José Eduardo dos Santos: Spain approves autopsy for ex-Angola leader

IMAGE SOURCE,AFP

Image caption,

Jose Eduardo dos Santo died at a Spanish clinic

A Barcelona court has authorised an autopsy on former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santo who died in the city on Friday after his family alleged a conspiracy to kill him.

His daughter, Tchize dos Santos, had requested the autopsy.

Political enemies did not want him to back the opposition in forthcoming Angolan elections, she said.

Dos Santos, 79, was in Spain for medical treatment and died after a cardiac arrest.

He had been in power for 38 years when he stepped down in 2017.

Lawyers for the Dos Santos family have also denounced moves by the Angolan government to return the body there for a state funeral, against the ex-president's expressed wish to be buried privately in Spain. He is said to have been afraid his death would be politicised because his children would not be able to travel to Angola for his funeral or to visit his grave.

His death has reportedly worsened relations between his family and the Angolan government.

Another of his daughters, Isabel dos Santos, has been charged with mismanagement and embezzling public funds when she headed the state oil firm, Sonangol. She has denied the charges and says she is the target of political persecution.

IMAGE SOURCE,AFP

Image caption,

Isabel dos Santos was said to have become Africa's richest woman and is banned from entering the US over corruption allegations

President João Lourenço, who was hand-picked by Dos Santos to succeed him and is from the same party, the MPLA, has denied accusations that the government had any link to the former president's death.

He stated that the Angolan government had a duty to organise a state funeral for the country's long-time leader. He also said any Angolan citizen who wanted to travel to Angola for Dos Santos' funeral would be able to do so.

Dos Santos' death divides ruling party ahead of elections

Analysis by Israel Campos, BBC News

The death of the former president during an election year has represented a great challenge for the governing MPLA and its current leader, João Lourenço.

Sacking Dos Santos' eldest daughter, Isabel dos Santos, from the state oil-firm as soon as he came to power in 2017, and the arrest of another son, Jose Filomento dos Santos in 2018, considerably worsened relations between President Lourenço and the Dos Santos family.

Dos Santos and President Lourenço met for the last time over Christmas last year at the late president's official residence in Luanda. But it seems that not even this move by President Lourenço was enough to repair the already damaged relations.

President Lourenço's desire to hold a state funeral for Dos Santos in Angola has faced fierce opposition, notably from Tchizé dos Santos, the third daughter of Dos Santos and a former MPLA MP.

Isabel and Tchizé dos Santos have been exiled in Europe since the end of their father's 38-year presidency.

In an Instagram live over the weekend, Tchizé dos Santos was categorical in saying that her father "should only be buried in Angola when João Lourenço is no longer president of the country".

President Lourenço's government is still trying to negotiate with the Dos Santos family about sending their father's body to Luanda.

For President Lourenço, bringing Dos Santos' body back home as soon as possible is needed to reunite the MPLA.

He needs to show a united front to the general public even though there is now a clear division within the party ahead of what could be a difficult election next month.

Dos Santos, who was just 37 when he became head of state, will be remembered for ending a long-running civil war in the early 2000s, with his supporters dubbing him the "architect of peace".

The war lasted for 27 years and ravaged the country. About 500,000 people are believed to have died in the conflict.

But his legacy is marred by corruption and human rights violations during his time in power.

You may also be interested in:

• José Eduardo dos Santos: Angola's flawed 'architect of peace'
• Africa's richest woman 'ripped off her country'
• Find out more about Angola

In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, sand mining means lost homes and fortunes

Residents of the Mekong Delta are seeing houses tumble into rivers and livelihoods disappear due to erosion driven by sand mining


Local government workers use sandbags to fill in areas of subsidence along the Hau River in Chau Phu district, An Giang province, Vietnam (Image: Dinh Tuyen)

LONG READ

Dinh Tuyen
July 5, 2022


Editor’s note: In light of increasingly volatile seasons, the unquantified effects from hydropower, and continued sand mining, mainland Southeast Asia finds itself combating ever more mercurial sandbanks. For the highly populated Mekong Delta region of Vietnam, homes being washed away has become a regular facet of the wet season. But the effects of overdevelopment on the Mekong are felt across the Mekong basin. In Cambodia, the recent consequences have been stark: in May, Vannak Si and Bun Thoeun Srey Leak, both 12, died when a bank gave way in Kandal province, on the border with Vietnam. As the land beneath river-dwellers’ feet becomes ever more unstable, the sand mining and concrete industry defy solutions, as mainland Southeast Asia continues with breakneck development.

When a riverbank subsided and gave way four years ago, Tran Van Bi’s house collapsed into a river in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Everything his family had accumulated over 32 years was gone in an instant.

“At that time, when I heard the sound of screaming, I ran back, only to see the roof of my house sinking into a fast-flowing stream,” said Bi, 60, whose old house was next to Vam Nao River in My Hoi Dong commune, An Giang province.

“I ran to find my wife and children and then like a lost soul, I didn’t know what to do.” Fortunately, his family members were safe.
Tran Van Bi’s house collapses into the Vam Nao river. (Video supplied by local residents)

The river swallowed a total of 14 houses that day. The subsidence forced another 106 households to relocate.

Bi blamed sand mining in the area for the loss of his house. Watching and hearing sand dredgers chew endlessly through the riverbed by his old house had become a familiar part of his life. Looking back, he realised the signs of a pending tragedy had been there for some time. The nearby mudflats had disappeared and the water flow by his home had increased dramatically.

RECOMMENDEDWhat are the impacts of dams on the Mekong river?

For years, the Mekong Delta has suffered from rampant coastal and riverbank erosion due to diminishing amounts of suspended sediment and sand in its waterways. Experts blame upstream hydropower dams, which have trapped sediment, as well as excessive sand mining along the Mekong, especially in Cambodia and Vietnam.

This means the Mekong Delta, formed by sediment over the past 6,000 years, is effectively disintegrating.

