” and COVID-19 tests, Travers added. Some were already vaccinated, and the rest will be offered shots at Fort Lee.

Approximately 300 U.S. service members from several installations will provide logistics, temporary lodging, and medical support at Fort Lee, said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

'Moral obligation'

Around 75,000 other Afghans have been resettled in the United States in the last decade, he said in a statement, adding there is a “moral obligation” for the country “to help those who have helped us.”

The surging violence in Afghanistan has created serious problems for many SIV applicants whose paperwork is in the pipeline amid reports - denied by the Taliban - that some have been killed by vengeful insurgents.

Some applicants are unable to get to the capital Kabul to complete the required steps at the U.S. embassy or reach their flights.

The SIV program has also been plagued by long processing times and bureaucratic knots that led to a backlog of some 20,000 applications. The State Department has added staff to handle them.

The majority of those would likely miss out on the airlift operation, including the roughly 50% who were in the early stages of the process as the clock counts down towards the U.S. withdrawal by September.

Applicants in that group have held multiple protests in Kabul in recent months and they and advocates say they face the risk of violence while they wait that will be heightened once troops withdraw.

Ross Wilson, Charge D’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, told reporters that after the initial round of flights taking out those who received security clearances, around 4,000 applicants and their families who were in the later stages but still needed interviews would be taken somewhere outside the United States for processing.

That left roughly 15,000 applicants in earlier stages waiting in Afghanistan.

“We’ve felt it appropriate that we focus our energies on those parts of the SIV applicant pool who have demonstrated that they meet the criteria under the law and then work to relocate them,” he said, adding efforts were taking place in Washington to help early-stage applicants access documents.

Adam Bates, policy counsel for the International Refugee Assistance Project, which provides legal aid for refugees, said the United States had had 20 years to anticipate what the withdrawal would look like.

“It’s unconscionable that we are so late,” he said.

Kim Staffieri, co-founder of the Association of Wartime Allies, which helps SIV applicants, said surveys conducted over Facebook show that about half of the applicants cannot reach Kabul, including many approved for evacuation.

Wilson said that they believed the “overwhelming majority” of people the airlift was offered to were able to get to Kabul.

“We’re focusing our efforts on those that we can get out,” he said. “We cannot through this program solve every problem in this country.”

Congress created SIV programs in 2006 for Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who risked retaliation for working for the U.S. government.

(REUTERS)

First flight of Afghan interpreters fleeing Taliban arrives in US

Issued on: 30/07/2021 -

The first flight carrying Afghans who worked for American troops and diplomats has arrived in the United States 

MANPREET ROMANA AFP/File


Washington (AFP)

The first flight carrying Afghans who worked as interpreters for American troops and diplomats has arrived in the United States, President Joe Biden said Friday, the start of an operation to evacuate thousands from possible Taliban retaliation.

Around 20,000 Afghans worked for the United States following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and have applied for evacuation under the State Department's Special Immigrant Visas program.

Some estimates suggest the total number of prospective evacuees under what has been dubbed "Operation Allies Refuge" could be as high as 100,000 once relatives are included.

Many of them fear retaliation from the Taliban, which has secured a vast swath of the country since foreign troops began the last stage of a withdrawal due to be complete by late August.

"Today is an important milestone as we continue to fulfill our promise to the thousands of Afghan nationals who served shoulder-to-shoulder with American troops and diplomats over the last 20 years in Afghanistan," Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

He added that the administration was working to quickly relocate visa-eligible Afghans "out of harm's way."

Biden said these first arrivals had already completed extensive background checks and security screenings and would undergo medical checks and other processing in Fort Lee, Virginia before being resettled across the country.

This first flight of around 200 Afghans is part of a broader group of about 2,500 who are furthest along in the visa process and who are being prioritized for relocation to the United States in the coming weeks, according to Russ Travers, an official on the White House National Security Council.

"They now join the over 70,000 Afghans who have received (Special Immigrant Visas) and started new lives in the US since 2008," Travers said.

Tracey Jacobson, the State Department's Afghanistan Task Force director, said the arrivals are expected to spend seven days at the Fort Lee military base near Petersburg, Virginia.

"They have all been Covid-tested, they've had a fitness-to-fly exam, and we have offered vaccines in Kabul to those who are interested in having them," Jacobson told reporters.

"We will also be offering those vaccines at Fort Lee."

