Prominent Native Hawaiians named to Mauna Kea authority


HONOLULU (AP) — Gov. David Ige on Monday appointed several people, including some prominent Native Hawaiian activists, to a new board charged with managing Mauna Kea summit lands underneath some of the world's most advanced astronomical observatories.

Two of the eight appointees — Lanakila Mangauil and Noe Noe Wong-Wilson — were leaders of 2019 protests that brought a halt to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, the latest observatory proposed for the mountain on Hawaii's Big Island.

Many Native Hawaiians consider the summit sacred, and protesters objected to building yet another telescope there. The summit currently hosts about a dozen telescopes built since the late 1960s.

Responding to the protests, the state created the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority this year with a new law that says Mauna Kea must be protected for future generations and that science must be balanced with culture and the environment. Native Hawaiian cultural experts will have voting seats on the governing body, instead of merely advising the summit’s managers as they do now.

The eight nominations must be confirmed by the state Senate.

The authority will have 11 voting members. The other three are representatives of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, the University of Hawaii Board of Regents and Hawaii County's mayor.

Ige thanked the nominees for being willing to serve on the authority.

"Through this new stewardship model, I believe we can find a way for science and culture to coexist on Mauna Kea in a mutually beneficial way,” Ige said in a statement.

Also appointed is Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a University of Hawaii professor and former commissioner of the Hawaii State Water Resource Management Commission. He was named for his expertise in Hawaii Island land resource management.

Former Kamehameha Schools general counsel and former Hawaiian Telcom president John Komeiji was appointed for his business and finance experience.

The governor selected Rich Matsuda, an engineer who leads community relations for W.M. Keck Observatory, from three names submitted by Maunakea Observatories.

Matsuda, Wong-Wilson and Mangauil all served on a working group formed by the House of Representatives to develop recommendations for managing the mountain. The working group's report created the foundation for the new law.

——
Audrey Mcavoy, The Associated Press

SPACE RACE 2.0

United Arab Emirates to launch first lunar rover in November
September 19, 2022

In this photo made available from the twitter account of UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, Emirati officials brief Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum about a possible moon mission, Sept. 29, 2020, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The UAE will launch its first lunar rover in November 2022, the mission manager Hamad Al Marzooqi said Monday. Al Marzooqi told The National, a state-linked newspaper, that the “Rashid” rover, named for Dubai's ruling family, would be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida sometime between Nov. 9 and Nov. 15. 

(Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Twitter account via AP, File)


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates will launch its first lunar rover in November, the mission manager said Monday.

Hamad Al Marzooqi told The National, a state-linked newspaper, that the “Rashid” rover, named for Dubai’s ruling family, would be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida sometime between Nov. 9 and Nov. 15. The exact date will be announced next month, he said.

The rover is to be launched aboard a Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket and deposited on the moon by a Japanese ispace lander sometime in March.

“We’ve finished with the testing of the rover and we are happy with the results,” Al Marzooqi was quoted as saying. “The rover has been integrated with the lander and it is ready for launch.”

The lunar mission is part of the UAE’s broader strategy to become a major player in the field of space exploration. If the moon mission succeeds, the UAE and Japan would join the ranks of only the U.S., Russia and China as nations that have put a spacecraft on the lunar surface.

Already, an Emirati satellite is orbiting Mars to study the red planet’s atmosphere. The UAE partnered with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to launch that probe, which swung into Mars’ orbit in February 2021.

The Rashid rover is expected to study the lunar surface, mobility on the moon’s surface and how different surfaces interact with lunar particles. The 10-kilogram (22-pound) rover will carry two high-resolution cameras, a microscopic camera, a thermal imagery camera, a probe and other devices.

The UAE has plans to develop the Middle East’s most advanced commercial satellite to produce high-resolution satellite imagery. It has also set the ambitious goal of building a human colony on Mars by 2117.

