Lavrov Turns European History At Start Of World War II Upside Down – OpEd

 

File photo of Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Lavrov. Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru

 July 17, 2022 

By Paul Goble

Russian commentators have long played down the fact that World War II broke out in Europe as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which gave both Hitler and Stalin a free hand in their immediate neighborhoods and ensured that Germany would not from the outset have to fight a two-front war.

But now, Putin’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has taken this propensity of Russian officials to rewrite history to a new level by insisting that “when World War II began, Hitler under his banners assembled … a large part of Europe for a war against the Soviet Union” (russian.rt.com/world/article/1018187-lavrov-mid-azerbaidzhan-peregovory).

Lavrov’s interpretation is so over the top as to be laughable. The war began with Hitler and Stalin as allies. Hitler attracted only a few of his clients to his side by force and not on the basis of any common idea for a crusade against the Soviet Union. And most important, the Nazi leader worked to occupy Europe for almost two years before turning on his erstwhile ally.

The Russian foreign minister made this remark in order to suggest that what the EU and NATO are doing today, in coming together to resist Russian aggression, is an example of the same policies Hitler was carrying out, an equally outrageous reading of the present as well as the past.

Moscow has long acted on the assumption that having nuclear weapons means you never have to say you’re sorry. But it is clear that the Putin regime is equally convinced that it need not have any respect for history or facts either. What is sad is how little international reaction there has been to this statement. (For a useful exception, see theins.ru/antifake/252566.)

Family recipes etched in stone

They say you can't take it with you, but recipes do disappear when loved ones die. These families have found a novel way to record them for posterity


PUBLISHED : 17 JUL 2022 
NEWSPAPER SECTION: SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT
WRITER: CHRISTINA  MORALES

A German Christmas cookie recipe on the grave of Maxine Kathleen Poppe Menster, in Cascade, Iowa. Rachel Mummey/nyt

At his home in Washington, DC, Charlie McBride often bakes his mother's recipe for peach cobbler. As he pours the topping over the fruit, he remembers how his mother, aunts and grandmother sat under a tree in Louisiana, cackling at one another's stories as they peeled peaches to can for the winter.

Mr McBride loved this family recipe so much that when his mother, O'Neal Bogan Watson, died in 2005, he had it etched on her gravestone in New Ebenezer Cemetery in Castor, Louisia­na, a town of about 230 people. His mother's instructions were simple: Bake the cobbler at 350 degrees [Fahrenheit] "until done".

"It really is just a great recipe," said Mr McBride, 78, a public policy consultant.

In cemeteries from Alaska to Israel, families have memorialised their loved ones with the deceased's most cherished recipes carved in stone. These dishes -- mostly desserts -- give relatives a way to remember the sweet times and, they hope, bring some joy to visitors who discover them among the more traditional monuments.

"You only have one chance to make a last impression," said Douglas Keister, a photographer and author who has written several books about cemeteries, including Stories in the Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography. (For his own memorial, Keister plans a bench with the inscription "Keisters go here.")

Recipes on gravestones are a relatively new phenomenon in the long history of cemetery iconography, he said. But they have found an ardent following online. On her TikTok channel, @ghostlyarchive, Rosie Grant shares headstone recipes, drawing hundreds of thousands of views from a devoted audience fascinated by the intersection of cemeteries and cooking.

"Cemeteries are an open-air museum," said Ms Grant, 32, who lives in Washington, DC.

Recent advancements in gravestone technology, like lasers that can carve directly into the stone, have made it easier to leave a more personalised memorial, Keister said. Some include QR codes that lead to memorial websites.

"We use cemetery memorials as an art form," said Jonathan Modlich, an owner of the Modlich Monument Co in Columbus, Ohio, and the president of the Monument Builders of North America. "It's our job as memorialists to capture a portion of that story that can be told in future generations."

Years before Martha Kathryn Kirkham Andrews died, her fudge recipe was added to the gravestone she would eventually share with her husband, Wade Huff Andrews. The recipe drew so many onlookers at the Logan City Cemetery in Utah that the area containing her plot became known as "the fudge section".