Then, with the help of the UN International Organization for Migration, they will be sent to new homes -- either with relatives already in the United States, or arranged by the IOM and State Department.

- 'Hard times' -

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday reiterated Washington's pledge to the Afghans who worked for the US mission in Afghanistan.

"Their arrival demonstrates the US government's commitment to Afghans who put themselves and their families at great risk by working side-by-side with our service members and diplomats to build a better future for Afghanistan," he said in a statement.

"It is my great pleasure to say to them: 'welcome to your new home,'" he added.

Officials said it will take time to vet each applicant and their family.

"We absolutely intend to continue this program after the pullout of troops" on August 31, Jacobson said.

"We're going to be moving folks as fast as we logistically can," she added.

Jacobson said Washington is weighing how to help Afghans who do not qualify for the program but also face particular threats -- such as women leaders, human rights activists and journalists.

"The administration is considering a variety of different options," she said.

The US Congress on Thursday unanimously passed a measure that provides $1.1 billion to fund the resettlement of Afghans who supported the US mission.

It now heads to the House, where it is expected to win approval and receive Biden's signature.

© 2021 AFP

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$T

Isabel dos Santos ordered to return $500 million in energy shares to Angola

Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

Isabel dos Santos participates in a discussion at Bloomberg Global Business Forum at The Plaza Hotel on September 26, 2018 in New York City. © Mike Coppola, Getty Images via AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES


Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola's former president and Africa's onetime richest woman, must return to Angola her shares in Portugal's Galp energy firm worth 422 million euros ($500 million), an international arbitration court has ruled.

Dos Santos is accused of diverting billions of dollars from state companies during her father Jose Eduardo dos Santos's nearly 40-year rule of the oil-rich southern African nation.

The embattled ex-first daughter, whose business assets have been frozen since 2019, was ordered by a Dutch court this week to return shares worth $500 million to Angola's national Sonangol energy group, which she chaired until Lourenco took power.

The transaction under which Dos Santos acquired her stake in the oil and gas company Galp is "null and void", according to a copy of the ruling seen by AFP on Friday by the Netherlands Arbitration Institute (NAI), which is part of the International Court of Arbitration.

After paying a 15 percent deposit from the bank account of another company in the British Virgin Islands, dos Santos allegedly paid the rest of the amount in Angola's local currency, worth little outside the country, rather than in euros as agreed on the sales contract, according to the NAI.

Santos's six-percent stake in Galp is part of a myriad of investments in Angola and former colonial ruler Portugal, worth about $3 billion according to Forbes magazine, that have been under scrutiny.

The court's decision -- dated July 23 and first reported by Dutch media late Thursday -- said that the 2006 purchase of the shares, acquired through a company owned by dos Santos' late husband Exem Energy, was illegal.

Dos Santos had consistently denied any wrongdoing and denounced all accusations as a politically motivated witch hunt.

Exem's lawyers intend to appeal the decision "with the competent court".

"In this arbitral award the political narrative clearly overrides the legal analysis," the company said in a statement emailed to AFP on Friday.

One of Sonangol's lawyers, Yas Banifatemi, told Dutch media there was "nothing political" in the court's decision.

"The arbitration court has judged that Isabel dos Santos enriched herself with money stolen from Angolan people," said Banifatemi, cited in Dutch daily newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad.

'The princess'

President Joao Lourenco has vowed to crack down on corruption since dos Santos retired in 2017, removing his predecessor's cronies from key positions and probing the former regime for alleged graft.

He has targeted several members of the dos Santos family, including Isabel and her younger brother Jose Filomeno dos Santos, sentenced to five years in prison for diverting oil revenues last year.

Isabel is the eldest daughter of Angola's ex-president, accused of ruling the country with an iron fist, leaving a legacy of poverty and nepotism.

The British-educated billionaire businesswoman has faced several allegations of plundering the public purse and funnelling the money abroad.

In a trove of 715,000 files released in January 2020 by the award-winning New York-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and dubbed the "Luanda Leaks," dos Santos was accused of syphoning state funds from the oil-rich, but impoverished country into offshore assets.

Nicknamed "the princess" in Angola, she was accused of amassing her vast fortune thanks to the backing of her authoritarian father.

In Portugal, in addition to Galp, she has major bank stakes and has a controlling share of a Portuguese cable TV and telecom firm.