SPACE RACE 1.0

NASA Mars lander captures strikes by 4 incoming space rocks


This undated photo released by NASA shows craters that were formed by a Sept. 5, 2021, meteoroid impact on Mars, the first to be detected by NASA’s InSight. Taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this enhanced-color image highlights the dust and soil disturbed by the impact in blue in order to make details more visible to the human eye. NASA lander on Mars has captured the vibrations and sounds of four meteorites striking the planet's surface. Scientists reported Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, that Mars InSight detected seismic and acoustic waves from a series of impacts in 2020 and 2021. 

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA lander on Mars has captured the vibrations and sounds of four meteoroids striking the planet’s surface.

Scientists reported Monday that Mars InSigh t detected seismic and acoustic waves from a series of impacts in 2020 and 2021. A satellite orbiting the red planet confirmed the impact locations, as far as 180 miles (290 kilometers) from the lander.

Scientists are delighted by the detections — a first for another planet.

The first confirmed meteoroid exploded into at least three pieces, each leaving its own crater. An 11-second audio snippet of this strike includes three “bloops,” as NASA calls them, one of sounding like metal flapping loudly in the wind here on Earth.

“After three years of InSight waiting to detect an impact, those craters looked beautiful,” Brown University’s Ingrid Daubar, a co-author of the research paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, said in a statement.

The InSight team expected to pick up numerous meteoroid strikes, given Mars’ proximity to the asteroid belt and the planet’s thin atmosphere, which tends to keep entering space rocks from burning up. But the lander’s French-built seismometer may have missed impacts because of interfering noise from the Martian wind or seasonal changes in the atmosphere. Now scientists know what to look for, according to NASA, likely resulting in a surge of detections.

“Impacts are the clocks of the solar system,” French lead author Raphael Garcia said in a statement from the Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space in Toulouse. “We need to know the impact rate today to estimate the age of different surfaces.”

Launched in 2018, InSight has already detected more than 1,300 marsquakes. The largest measured a magnitude 5 earlier this year. By comparison, the marsquakes generated by the meteoroid impacts registered no more than a magnitude 2.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

China quarantine bus crash prompts outcry over ‘zero COVID’

By HUIZHONG WU

1 of 5

A volunteer wearing protective gears stands watch near a COVID-19 testing site in Beijing, Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)


TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A nighttime bus crash that killed 27 people in southwest China this week has set off a storm of anger online over the harshness of the country’s strict COVID-19 policies.

The initial police report did not say who the passengers were and where they were going, but it later emerged they were headed to a quarantine location outside their city of Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province.

The bus with 47 people on board crashed about 2:40 a.m. Sunday. City officials announced many hours later that the passengers were under “medical observation,” confirming reports they were being taken to quarantine.

Following public anger, Guiyang fired three officials in charge of Yunyan district, where the residents had been picked up, the provincial government said Monday. Guiyang’s deputy mayor apologized at a news conference, bowing and observing a moment of silence.

Online, many wondered at the logic behind transporting people outside of Guiyang, accusing the government of moving them so that the city would no longer report any new cases.

“Will this ever end? On the top searches (on social media), there’s all sorts of pandemic prevention situations every day, creating unnecessary panic and making people jittery,” one person wrote. “Is there scientific validity to hauling people to quarantine, one car after another?”

Guiyang officials had announced the city would achieve “societal zero-COVID” by Monday, one day after the crash.

The phrase means new infections are found only among people already under surveillance — such as those in a centralized quarantine facility or who are close contacts of existing patients — so the virus is no longer spreading in the community.

China has managed the pandemic through a series of measures known as “clearing to zero,” or “zero COVID,” maintained through strict lockdowns and mass testing.

The approach saved lives before vaccines were widely available, as people refrained from public gatherings and wore masks regularly. However, as other countries have opened up and loosened some of the most onerous restrictions, China has held steadfast to its zero-COVID strategy.

While China has cut down its quarantine time for overseas arrivals and said it would start issuing student visas, the policy remains strict at home. Officials are concerned about the potential death toll and the impact any loosening would have on the country’s stretched medical system.

Zero COVID also has become a political issue, and at one point was celebrated by many Chinese as signifying the superiority of their country over the U.S., which has had more than a million COVID deaths.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has cited China’s approach as a “major strategic success” and evidence of the “significant advantages” of its political system over Western liberal democracies.