More than 600 hectares of riverside and coastal land is lost every year in the delta due to erosion, according to Le Anh Tuan, associate professor at the Research Institute for Climate Change (DRAGON Institute-Mekong) of Can Tho University. He warned of “irreversible damage” if sand mining in the area is not restricted.
Paying a heavy price

Over the past decade, five Mekong Delta provinces – An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho, Vinh Long and Soc Trang – have issued permits to mine 114 million tons worth of sand reserves. That is equivalent to nearly seven tons for each person living there. The true quantity is thought to be much higher because illegal sand mining remains common in the Mekong Delta.

Most residents, however, never get close to this sand, or the money it brings in. Instead, families measure sand mining in lost houses and fortunes.

Official statistics show that between 2018 and 2020, 1,808 houses in the Mekong Delta sank into rivers or the sea due to erosion. That’s the equivalent of five villages being completely wiped out, with damage topping VND 200 billion (USD 8.6 million).

Families living in areas with the most sand being sucked out of the river are also those most at risk of becoming homeless. An Giang and Dong Thap are the two provinces that extract the most sand in the area, at 5.3 million and 5.5 million cubic metres annually.

Unsurprisingly, these provinces also lead in the number of houses threatened by subsidence that need to be relocated ― 5,300 in An Giang and 6,400 in Dong Thap.

Chasing the miners away


Despite the sound of torrential rain on the Hau River, the roar of a sand dredger is unmistakable, disturbing the peace of a stretch of river bordering Vinh Long province and Can Tho city.

Nearer to the shore, other dredgers are pulling up sand. The sight is unsettling – every time the crane’s giant arm stretches out and drops its large bucket into the river, it’s like a landmine exploding. The dredger’s engine roars, black smoke spews out and buckets of sand are lifted from the water by the crane. Then the bucket is slowly moved sideways until it releases the sand into containers on barges parked alongside.

As soon as a barge is full of sand, the pilot pulls up the anchor and leaves. Immediately, another barge takes its place. Around the sand mining area, dozens of other barges are moored, waiting their turn.

About 100 metres away lies Son islet, a small island in the middle of the Hau River in Binh Thuy district, Can Tho city. Local people have put a long row of bamboo stakes into the ground to form a wall, or dyke, in an effort to prevent their island from disappearing into the river and to protect their fish ponds.

Pointing to the cracks in the dyke, Phan Kim Ngan, a 57-year-old rambutan farmer, said subsidence had caused many sections of the dyke to break.

“Everybody on the dunes opposes sand mining since it causes erosion, but nothing has changed,” Ngan said. “Can Tho doesn’t allow mining anymore, Vinh Long still allows 3-4 dredgers to operate, and they have even used a large pump they drop to the bottom of the river to suck up the sand.”

Angry residents on Son islet have at times resorted to getting in their boats and chasing away the dredgers. One time, some of the sand miners attacked a villager, leading to a bloody fight. Local residents then immediately took up the matter with the local government, but eventually, they decided against pressing charges.

“People don’t want to break the law, but they’re so angry that they had to run out and chase away those miners,” said Pham Hai Dao, a 65-year-old farmer who lives on Son islet. He has had to move house five times due to erosion and has lost two thirds of his farming land. “People here are not afraid,” he said.
RECOMMENDEDIs Cambodia’s thirst for sand putting communities and the Mekong at risk?

Although each sand miner has to register the number of mining machines they use, very little public data is available that would allow communities and civil society to monitor their operations. There is no centralised regulatory body tasked with overseeing the entire industry.

Establishing a paper trail independently to prove violations is nearly impossible. Sand mining companies do not have to disclose the extracted volume, or show sales ledgers or revenue to anyone outside the authorised government inspectors, who do not make that information public.

Tax payments, revenue and profits are self-declared and reported directly to the tax authority by the company and, again, are not accessible to the public. The only way to monitor these activities is by watching, and the only avenue citizens have to objecting is to shout at the miners from the riverbanks, or to try to chase them away. Many remain silent, fearing revenge attacks.

Mekong sand mining difficult to control

There is a saying in Vietnamese to describe the efforts by regulators to crack down on illegal sand mining: “It’s like keeping a toad on a plate.”

Under-reporting the amount of sand extracted and falsifying records is rampant in many companies, and it is something that “is very difficult to control,” according to Nguyen Chi Kien, deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in Can Tho city.

Companies have been known to smuggle sand across provincial borders to evade both authorities and reporting requirements. They often operate at night to evade regulators.

Kien has been involved in many exasperating games of cat and mouse in an effort to prevent sand smuggling. Once he discovered that dredgers from Vinh Long province had started to mine near Can Tho City. When authorities came to investigate, the miners and their equipment immediately retreated towards Vinh Long, putting them outside the authorities’ jurisdiction. “This is a truly challenging task,” Kien said.

In 2020, Can Tho’s waterways police inspected 27 sand mining operations and discovered many violations, resulting in two sand mining operations being shut down and three people charged and prosecuted.

There is also a black market for sand originating from Vietnam. Estimating its exact size would be impossible. But a United Nations database that compares Vietnam’s sand export data with the destination countries’ corresponding import data suggests that large quantities of sand are bypassing official trade channels.

Vietnam reported earning USD 212 million from sand exports from 2011 to 2020. Over the same period, other countries reported that sand imports from Vietnam were worth nearly USD 705 million – that’s 3.3 times higher than Vietnam reported. The largest gap was recorded in 2014, at USD 120 million. After Vietnam banned sand exports in 2017, only pre-existing export agreements could continue. The gap then became much smaller.

Vietnam’s General Statistics Office said these figures rarely match due to inconsistencies in the timing, scope and values applied by each country in their calculations. Additionally, some shipments may be double counted if they pass through an intermediary country before reaching their final destination.

In the eyes of Ha Thanh Giang, the owner of two large sand mining operations in Can Tho, the environmental regulations are a burden. He had to cease operations at one of his mining sites after local authorities ordered its closure in November 2021 without providing a reason.

“I had to appeal for an extension because I had already signed a contract to supply 700,000 cubic metres of sand to a construction project outside the province,” said Giang. “Now that the operation is shut, I’ll have to indemnify [pay] my client.

“There is a great demand for sand as every province needs millions of cubic metres per year,” Giang added. “Then, if you don’t exploit it, where will you get sand to meet that need?”