In December 2019, Angola's prosecutors froze the bank accounts and assets owned by her and her Congolese husband Sindika Dokolo, who died last year, a move she described as a groundless political vendetta.

Dos Santos became Africa's richest woman after Forbes magazine named her the continent's first female billionaire in 2013. She lost that title when her assets were frozen.

(AFP)

 

With #WeWillROCYou, Russia tests the limits of its Olympic ban

Issued on: 30/07/2021 -

Russia's Liliia Akhaimova, Angelina Melnikova, Viktoriia Listunova and Vladislava Urazova took gold in the artistic gymnastics women's team final at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo on July 27, 2021. © Loic Venance, AFP

Text by:Romain HOUEIX

Officially barred from the Olympics after a doping scandal, Russia isn’t shying away from promoting its athletes — who are competing under the banner of the “Russian Olympic Committee” — and taking the opportunity to criticise what it considers a deeply unfair ban.

It looks like Russia, it swims like Russia… but officially, it’s not Russia. At the Tokyo Games, the country’s 335-strong delegation is competing as the “Russian Olympic Committee” (ROC) rather than under its national flag, following a December 2020 ruling from sport’s highest court over state-run doping. That hasn’t stopped it from holding its own in the medal table, with nine golds as of Friday morning, behind China, Japan and the United States. Nor has it kept Russian leaders from rallying around the team, seizing on the hashtag #WeWillROCYou — a reference to the Queen song.

WADA IS AN AMERICAN APPERATUS

Since 2015, Russia has been caught up in a massive doping scandal with far-reaching repercussions. In December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) imposed a four-year ban on the Russian team for tampering with doping tests. A year later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport cut the ban in half — a highly controversial decision — meaning that Russia cannot compete under its own name, anthem and flag until January 2023.

National colours and Tchaikovsky

The suspension has put Russia in an uncomfortable position, but its leaders have sought ways around the problem. For the Tokyo Games, they negotiated a compromise with the International Olympic Committee (IOC): the athletes could compete under the banner of the ROC, whose symbol is an Olympic flame with white, blue and red stripes, matching the Russian flag.

The ROC’s uniforms, too, bear the three colours, while a piece by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky takes the place of the national anthem.

The synchronised swimming team, however, was barred from including a bear on its swimsuits, as the IOC judged the symbol to be too closely associated with Russia.

WHINY AMERICANS

Many Western commentators have deemed the restrictions too lax. American rower Megan Kalmoe said she left with a “nasty feeling” after watching Russians Vasilisa Stepanova and Elena Oriabinskaia take silver in the women’s pair on Thursday.

ROC head Stanislav Pozdnyakov meanwhile maintains that the sanctions are “unfair” and “excessive”. Pozdnyakov, a former fencer and four-time Olympic champion, argues that today’s Russian athletes are being punished for accusations that long predate their joining the team.

‘Anti-Russian hysteria’

This has essentially been Russia’s position since WADA first revealed the extent of state-sponsored doping half a decade ago. Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2019 denounced the body’s ruling as “politically motivated” and counter to the Olympic charter. Former prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said the country’s suspension reflected “chronic anti-Russian hysteria”.

“These taunts from WADA, these constant bans and restrictions will only fuel us,” wrote Tina Kandelaki, a celebrity TV presenter, in a July 18 Instagram post. Kandelaki, the head producer at Match TV — Russia’s biggest sports channel and a subsidiary of the state energy company Gazprom — encouraged her 2.7 million followers to use the hashtag #WeWillROCYou on social media.

It didn’t take long for the authorities to join in. State-run media, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and a variety of artists and influencers aligned with the Kremlin all promoted the hashtag. It also made its way into the streets of Moscow, where a huge mural depicts a Russian judoka taking down an opponent with the acronym WADA inscribed on his kimono.

Lukas Aubin, a scholar in geopolitics and the author of a recent book on sports and power in Putin’s Russia, says the Kremlin’s goals in this campaign are fourfold: “To encourage the Russian athletes, crystallise patriotic sentiment around the Russian Olympic team, boost morale in a humiliating context and politicise the event all while depoliticising it”, in a very Russian paradox

Indeed, Putin has repeatedly said that sporting events are not the place to broadcast political messages, even as Russia has consistently used them to wield soft power.