Yet, even as other countries open up, the humanitarian costs to China’s pandemic approach has grown.

Earlier this year in Shanghai, desperate residents complained of being unable to get medicines or even groceries during the city’s two-month lockdown, while some died in hospitals from lack of medical care as the city restricted movement. Last week, residents in the western region of Xinjiang said they went hungry under a more than 40-day lockdown.

According to FreeWeibo, a website that tracks censored posts on the popular social media platform, three of top 10 searches on Weibo related to the bus accident.

Many fixated on images of the bus shared by social media users. One photo showed the bus after it had been retrieved from the accident site. Its roof was crushed and portions missing. Another photo allegedly showed the driver decked out in a full white protective suit.

Users online questioned how a driver could see properly when his face was covered up, and why he was driving so late at night. Many comments were censored but some that expressed discontent with the current approach to the pandemic did remain up.

“I hope that the price of this pain can push for change faster, but if it’s possible, I don’t want to pay such a high price for such change,” said the comment with the most likes on an online report about the accident by state broadcaster CCTV. “Condolences.”

One of the passengers on the bus said her whole building had been taken for central quarantine, according to a report by Caixin, a business news outlet. Yet her apartment building had not reported a single case, according to a friend who shared their text conversation with Caixin.

Another popular comment quoted a proverb, “These human lives are like straw.”

On Tuesday, Guizhou reported 41 new COVID-19 cases in the entire province. The province has been on high alert in the past few weeks after discovering one case at the end of August. It has locked down its capital city, using the euphemistic “quiet period” to describe the move, which means people are not allowed to leave their homes.

___

Associated Press news assistant Caroline Chen in Beijing contributed to this report.

REMAINS OF TYPHON MERBOK
Damage assessments begin in flooded remote Alaska villages

By MARK THIESSEN

1 of 12

In this image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, an aerial view taken during a search and rescue and damage assessment in Deering, Alaska, shows the damage caused by Typhoon Merbok, on Sept. 18, 2022. Authorities are making contact with some of the most remote villages in the United States to determine the need for food and water and assess damage from a massive weekend storm that flooded communities dotting Alaska's vast western coast. 

(Petty Officer 3rd Class Ian Gray/U.S. Coast Guard via AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Authorities in Alaska were making contact Monday with some of the most remote villages in the United States to determine their food and water needs, as well as assess the damage after a massive storm flooded communities on the state’s vast western coast this weekend.

No one was reported injured or killed during the massive storm — the remnants of Typhoon Merbok — as it traveled north through the Bering Strait over the weekend. However, damage to homes, roads and other infrastructure is only starting to be revealed as floodwaters recede.

About 21,000 residents living in the small communities dotting a 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) stretch of Alaska’s western coastline — a distance longer than the entire length of California’s coast — were impacted by the storm.

Many homes throughout the region were flooded, and some were knocked off their foundations by the rushing waters propelled by strong winds. Officials were starting the process of determining damage to roads, ports, seawalls and water and sewage systems

The state transportation department said most airports in the area were open, and officials were making either temporary or permanent repairs to the runways that still have issues, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

The storm remained stalled Monday in the Chukchi Sea near northwest Alaska, but it was rapidly weakening after at its most powerful stage influencing weather patterns as far away as California.

Coastal flood warnings were extended for an area north of the Bering Strait since water will be slow to recede in towns like Kotzebue, Kivalina and Shishmaref, National Weather Service meteorologist Kaitlyn Lardeo said.

Shishmaref had seen water surges 5.5 feet (1.68 meters) above the normal tide level, while Kotzebue and Kivalina had smaller surges, but were both still without power Monday, she said.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Sunday identified five communities — Hooper Bay, Scammon Bay, Golovin, Newtok and Nome — as being greatly impacted by a combination of high water, flooding, erosion and electrical issues. Nome, where one home floated down a river until it was caught by a bridge, was among the many reporting road damage after recording tidal surges 11.1 feet (3.38 meters) above normal.

Zidek said state officials were looking closely at those five, but also reaching out to every community in the region because of the numerous reports of damage.

