Thousands protest for third consecutive day against corruption in the coal industry


Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Mongolia to protest for the third consecutive day against the government and corruption in the coal industry after thousands of tons of the fuel were stolen.


Archive - Mongolian President Ujnaa Jurelsuj. - 

UKHNAA KHURELSUKH'S OFFICE / XINHUA NEWS / CONTACT© Provided by News 360

The demonstrators, who have gathered in front of the Mongolian Parliament in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, have been involved in a series of clashes with police officers.

Related video: Thousands protest in Mongolia over alleged coal industry corruption
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Security forces have reported that at least two people have been detained after protesters set fire to a Christmas fir tree in Sukhbaatar Square, according to reports in the daily 'Onoodor'.

The people first began protesting on Sunday outside the residence of the country's president, Ujnaa Jurelsuj, to demand that those responsible for corruption in the coal industry be brought to justice. They have also demanded the resignation or dismissal of members of the government under investigation for stealing vast sums of coal.

The authorities are currently investigating the theft of 385,000 tons of coal, as explained by the government. In total, some fifteen high-ranking officials are being investigated for their involvement in the alleged crime.

Among the accused are the former directors of the country's state-owned railway company, as well as the head of customs and the head of the Border Protection Department. The country has been severely affected by the consequences of the war in Ukraine and slowing economic growth in China.

MMIW
Artist turns butterflies into portraits of murdered or abused Indigenous women

By Amber Victoria Singer, Lauren Gilger
Updated: Friday, December 2, 2022 -

Listen to this story

Lisa Sette
Benjamin Timpson at work in the studio

The current exhibition at Lisa Sette Gallery in Phoenix pays homage to Indigenous women who have been abused or murdered in an unusual way: with butterflies — thousands of butterfly wings, meticulously cut and placed to create faces. Some are easy to see. For others, you have to squint. Each is a masterpiece — painstakingly created over months by artist Ben Timpson, who is part Puebloan.

A photography professor at Arizona State University, Timpson is known for working with organic material. He’s created art out of everything from dove wishbones to worms. But he didn’t just choose butterfly wings to challenge himself. They have a much deeper meaning.

“The name of the show is ‘Illuminated Lives’ to illuminate the stories of these Indigenous women who have survived or who have endured hardship — not just now, but like for the past hundreds and hundreds of years,” he said. “[R]ather than focus on the negative or the abuser like our culture usually does … I wanted to focus this project on the beauty, the hope and the life of these women.”

Timpson pieced together fuzzy portraits of unidentified women, including one from British Columbia and another from Pima County.

After the abstract unidentified women, Timpson felt more comfortable asking survivors to let him do their portraits.



Benjamin Timpson and Lisa Sette Gallery
“Juanita,” 2022, butterfly wings on glass, wood and electrical components


The gallery’s largest portrait is two and a half by one and a half feet. It features a woman named Juanita, a domestic abuse survivor.

“Her husband would abuse her, and then when he tried to shoot her, she blocked the bullet with her hand the bullet was deflected and moved through her hand. And she survived, and he’s now in jail,” Timpson said.

Timpson spent four to five hours each day in the studio sketching, cutting wings and gluing them down to light boxes. Each portrait took five to six months to complete — Juanita’s took a year and a half. The butterfly wings are so delicate that Timpson had to wear a dust mask so his breath didn’t blow the tiny pieces away.

You can see the portraits created with real butterfly wings in Timson’s “Illuminated Lives” exhibition at Lisa Sette Gallery through Jan. 7. A portion of the proceeds from sales will go to the Southwest Indigenous Women’s Coalition.

Sacha Baron Cohen Revives Borat to Slam Kanye West: ‘He’s Too Antisemitic,’ Even For Kazakhstan

Story by Zack Sharf • Yesterday

Provided by Variety

Borat is back! Sacha Baron Cohen returned as his iconic character at the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night (via The Guardian) to eviscerate Kanye West for his outspoken antisemitism. Baron Cohen attended the Kennedy Center Honors to pay tribute to U2, but he used his time to bring Borat back to life and also poke fun at President Joe Biden, who was also in attendance at the prestigious event.

“I know the president of U.S. and A is here,” Borat said. “Where are you, Mr. Trump?”

Addressing Biden directly, Borat said, “You don’t look so good. Where has your glorious big belly gone? And your pretty orange skin has become pale… But I see you have a new wife. Wawa-woooah! She is very erotic. I must look away before I get a Bono.”

“Before I proceed, I will say I am very upset about the antisemitism in U.S. and A,” Borat continued. “It not fair. Kazakhstan is No. 1 Jew-crushing nation. Stop stealing our hobby. Stop the steal! Stop the steal! Your Kanye, he tried to move to Kazakhstan and even changed his name to Kazakhstanye West. But we said: No, he too antisemitic, even for us.”

Borat proceeded to sing a parody version of U2’s classing song “With or Without You,” changing the lyrics to “with or without Jews.” The character added, “What’s the problem? They loved this at Mar-a-Lago. They chose ‘without Jews.’”

Baron Cohen joins a handful of celebrities speaking out against West for his antisemitic comments in recent weeks. West praised Hitler during a Dec. 1 interview on Alex Jones’ “Infowars” talk show, leading Biden himself to declare on social media, “The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity.”