Despite government efforts to regulate the price of sand at between VND 56,000 and 80,000 per cubic metre (USD 2.42-3.46), the market price starts at VND 280,000 per cubic metre (USD 12.13).

Balancing the demand

The high demand for sand in the Mekong Delta can be explained by the fact that it is a low-lying area that is gradually sinking, according to Tran Anh Thu, vice-chairman of the An Giang Provincial People’s Committee. Because of this, infrastructure such as roads and buildings constantly need to have their foundations raised to stay above flood levels. As long as no alternative sources of materials are available, the demand for sand will remain strong. “The key is where and how sand is mined. How to dredge so as to limit negative effects,” said Thu. “The drop in sediments and sand stock shouldn’t be reasons to ban sand mining.”

In An Giang, management of sand mining is divided into three groups. Areas at risk of subsidence – the first group – will stop issuing permits and not renew previously issued permits. The second group comprises areas where sand mining is licensed through mining tenders, but mining capacity is limited. At present, this group has 11 licensed miners with a capacity of nearly 5.3 million cubic metres per year. The third group is dredging and correcting the supply flow at alluvial flats on the river. An Giang has seven such dredging areas, providing up to 80% of sand for the province.
RECOMMENDEDAs the Mekong delta washes away, homes and highways are being lost

Lai Hong Thanh, deputy director-general of the Department of Geology and Minerals, said sand mining in the Mekong Delta would not stop while the demand for sand remains huge, at up to 100 million cubic metres of sand per year.

The government has allocated VND 12 trillion (USD 516 million) since 2016 to tackle riverbank and coastal erosion at sites totalling 375km in length in the Mekong Delta. Along with banning the export of sand, the state has issued regulations that aim to prevent excessive dredging. Vietnam is also looking into producing artificial sand.

Experts and residents, however, remain concerned. Sand is only considered a common construction material under the Mineral Law, and licensing is issued by individual provinces.

Nguyen Huu Thien, an independent expert on the Mekong Delta’s ecology, argues this is a narrow view because sand also plays a role in maintaining territory. Sand mining should be managed at an inter-provincial level, to balance the impact across the entire delta, he said.

“If we continue to exploit sand at the current rate, we may have to redraw the map of the Mekong Delta in the future when the coastline is eroded and the riverbank is deformed,” Thien warned.

Locals bear the consequences

Meanwhile, the lives of people displaced by riverbank erosion remain uncertain. Tran Van Bi’s family, who lost their house to the Vam Nao River four years ago, were eventually resettled. From two houses worth VND 6 billion (USD 260,000), they were moved to two plots of land and received VND 100 million (USD 4,328) in compensation.

Starting life over again was difficult. Their old house also served as a shopfront for their pork business. Relocation meant they had to rent a shop in a market to continue their trade. Then, Covid-19 hit.

Some did not live long enough to move to their new houses. Nguyen Van Tiet and his mother Le Thi Choi both died before the government allocated new land to them – three years after losing their house. By the time the new house was ready, it became the burial site for Tiet and Choi.

Of the 106 households forced to relocate due to subsidence along the Vam Nao River, 25 have returned to their old houses despite the imminent danger, refusing to live at the relocation site. Dozens of others, due to difficult circumstances, have left their hometowns and migrated to other provinces to work.

“I can’t move because my old house is near the road and the market, where I sell groceries and drinks. My daily earnings are about VND 50,000 (USD 2.10), enough to live through a day,” said To Thi Kim Hong, one of the residents. “If I move to a residential area, I won’t know what to do to make ends meet.”

To Thi Kim Hong has decided to move back to her old house despite the risks of subsidence because otherwise she would have no livelihood (Image: Dinh Tuyen/Thanh Nien)

Statistics show that in five provinces and cities – An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho, Vinh Long and Ca Mau – up to 20,000 houses are in subsidence-prone areas and need to be relocated. This number of houses would be enough to establish 57 new villages. The total proposed relocation cost amounts to VND 5 trillion (USD 215 million).

Back at Son islet where erosion remains a constant threat, villagers continue to fight for their land. “We know that sand is important for development, but we cannot sit back and watch a scorpion scoop it up every day, while our land is eroded and trees are washed away,” said Pham Hai Dao, the villager who had to move house multiple times due to erosion.

“They scoop up the sand for sale and we bear the consequences.”

CHARTS , PHOTOS AND INFOGRAPHICS

This story originally appeared in Mekong Eye and is republished here with permission. It was produced under the Mekong Data Journalism Fellowship jointly run by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the East-West Center. Its Vietnamese version was published in Thanh Nien, a newspaper based in Ho Chi Minh City. Data visualisation is provided by Thibi.



Dinh Tuyen is a full-time journalist at Thanh Nien, a Vietnamese newspaper based in Ho Chi Minh City. His news report focuses on the current affairs in the Mekong Delta.

How plastic is fuelling a hidden climate crisis in Southeast Asia

From production to disposal, plastic emits huge amounts of greenhouse gas. Plastic waste may even be interfering with the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon



Plastic’s carbon footprint has doubled in less than 30 years, now accounting for nearly 5% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions. (Illustration: Neutron T / China Dialogue Ocean)

Lou Del Bello
July 11, 2022

With sea level rise and ecological collapse threatening its environment and the very existence of its main coastal cities, Southeast Asia is one of the regions most at risk from the impacts of climate change. But while countries around the world step up efforts towards decarbonisation and reaching their shared climate goals, carbon remains unchallenged and firmly entrenched in the region’s economy – in the form of plastic.

From production to consumption and disposal, plastic is one of the planet’s most carbon-intensive industries. Scientists have found its carbon footprint has doubled in less than 30 years, now accounting for nearly 5% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions. If plastics were a country, they would be the fifth largest emitter in the world. Yet petrochemicals, the refined oil and gas products that plastic production relies on, have been labelled an “energy blind spot” – a sector that policymakers consistently neglect in the drive towards decarbonisation.

For the countries of Southeast Asia, plastic is becoming an ever thornier issue, as the region confronts a growing tide of waste from home and abroad that threatens its environment and, as it degrades or is incinerated, even the global climate.
The journey of plastics in Southeast Asia

While public debate tends to focus on plastic waste and the emissions it generates when incinerated, the material’s climate impacts start at the very beginning of the supply chain. Plastics are derived from fossil fuels, which are also used to run the industrial plants that produce plastics.