Sticking to the script

The talking points distributed to Russian athletes ahead of the Games offer a case in point. If asked by press about the Black Lives Matter movement, the Russians were told to respond that supporting the movement is a personal choice, but that “the Olympics should not become a platform for any actions and gestures”.

If asked about doping, meanwhile, the athletes are encouraged not to comment — a more diplomatic response than the one offered by Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, in a July 25 Instagram post. The video shows her punching a dummy labelled “Press” before taking reporters’ questions about the Olympics. It is captioned simply: #wewillrocyou.

This article was adapted from the original in French.

Scientists create embyros to save northern white rhino

Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

Fatu, right, and her mother Najin are the only two remaining northern white rhinos

 TONY KARUMBA AFP/File

Nairobi (AFP)

Scientists working to bring back the functionally extinct northern white rhino announced they had successfully created three additional embryos of the subspecies, bringing the total to 12.

One of world's two remaining live specimens -- female Fatu who lives with her mother Najin on Kenya's 90,000-acre Ol Pejeta wildlife conservancy -- provided the eggs for the project, while the sperm used was from two different deceased males.

Scientific consortium Biorescue described in a press release late Thursday how the eggs were collected from Fatu in early July before being airlifted to a lab in Italy for fertilisation, development and preservation.

Neither Fatu nor Najin is capable of carrying a calf to term, so surrogate mothers for the embryos will be selected from a population of southern white rhinos.

Ol Pejeta director Richard Vigne told AFP on Friday that he believed in the project's chances of success, while emphasising the high stakes.

"No one is going to pretend that this is going to be easy," he said.

"We are doing things which are cutting-edge from a scientific perspective and we a dealing with genetics, with the two last northen white rhinos left on the planet," said Vigne.

"There are many, many things that could go wrong," he said. "I think everybody understand the challenges that remain."

Since 2019 Biorescue has collected 80 eggs from Najin and Fatu, but the 12 viable embryos all hail from the younger rhino.

The project is a multi-national effort with scientists from the German Leibniz Institute backing the Kenya Wildlife Service and Ol Pejeta, and the Italian Avantea laboratory providing fertilisation support.

Kenyan Tourism Minister Najib Balala welcomed the news.

"It is very encouraging to note that the project has continued to make good progress in its ambitious attempts to save an iconic species from extinction," he said in the press release.

Rhinoceroses have very few natural predators but their numbers have been decimated by poaching since the 1970s.

Modern rhinos have roamed the planet for 26 million years and it is estimated that more than a million still lived in the wild in the middle of the 19th century.

© 2021 AFP

Climate past provides tipping point 'early warning': study

Issued on: 30/07/2021 - 

Climate tipping points -- which are irrevocable over centuries-long time spans -- are thresholds past which large and rapid changes to the natural world may occur 

MARIO TAMA GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

Abrupt disruptions to Earth's climate thousands of years ago that caused extreme sea-level rise and mass ice cap melting can serve as an early warning system for today's planetary tipping points, according to new research.

Climate tipping points -- which are irrevocable over centuries or longer -- are thresholds past which large and rapid changes to the natural world may occur.

They include looming catastrophes such as the melting of the ice sheets atop Greenland and West Antarctica, which contain enough frozen water to lift oceans more than a dozen metres (40 feet).

But they are notoriously hard to anticipate, given the relatively small or incremental changes in variables such as atmospheric carbon concentrations that trigger them.

In a review of past climate events published in the journal Nature Geoscience, an international team of scientists examined two major instabilities in the Earth system, caused by changes in ice, oceans, and rainfall patterns.

They looked at the conditions that led to the Bolling-Allerod warming event nearly 15,000 years ago, which saw surface air temperatures soar up to 14 degrees Celsius over Greenland.

The team also studied the end of the so-called African humid period around 6,000-5,000 years ago, which led to regional changes in ecosystems and pre-historic human societies.

They found that various past climate systems, such as ocean dynamics and rainfall patterns, tended to slow as they reached a tipping point, after which they failed to recover from perturbations.

"Earth's recent past shows us how abrupt changes in the Earth system triggered cascading impacts on ecosystems and human societies, as they struggled to adapt," said Tim Lenton, review co-author and director of the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute.

"We face the risk of cascading tipping points again now -- but this time it is of our own making, and the impacts will be global," said Lenton.

"Faced with that risk, we could do with some early warning systems."