Just before Baron Cohen took the stage at the Kennedy Center Honors, Oscar winner Natalie Portman used social media to condemn antisemitism. Portman did not mention West by name, but her statement arrived amid extreme backlash against West for his recent praising of Hitler.

“Seeing the re-emergence of antisemitism makes my heart drop,” Portman wrote. “This hatred must be combatted with boundless love for each other. Today, I send extra love to my fellow Jews. And I send love to all those standing with us against these violent words and actions. It’s been painful and frightening to listen to, and I’m extremely grateful to those who continue to speak up against antisemitism with us, and against all forms of racism.”

Borat’s appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors will be released during the event’s CBS special at a later date.

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Sunflowers help bees vanquish parasites. Now we know how.

Story by Elizabeth Anne Brown • Yesterday -NAT GEO

Bumblebees and other pollinators face many threats, including pesticide exposure, climate change, habitat loss due to agriculture and development, and pathogens that ravage multiple species. But a recent finding may help lighten their load.


A common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) gathers pollen in a field of yellow sunflowers, plants whose pollen helps the insects expel parasites.© Photograph by Bill Berry, Getty

Previous studies have shown sunflower pollen can work like a medicine for bumblebees afflicted by a parasite called Crithidia bombi, a single-celled organism that takes up residence in the bee’s gut and harms their health. But scientists couldn’t explain how sunflower pollen vanquished C. bombi—did it boost the bees’ immune function, or perhaps poison the parasite directly?

New research, published in the Journal of Insect Physiology, shows the answer is deceptively simple. “Sunflower pollen makes bumblebees poo a whole lot,” says lead author Jonathan Giacomini, which flushes the parasite out.

Plant products like nectar and pollen are a treasure trove of potential insect medicines that scientists are just beginning to understand, he adds. “There are natural things out there that bees are interacting with that can be beneficial for them,” Giacomini says. And by making changes to the landscape, scientists hope we can help give bees a fighting chance.

Plant power


A carpenter bee covered in pollen of a viburnum. Planting native flowers such as this—which is indigenous to the eastern United States—helps bees in a number of ways.© Photograph by Krista Schlyer

If you happen upon a fuzzy, buzzing, flying creature in eastern North America, there’s a strong chance it’s a common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens). Yellow and black striped with a rump covered in soft hairs, they’re social insects that live in colonies and love a good crevice—they build their homes in birdhouses, woodpiles, abandoned burrows, and dense grasses.



A green metallic bee on a meadow beauty in Florida.© Photograph by Krista Schlyer

They are important pollinators, both in the wild and in agriculture, where they are raised and used to pollinate crops including tomatoes and pumpkins. Like other pollinators, bumblebees face many threats, and C. bombi isn’t even the biggest bumblebee bugaboo. On its own, the parasite doesn’t have much of an effect on a bumblebee’s health. But when food is scarce, C. bombi can shorten a bee’s lifespan and even reduce the number of young queens a colony can produce.



A leaf-cutter bee photographed in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Bees provide the vital service of pollination—and plants produce countless chemical compounds that serve as food and medicine for many animals.© Photograph by Krista Schlyer

Lynn Adler is an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies interactions between plants and insects. For years, she and longtime collaborator Rebecca Irwin at North Carolina State University suspected pollinators might be getting dosed by flowers since plants often invest chemically active compounds into their nectar and pollen to help their genetic payload arrive at its destination.

“Many plant defensive compounds can be medicinal at certain doses,” Adler says. After all, “most of our human medicines come from plants.”

Giacomini discovered the effect of sunflower pollen as an undergraduate working in Adler’s lab in 2018. From the very first tests, sunflower pollen dramatically reduced C. bombi parasite load in common eastern bumblebees, often clearing infection completely. “We’ve been shocked at how consistent and effective sunflower pollen has been,” Adler says.

But they couldn’t figure out how—separate studies over the years ruled out immune function boosts and were unable to pin down any chemical compounds in sunflower pollen that would spell doom for C. bombi.


“I started noticing, man, every time we run these experiments, the bees that are fed sunflower pollen are so much dirtier than the bees that eat wildflower pollen,” Giacomini remembers. It was then his hypotheses turned to the scatological.

Bombus away

To try to suss out the mechanism behind sunflower pollen’s medicinal effect, Giacomini, by then a PhD student, set up a bumblebee buffet in a lab at North Carolina State University.

Giacomini fed sunflower pollen to healthy bumblebees and bumblebees infected with C. bombi, then compared their excretions to other bees that received only wildflower pollen. (Bumblebees don’t separate their solid and liquid waste like we do, so bumblebee poo is a thin slurry that’s often bright yellow from undigested pollen.)

“It turned out that bee poop naturally fluoresces under ultraviolet light,” which made distinguishing between poo and non-poo remarkably easy, Giacomini recalls. “It was very dazzling—it almost looked like a galaxy.”

Regardless of whether they were infected or not, bees that ate sunflower pollen pooped 68 percent more in volume and 66 percent more frequently than bees that ate wildflower pollen alone.

The natural next question was why sunflower pollen had this effect. There are lots of ways to get the bowels moving—osmotic laxatives soften stool with extra water, while stimulant laxatives prompt the muscles of the gut to massage digested food down and out.