“The climate impacts of plastic occur at multiple stages in its lifecycle,” says Carroll Muffett, president and CEO of the non-profit Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). “Plastics can be made from naphtha, a byproduct of oil production. It can be made from ethane, a byproduct of natural gas, or even directly from coal through a process called coal-to-olefins,” Muffett explains.

The climate impacts of plastic are largely invisible because they occur upstreamCarroll Muffett, Center for International Environmental Law

The journey of plastic production starts at wellheads and drill pads, and continues through pipelines and corridors built to transport fuels, all of which release methane and other pollutants along the way. “Many of those impacts are largely invisible because they occur upstream,” Muffett says, “and are driven in different ways in different regions of the world”.

Take Indonesia, which relies on coal for 60% of its electricity production. There, a growth in plastic production has exacerbated carbon emissions and particulate matter pollution from coal burning. In Indonesia, coal mining activity for plastics production specifically has boomed since 1995, with researchers noting a 300-fold increase by 2015. As a result, they calculate that more than one-tenth of Indonesia’s total emissions can be attributed to the plastics industry.

Indonesia also finds itself in trouble at the other end of the plastic life cycle, as a leading source of marine plastic pollution. As plastic debris is blown by wind or washed away by rain into sewers and waterways across the world’s coastal areas, it may end up in the sea, globally adding an estimated 14 million tonnes of waste to the ocean every year. In Indonesia, more than 4,000 fish species and 12 million people employed in the fishing industry bear the brunt of this problem.
Plastics choke the ocean

While grim images of trapped turtles and fish carcasses full of plastic may be the most vivid depiction of the global ocean plastics problem, a growing body of research now suggests that the smallest marine creatures at the bottom of the food chain may in fact be worst hit.

A research team at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany modelled a hypothetical ocean system in which a menagerie of marine grazers and predators, known as zooplankton, continue to feed on the microplastics of 5mm or less that increasingly pollute the ocean. Their modelling found that as these materials enter zooplankton diets and increasingly replace the carbon-containing organisms on which they normally feed, this process could potentially accelerate the loss of oxygen in the oceans, and contribute to climate change.

Plastic waste in Jimabaran Bay, Bali, Indonesia. Huge quantities of plastic waste end up in the ocean, harming marine life. (Image: Domonabikebali / Alamy)

“The effect on oxygen and the carbon cycle I reported in my paper has not been observed in the real ocean yet,” cautions lead author Karin Kvale. “It’s reasonable to expect that the severity of ecosystem damage will depend on how much the plastic overlaps with the biology, so biologically productive coastal areas with large human populations could be expected to suffer larger negative ecological effects.”

While the potential impacts of these feeding changes could be particularly brutal for the densely populated and highly biodiverse coasts of Indonesia, and Southeast Asia at large, according to Moffatt these scarcely understood risks matter to the whole planet. Oceanic microflora and fauna are “at the heart of the biological carbon pump responsible for moving CO2 from the ocean surface to the ocean depths, where it doesn’t interact with the climate over centuries or millennia,” he says. “This enormous quantity of plastic in the ocean could actually be interfering with the world’s single largest natural carbon sink.”
Measuring emissions from plastic

For developing countries in South and Southeast Asia, curbing the pervasive impacts of plastic pollution is as difficult on solid ground as it is at sea.

In most countries in the region, including Thailand and Vietnam, the bulk of plastic waste is processed by informal workers who pick out whatever can be recycled, while the rest goes to dumping sites to eventually end up in landfill or incinerators. How much methane and other harmful emissions are released in these processes is difficult to estimate.

Data on emissions at different stages of the plastic life cycle exist, but they are scattered and can be inconsistent. Campaigners at Pacific Environment, a California-based non-profit, decided to try and come up with their own simple model to calculate carbon emissions from the plastic sector at large, starting with China.

The researchers used data from a private provider specialising in industrial sector intelligence “to figure out how much plastic was being produced in the country, and particularly how much single-use plastic, for which we used a proxy of ‘plastic in the packaging sector’,” says Nicole Portley, who leads marine campaigns for Pacific Environment. “And then we used data from the consultancy Material Economics on the life-cycle release of CO2-equivalent emissions for each kilogram of plastic – about 5 kg of CO2 equivalent – to estimate the emissions resulting from China’s plastic production and consumption.”

Graphic by China Dialogue Ocean

The analysis, the full results of which are yet to be published, shows how estimating the plastic flows within a single country can be relatively easy with available data, but things get much more complex when it comes to international trade, which generates a huge amount of plastic, much of which is non-recyclable packaging.
The threat beyond borders

In Southeast Asia, the single-use packaging that many companies use to deliver their products to the consumer is “a significant problem”, says Von Hernandez, global coordinator for Break Free from Plastic, a movement to end plastic pollution. “We find that a lot of the plastic waste that’s ending up in the oceans or in the open environment is not recyclable.”

This type of delivery model was pioneered in South and Southeast Asia, and has become so “entrenched” that big industries now use it as a “justification”. Hernandez, who is a renowned Filipino environmentalist and Goldman Prize winner, adds that these actors defend single-use plastics by claiming they are “supporting the poor, because people need access to certain luxury goods.”

A lot of the plastic waste that’s ending up in the oceans or in the open environment is not recyclableVon Hernandez, global coordinator of Break Free from Plastic

Hoang Hai, a researcher at the University of Da Nang in Vietnam, surveyed 307 households in the city of Da Nang as part of a research project in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA). Their study demonstrates that the use of disposable plastics in the city is ubiquitous, and dramatically increasing due to the growth of app-based food and drink delivery services. The surveyed households chose home delivery due to its convenience, in terms of avoiding cooking and washing up. But these options exacerbate the plastic waste problem. “This lifestyle will generate [per person] hundreds of plastic bags, cups, boxes, and straws to be disposed of,” says Hoang.