“While the needs may be greater in some, we don’t want to neglect those other communities that have minor issues that still need to be resolved,” he said. However, efforts to reach some communities has been difficult due to downed communication lines.

The state’s emergency operations center is fully staffed with military, state agencies and volunteer organizations to address the aftermath of the storm.

Alaska National Guard members in the western half of the nation’s largest state have been activated to help, either in the communities where they live or elsewhere along the coast, he said.

The American Red Cross has 50 volunteers ready to help and will be sent to communities that are in most need.

Most support personnel will have to be flown to these communities since there are few roads in western Alaska. Providing air support will be the Alaska National Guard, small commuter airlines that routinely fly between these small villages and possibly bush pilots.

Weather always adversely impacts flights in rural Alaska, but Zidek said the forecast seems favorable to conduct the response operations.

“Three may be another smaller weather front coming in, but it’s nothing unusual for this time of the year,” he said.

Dunleavy said he would request a federal disaster declaration as soon as agencies gather necessary information about the damage. If approved, the governor said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would cover at least 75% of eligible disaster costs, while the state would pick up the tab for the rest.

On Sunday, Dunleavy said time was of the essence because freeze-up, meaning the start of winter, can happen as early as October.

“We just have to impress upon our federal friends that it’s not a Florida situation where we’ve got months to work on this,” he said. “We’ve got several weeks.”

THIS WAS AN ANTI-LATINO HATE CRIME
Uvalde children grapple with trauma after school massacre
By ACACIA CORONADO and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

yesterday

1 of 11

Mourners visit a make-shift memorial honoring the school shooting victims at Robb Elementary, Monday, July 11, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas. Students who survived the May 24 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas are spending the summer grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, parents find themselves unable to help them, worried the tragedy at Robb Elementary struck a largely Hispanic town as Latinos continue to face disparities to access mental health care. 

(AP Photo/Eric Gay)


UVALDE, Texas (AP) — One girl runs and hides when she sees thin people with long hair similar to the gunman who stormed into her Uvalde school and killed 21 people. One boy stopped making friends and playing with animals. A third child feels her heart race when she’s reminded of the May 24 massacre that killed a close friend — once at such a dangerous pace that she had to be rushed to a hospital, where she stayed for weeks.

The 11-year-old girl has been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She and her family spoke to The Associated Press on condition her name not be used to protect her identity.

“I never lost someone before,” she said, adding that her friend who was among the 19 students and two teachers killed in the United States’ deadliest school massacre in a decade would encourage her through hard times. “She was a very strong person.”

As students get ready to return to school in Uvalde on Tuesday for the first time since the massacre at Robb Elementary, PTSD symptoms are starting to show. Parents are finding themselves unable to help, and experts worry because communities of color such as the largely Hispanic city of Uvalde face disparities in access mental health care. For low-income families, it can be even harder, as access to limited resources requires long waits for referrals through medical assistance programs such as Medicaid.

“It’s hard hearing what these kids are going through at such a young age,” said Yuri Castro, a mother of two boys in Uvalde, whose cousin was killed in the shooting and whose sons were once taught by the two slain teachers. Castro knows of children so traumatized they have stopped speaking.

School shootings dramatically upend survivors’ lives. For some, symptoms linger for years and high-quality treatment can be difficult to find.

In recent years, Texas lawmakers have focused on spending money on mental health services, devoting more than $2.5 billion during the current fiscal year.

But according to the 11-year-old girl’s family — lifelong residents of Uvalde — the only mental health center in the area — just blocks from Robb Elementary — was seldom used or discussed, raising worries about the lack of awareness regarding signs and symptoms of mental illness and the stigma surrounding seeking help.

The mother of the 11-year-old girl whose racing heart led to her hospitalization says open conversations about mental health were previously taboo in the heavily Latino community, where culturally, mental health is brushed off as feeling lazy, bored or throwing a tantrum.

“I remember growing up it was like, ‘Go over there, you are just being chiflada,’” the mother said, using a Spanish word that means “acting spoiled.”

Now, she said, the town is waking up to the reality of mental health even as some people still ask why survivors like her daughter need help.