- Compound changes -

While current atmospheric CO2 levels of around 412 parts per million have some precedent -- at least 800,000 years ago -- the rate of CO2 accumulation does not.

Scientists are divided on when or if most tipping points will be triggered, but many believe effects such as ice-sheet melt is already "locked-in" due to carbon pollution.

Authors of the review, which was published online Thursday, said it showed evidence that the impacts of past abrupt changes to the Earth system combined to create planet-wide disruption.

Changes to ice levels and ocean currents, for example, at the start of the Bolling-Allerod warming lead to cascading impacts such as low ocean oxygen levels, vegetation cover, and atmospheric CO2 and methane levels.

"It sounds counterintuitive, but to foresee the future we may need to look into the past," said lead author Victor Brovkin from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.

"The chance to detect abrupt changes and tipping points -- where small changes lead to big impacts -- increases with the length of observations," he said.

"This is why analysis of abrupt changes and their cascades recorded in geological archives is of enormous importance."

© 2021 AFP

 

Abramovich was not ‘directed’ to buy Chelsea FC by Putin, court hears

Author accused of repeating ‘lazy inaccuracies’ about businessman’s role in Russian politics and society

Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea FC, after his team’s Champions League victory in Porto in May. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein - UEFA/Uefa/Getty Images

Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor

Wed 28 Jul 2021 

Roman Abramovich’s lawyer said it was defamatory to describe the businessman as having “a corrupt relationship” with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and that he had acted “covertly at his direction” in key business deals such as the purchase of Chelsea football club.

Speaking on the first morning of a preliminary hearing of a high court libel claim against a bestselling book about the modern Kremlin, Hugh Tomlinson QC said the 54-year-old billionaire did not “bring this claim lightly” and understood it could be characterised as “an attack on public interest journalism”.

The lawyer also accused the author Catherine Belton in her book Putin’s People of repeating “lazy inaccuracies” about his position in Russian politics and society.

The barrister said Abramovich was complaining about 26 extracts in the book at the beginning of a two-day hearing in the high court aimed at determining the meaning of key passages ahead of a full trial, in a case that is being seen as a test of England’s libel laws and their impact on investigative journalism.

Belton, a special correspondent with Reuters, is also being sued for libel by the Russian state-owned energy giant Rosneft.

At the heart of Abramovich’s complaint is that the billionaire’s £150m purchase of Chelsea FC in 2003 was “directed” by the Russian president. Tomlinson said the words in Belton’s book meant that Putin had ordered Abramovich to purchase the club as “part of a scheme to corrupt the west by corrupting local elites” and to “build a bulkhead of Russian influence”.

“The ordinary and reasonable reader would inevitably come out with the view that Roman Abramovich was instructed to buy Chelsea … so he was being used as the acceptable face of a corrupt and dangerous regime,” Tomlinson said.

He added: “At no stage is the reader told that actually Abramovich is someone who is distant from Putin and doesn’t participate in the many and various corrupt schemes that are described,” Tomlinson said. “On the contrary, he’s described as making corrupt payments.”

Andrew Caldecott QC, acting for Belton and HarperCollins, argued that Belton’s argument about the purchase of Chelsea FC was more nuanced. The book cited three sources for the proposition that Abramovich bought the club at the direction of Putin, Sergei Pugchaev, a former member of the president’s inner circle, and two others.

But he added that Belton herself did not draw a firm conclusion. “Now this is a case where we say the authorial position plainly leaves it open,” Caldecott said, indicating that Belton wrote “But whatever the truth of the matter, Abramovich’s choice of Chelsea became a symbol of Russian cash that was flooding into the UK.”

Caldecott said Belton had also incorporated a denial of the claim – from a friend of Abramovich’s in the text – to make clear the position was contested. But Tomlinson argued the phrasing was cursory, that it was “a bare denial”.

In the afternoon, the court also heard that a settlement had been reached in two other related cases: one involving the Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman, 57, who had brought a similar libel claim against HarperCollins, and a data protection claim brought against the publisher by Petr Aven, 66, the head of the Russian lender Alfa-Bank.

Tomlinson told the court the publisher had “agreed to remove” the material in dispute and had agreed to apologise.

Lawyers for HarperCollins said the changes the publisher made to settle Fridman and Aven’s claims were minor, covering three paragraphs. HarperCollins added it had “amended some statements” and expressed regret that the disputed points had not been put to the two men prior to publication.