She and her husband had read a book about funny epitaphs and decided to make their tombstone a reflection of their lives. He chose to commemorate his life with several images on his side of the gravestone, including the B-24 Liberator bomber he flew in World War II and named Salt Lake Katie after his wife. She picked the fudge recipe she often took to church functions, club meetings and other get-togethers.

"When she made fudge, you can pretty much guarantee that it was going out the door," said their daughter, Janice Johnson, 75, of Syracuse, Utah.

When Wade Andrews died in 2000, the monument company they hired to create the memorial engraved an error in the recipe, calling for too much vanilla. A generation of cemetery visitors presumably made the too-runny fudge before the mistake was corrected after Martha Andrews died in 2019.

Charlie McBride has a slice of his peach cobbler, a family recipe he loved enough to have etched on his mother's grave, in Washington, DC. JENNIFER CHASE/nyt

For Richard Dawson, 71, of Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, memories of his family's holidays are best called up by tasting the spritz cookies made by his mother, Naomi Odessa Miller Dawson. They were also a favourite at Richard Dawson's office, but when a co-worker once asked for the recipe, his mother said she wouldn't give it away.

Mr Dawson had the recipe etched on her gravestone. "At one point, I thought she may feel like I betrayed her," he said. "But I think she's happy because of all the attention the headstone has received."

Allison C Meier discovered Naomi Dawson's spritz recipe a few years ago while walking around Green-Wood Cemetery in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, looking for unusual headstones for a tour she leads. The open-book shape of the headstone caught her eye, and as she moved closer, she was surprised to see a recipe instead of a religious symbol.

The discovery inspired Meier to co-write a zine during the pandemic on the gravestone recipes she found. She titled it Cooking With the Dead.

"Recipes are such a beautiful way of remembering people," said Meier, 37, who lives in the Flatbush neighbourhood of Brooklyn. "You're still following in their footsteps and putting ingredients together the way they did."

An early entry in the genre was Maxine Kathleen Poppe Menster's 1994 headstone in Cascade Community Cemetery in Cascade, Iowa, featuring a German Christmas cookie recipe from her great-grandparents. When she was a child, Menster's parents hung the sugar cookies on her Christmas tree, said her daughter Jane Menster, 66, of Bernard, Iowa.

When making the cookies every December, Maxine Menster assigned the family to various stations in the kitchen: She rolled out the dough, her mother baked the cookies and her children decorated them with coloured sprinkles.

"A cemetery doesn't have to be a place of sadness," her daughter said. "It can be a place of great memories. It might spur people to talk about the good memories instead of the last memory."

 

California’s Trees Are Dying, And Might Not Be Coming Back

 July 17, 2022 

By Eurasia Review

The State of California is banking on its forests to help reduce planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But that element of the state’s climate-change solution arsenal may be in jeopardy, as new research from the University of California, Irvine reports that trees in California’s mountain ranges and open spaces are dying from wildfires and other pressures – and fewer new trees are filling the void.

“The forests are not keeping up with these large fires,” said study co-author James Randerson, the Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Professor of Earth system science at UCI. Across the entire state, tree cover area has declined 6.7 percent since 1985. “These are big changes in less than four decades,” he said.

It’s the first time that researchers have been able to measure tree population declines in California, and attribute the changes to such pressures as wildfires, drought stress and logging.

For the study, the UCI-led team used satellite data from the USGS and NASA’s Landsat mission to study vegetation changes between 1985 and 2021. They found that one of the starkest declines in tree cover was in Southern California, where 14 percent of the tree population in local mountain ranges vanished, potentially permanently.

“The ability of forests to recover from fire appears to be dwindling in the south,” said Jonathan Wang, a postdoctoral researcher in Randerson’s research group, who led the study published in AGU Advances. “At the same time, the state’s coverage of shrubs and grasses is rising, which could foreshadow more permanent ecosystem shifts.”

The rate and scale of decline varies across the state. Tree cover in the Sierra Nevada, for instance, stayed relatively stable until around 2010, then began dropping precipitously. The 8.8 percent die-off in the Sierra coincided with a severe drought from 2012 to 2015, followed by some of the worst wildfires in the state’s history, including the Creek Fire in 2020.