Members of the community have been supporting one another by checking in with extended family and friends and taking advantage of community resources that have been set up, including counseling by the Red Cross and emotional support from the churches. The parents of one of the children who was killed started an organization that will be putting together wilderness retreats for victims’ families and survivors. Residents also have social media groups where they can share mental health resources and express their grief.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission contracted with organizations to create a mental health hotline that in six weeks responded to nearly 400 calls.

Martha Rodriguez, who coordinated efforts to help students recover after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said officials need to visit the community to make sure the right resources are available. She said addressing stigmas and sending providers who understand the families’ language and values are key.

“Some families may not feel comfortable sharing distress and needs,” she said.

Many families impacted by the shooting are Roman Catholic. The mother of a girl who survived the attack said her daughter has only been able to open up to a priest in Houston — 280 miles (450 kilometers) away — whom the family goes to see when they visit relatives.

“This is going to be a long journey. This is not going to be something that we can just do some work and fix it,” said San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller.

Julie Kaplow, executive director of the Trauma and Grief Centers at The Hackett Center for Mental Health in Houston, said many students who survived the May 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting that killed 10 in suburban Houston did not exhibit symptoms for six months.

“I am anticipating that we will see some similarities,” said Kaplow, who has been training clinicians and others who are treating families in Uvalde. “Part of the reason is those symptoms haven’t manifested yet and will start to manifest when they are reminded of the event itself. Or the caregiver starts to recognize, ‘Wait a minute my child is still not eating, is still not sleeping.’”

The length of treatment varies depending on the severity of symptoms. For some, it can last up to two to three years.

Melissa Brymer, director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, was the lead adviser to public schools in Newtown, Connecticut, after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. She said officials need to make sure that families can get services at school. They also need to create spaces that feel friendlier, such as community meals, rather than clinics.

Parents of the incoming fifth-grader who is struggling with symptoms chose to home-school her this year so she can continue going to appointments more easily. She is also getting a service dog who will alert her if her heart rate rises.

But she worries about her brothers returning to the classroom and gets anxious thinking others will judge her because of how she has been affected by the massacre when she wasn’t shot, her mother said. She is awakened daily by night terrors.

“We don’t sleep. ... We don’t even know what that is anymore since this has happened,” the mother said. “I am going to have to deal with that for however long it takes for her to heal.”

___

This story was first published on September 3, 2022. It was updated on September 19, 2022, to correct the title of Julie Kaplow. She is the executive director of the Trauma and Grief Centers at The Hackett Center for Mental Health in Houston.

___

More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting

By dancing, Rodrygo and Vinícius make stance against racism

By TALES AZZONI

 Real Madrid's Rodrygo, left, celebrates after scoring with his teammate Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior the opening goal during the Spanish La Liga soccer match between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid, Spain, Sept. 18, 2022. With a goal and a dance, Real Madrid's young Brazilian forwards made a strong statement against racism in soccer this weekend. With their samba-like moves after a goal in the derby against Atletico on Sunday, Rodrygo and Vinícius Junior made it clear they are not backing down.

 (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)


MADRID (AP) — With a goal and a dance, Real Madrid’s young Brazilian forwards made a statement against racism in soccer this weekend.

With their samba-like moves after a goal in the derby against Atlético Madrid on Sunday, Rodrygo and Vinícius Júnior made it clear they are not backing down from the racist language from their critics or by the racist chants from the opposing fans.

“Dance wherever you want,” Vinícius wrote on Twitter in a message directed at Rodrygo after Madrid’s 2-1 win at Atlético in the Spanish league.

“White and BLACK dance,” Rodrygo posted not long afterward, along with the photo of the young Brazilians celebrating together.

Rodrygo had just scored Madrid’s first goal in a derby whose buildup had been surrounded by controversy over Vinícius’ recent goal celebrations.

Vinícius, who is Black, was upset when a guest on a television sports talk show used racist language to criticize his dances. The 22-year-old Brazilian, who is set to make it to his first World Cup in November, said his actions on the field were “being criminalized,” and that his success as a Black Brazilian man in Europe was “annoying” to some.

The controversy continued just before Sunday’s match as online videos showed some Atlético fans outside the Metropolitano Stadium chanting “Vinícius is a monkey.”