But preliminary research from the Adler lab again suggests a surprisingly simple explanation. Sunflower pollen’s outer shell is very spikey, which may irritate the lining of the gut into producing a lubricating mucus or somehow dislodge the parasite. According to as-yet unpublished data, Adler says bees fed the outer shell alone experience the same bathroom disruptions and anti-parasite effects, while bees fed the core of sunflower pollen did not.

Robert Paxton, a zoology professor at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg who researches bee parasites and wasn’t involved in any of the sunflower studies, says the poo-based mechanism would jive with other work on gut parasites in bumblebees. Paxton points to a German study that suggests parasites that wreak havoc with honeybees can’t take hold in bumblebees simply because their gut transit time—the time it takes food to traverse the whole digestive tract—is much shorter.

Paxton adds he’d be eager to see if bees infected with C. bombi self-medicate by choosing to eat sunflower pollen more often than healthy bees—a behavior documented in ailing honeybees.

Good for the colony?

Sunflowers are just one plant among untold thousands that likely have medicinal benefits for bees, scientists believe. Resin from plants like poplar or pitch-apple trees can help honeybees fight fungal infection, while a compound derived from thyme is used by colony managers to help ward off varroa mites.

And since bees have been around since before the dinosaurs, researchers also track the plants pollinators use to identify potential candidates for human drugs—they have a 120-million-year head start on pollen research, after all.

Peter Graystock, a lecturer at Imperial College London who studies bee parasites and wasn’t involved in the sunflower research, praised the study as “elegant.”

The prodigious poops from sunflower pollen definitely seem to be “good for the individual because it reduces their parasite load,” he explains. But since C. bombi is transmitted via feces, having widespread bumblebee diarrhea may not be such a good thing on a community level. “They’re essentially shedding transmittable spores at a higher rate,” Graystock says. “Does this lead to faster transmission of the parasite around the community?”

There’s also the element of nutrition. Sunflower pollen is lower on protein compared to some other flowers and lacks two essential amino acids, so bumblebees can’t subsist on sunflower pollen alone. Paxton and Graystock are both concerned the nutritional downsides of sunflower pollen might outweigh the benefits of ditching the parasites.

But another study from the Adler lab currently undergoing peer review suggests sunflower pollen is worth the gamble. As a postdoctoral student, Rosemary Malfi set up healthy bumblebee colonies at 20 farms in New York state with variable amounts of sunflower plantings and tracked the colony’s progress over the course of a season.

“To our delight, the more sunflower at the farm, the lower the infection in those colonies—both the intensity of the infection” and the proportion of bees affected, Adler says. “And more than that, the colonies with more sunflowers actually made more queens,” a key metric of colony health that determines the next generation’s reproductive success.

Not a silver bullet

The authors emphasize we can’t save the bees by flooding our neighborhoods with sunflowers.

The team has found mixed results for sunflower pollen on C. bombi in other bee species—modest effects on two species closely related to the common eastern bumblebee and no effect on a third. Researchers plan to take it back to basics and look for anatomical differences in the bees’ guts that might explain why they respond differently to sunflower pollen.

In the meantime, if you’re buzzing to help the bees, planting “a diversity of flowers is a good idea,” Irwin explains. And sunflowers can certainly be part of a native wildflower smorgasbord, but make sure you get a pollen-bearing variety—the sunflowers raised for cut flowers are usually sterile.

CRIMINAL CANNABIS CAPITALI$M

Former CannTrust compliance worker says unlicensed growing 'very openly' discussed

TORONTO — A former director of quality and compliance at CannTrust Holdings Inc. says the growth of cannabis in unlicensed rooms was discussed "very openly" at the pot company.


Former CannTrust compliance worker says unlicensed growing 'very openly' discussed© Provided by The Canadian Press

Graham Lee told the Ontario court of justice's Old City Hall court that the activity was not hidden or denied and was discussed on multiple occasions, even with members of the senior leadership team.

His remarks come as three former executives at the cannabis company face a series of securities offenses.

Peter Aceto, Eric Paul and Mark Litwin have pleaded not guilty to fraud and authorizing, permitting or acquiescing in the commission of an offence.

Litwin and Paul are also facing insider trading charges, and Litwin and Aceto are charged with making a false prospectus and false preliminary prospectus.

The charges are linked to unlicensed growing that allegedly occurred at a Niagara, Ont. area facility owned by CannTrust, which is now called Phoena Holdings Inc.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022.

Russian oil sanctions fuel boom for old tankers

Story by By Julia Payne and Jonathan Saul • 

 A crude oil tanker and a bulk carrier sail in Nakhodka Bay© Thomson Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - The market for old oil tankers is booming, and it's all down to efforts by Western nations to curb trade in Russian crude.

As Western shipping and maritime services firms steer clear of Russian oil to avoid falling foul of sanctions or harming their reputations, new companies have leapt into the void, and they're snapping up old tankers that might normally be scrapped.

The European Union banned all seaborne Russian crude imports from Dec. 5, with a fuel import ban to follow in February.

It also banned companies and individuals in the bloc from providing financing, brokerage, shipping and insurance services to ship Russian oil elsewhere if the crude was bought above a price cap of $60 a barrel that came into effect on Monday.

In recent months, ageing tankers have been sold by Greek and Norwegian owners for record prices to pop-up Middle Eastern and Asian buyers taking advantage of sky-high charter prices for vessels willing to ship Russian oil to India and China.