Fortunately “in the north, there’s plenty of recovery after fire,” said Wang, perhaps because of the region’s higher rainfall and cooler temperatures. But even there, high fire years in 2018, 2020 and 2021 have taken a visible toll.

The tree decline has also affected carbon storage abilities in the state, said Randerson, who added that the next step is to precisely quantify the impact on forests’ ability to absorb anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Co-author Michael Goulden, a UCI professor of Earth system science and director of the Center for Ecosystem Climate Solutions, is using the data to understand how changes in forest cover are affecting water resources, carbon storage and fire behavior across the state.  

“This threat to California’s climate solutions isn’t going away anytime soon,” Wang said. “We might be entering a new age of intense fire and vulnerable forests.”

Nitrogen Footprint: Heavy Pollution And Resource Losses Due To Liquid Manure

 

In Germany liquid manure is usually spread on fields or grasslands without pretreatment. The nitrogen it releases has a negative environmental impact. (Photo: Markus Breig, KIT)

 July 17, 2022 

By Eurasia Review

Factory farming for meat production is harmful to the environment. In addition to its direct emissions of methane, its use of liquid manure releases climate-damaging nitrogen compounds such as ammonia and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and pollutes the groundwater with nitrates. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have analyzed how the liquid manure produced by livestock farming, which is often used as fertilizer, affects its nitrogen footprint. They showed that the nitrogen pollution caused by liquid manure from the production of beef is three times higher than that for pork and eight times higher than that for poultry.

Large amounts of nitrogenous fertilizer and animal feed are used in agriculture. A substantial fraction of their nitrogen is released into the environment unused, for example when nitrates are leached from the soil or when livestock farming emits ammonia.

“It’s well known that meat production has a very negative impact on the global nitrogen balance. But so far the nitrogen footprint calculator doesn’t show what share of that impact can be attributed to the amount of liquid manure it produces,” says Prantik Samanta, a PhD candidate in the Water Chemistry and Water Technology Department of KIT’s Engler-Bunte Institute. “At the same time, these quantities of nitrogen represent a huge loss of resources, because recovering nitrogen is very energy-intensive.”

The amount of nitrogen released as pollution by the liquid manure resulting from beef, pork and poultry production – and lost as a raw material – has now been analyzed in a study by lead author Samanta and colleagues. They also calculated how much energy would be needed to process the liquid manure and recover nitrogen, which could then be made available for more targeted fertilizer use.

Highest Nitrogen Losses from Beef Production

“We found that the lost nitrogen per kilo of meat can be directly calculated with a virtual nitrogen factor, VNF for short,” says Samanta. “The correlation between total nitrogen input and the resulting nitrogen loss per kilogram of meat produced is linear.”

The VNF expresses the ratio of the nitrogen losses to the nitrogen content in the meat. The greatest losses occur in the liquid manure that needs to be disposed of or treated. The results show that beef production in most parts of the world has the biggest impact on the nitrogen footprint, with nitrogen losses three times higher than those for pork and eight times higher than those for poultry. The researchers attribute this to the higher feed requirements and high basal metabolic rates of cattle. They see the nitrogen losses from pork and poultry production as more likely due to poor conditions in which the animals are kept rather than to their feed and digestion.

In their analysis, the researchers also compared several countries. “Relative to the amount of meat consumed, Japan releases the most nitrogen, followed by Australia. That’s also because the values shift when countries export or import large amounts of feed and meat,” says Samanta. “As a result, the amount of liquid manure needing treatment per kilogram of meat is also highest in Japan.”

Nitrogen losses due to meat production are lower in the United States and Europe, according to Samanta.

Meat Price Hikes Due to High Energy Needs

The researchers also calculated how much energy would be required to minimize the amount of nitrogen released into the environment.