“This (derby) was even more special because of everything that happened during the week, and we answered on the field,” Rodrygo said.

Some Atlético fans threw objects toward Rodrygo and Vinícius as they celebrated the goal near one of the corner flags.

The talk show where Vinícius was criticized for “acting like a monkey” had apologized by saying the expression was “unfortunate” but not racist, because it said those words are normally used in Spain to talk about someone doing “silly” things.

Madrid had issued a statement supporting Vinícius and condemning racism, and coach Carlo Ancelotti also defended Vinícius, although he also contradicted the Brazilian by saying he didn’t think there was that type of racism in Spain.

It wasn’t the first time Vinícius was subjected to racist taunts, though. It happened last year during a “clásico” against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.

There were also cases against other players, including Athletic Bilbao’s Iñaki Williams.

Among those who came out to publicly support Vinícius was Pelé and current Brazil forward Neymar, who told Vinícius to “keep dancing.”

The duo’s celebration on Sunday was widely shared online and was praised by many in Brazil and Latin America. Some players in Europe also showed their appreciation.

There will certainly be more of the same going forward.

“I repeat it to you racist: I will not stop dancing,” Vinícius said. “Whether at the Sambódromo, at the Bernabéu or wherever.”

MADRID’S MOMENTUM

With the win over Atlético, Madrid remained the only perfect team to start the season in the top five European leagues.

“We wanted a start like this before the international break,” Ancelotti said. “It’s an unusual season because of the World Cup and nobody really knows what’s going to happen. Things can change very quickly.”

Madrid is being closely followed by a revamped Barcelona team, which has won five straight after opening with a home draw against Rayo Vallecano.

The only other Spanish team with at least five wins is Real Betis, which defeated Girona 2-1 at home on Sunday.

Betis rival Sevilla — fourth last season behind Atlético, Barcelona and Madrid — is struggling with only one win, while Atlético has three victories from its six matches.

Almería, Valladolid, Cádiz, Espanyol and winless Elche are the teams closest to the bottom of the standings.

Germany to buy Fortum's Uniper stake, inject 8 billion euros

Tue, September 20, 2022 
By Markus Wacket and Tom Käckenhoff

BERLIN/DUESSELDORF, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Germany is set to buy Fortum's stake in Uniper and inject a further 8 billion euros ($8 billion) as part of a nationalisation of the gas importer, Uniper said on Tuesday.

The capital injection, which would come via a capital increase subscribed only by Germany's government, would bring the total package of loans and equity used to stabilise Uniper so far to at least 29 billion euros.

A final agreement has not yet been concluded Uniper said.

Fortum, which owns a 78% stake in Uniper, said that the deal will include the "return of the financing Fortum granted to Uniper" which the Finnish group has put at 8 billion euros.

A firm agreement of the nationalisation of Uniper, which has been hit by soaring gas prices and a cut off in supplies of Russian gas, will be unveiled on Wednesday, sources have said.

Uniper shares were 1.7% higher.

"We need the state as the main shareholder in order to survive the gas crisis and to master the energy transition in the long term," Uniper's works council chief Harald Seegatz told Rheinische Post.

($1 = 1.0019 euros) (Reporting by Markus Wacket and Riham Alkousaa in Berlin, Tom Kaeckenhoff in Duesseldorf and Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt, editing by Rachel More)

#BDS 
Israel Says It Will Fight Booking.com Over Planned Safety Warning On West Bank Listings

By Dan Williams
09/20/22 

Israeli Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov arrives for a weekly cabinet meeting at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, March 14, 2022. 

Jack Guez/Pool via REUTERS

Israel said on Tuesday it would fight a plan by online travel agency Booking.com to add a safety warning to listings in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which its tourism minister condemned as a politically-motivated decision.

A senior Palestinian official welcomed the move, provided it applied to Jewish settlements only.

The West Bank, which Israel captured in a 1967 war, is among territories where Palestinians seek statehood. Most nations deem Israel's settlements there illegal. It disputes that, describing the West Bank as a Biblical birthright and defensive bulwark.