Tanker management companies such as Fractal Shipping, run out of Swiss financial hub of Geneva, are reaping the rewards.

In less than a year, Fractal has put together a fleet of 23 oil and fuel tankers bought recently by owners in Dubai. Most are taking Russian crude from Baltic and Black Sea ports to Asia, Refinitiv Eikon ship tracking showed.

Chief Executive Mathieu Philippe said he launched the idea for Fractal a year ago, betting that the global tanker fleet was getting stretched and that both the cost of vessels and freight rates would inevitably rise from pandemic lows.

But, by the middle of this year, new ship owners, known as principals, started asking him to get into the Russian oil business.

"We were given a lot of tankers in August and September. Our principals wanted to come into the business for the Russian opportunity," the shipping industry veteran told Reuters.

PRICE SURGE

Major Western oil companies typically stop using tankers when they are about 15 years old, and many would be scrapped. Fractal's fleet, meanwhile, consists entirely of older vessels ranging from 13 to 19 years, Fractal's website shows.

With new entrants keen to get a slice of the Russian business, second-hand oil tanker prices have surged, especially for Aframax vessels that can carry up to 600,000 barrels, the standard size used for loading crude at Russia's Baltic ports.

The price tag for 20-year-old Aframaxes has jumped 86% from $11.8 million on Jan. 1 to $22 million now, according to valuation company VesselsValue.

So far this year, 148 Aframax sales have been reported, a 5% increase from the same period in 2021, VesselsValue said.

Research by ship broker Clarksons showed that more tankers were sold in the first 11 months of 2022 than any full-year previously and sales in October set a new monthly record of 76.

Up until Dec. 5, there were no Western sanctions on transporting Russian oil to Asian markets, so Fractal and other management companies had not breached any rules.

To avoid potential pitfalls, though, Philippe said Fractal does not deal with any Russian-owned companies. That would also be a no-go for Western banks financing maritime trade, he said.

To prevent the new EU sanctions from halting millions of barrels per day of Russian crude exports and driving up global fuel costs, the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations has mitigated its impact by permitting exports below a cap of $60 a barrel.


The aim of the plan is reduce to Russia's export revenue but keep oil supplies flowing.

The agreement on the price cap means operations such as Fractal's can carry on shipping Russian crude without any issues, as long as the deals are below the cap.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said it will not sell oil below the new price cap while Russia's two biggest buyers, China and India, have not promised to abide by the limit.

SAILING TO RUSSIA

New ship owners willing to transport Russian oil are cashing in. "Ships earning $80,000 a day in the Mediterranean can make $130,000 a day if they carry Russian oil," said one ship broker, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Crude tanker rates have jumped to highs not seen since 2008, aside from a brief period in 2020 when oil firms scrambled for tankers to store fuel as demand crashed due to the pandemic.

Tanker owners can make more than $100,000 a day for some journeys, said Omar Nokta, analyst at investment bank Jefferies.

"While it remains to be seen how the price cap on Russian exports will ultimately play out, what is clear is that the tanker fleet is becoming stretched and travelling longer distances," he said.

More tankers are now being used for voyages taking weeks, shipping Russian oil from the Baltic and Black Sea to Asia, whereas Russian oil was mainly sold in Europe previously and the voyages only took a few days.

Shipbuilding also stalled during the pandemic and deliveries of new oil tankers next year are set to be historically low, according to analysis from shipping brokers.

Reuters monitored 18 of Fractal's tankers using Refinitiv Eikon ship tracking data.

Twelve have loaded oil at Russian ports in the last two months either for the first time, for the first time since the Ukraine war started, or at least for the first time in over a year, the data showed. Two have been calling regularly at Russian ports.

For instance, the Fractal-managed Charvi tanker loaded crude at Russia's Baltic port of Primorsk in the middle of September before sailing to discharge its cargo in Sikka, India.

The tanker formerly owned by Norway's Viken Shipping under the name Storviken had never previously called at a Russian port, Refinitiv Eikon data going back to 2010 showed.

Similarly, Daphne V another tanker previously owned by Viken Shipping and now managed by Fractal called at Primorsk on Nov. 11 for the first time since the Ukraine war started and is heading to the Suez Canal en route to Asia.

The tanker was called Kronviken before it changed hands. Viken Shipping said it had not sold ships to Russian owners but declined to identify the buyers.

Ship broker Braemar estimated that about 120 of the 212 tankers sold to likely Russian buyers this year were looking at Russian crude oil trades, while there were virtually no sales last year to buyers involved in shipping Russian crude.

CIRCUMVENTING SANCTIONS

The U.S. Treasury has provided some guidance about how the cap will work, but questions remain over its enforcement.

"The price cap is very confusing," Fractal's Philippe said. "We are definitely one of the companies that want to remain in the Russian trade. As businessmen we have to be opportunistic."

Buyers must provide documents such as invoices to shipping companies or insurers to show they stuck to the cap but it will be essentially down to self-monitoring, with no penalties for providers of shipping services if they operated in good faith.

Deals shown to be outside the price cap would effectively break sanctions, and other vessels that have at some point been involved in circumventing oil export sanctions on Venezuela and Iran may well play a part in that trade, analysts say.

One aim of the G7 price cap plan is to prevent this so-called 'dark fleet' getting bigger by allowing Russian oil exports to take place transparently without breaking sanctions.