“When 1 kilogram of beef is produced, 140 grams of ammoniacal nitrogen remain in liquid manure from the cattle. To recover it, we need 7 kilowatt-hours of energy. By comparison, Germany’s per capita electricity consumption is about 29 kilowatt-hours per week,” says Samanta. For the treatment of 1 kilogram of pork or poultry manure, the required energy decreases considerably, to less than 3 or 0.8 kilowatt-hours, respectively.

“Our results clearly show how much energy would be needed for liquid manure treatment in order to reduce the overall nitrogen footprint,” says Samanta, adding that the amount of energy needed is not accounted for in pricing. “If it were, the price for meat would have to increase by 0.20 to 1.50 euros per kilo depending on the kind of meat.”

One Of The Biggest Natural Disasters Of Our Times May Be About To Strike Pakistan – OpEd

Pakistan border

 July 17, 2022 

By Raja Shahzeb Khan

For more than two years, the world we live in has been battered by extreme weather more frequently than ever before, taking a heavy toll globally alongside the pandemic and the war in Europe. From epic calamities like Australia’s Black Summer bushfires and Texas’s Arctic freeze, to the 2021 floods in Europe, to the floods, heatwaves, and droughts happening around the world right now, disasters occur regularly. It is certain that many more will be coming, yet it remains impossible to predict or have any idea of what and where the next severe weather event will be. But there are signs in the air hinting at one catastrophic scenario about to unfold in one of the world’s most climate-sensitive nations, Pakistan, which may be about to suffer a repeat of its worst floods ever. 

Like the first three years of the 2020s, the first three years of the 2010s saw a global uptick in severe weather and Pakistan bore the worst of it. Every summer during the monsoon season, Pakistan runs the chance of experiencing large-scale flooding, but it never before saw anything close to what 2010 wrought. The country was devastated by its largest floods on record. Unprecedented rainfall submerged one-fifth of the country in August, killing 2,000 people and displacing 20 million. It was 2010’s biggest disaster besides Haiti’s earthquake and Pakistan’s biggest-ever disaster besides the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The following year, 2011, the weary nation suffered its second-worst flooding ever. Heavy monsoon rainfall submerged large areas of Pakistan’s south (Sindh and Balochistan), a region less affected in 2010. Another round of flooding across the nation followed in 2012, far milder than the preceding deluges but still enormous by normal standards of Pakistan’s monsoon. These terrible floods did not occur in isolation. They were linked to weather patterns taking place around the world in 2010-2012. And many of those same phenomena have surfaced again in 2020-2022, though not always in the same order.

In 2010, the strongest La Nina on record made its appearance. A weather phase in which the eastern Pacific cools and the western Pacific becomes warmer, La Nina makes floods in Pakistan more likely because warm western Pacific water contributes to monsoon precipitation in South Asia. 2010 began with a mild El Nino, the opposite of La Nina, which dissipated in May, leaving Pakistan with drought conditions. La Nina began in July, the same month Pakistan’s floods began. Around the same time, there was a spate of extreme heatwaves around the globe. This included record-high temperatures in Pakistan, India, the Middle East, and in the Arabian Sea in June, which powered Pakistan’s rainfall. There was also an unprecedented summer heatwave in western Russia caused by the Jetstream wavering and placing a high-pressure dome there. This heatwave contributed to the Arab Spring by destroying Russian harvests and raising food prices. It is also linked to Pakistan’s monster deluge that summer. Scientists say the Russian heat dome pulled in South Asian monsoon currents, causing them to collide with Pakistan’s western mountains, producing a high rate of rainfall. 

After Pakistan’s catastrophic rainy season, the La Nina continued its pace into 2011 and caused many other deadly weather events, such as historic floods in eastern Australia from November 2010 to January 2011 and a record Arctic blast that swept the mainland USA in February 2011, freezing even Texas. La Nina ended in spring 2011, but its aftereffects continued to reverberate. The US Southwest, especially Texas, underwent historic drought and heat over the spring and summer and another massive drought spread across East Africa beginning in July. East Africa’s historic 2011 drought caused a huge famine killing an estimated quarter of a million people. Likely contributing to these events was La Nina’s return in September. Two La Nina events within the same year is known as a “double-dip” La Nina.