Hernandez points out that companies are starting to take notice of the issue. Nestlé, which generates nearly 2 million tonnes of plastic waste annually and has been identified as one of the major players responsible for a high share of imported plastic waste in Southeast Asia, has set a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050. A company spokesperson told this reporter that this will include both direct and indirect emissions, the majority of which come from agriculture, packaging and product distribution.

The company has also committed that by 2025, all its packaging will be recyclable and reusable, but pointed out that some countries may not have the necessary infrastructure for collection and recycling, Nestlé is exploring removing plastic packaging altogether and is rolling out initiatives in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.
Waste management

Southeast Asian countries are among the nations that stand to lose the most from plastic pollution, and from the climatic impacts it contributes to. But they are not the biggest producers of plastic items, nor of plastic waste. The United States and United Kingdom are by far the biggest per capita waste producers, at 0.34 kg and 0.21 kg respectively each day. The only Southeast Asian country that makes it into the top ten is the Philippines, with 0.07 kg per person.

Properly managing plastic waste, however, is a different issue, and one made more complex for Southeast Asian nations that accept waste shipped from other countries. The problem has become more acute after China, historically one of the biggest importers of recyclable scrap materials, enforced a ban on foreign waste in 2018.

Following China’s new restrictions, smaller countries in the region have been absorbing the waste influx. An analysis by Greenpeace Southeast Asia found that the 10 countries that form ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) recorded a 171% growth in plastic waste imports, rising from a total of 836,500 tonnes in 2016 to 2,266,000 tonnes to 2018, the year the ban was implemented.

Developing countries struggle to manage waste, whether imported or domestic, because they lack the infrastructure to process it or incinerate it safely. “Mismanaged” plastic waste is that which ends up in the environment, instead of being incinerated, properly buried or otherwise safely dealt with. Researchers have calculated that in 2019 the amount of mismanaged plastic waste in the United States and the UK was 0.81 and 0.44 kg per person respectively. But for the Philippines, which produces far less waste, the count was 37.23 kg per person.

Much of this mismanaged plastic ends up in water sources and, ultimately, in the ocean. Out of the top ten rivers releasing debris into the ocean, seven are in the Philippines, with the Pasig River that cuts through the capital Manila accounting for 6.4% of the total alone.

Emissions from plastics discarded in the environment are hard to measure, but mounting evidence suggests they are higher than previously thought. “Research shows that plastics at the surface of the ocean continuously release gases such as methane and ethylene, and other greenhouse gases,” CIEL’s Carroll Moffatt says, pointing to a study in the journal PLoS.

“I think the really troubling part of this is that plastics in the ocean are outweighed by plastics in the terrestrial environment,” he adds. “Those plastics, because they’re exposed to [more] sunlight, are going to be emitting methane and other greenhouse gases at an even faster rate than the plastics in the ocean.”
Future action against plastic pollution

Experts agree that curbing emissions from the plastic sector requires action on the ground as well as at a governmental and global level.

For now, no Southeast Asian nations have included plastic management in their climate pledges under the Paris Agreement. But ASEAN countries have a five-year plan in place to tackle marine plastic pollution, which aims to reduce the amount of waste, improve collection and create value for waste reuse.

Nicole Portley says that while there is some action on the policy front, “in our opinion it is not fast or comprehensive enough.” She mentions Vietnam’s recently enacted framework which makes producers pay for their waste and could incentivise packaging redesign, and points to the Philippines as a “standout” in the region for having outlawed incineration.

“We’d love to also see policy action on curbing plastic supply. There is a global treaty in the works through the UN, and we’ll see if it would place any limits on supply,” Portley adds. A resolution to establish a UN treaty to end global plastic pollution was passed at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi this March, and was seen by many as a giant stride towards eliminating plastic waste.

This article was first published by China Dialogue Ocean, and is a collaboration with the China Environment Forum’s Turning the Tide on Plastic Waste in Asia initiative. Read more plastic pollution articles and webinars from the Wilson Center here.

CHARTS AND MULTIMEDIA

Lou Del Bello
Lou is author of Lights On, a weekly newsletter. Previously, she has worked as environment correspondent for Bloomberg in Delhi and a freelance science writer for the BBC, Undark, Nature News, New Scientist and more. She holds masters degrees in Semiotics from the University of Bologna in Italy and Science Journalism from City University London. She tweets at @loudelbello

Biden, The Lame Duck

BY PAUL RYDERFacebook

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Image by Jon Tyson.

Hundreds of Democratic candidates on federal ballots this November have tethered themselves to President Joe Biden’s political fortunes. The Democrats’ chances of keeping a majority in the U.S. House and Senate have been as weak as he is.

According to new polls, Biden has now become a first-term lame duck. Since he will not be the party’s standard-bearer in 2024, Democratic Congressional candidates can focus on winning in 2020 even if it means straying from Biden’s policies.

1. New polls

The President’s current job approval rating is down to 38.4%, from 55.8% on Inauguration Day.

A bracing new Harvard-Harris Poll finds that registered voters have now written Biden off, with 60% having “doubts about his fitness for office,” 64% saying he is “showing he is too old to be president,” and 71% concluding he “should not run for a second term.”

2. Getting worse

Things are likely to get worse as the midterm elections approach. Of course, every consumer purchase brings new evidence of inflation. Within a few weeks, we may be in a recession, too. The U.S. economy shrank by 1.6% in the first quarter of 2022. The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank is projecting another drop, of 2.1%, when second quarter estimates come out on July 28. When the economy declines for two quarters in a row, a recession has begun, according to the common rule of thumb.

Registered voters see inflation as the “most important issue facing the country today,” and only 28% approve of Biden’s job performance at handling inflation, according to the Harvard-Harris poll.

These findings should not come as a surprise. Instead of tackling inflation, Biden has spent months trying to blame a certain someone for it.

On June 30, after a NATO meeting in Madrid, Biden told a press conference, “The reason gas prices are up is because of Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia.”

He added, “We are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes.” Later the same day, CNN’s Victor Blackwell asked White House spokesman Brian Deese, “What do you say to those families who say, ‘Listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years. This is just not sustainable.’?” Deese dug in: “What you heard from the president today was a clear articulation of the stakes. This is about the future of the liberal world order, and we have to stand firm.”