This dark fleet, which accounts for about 10% of the world's oil tankers according to Trafigura and other shipping industry sources, has helped Iran circumvent a U.S. embargo for the better part of a decade, and Venezuela since 2019.

At least 21 tankers have switched to shipping Russian oil after previously being used for Iranian shipments, said Claire Jungman, chief of staff at U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which monitors Iran-related tanker traffic through ship and satellite tracking.

Of those vessels, at least have four changed ownership in recent months.

Ship broker Braemar also said that some of the vessels involved in shipping Iranian and Venezuelan oil were shifting to transporting Russian oil.

It estimated that the so-called shadow fleet shipping oil from those two countries and some of them also for Russia was made up of 107 Aframaxes, 65 larger Suezmaxes and 82 VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers).

"Instead of having one optimised fleet you now have two separate optimised fleets," said Christian M. Ingerslev, chief executive of Denmark's Maersk Tankers.

"If sanctions are continually adjusted, it becomes very difficult for the sanctions compliant companies to take the risk because they don't know what will happen tomorrow," he said.

(Reporting by Julia Payne and Jonathan Saul; Additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo; Editing by Simon Webb and David Clarke)

COP15: Why does the UN biodiversity conference matter?

The United Nations conference aims to lay out a plan to tackle the ‘unsustainable rate’ of global biodiversity loss. Here’s all you need to know.
A 2019 report estimated that three-quarters of the world’s land surface and 66 percent of its oceans had been significantly altered, leaving one million species facing extinction [File: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters]
By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours

Published On 5 Dec 2022

Montreal, Canada – Scientists, rights advocates and delegates from nearly 200 countries are gathering in Canada this week to tackle one of the world’s most pressing environmental issues: the loss of biodiversity and what can be done to reverse it.

For years, experts have sounded the alarm over how climate change and other factors are leading to an “unprecedented” decline in animals, plants, and other species, and threatening various ecosystems.

Against that backdrop, the United Nations’ biodiversity conference, known as COP15, begins its sessions on Wednesday in Montreal with the aim of setting out a plan to tackle global biodiversity loss over the next decade and beyond.

“This is potentially an historic moment for biodiversity,” said Andrew Gonzalez, a professor in the biology department at McGill University in Montreal and founding director of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science.

Here, Al Jazeera lays out all you need to know:

What is biodiversity?

Biodiversity – short for biological diversity – refers to the many forms of life on Earth, from animals, plants, and microbial species to habitats and entire ecosystems, such as rainforests and coral reefs.
Why is biodiversity important?

Biodiversity affects everything from global health and food security to the economy and the wider fight to tackle the climate crisis, the United Nations explains.

More than half the world’s total gross domestic product (GDP) – approximately $44 trillion – also is “moderately or highly dependent” on nature and thus vulnerable to its loss, the World Economic Forum said in a 2020 report (PDF).

“Climate change is not the only horseman of the environmental apocalypse. Nature loss looms just as large. And the two are intertwined. You can’t solve one without addressing the other,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund-US.
What is the state of biodiversity in the world?

In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimated that three-quarters of the world’s land surface and 66 percent of its oceans had been significantly altered. One million species face extinction, it warned, including “many within decades” if serious action is not taken

“The rate of global change in nature during the past 50 years is unprecedented in human history,” the report said, pointing to five key drivers: land- and sea-use changes, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasions of alien species.

“The way we are exploiting our environment, the way we are destroying habitats, often for reasons that are to do with supporting agriculture and growing food or extracting resources, is now at an unsustainable rate – an astonishingly unsustainable rate,” Gonzalez told Al Jazeera. 

“And it’s causing what many of us think to be a mass extinction event,” he said.

What is COP15 and who is participating?

The December 7-19 conference will bring together representatives from the 196 countries that have ratified the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (PDF), which dates back to 1992. Scientists, non-governmental groups, and other experts will also be on hand.

The goal of the meetings – which were relocated to Montreal from Kunming, China, due to COVID-19 restrictions but are still being presided over by China – is to reach a framework to help guide countries on how best to protect biodiversity. While China has not invited world leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to attend an opening ceremony on Tuesday afternoon.

“We can no longer continue with a ‘business as usual’ attitude,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, urging states to adopt an “ambitious, realistic and implementable” plan.
What will the new framework include?

A draft (PDF) of the new biodiversity framework released last year included 21 targets to meet by 2030. They include reducing pesticide use, increasing funding to $200bn per year, and protecting at least 30 percent of land and sea globally – the 30×30 proposal – through “systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures”.

But experts pointed out that the draft of the agreement, dubbed the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, included many proposed amendments – indicated by square brackets – that the parties had not reached a consensus on, prompting concern.

“We need a text with teeth — and far fewer brackets,” Sandra Diaz, a professor and member of Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, recently wrote in Nature.

“This much we have learnt in the 30 years since the foundational 1992 Rio Earth Summit drew attention to the impact of human activities on the environment: a strong, precise, ambitious text does not in itself ensure successful implementation, but a weak, vague, toothless text almost guarantees failure.”

What are the biggest challenges?

Getting a “strong and ambitious document together” will be the conference’s first major task, said Gonzalez of McGill University, alongside securing funding commitments and establishing implementation mechanisms for the agreed-upon targets.