A spokesperson for Amsterdam-based Booking.com said on Monday that it planned to "display ... banners and notifications to customers related to relevant local safety considerations" for listings the West Bank, similar to current labels for Ukraine or Cyprus.

Violence in the West Bank has surged in recent months after Israel stepped up raids into the territory following a spate of deadly Palestinian street attacks in Israel.

On Tuesday one man was killed in clashes between Palestinian gunmen and Palestinian Authority security forces in Nablus which broke out after the arrest of two militants.

The Booking.com spokesperson did not provide any indication that the company, whose website describes the West Bank as "Palestinian Territory", was taking a position on the territory's status.

Still, Israeli Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov said he had written to Booking.com and threatened "diplomatic war" by his government to reverse the decision, which he condemned as "political".

He played down the possibility that the West Bank, parts of which have has seen a surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent months, might be dangerous for foreign visitors.

"Millions of tourists visit Israel, including this area," he told Ynet TV. "In the end of the day, there is no problem."

The Palestinian Tourism Ministry withheld comment, saying it had not been formally informed of the Booking.com decision.

Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior official with the umbrella Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), voiced conditional approval.

"If there is such a decision, it must focus on the colonial settlements of the Israeli occupation," he told Reuters.

The spokesperson for Booking.com, a subsidiary of U.S. company Bookings Holdings Inc., said the final details and implementation date of the listings warning were still being discussed by the company.

In 2018, Airbnb said it would delist settlement properties, but backed off following protests by Israel and legal challenges in some U.S. states.

INSIGHT-As war, drought hit global crops, Argentina gambles on GM wheat

Tue, September 20, 2022
By Maximilian Heath

PERGAMINO, Argentina, Sept 20 (Reuters) - In fields near Argentine farm town Pergamino, spiky green shoots of wheat stretch in neat rows to the horizon, a crop developers hope will boost yields of the grain thanks to a single gene borrowed from sunflowers helping it better tolerate drought.

Reached along a dusty farm track, the field is one of dozens of sites growing a genetically modified (GM) wheat strain called HB4, developed by local firm Bioceres and state scientists. Argentina, the world's No. 6 wheat exporter, gave commercial planting approval to HB4 in 2020. It was the first GM wheat strain in the world to receive such approval.

Its backers say HB4, also modified to tolerate the herbicide glufosinate-ammonium, could help ward off food shortages at a time when climate change has led to severe droughts in China, North America and Europe, and a war between major growers Russia and Ukraine has snarled food supply chains.

Many environmental and consumer groups have resisted GM wheat, fearing unforeseen side-effects from changes to the genome in a grain used in bread, pasta and other staples. Genetic modifications have long been used in soy and corn, used predominantly for animal feed.

Bioceres is leading the way globally towards commercializing GM wheat, Reuters found from interviews with the firm and importers, documents on U.S. field trials obtained through a freedom of information request and a rare visit to the Argentina test fields.

The firm has gained varying levels of approvals in Brazil, Nigeria, Australia and New Zealand. It is using blockchain and georeferencing to avoid contamination with regular wheat, a risk local farmers fear could prompt import bans.

"There is some ignorance about what transgenic is, it is not a monster," said Raquel Chan, biochemist and researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) who led development of the strain, now licensed to Bioceres.

She explained the plant was "almost indistinguishable" from normal wheat, but that it could better tolerate a lack of water due to an extra gene edited in from the sunflower plant.

"It's something that could have happened in nature and has in fact happened in other instances... Normally it takes thousands of years. We just did it faster."

HB4 could improve crop yields 20% versus regular wheat under dry and warm conditions, according to a 2020 academic paper, published in Frontiers in Plant Science and on which Chan was a co-author.

Even with Argentina's approval, Bioceres has yet to start selling the GM wheat for commercial use in the South American country. It is also testing it in neighboring Brazil.

GM WHEAT: STILL TABOO?

In the Bioceres laboratories in Argentina's inland grains port hub of Rosario, on the banks of the Parana river, Reuters saw scientists working on strains of soy, a GM crop long established in the global food supply chain.

GM wheat, however, has long been taboo.