It was at the same time, late August and September 2011, that southern Pakistan flooded. Before, 2011’s monsoon season rainfall was actually below average, creating dry conditions that threatened Pakistan with drought before the floods arrived. 

The second La Nina, which was weaker than the first, ended in March 2012. But it, too, left behind a strong legacy. America’s drought expanded from Texas to the rest of the US. In Pakistan, there was again a dearth of rain in July and August, causing a serious dry spell, until the floods began in September.

That was back then. But how does it all mirror the present? In September 2020, a La Nina began and became the strongest since 2010. That year, parts of Pakistan suffered severe but still normal-scale flooding. But when 2021 began, La Nina’s influence began to show strong parallels with 2011. In February 2021, a record Arctic blast swept the mainland USA, wreaking havoc on Texas, and in March, extreme floods submerged eastern Australia. La Nina ended in May 2021, but a severe drought in the southwestern United States intensified to record breaking levels, affecting especially Texas. Meanwhile, there was a global outbreak of heatwaves very similar to what happened in 2010. From May to July, western Russia sweltered under unprecedented heat caused by a heat dome that Russia’s met department Roshydromet described as being comparable to the one in 2010, while record summer heat prevailed in Pakistan, the Middle East, and the Arabian Sea. La Nina then returned in September. 

These were the same ingredients that made the 2010 Pakistan floods possible. But 2021 passed without any significant flooding in Pakistan. Intense rains caused some damage, but mostly, the monsoon season saw a dearth of rainfall provoking drought, until September rains provided some relief. 

It is now 2022 and things continue to be alarming. La Nina weakened initially but has resurged. America’s drought continues its devastating course. Australia floods again. East Africa is undergoing severe drought comparable in scale and severity to the 2011 drought. Plus, heatwaves have been prolific worldwide this spring and summer, including heatwaves across South Asia that were record-breaking in their intensity, range, duration, and early onset. Finally, La Nina is forecast to continue and strengthen in late 2022. This is the third La Nina in a row, a very rare “triple-dip” La Nina, last seen in 1998-2001.

What does this mean for Pakistan? The current monsoon is already overactive, killing more than 150 people since late June, according to official figures. Pakistan authorities reported in early July that rainfall in Pakistan was 87% above normal up till this time of year, 261% above normal in Sindh and 274% above normal in Balochistan. But Pakistan’s monsoon is usually at full strength from mid-July to the end of August, putting the most dangerous period ahead. 

Pakistan is fortunate to be spared major flooding in 2021. Everything linked to Pakistan’s 2010 and 2011 floods was present that year. But the crucial factor may be lack of extreme drought in East Africa back then. La Nina often causes drought in East Africa, but not usually on such a level. The fact that the East Africa droughts of 2011 and 2022 are equally severe suggests the 2011 La Nina and 2022 La Nina are similarly affecting the Indian Ocean, from where Pakistan’s monsoon originates. Plus, Pakistan and India’s extremely high temperatures over the last four months are likely to supercharge this year’s monsoon, like they did in 2010, by contributing to high Indian Ocean temperatures and low pressure overland. And if La Nina revitalizes later this year as forecasted, it will likely strengthen what is already a severe monsoon season in Pakistan and the rest of South Asia. 

All these factors make it clear. This year’s monsoon season carries a much higher chance than normal of bringing large-scale flooding to Pakistan, on the scale of 2012, or 2011, or even 2010. If that happens, it will be the current decade’s worst natural disaster so far. Pakistan, like most nations, is worse off now than when 2010 began, embroiled in political turmoil and economic crisis. Some observers are expressing concern that, after what just happened in Sri Lanka, Pakistan will be the next country to give way. That is not really plausible, under current trajectories. But if a super-flood does strike this summer, it would be a testing scenario for Pakistan. The country cannot handle such a disaster on its own.

The world must wake up to this impending threat and take all action needed to prepare before it is too late.

Author is director at Pakistan’s People-Led Disaster Management (PPLDM) and issued similar flood warnings in 2021 in electronic and print media and on PPLDM’s YouTube channel Disaster Management (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3_vsqGckhCgB7WjdIGMoew).  