Of the 20 targets laid out in the last, 10-year global framework in 2010, known as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the Convention on Biological Diversity reported that none had been fully achieved (PDF) by 2020.

“It’s not just about implementation in the old-fashioned way, which is sort of just putting nature behind a fence,” Gonzalez explained, about the implementation challenge in the next pact. “But it’s also about healthy people, healthy ecosystems.

“We’re seeing recognition of the rights of Indigenous and local communities, of women, of youth, thinking about the long-term outcomes for everybody, not just this generation.”
What other issues need to be considered?

Late last month, Greenpeace urged richer countries to take on a fair share of the financial burden and help nations in the Global South protect areas at risk of destruction; similar debates over which countries should pay what dominated the recent COP27 climate talks in Egypt.

The environmental rights group also called on governments to ensure the next framework respects the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, who live in areas home to most of the world’s remaining biodiversity, according to the UN and other experts.

Other rights organisations, including Amnesty International, also urged caution about any framework that would designate 30 percent of the planet as “protected areas” – the 30×30 idea. Such efforts in the past “have led to widespread evictions, hunger, ill-health and human rights violations, including killings, rapes and torture across Africa and Asia”, they said (PDF) in November.

“Given that 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity is found on Indigenous Peoples’ lands, the evidence is clear that the best way to conserve ecosystems is to protect the rights of those who live in and depend on them.”


Can an ‘ambitious’ deal be reached?

Despite the lingering questions and challenges, Gonzalez said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the parties will be able to get on the same page and reach an “ambitious” framework. “There is huge momentum for biodiversity right now,” he said, pointing to subnational authorities, as well as NGOs, who are working on the issue.

A groundswell of public interest in biodiversity could help put pressure on decision-makers, as well. For example, officials involved in securing the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle climate change recently stressed the importance of reaching a “transformative” pact at COP15.

“Leaders must secure a global agreement for biodiversity which is as ambitious, science-based and comprehensive as the Paris Agreement is for climate change,” they wrote in an open letter last month (PDF).

“Like the Paris Agreement, it must encourage countries to pledge and also ratchet up their action commensurate with the size of the challenge. It must be inclusive, rights-based and work for all. And it must deliver, through the whole of society, immediate action on the ground – our future depends on it.”

KEEP READING
UN biodiversity meet moved from China amid ‘zero-COVID’ approach

Nairobi hosts UN biodiversity talks aimed at ’30 by 30′ push

Pitted against profits, Spain’s biodiversity haven collapses

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Musk’s Neuralink faces federal inquiry after killing 1,500 animals in testing

Brain-implant company accused of causing needless suffering and deaths amid pressure from CEO
A video grab from the online Neuralink livestream shows Gertrude the pig, implanted with a Neuralink device, during a presentation in 2020. Photograph: Neuralink/AFP/Getty Images


Rachel Levy for Reuters

Tue 6 Dec 2022

Elon Musk’s Neuralink, a medical device company, is under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations.

Neuralink Corp is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments. The federal investigation, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the US Department of Agriculture’s inspector general at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The inquiry, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals.

The investigation has come at a time of growing employee dissent about Neuralink’s animal testing, including complaints that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has resulted in botched experiments, according to a Reuters review of dozens of Neuralink documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees. Such failed tests have had to be repeated, increasing the number of animals being tested and killed, the employees say. The company documents include previously unreported messages, audio recordings, emails, presentations and reports.

Musk and other Neuralink executives did not respond to requests for comment.

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Reuters could not determine the full scope of the federal investigation or whether it involved the same alleged problems with animal testing identified by employees in Reuters interviews. A spokesperson for the USDA inspector general declined to comment. US regulations don’t specify how many animals companies can use for research, and they give significant leeway to scientists to determine when and how to use animals in experiments. Neuralink has passed all USDA inspections of its facilities, regulatory filings show.

In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and sources with direct knowledge of the company’s animal-testing operations. The sources characterized that figure as a rough estimate because the company does not keep precise records on the number of animals tested and killed. Neuralink has also conducted research using rats and mice.

The total number of animal deaths does not necessarily indicate that Neuralink is violating regulations or standard research practices. Many companies routinely use animals in experiments to advance human health care, and they face financial pressure to quickly bring products to market. The animals are typically killed when experiments are completed, often so they can be examined post-mortem for research purposes.

Elon Musk next to a surgical robot during a 2020 presentation.

 Photograph: Neuralink/AFP/Getty Images

But current and former Neuralink employees say the number of animal deaths is higher than it needs to be for reasons related to Musk’s demands to speed research. Through company discussions and documents spanning several years, along with employee interviews, Reuters identified four experiments involving 86 pigs and two monkeys that were marred in recent years by human errors. The mistakes weakened the experiments’ research value and required the tests to be repeated, leading to more animals being killed, three of the current and former staffers said. The three people attributed the mistakes to a lack of preparation by a testing staff working in a pressure-cooker environment.

One employee, in a message seen by Reuters, wrote an angry missive this year to colleagues about the need to overhaul how the company organizes animal surgeries to prevent “hack jobs”. The rushed schedule, the employee wrote, resulted in under-prepared and over-stressed staffers scrambling to meet deadlines and making last-minute changes before surgeries, raising risks to the animals.