Earlier, Tomlinson, who is representing Abramovich, as well as Fridman and Aven, had said there was “no relationship” between the claims. He told Mrs Justice Tipples he was instructed to act for the three men “coincidentally and entirely independently” and that there was “not any kind of coordination between these claimants”.

In the week prior to the hearing, the anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder said the case “threatens to be the biggest legal pile-on I’ve ever seen and it risks deterring future journalists from writing about Putin’s wealth”.

The hearing is expected to continue on Thursday examining Rosneft’s claim. A judgment relating to the hearing is expected in a few weeks, while a full trial in the libel case is not likely until 2022.

UH OH

International Space Station thrown out of control by misfire of Russian module: Nasa

Reuters

Published 

July 30, 2021 

The Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module is seen during its docking to the International Space Station on July 29. — Reuters

The Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module is seen docked to the International Space Station on July 29. — Reuters


The International Space Station (ISS) was thrown briefly out of control on Thursday when jet thrusters of a newly arrived Russian research module inadvertently fired a few hours after it was docked to the orbiting outpost, Nasa officials said.

The seven crew members aboard — two Russian cosmonauts, three Nasa astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a European space agency astronaut from France — were never in any immediate danger, according to Nasa and Russian state-owned news agency RIA.

But the malfunction prompted Nasa to postpone until at least August 3 its planned launch of Boeing's new CST-100 Starliner capsule on a highly anticipated uncrewed test flight to the space station. The Starliner had been set to blast off atop an Atlas V rocket on Friday from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Thursday's mishap began about three hours after the multipurpose Nauka module had latched onto the space station, as mission controllers in Moscow were performing some post-docking "reconfiguration" procedures, according to Nasa.

The module's jets inexplicably restarted, causing the entire station to pitch out of its normal flight position some 250 miles above the Earth, leading the mission's flight director to declare a "spacecraft emergency", US space agency officials said.

An unexpected drift in the station's orientation was first detected by automated ground sensors, followed 15 minutes later by a "loss of attitude control" that lasted a little over 45 minutes, according to Joel Montalbano, manager of Nasa's space station programme.

The Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module is seen during its docking to the International Space Station on July 29. — Reuters


'Tug of war'

Flight teams on the ground managed to restore the space station's orientation by activating thrusters on another module of the orbiting platform, Nasa officials said.

In its broadcast coverage of the incident, RIA cited Nasa specialists at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, as describing the struggle to regain control of the space station as a "tug of war" between the two modules.

At the height of the incident, the station was pitching out of alignment at the rate of about a half a degree per second, Montalbano said during a Nasa conference call with reporters.

The Nauka engines were ultimately switched off, the space station was stabilised and its orientation was restored to where it had begun, Nasa said.

Communication with the crew was lost for several minutes twice during the disruption, but "there was no immediate danger at any time to the crew," Montalbano said. He said that "the crew really didn't feel any movement."

Had the situation become so dangerous as to require the evacuation of personnel, the crew could have escaped in a SpaceX crew capsule still parked at the outpost and designed to serve as a "lifeboat" if necessary, said Steve Stich, manager of Nasa's commercial crew programme.

What caused the malfunction of the thrusters on the Nauka module, delivered by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, has yet to be determined, Nasa officials said.

Montalbano said there was no immediate sign of any damage to the space station. The flight correction maneuvers used up more propellant reserves than desired, "but nothing I would worry about," he said.

After its launch last week from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, the module experienced a series of glitches that raised concern about whether the docking procedure would go smoothly.

Roscosmos attributed Thursday's post-docking issue to Nauka's engines having to work with residual fuel in the craft, TASS news agency reported.

"The process of transferring the Nauka module from flight mode to 'docked with ISS' mode is underway. Work is being carried out on the remaining fuel in the module," Roscosmos was cited by TASS as saying.

The Nauka module is designed to serve as a research lab, storage unit and airlock that will upgrade Russia's capabilities aboard the ISS.

A live broadcast showed the module, named after the Russian word for "science", docking with the space station a few minutes later than scheduled.

"According to telemetry data and reports from the ISS crew, the onboard systems of the station and the Nauka module are operating normally," Roscosmos said in a statement.

"There is contact!!!" Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, wrote on Twitter moments after the docking.