Boeing cuts 20-year industrywide outlook for planes

By David Shepardson - Yesterday 

© Reuters/TOBY MELVILLEFILE PHOTO:

 Signage for Boeing is seen on a trade pavilion at Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, Britain

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. airplane maker Boeing Co trimmed its projected industrywide demand for airplanes over the next 20 years, but said it expects deliveries to be stable excluding the Russian market.

Boeing projects airlines worldwide will need 41,170 new airplanes over 20 years with half of the deliveries for replacement aircraft, and with single-aisle aircraft accounting for about 75% of planes.

Boeing's new market outlook, released on Sunday ahead of the Farnborough Airshow, is down from its previous rolling 20-year-forecast of 43,610 deliveries.

The new estimate excludes the Russian market and its projection of 1,540 airplanes, because of the war in Ukraine and uncertainty about when manufacturers could again sell planes to Russian carriers.

Boeing slightly boosted its forecast for demand over the next 10 years to 19,575 airplane deliveries -- a higher projection even excluding the Russian market.

"That's a function of a depressed environment in 2021 falling off and a new trend year in 2031 being added," Darren Hulst, Boeing vice president for commercial marketing, told reporters in a briefing ahead of the Sunday release. "It comes very close to our 2019" outlook if Russia was included.

Boeing also dropped its industrywide passenger traffic forecast growth rate slightly to 3.8% from 4%, but boosted its cargo growth forecast to 4.1% from 4% last year. It cut its fleet growth forecast to 2.8% from 3.1%. Its forecast for widebody deliveries over 20 years fell from 7,670 to 7,230.

Boeing still projects the global airline fleet by 2041 will nearly double as it still sees a worldwide aviation demand COVID-19 recovery by early 2024.

Over the next 20 years Boeing said "long-term fundamentals remain intact."

"Our view of medium-term recovery -- when the industry gets back to 2019 levels of global airline traffic -- is largely unchanged" since 2020, Hulst said. "Overall, we still see late 2023, early 2024 as the time where the industry recovers to full or at least the level of pre-pandemic traffic."

Boeing sees strong near-term demand for aircraft despite recession risks.

"The global industry is still on a recovery trajectory back to where the normal relationship of GDP and traffic would be," Hulst said. "Any small blip from an economy standpoint would be probably overwhelmed by the demand that exists as a result of those normal economic relationships."

Boeing also projects the freighter fleet will grow 80% by 2041. Air cargo is performing at "historic levels," Hulst said, saying it is in part "a function of the increasing strategic value of air cargo relative to supply chains that are challenged and shipping that is challenged."

Boeing sees e-commerce networks as helping to drive a "strategic shift to air cargo even into the medium- and long-term. ... This isn't just a blip in terms of shipping versus air."

Hulst said the number of routes with more than one airline operating has more than doubled over the last two decades -- representing 70% of all capacity. It demonstrates "the continuous innovation that airlines need to have to continue to compete at lower costs to attract more and more traffic."

Air cargo still only accounts for 1% of global trade. "A small shift in terms of mode of transportation, of key elements of trade, makes a big impact in terms of demand for air cargo," Hulst said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler)

'Ghost ship' washes ashore on infamous island during rough storm

By Marianne Mizera, AccuWeather, Accuweather.com

Officials were at first bewildered when they came upon a mysterious ghost ship with no captain or crew on board that had washed ashore on a secluded island off the coast of Cambodia during an intense storm this week.

Three life jackets from the wreckage were spotted about 160 feet away from where the rusted, old shipping vessel ran aground on the rocky beach of Koh Tang Island Tuesday evening, officials told Cambodia News English.

Authorities with the Koh Tang Observation Force inspected the shipwreck and quickly scoured the shoreline for any signs of the ship's occupants the following morning, but to no avail, an official with the Maritime Security Observatory told CNE.

It was only days later, however, that authorities found four Chinese sailors who had reportedly abandoned the ship -- named the Seng Kang -- in the rough seas, jumped overboard and somehow managed to swim to the island in rough waters, CNE reported. The strong winds and waves from the storm drifted the ship ashore.