"The main concern is the possibility that GM wheat and non-GM wheat could end up mixing," said Julio Calzada, chief economic analyst at Argentina's Rosario grains exchange.

"This could spark bans in international markets and Argentina needs these $4.5 billion dollars in exports. They're key at such a complicated moment for the country's economy."

No other global seed company has publicly endeavored to develop GM wheat since 2004, when giant seed maker Monsanto, now owned by Bayer AG, dropped plans to develop GM wheat that could withstand its weed killer Roundup. Consuming countries were threatening bans of U.S. wheat, even though the company has long sold corn and soy whose genomes were changed to withstand Roundup, or glyphosate.

In 2020, Bayer agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle lawsuits by people who claimed they were harmed by its weedkiller.

U.S. Department of Agriculture records show agribusiness companies BASF SE, Biogemma USA Corp, and Pioneer Hi-Bred International, owned by Corteva Inc, received permits for GM wheat trials in the United States in recent years.

BASF told Reuters it discontinued the trials in 2019 and is developing wheat through traditional breeding methods. Corteva said it does not intend to commercialize wheat from its trials. Biogemma conducted field trials only for research and development, according to owner Limagrain. Bayer said it is not working with GM wheat.

Bioceres has said it is trying to get commercial approval from the U.S. and Australian governments for planting HB4 wheat in those countries.

In Indonesia, top buyer of Argentina's wheat behind Brazil, the head of the wheat flour mills association Ratna Sari Loppies played down contamination worries, but said millers there would not yet buy Argentina's GM wheat to avoid a "negative" impact on their own exports of consumer wheat products.

Brazil, which hopes to boost its own wheat harvest and exports of the grain, appears to have softened its stance. Rubens Barbosa, president of the Brazilian flour millers association Abitrigo, said he believes Brazil might approve HB4 wheat. In 2020 he had threatened to halt wheat imports from Argentina after its government approved Bioceres' GM wheat. Brazil approved flour made from HB4 wheat in 2021.

"The seeds that will come and be planted in the north of Cerrado will have higher yields," he said in August, referring to the GM strain. "All of these factors justify optimism related to output and Brazil's self-sufficiency in wheat production."

THE 'MESSI' GENE

In the Pergamino test fields, Reuters crossed regular farm gates and fences to access the growing area estimated at some 80 hectares where the GM wheat strain was planted.

Bioceres said it has taken strong steps to avoid cross-contamination, including using blockchain technology in a "preserved identity production system" to ensure traceability of the HB4 strain.

The crop is audited at planting and harvesting. Planters must georeference in a computer system the areas planted with HB4 and any work done in those fields. Growers receive financial incentives to ensure compliance and regular inspections are carried out, Bioceres said. Seeds stored in silo bags are monitored until shipment and paperwork documents the chain of custody of the seeds and grains during transport.

Federico Trucco, Bioceres chief executive, said these steps help win over doubters. A new landmark is the recent approval in Nigeria, the only country to fully approve imports of HB4 wheat grains. He said the firm was pushing in Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as North Africa. In Brazil consumers and millers were warming up to GM wheat, he added.

"Approvals are happening much faster than anticipated," Trucco told Reuters in Rosario, where at a nearby laboratory HB4 wheat was being grown to produce seeds, with tall golden heads of the cereal in a specialized greenhouse.

Trucco said Russia's invasion of Ukraine and severe droughts in Europe and China had shifted the needle on drought-tolerant GM wheat. The United Nations has warned https://www.undrr.org/gar2021-drought that droughts could be the next "pandemic" as global temperatures rise.

Chan, who helped develop HB4, cited Argentine soccer great Lionel Messi to explain how the sunflower gene could help as drought events increased worldwide.

"Wheat has a regulatory protein for response to water stress but it is not as good," she said. "It's like the sunflower lends it a good gene. Imagine yourself as a team of soccer players... if you add in Messi to the mix you will obviously do better."

 (Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Additional reporting by Ana Mano in Sao Paulo, Sarah El Safty in Cairo and Bernadette Christina in Jakarta and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Adam Jourdan, Caroline Stauffer and David Gregorio)