This doesn’t make sense. On the one hand, inflation is supposed to be all the fault of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But “supporting Ukraine” and “standing firm” refer to the U.S./European decisions to sanction Russia, which is what made world food, fuel, and other commodity prices soar this year. The countries that created the sanctions can also end them. And that depends on them abandoning the fantasy of sanctions leading to Putin’s downfall.

3. What can a Congressional candidate tell voters about how to get inflation under control?

Step One: The place to start is in Ukraine, by ending the fighting and dying there. The Ukrainian government should sit down with negotiators from Russia and the Lugansk and Donetsk republics and agree to peace terms. Moscow has said it is willing to negotiate. Kyiv is currently refusing to do so, but the U.S. Congress could make genuine peace talks a condition for further aid of any kind.

Step Two: Based on a negotiated peace, Congress should lift the sanctions on Russia. This would let food, fuel, and other commodities be traded freely around the world, and let international markets — and prices — settle down.

These steps are difficult but necessary. They are not the Biden policy or the Democratic party line. But for Democratic candidates, proposing a way out of inflation and war might help win an uphill race in November.

Paul Ryder has been research assistant to attorney Leonard Weinglass, Pentagon Papers Legal Defense; national staff, Indochina Peace Campaign; policy director for Ohio Governor Richard Celeste; and organizing director for Ohio Citizen Action. He is the principal author and editor of “The Good Neighbor Campaign Handbook” (2006) and co-editor with Susan Wind Early of “Tom Hayden on Social Movements” (2019). pryder888@gmail.com.

German government does not warn Kurds whose data it sends to Turkish secret service

The German government is endangering Kurdish association members by sending their data to the Turkish secret service and referring to the general security advice of the Foreign Office for travel to Turkey.

ANF
BERLIN
Sunday, 10 Jul 2022, 

In May, a parliamentary question by the migration spokesperson of the parliamentary group DIE LINKE, Gökay Akbulut, revealed that due to a decree issued in 1994 by the then Federal Minister of the Interior, Manfred Kanther (CDU), in connection with the banning of the PKK, all data of Kurdish associations is automatically forwarded to the BKA and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. This practice continues to this day, although the decree itself is no longer considered traceable by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. In an expert opinion commissioned by Akbulut, the Scientific Services (WD) of the German Parliament Bundestag stated that this is a restriction of fundamental rights that requires justification and legal justification. The WD said: "Decrees are mere internal law of the administration, which is why the aforementioned decree of 1994 cannot constitute an authorisation basis for encroachments on fundamental rights."

On Wednesday, Gökay Akbulut asked the Bundestag in what form data on members of Kurdish associations received by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution or the Federal Criminal Police Office through regular transmission by the Federal Office of Administration is processed by these authorities and what measures, if any, the Federal Government now intends to take with regard to risks associated with trips to Turkey by members of Kurdish associations in Germany.

As can be seen from the answer of the Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Government does not want to warn Kurdish association members whose data it sends to the Turkish secret service against a possible trip to Turkey. Instead, it refers to the general travel and security advice of the Foreign Office:

"The personal data transmitted in the context of the proceedings in question is compared with the data of the security authorities. Data is not stored solely on the basis of participation in the founding or membership of a Kurdish association.

The Federal Government informs travellers to Turkey in detail about possible risks in the context of travel and security advice, including in the context of a possible membership in an association legally active in Germany and related to Kurdish concerns."

Tribute to internationalists Dilsoz and Şiyar

This week marks the anniversary of the death of two internationalists who gave their lives in the fight for a free life defending the revolution in Kurdistan.

ANF
KARLSRUHE
Monday, 11 Jul 2022, 09:40

Some 30 people gathered at the grave of Kevin Jochim in the cemetery in Karlsruhe on Sunday to commemorate the internationalist. After a minute's silence, speeches were delivered in which the importance of the work of the two Germans for the Kurdish liberation struggle and the Rojava revolution was emphasized. Speakers said: “As internationalists, Dilsoz and Şiyar recognized their responsibility and devoted their young lives and all their energy to the revolutionary struggle and the defense of a democratic society in the Middle East. They recognized the strength hidden in the PKK and the political thinking of Abdullah Öcalan.”

While the European states never tire of promoting values ​​such as democracy, peace, freedom and equality, they are actually pursuing an imperialist strategy that means nothing to the peoples of this earth but exploitation, oppression and slavery.

“Dilsoz and Şiyar exposed this mendacious double standard early on and set out in the mountains of Kurdistan in search of answers," says Gulê Agir, adding: “There they learned that, contrary to what we are led to believe, a life beyond capitalist modernity can already be a reality today. This alternative ranges from the grassroots democratic revolution in Rojava to the city administrations in North Kurdistan to the liberated mountains of the guerrilla Kurdistan and shows us the way to a free future today.”

With their lives and struggles, Dilsoz Bahar and Şiyar Gabar have become a guide and an inspiration for thousands of internationalist youths who have flocked to Kurdistan from all over the world to take their place in the ranks of the revolution. "Even today they are a shining example for us here of the real spirit of internationalism."

At the end of the meeting, a wreath was laid at Kevin Jochim's grave while the crowd sung the international partisan song "Bella Ciao". The commemoration ended with a promise to continue the unfinished struggle of the martyrs and to organize "for the realization of a liberated Kurdistan and a free world".

Dilsoz and Şiyar

Kevin Jochim (Nom de Guerre Dilsoz Bahar) grew up in the southern German city of Karlsruhe and joined the Kurdish freedom movement in 2012 at the age of nineteen. He went to Rojava and fought in the ranks of the People's Defense Units (YPG) against the Islamic State, driven by his "desire for freedom". On 6 July 2015, near Silûk, he lost his life in combat.

Jakob Riemer (Şiyar Gabar), born in 1994, was a young internationalist from Hamburg. He went to Kurdistan at the end of 2013 to fight with the guerrillas for his ideas of a better world. On 9 July 2018 he died in Çarçella in North Kurdistan as a fighter for the People's Defense Forces (HPG) during a military operation by the Turkish army.