The four, including the captain of the vessel, were taken in for questioning.

The choppy waters and blustery conditions had prompted the country's Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology to issue a weather warning earlier in the week to fishermen and tour boat operators. Provincial officials followed suit by ordering a ban on all trips to Koh Tang and the other coastal islands from July 11-14.

The rough seas prevented officials from boarding the ship to investigate further until Thursday, when staff from the Observation Force managed to gain access once the waters calmed.

"At first, we were not able to get close enough to the ship to check its markings. There was no sign of which country it came from," local official Sopheap San told CNE.

The secluded Koh Tang Island located about 30 miles off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand is best known as the site of the last battle of the Vietnam War in May 1975, two weeks after the fall of Saigon.

How did a captain survive? - The mysterious death of 21 men on a Spanish fishing boat

On 15 February, the Villa de Pitanxo, a Galician fishing boat sank off the coast of Canada in mysterious circumstances.

The families of 21 men who lost their lives that night are campaigning to ensure the truth of the tragedy is revealed and that those responsible face justice.

Investigators have been trying to understand what caused the accident and surviving crew members have very different versions of what went wrong.

BBC video journalist Bruno Boelpaep reports from Spain.

France 'Concerned' at 'Arbitrary' Iranian Filmmaker Arrests

Saturday, 16 July, 2022 

Women enjoy the view of Sacre-Coeur Basilica of Montmartre and Eiffel Tower at the Parc de Saint-Cloud near Paris, France, April 26, 2022. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
Asharq Al-Awsat

France on Friday expressed deep concern at the "arbitrary" arrests of three Iranian filmmakers, including international prize-winners Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof.

Panahi and Rasoulof were "arbitrarily arrested" earlier this month along with Mostafa Aleahmad, the French foreign ministry said.

France is "very concerned by these arrests and those of other Iranian personalities engaged in the defense of freedom of expression in their country," the ministry added, citing a "worrying deterioration in the situation of artists in Iran".

AFP said that Paris demanded their immediate release and called on Tehran to respect international commitments to "guarantee the full exercise of freedom of expression and creation".

Panahi, 62, has won a slew of awards at international festivals for films that have critiqued modern Iran, including the top prize in Berlin for "Taxi" in 2015, and best screenplay at Cannes for his film "Three Faces" in 2018.

Rasoulof, 50, won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with his film "There Is No Evil".

Their arrests come after Panahi and Rasoulof denounced in May the arrests of several colleagues in their homeland in an open letter.

They notably highlighted the cases of internationally renowned female documentary producers Mina Keshavarz and Firoozeh Khosrovani, who were arrested but later freed under caution.

Despite the political pressures, Iran has a thriving film industry and the country's output regularly wins awards at major international festivals.

Civil society organizations protest British government’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda

Newsroom - Yesterday 

Civil organizations have taken to the streets of major British cities on Saturday to protest against the deportation of migrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda.


© Provided by News 360Protest against the deportation of UK migrants to Rwanda - Europa Press/Contacto/Vuk Valcic

"Refugees welcome!" chanted participants at rallies in Cambridge, Cardiff, Coventry, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Sheffield, reported the NGO Care4Calais.

The images disseminated on social networks show rallies at the Brook House Immigration Removal Center, next to Gatwick International Airport, and in front of the Colnbrook Immigration Removal Center, next to Heathrow International Airport.

"We know there are many people against Rwanda's brutal plan and we are delighted to see many of them making their voices heard today," said Care4Calais director Clare Moseley. "We have seen first-hand the human cost of locking people up and telling them they will be sent to Rwanda, from suicide attempts to hunger strikes," she explained. "We now have six weeks to show the government that this cruel plan is not what the people of the UK want," she added.

These demonstrations are part of the #StopRwanda campaign by the Trades Union Congress, Care4Calais and Standing Up to Racism. It is backed by eleven unions, including the Public and Commercial Services Union -- which represents more than 80 percent of Border Force personnel -- and migrant rights organizations.