Musk has pushed hard to accelerate Neuralink’s progress, which depends heavily on animal testing, current and former employees said. This year, the chief executive sent staffers a news article about Swiss researchers who developed an electrical implant that helped a paralyzed man to walk again. “We could enable people to use their hands and walk again in daily life!” he wrote to staff at 6.37am Pacific time on 8 February. Ten minutes later, he followed up: “In general, we are simply not moving fast enough. It is driving me nuts!”

On several occasions over the years, Musk has told employees to imagine they had a bomb strapped to their heads in an effort to get them to move faster, according to three sources who repeatedly heard the comment. On one occasion a few years ago, Musk told employees he would trigger a “market failure” at Neuralink unless they made more progress, a comment perceived by some employees as a threat to shut down operations, according to a former staffer who heard his comment.

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Five people who have worked on Neuralink’s animal experiments told Reuters they had raised concerns internally. They said they had advocated for a more traditional testing approach, in which researchers would test one element at a time in an animal study and draw relevant conclusions before moving on to more animal tests. Instead, these people said, Neuralink launches tests in quick succession before fixing issues in earlier tests or drawing complete conclusions. The result: more animals overall are tested and killed, in part because the approach leads to repeated tests.

One former employee who asked management several years ago for more deliberate testing was told by a senior executive it wasn’t possible given Musk’s demands for speed, the employee said. Two people told Reuters they had left the company over concerns about animal research.

The problems with Neuralink’s testing have raised questions internally about the quality of the resulting data, three current or former employees said. Such problems could delay the company’s bid to start human trials, which Musk has said the company wants to do within the next six months. They also add to a growing list of headaches for Musk, who is facing criticism of his management of Twitter, which he recently acquired for $44bn. Musk also continues to run the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.

The US Food and Drug Administration is in charge of reviewing the company’s applications for approval of its medical device and associated trials. The company’s treatment of animals during research, however, is regulated by the USDA under the Animal Welfare Act. The FDA didn’t immediately comment.

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 About Elon Musk's device created by his company Neuralink

Missed deadlines, botched experiments

Musk’s impatience with Neuralink has grown as the company, which launched in 2016, has missed his deadlines on several occasions to win regulatory approval to start clinical trials in humans, according to company documents and interviews with eight current and former employees.

Some Neuralink rivals are having more success. Synchron, which was launched in 2016 and is developing a different implant with less ambitious goals for medical advances, received FDA approval to start human trials in 2021. The company’s device has allowed paralyzed people to text and type by thinking alone. Synchron has also conducted tests on animals, but it has killed only about 80 sheep as part of its research, according to studies of the Synchron implant reviewed by Reuters. Musk approached Synchron about a potential investment, Reuters reported in August.

Synchron declined to comment.

In some ways, Neuralink treats animals quite well compared with other research facilities, employees said in interviews, echoing public statements by Musk and other executives. Company leaders have boasted internally of building a “Monkey Disneyland” in the company’s Austin, Texas, facility where lab animals can roam, a former employee said. In the company’s early years, Musk told employees he wanted the monkeys at his San Francisco Bay Area operation to live in a “monkey Taj Mahal”, said a former employee who heard the comment. Another former employee recalled Musk saying he disliked using animals for research but wanted to make sure they were “the happiest animals” while alive.

The animals have fared less well, however, when used in the company’s research, current and former employees say.

Musk holds a Neuralink implant at the 2020 presentation.

 Photograph: Neuralink/AFP/Getty Images

The first complaints about the company’s testing involved its initial partnership with University of California, Davis, to conduct the experiments. In February, an animal rights group, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, filed a complaint with the USDA accusing the Neuralink-UC Davis project of botching surgeries that killed monkeys, and publicly released its findings. The group alleged that surgeons used the wrong surgical glue twice, which led to two monkeys suffering and dying, while other monkeys had different complications from the implants.

The company has acknowledged it killed six monkeys, on the advice of UC Davis veterinary staff, because of health problems caused by experiments. It called the issue with the glue a “complication” from the use of an “FDA-approved product”. In response to a Reuters inquiry, a UC Davis spokesperson shared a previous public statement defending its research with Neuralink and saying it followed all laws and regulations.

A federal prosecutor in the northern district of California referred the animal rights group’s complaint to the USDA inspector general, which has since launched a formal investigation, according to a source with direct knowledge of it. USDA investigators then inquired about the allegations involving the UC Davis monkey research, according to two sources familiar with the matter and emails and messages reviewed by Reuters.

The investigation is concerned with the testing and treatment of animals in Neuralink’s own facilities, one of the sources said, without elaborating. In 2020, Neuralink brought the program in-house, and it has since built its extensive facilities in California and Texas.

A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office for the northern district of California declined to comment.

Delcianna Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said it was “very unusual” for the USDA inspector general to investigate animal research facilities. Winders, an animal-testing opponent who has criticized Neuralink, said the inspector general has primarily focused in recent years on dogfighting and cockfighting actions when applying the Animal Welfare Act.

Employee concerns

The mistakes leading to unnecessary animal deaths included one instance in 2021 when 25 out of 60 pigs in a study had devices that were the wrong size implanted in their heads, an error that could have been avoided with more preparation, according to a person with knowledge of the situation and company documents and communications reviewed by Reuters.