“Dilsoz and Şiyar united in the search for solutions to the acute crisis of the ruling system. In this way, they got to know Abdullah Öcalan's ideas and were inspired by the development of democratic confederalism in Kurdistan," said Gulê Agir on Sunday during a visit to the cemetery in Karlsruhe where "Şehîd Dilsoz" is buried. People from the Kurdish association in Heilbronn and young internationalists called for the commemoration of Kevin Jochim and Jakob Riemer.














In memory of Jakob / Şîyar
Today is the anniversary of the death of Şîyar Gabar, Jakob Riemer: a friend, revolutionary comrade, son and brother who decided young to fight the resistance for a liberated world in the mountains...

ANF News

Memorial in Karlsruhe on 10 July for German revolutionaries Kevin Joachim and Jakob Riemer
Kevin Joachim (Dilsoz Bahar) died in clashes with ISIS mercenaries in Rojava Kurdistan on 6 July 2015, while Jakob Riemer (Şiyar Gabar) died on 9 July 2018, as the result of the attack of the Turki...

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In memory of internationalist Kevin Jochim
Throughout Kurdistan and the Middle East, and finally around the world Ronahî “Everyone can become part of the revolution in Rojava. Of course, if you are a person who stands up for democracy...

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POWERING UP IN SPACE: IS NUCLEAR THE ANSWER?

RYAN WEED
JULY 11, 2022



Speed, power, and response — these factors decide success and failure in space. Players who want to lead in space have to push the envelope, and maybe even take a few longshots. At the Defense Innovation Unit, we believe that compact nuclear power will get us there in space.

On paper, the United States should be light-years ahead of other nations in nuclear space tech. Six decades ago, America launched a nuclear reactor into space (it’s still up there), and the nation has since spent more than $15 billion on a dozen government programs to develop a nuclear space capability, without a single launch. Meanwhile, Russia is building a nuclear space tug, and China has announced a nuclear system 100 times more powerful than current U.S. designs. And while these claims may oversell the technical reality, those in the field have to ask: Is the United States still in the lead?

Programs currently in the works at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and NASA promise to launch fission-powered nuclear thermal propulsion before the end of the decade. These worthwhile efforts will lead to spacecraft with two to three times more maneuverability than traditional chemical propellants. Using the nuclear core to heat hydrogen gas, nuclear thermal propulsion allows for responsive in-space maneuvers by maintaining a high thrust-to-weight ratio. In addition to nuclear thermal propulsion, NASA is also researching a fission reactor to power electric-propulsion systems (Nuclear Electric Propulsion), which could generate even greater capability for future missions to Mars and other interplanetary missions.

The drawback to these fission reactors is scale, in both size and weight. When you include the fuel, moderator, shielding, power conversion, and radiators, the smallest fission reactor is still pretty heavy. As the Department of Defense continues to source smaller and disaggregated spacecraft, physics is pushing us to find alternative solutions (that is, not fission) for nuclear propulsion and power. While NASA and DARPA are working on these traditional nuclear fission approaches, the Defense Innovation Unit is supporting non-traditional and non-fission approaches to nuclear.

As a program manager at the Defense Innovation Unit, I’m leading the Department of Defense’s effort to build prototypes of these novel nuclear power and propulsion systems for small spacecraft. This work will have a direct impact on how the United States employs spacepower, ushering in an era in which spacecraft maneuver tactically in cislunar space. If the Department of Defense wants starcruiser-like spacecraft before the end of the decade, America needs a smaller, faster, and safer approach to nuclear. In a volume nearly 2,000 times larger than geostationary orbit, cislunar space requires Department of Defense spacecraft with advanced maneuver and power capability that could help enforce “norms of behavior” and commercial activities in this new domain.

The good news is that commercially developed concepts that may fit the bill already exist — U.S. companies are spearheading the development of next generation radioisotopes and compact fusion reactors that could enable big improvements in maneuverability over current Department of Defense space platforms (e.g. X-37B). Let’s review these nuclear options, the hurdles they face, and the future they may enable.

Radioisotopes

The approach is straightforward: Radioactive materials undergo nuclear decay, producing heat that can be converted into electricity. This electrical power can run spacecraft sensors, communications, and electric propulsion systems (e.g., ion drives). Radioisotope power systems have been around since the early days of the space age, and plutonium-238, with its consistent heat output and low gamma/neutron emission, is still the preferred source. Despite the expense and scarcity, plutonium-238 radioisotope sources continue to power experiments and payloads on the moon and Mars.

With a half-life of 88 years, plutonium-238 can produce sustained power for decades — proven through its use on the Voyager interstellar probes, which are still communicating with Earth nearly half a century after their launch. However, the leading radioisotope power system is a microwave-sized device providing roughly 100 watts of electrical power at somewhat low efficiency (around 5 percent). At around 2 watts per kilogram, these units are too heavy and produce too little power to be useful for propulsion on future Department of Defense satellites where much shorter timelines are at play.

If plutonium is expensive, scarce, and lacks necessary power density, could shorter half-life radioisotopes be a better option? Could higher-performance radioisotope sources feasibly power both sensor payloads and electric propulsion systems?

Cobalt, europium, and strontium could be those sources. Policy updates from the White House (e.g., Space Policy Directive-6 and National Security Presidential Memorandum-20) and pending regulatory guidance from the Federal Aviation Administration have opened a pathway for commercial entities to obtain launch and operational licenses for these radiological materials. From a launch-safety standpoint, a 100-watt plutonium-238 radioisotope source is in the same regulatory category as a 27,000-watt europium source or a 17,000-watt cobalt source. These shorter half-life (5 to 15 years) radioisotopes could achieve energy density 30 times higher than plutonium — up to several hundred watts per kilogram.

One path towards high power (more than 1,000 watts) radioisotope power sources is being developed at USNC-Tech, a Seattle-based company, with funding from NASA, where the technology will be used to rendezvous with the first known interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, currently speeding away from Earth at roughly 30 kilometers per second. Such a staggering power system would not only outperform plutonium-238, but also offers power density at least 10 times higher than a similar-sized fission reactor power system, and could be ready years before the first fission systems. Companies developing these new radioisotope power systems have their work cut out — they will have to work out new irradiation schemes, novel encapsulation techniques, shielding and remote handling, and power conversion challenges, but the payoff could be huge.