The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, presented in April the "pioneering" project to deport immigrants who have arrived illegally on British territory to Rwanda, where their asylum applications could be processed.

The first flight of deportations was scheduled for June, but a court appeal prevented it from taking place. Care4Calais and Detention Action, the initiators of the appeal, have announced that the hearing will not take place until September.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in office, but all the candidates to succeed him have declared their intention to respect the deportation program to Rwanda.

Protesters across UK decry ‘heinous’ Rwanda deportation plan


Demonstrations take place outside Brook House and Colnbrook immigration removal centres

Protesters outside Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre. Photograph: SOAS Detainee Support

Nadeem Badshah

Sat 16 Jul 2022 

Campaigners have rallied against the government’s “heinous” policy to send some migrants to Rwanda in a series of protests across the UK.

Protests were scheduled to take place in Cambridge, Cardiff, Coventry, Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and Sheffield, according to refugee charity Care4Calais.

Pictures posted on social media on Saturday showed people protesting outside Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, by Gatwick airport, and Colnbrook immigration removal centre, near Heathrow airport.


Female trafficking survivor targeted for UK removal to Rwanda, says charity


John McDonnell, the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington who spoke during the rally outside Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre, wrote on Twitter: “Joined the demonstration outside Harmondsworth Detention Centre in my constituency in opposition to the appalling government policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda & detention.

“Let us make it clear asylum seekers are welcome here.”

The demonstrations were called as part of the StopRwanda campaign, launched by the Trades Union Congress, Care4Calais and Stand Up To Racism.

Clare Moseley, Care4Calais CEO, said: “We know that many people oppose the shockingly brutal Rwanda plan and we are delighted to see so many of them making their voices heard today.

“We have seen up close the human cost of locking people up and telling them they will be sent to Rwanda. From suicide attempts to hunger strikes, it was harrowing. We now have six weeks to show the government that this cruel plan is not what the British public wants.”

The campaign is backed by 11 trade unions, including the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) – which represents more than 80% of Border Force staff, refugee rights organisations and faith groups.

Labour MP John McDonnell urged protesters outside Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre to ‘make it clear asylum seekers are welcome here’.

Photograph: Nick Dearden

In April, home secretary Priti Patel signed what she branded a “world-first” agreement to send migrants deemed to have arrived in the UK illegally to Rwanda.

The first deportation flight – due to take off on 15 June – was cancelled with the plane on the runway in Salisbury after an intervention from the European court of human rights after a series of legal challenges by those on board.

A judicial review of the plan was due to be heard on 19 July, however charities including Care4Calais and Detention Action – which are bringing the case – said the hearing has been adjourned until September.

Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “It’s time for the government to show humanity to the people who come to our shores for refuge, and to start to engage seriously with sorting out the asylum system so refugees are treated fairly and according to the law.”

Weyman Bennett, co-convenor of Stand Up To Racism, said: “[Boris] Johnson, Patel and the government – and we know that every candidate in the Tory leadership race supports the heinous Rwanda detention policy – is hellbent, despite the incredible growth of an anti-racist movement in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and opposition to racism, to intensify their racist hostile environment for refugees and migrants and make people in the most desperate situations seeking safety into the scapegoats for a crisis and attacks on living standards that they did nothing to cause.

“We must keep up the pressure, we can stop offshore detention to Rwanda, and make the Nationality and Borders Act unworkable, but it will mean a mass campaign, it will mean escalating protests, and it is vital that the trade unions take this fight into workplaces everywhere and on to the streets.

“We are organising to prepare in every area for this kind of response to the Home Office and its attacks on our neighbours.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We remain committed to our world-leading migration partnership with Rwanda, which will see those arriving dangerously, illegally, or unnecessarily into the UK relocated to rebuild their lives there.

“This is vital to prevent loss of life in the Channel and break the business model of people smugglers.

“The government’s new plan for immigration is the most comprehensive reform of the asylum system and the Nationality and Borders Act will speed up the removal of those who have no right to be here, preventing abuse and deterring illegal entry to the UK.”

Further demonstrations are set to take place on Sunday.