Fusion: No Longer 30 Years Away?

Building a compact fusion reactor in your garage is possible. The problem is getting more energy out of it than you use to run it. This ratio of energy out to energy in is called the Q-factor. To date, a fusion reactor with a Q-factor greater than one has not been built, although there are dozens of fusion startups, a fledgling industry association, and persisting hope that fusion is within grasp. The closest anyone has come is a Q-factor of 0.33 for 5 seconds, achieved at the Joint European Tokamak, per a report published this year.

If nuclear fusion is right around the corner, how might fusion reactors be used in space? Let’s take a look at our options.

Magnetic Confinement Fusion

The world-record Joint European Tokamak fusion reactor uses magnetic coils to confine hot plasma in a donut-shaped device (tokamak). This approach, called magnetic confinement, has been under development from the very first days of fusion.

Achieving a Q-factor greater than one using magnetic fusion requires massive plasma volumes surrounded by cryogenically cooled superconducting electromagnets that are the size of buildings. The most expensive science experiment in human history, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is expected to achieve a Q-factor of more than 10, but won’t be completed until 2035. Still, it is possible that other magnetic fusion devices (e.g., SPARC), taking advantage of new superconductor materials, could be producing carbon-free terrestrial electrical power in the coming decade. These, however, will not work very well in space — a reasonably sized spacecraft just won’t be able to support the hundreds of tons of magnets needed for magnetic confinement fusion. Bottom line: Magnetic confinement fusion will be great for Earth, but too heavy for space.

Inertial Confinement Fusion

Another approach to fusion relies on squeezing atoms together until they fuse, called inertial confinement. The United States first successfully demonstrated inertial confinement nuclear fusion during the Operation Greenhouse weapon test in 1951 on the Enewetok atoll in the Pacific. But for our purposes, thermonuclear weapons don’t make very good rockets (both NASA and the U.S. Air Force have tried). With the signing of nuclear test-ban treaties and the advent of the laser in the 1960s, scientists began looking into using photons rather than nuclear explosions to squeeze hydrogen atoms together and reach fusion ignition. This technique has been honed at the Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility, where 192 lasers, together the size of three football fields, are focused onto a fusion target the size of a pencil eraser in a powerful pulse. In these few nanoseconds, the lasers take up 500 times the entire energy production of the United States — proving that squeezing atoms together using light is extremely difficult. While the physics is close (the facility reached a Q-factor of 0.7 recently), engineering a spacecraft to carry the pulsed laser power infrastructure remains infeasible, or leads to designs that are ridiculously large and expensive.

Electrostatic Confinement

Electrostatic confinement is perhaps the longest-running and most underperforming of the fusion concepts, having received little serious attention since being patented by Philo T. Farnsworth in the 1960s. In electrostatic fusion, electrodes cause ions to accelerate toward a central reactor core volume where they collide with other ions and can fuse together. This method offers a fusion device that doesn’t require house-sized magnets, lasers, or capacitor banks. An electrostatic fusion reactor would be ultra-lightweight, however, pure electrostatic fusion devices have never reached a Q-factor of more than 1 because of a fundamental physics limit: collisions between ions cause losses in confinement much faster than collisions that lead to fusion reactions. Bottom line here: light enough to actually launch into space, but needs some serious physics breakthrough to overcome fundamental limits.

Hybrid Confinement

What’s becoming clear is that a combination of plasma-confinement approaches will be required to build compact-enough spacecraft propulsion and power engines. In recent years, billions of dollars in private capital has poured into these hybrid approaches. Magneto-inertial confinement fusion devices (e.g., General Fusion) start with a low-density magnetized plasma before using a “liner” to compress to fusion ignition conditions. Another promising hybrid approach involves using the plasma fuel itself to generate confining magnetic fields (akin to a self-sustaining smoke ring) while slamming these plasmas into each other (as, for example, Helion is attempting to do) to achieve fusion ignition. An important characteristic of these new devices is that they are small. Avalanche Energy is currently working on a hybrid electrostatic/magnetic confinement concept that could lead to a “hand-held” fusion reactor. At these more compact scales, putting a fusion reactor onto a spacecraft is more science than fiction. The bottom line with hybrid approaches: The physics is still less understood, but a hybrid-confinement fusion reactor may actually be light enough to launch into space.

So where are we on the road to putting fusion reactors on Department of Defense spacecraft? Despite all of the challenges of building things for space, there is one advantage that a space fusion reactor has over terrestrial fusion reactors: The bar is high for fusion to provide commercial terrestrial electricity (a fusion power plant may need a Q-factor of over 50 to be profitable). However, for spacecraft propulsion and power, a Q factor of around two could still be useful because there are fewer energy transformation and transportation steps. Such enabling commercial technologies would be extremely valuable for Department of Defense spacecraft power and propulsion in the near term — something worth taking a risk on.

What’s Next?

The Defense Innovation Unit is focusing on two approaches to accelerate toward ground and flight-testing prototypes: compact fusion and next-gen radioisotope concepts that are likely to exceed the performance of fission reactor power systems for small satellites, with the goal of an orbital prototype demonstration in 2027. This approach is not without risk, both technical and programmatic: Fusion that generates more power than it consumes (a Q-factor of more than 1) has to be demonstrated; manufacturing pathways for high-power radioisotopes should be formed, and, most importantly, both industry and the Department of Defense should assure public safety by working hand-in-hand with regulatory and licensing agencies. These are not easy tasks. In fact, many in the fission, fusion, and space industries will see these approaches as true longshots, but America cannot innovate without taking risks on new technologies. This is the way.


Ryan Weed is leading the Nuclear Advanced Propulsion and Power program at the Defense Innovation Unit as a program manager in the space portfolio. Ryan is a Ph.D. physicist and U.S. Air Force experimental test pilot, logging over 2,000 hours in more than 30 different aircraft. As a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Fellow, he has studied radioisotope positron propulsion systems. While at Blue Origin, Ryan designed and implemented an Instrumentation Laboratory for cryogenic rocket fuels. As founder of Positron Dynamics, he has designed and built a positron beamline facility, and developed high-specific impulse propulsion concepts.

Image: Wikimedia