The mistake raised alarm among Neuralink’s researchers. In May 2021, Viktor Kharazia, a scientist, wrote to colleagues that the mistake could be a “red flag” to FDA reviewers of the study, which the company planned to submit as part of its application to begin human trials. His colleagues agreed, and the experiment was repeated with 36 sheep, according to the person with knowledge of the situation. All the animals, both the pigs and the sheep, were killed after the procedures, the person said.

Kharazia did not comment in response to requests.

On another occasion, staff accidentally implanted Neuralink’s device on the wrong vertebra of two different pigs during two separate surgeries, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter and documents reviewed by Reuters. The incident frustrated several employees who said the mistakes “on two separate occasions” could have easily been avoided by carefully counting the vertebrae before inserting the device.

The company veterinarian Sam Baker advised his colleagues to immediately kill one of the pigs to end her suffering.

“Based on low chance of full recovery … and her current poor psychological wellbeing, it was decided that euthanasia was the only appropriate course of action,” Baker wrote colleagues about one of the pigs a day after the surgery, adding a broken heart emoji.

Baker did not comment on the incident.

Neuralink is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again.

 Photograph: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock


Employees have sometimes pushed back on Musk’s demands to move fast. In a company discussion several months ago, some Neuralink employees protested after a manager said that Musk had encouraged them to do a complex surgery on pigs soon. The employees resisted on the grounds that the surgery’s complexity would lengthen the amount of time the pigs would be under anesthesia, risking their health and recovery. They argued they should first figure out how to cut down the time it would take to do the surgery.

“It’s hard on the little piggies,” one of the employees said, referring to the lengthy period under anesthesia.

In September, the company responded to employee concerns about its animal testing by holding a town hall to explain its processes. It soon after opened up the meetings to staff of its federally mandated board that reviews the animal experiments.

Neuralink executives have said publicly that the company tests animals only when it has exhausted other research options, but documents and company messages suggest otherwise. During a 30 November presentation the company broadcast on YouTube, for example, Musk said surgeries were used at a later stage of the process to confirm that the device worked rather than to test early hypotheses. “We’re extremely careful,” he said, to make sure that testing is “confirmatory, not exploratory”, using animal testing as a last resort after trying other methods.

In October, a month before Musk’s comments, Autumn Sorrells, the head of animal care, ordered employees to scrub “exploration” from study titles retroactively and stop using it in the future.

Sorrells did not comment in response to requests.

Neuralink records reviewed by Reuters contained numerous references over several years to exploratory surgeries, and three people with knowledge of the company’s research strongly rejected the assertion that Neuralink avoids exploratory tests on animals. Company discussions reviewed by Reuters showed several employees expressing concerns about Sorrells’ request to change exploratory study descriptions, saying it would be inaccurate and misleading.

One noted that the request seemed designed to provide “better optics” for Neuralink.

Canada 'watching closely' as Biden pressed to fix Inflation Reduction Act 'glitches'

Yesterday 

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that Canada will be "watching closely" as the United States responds to complaints from Europe about the North American protectionism built into President Joe Biden's signature climate change initiative.


Canada 'watching closely' as Biden pressed to fix Inflation Reduction Act 'glitches'© Provided by The Canadian Press

Biden received an earful from French President Emmanuel Macron about "super aggressive" climate incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act — incentives that favour manufacturers in Canada and Mexico, as well as the U.S.

It wasn't always that way. Biden's original Build Back Better package included a tax credit scheme for electric vehicles that reserved the most generous incentives for U.S.-assembled EVs built with union labour.

That package fell apart, but its 11th-hour replacement — a kitchen-sink, pre-midterms effort framed as an inflation fighter — brought North American vehicles and critical minerals into the fold, thanks in part to concerted Canadian lobbying.

Now, Europe is complaining about the very aspects of the law that prompted sighs of relief from north of the border, and Biden has acknowledged "glitches" that he insisted last week were never meant to alienate allies.

"It's something we're watching closely and we're engaged with our European counterparts, as well as our American counterparts, to make sure that we're working together," Trudeau told a news conference Monday.

He was with Ontario Premier Doug Ford in Ingersoll, Ont., to celebrate the launch of Canada's first full-scale commercial EV plant, a GM Canada facility that's on tap to build 50,000 electric delivery vans a year by 2025.

Whatever steps the Biden administration ends up taking to placate other disgruntled allies, Canada's auto sector isn't afraid of a little friendly competition, Trudeau suggested.

"We have a free trade deal with Europe that we signed a few years ago … which is an advantage Canada has over the United States when it comes to accessing the European market," he said.

"We're always going to focus on remaining competitive. We're always going to focus on making sure that we can sell not just into the United States, and manufacture here in Canada for the United States, but also for partners around the world."

With Macron at his side, Biden last week characterized one of the most important aspects of the law for Canada — content requirements for critical minerals that favour countries with a free trade agreement with the U.S. — as an error.


"He didn't mean, literally, 'free trade agreement,'" Biden said, an apparent reference to Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia swing-vote Democrat who successfully retooled the legislation with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

"It was never intended, when I wrote the legislation, to exclude folks who were co-operating with us. That was not the intention."

And yet that was exactly what happened with the original iteration of the bill, Biden's doomed Build Back Better legislation, which triggered an all-hands effort from business leaders, provinces and Ottawa to convince the U.S. it would be shooting itself in the foot, economically speaking.

"Our only objective was the make sure that we didn't get excluded," said Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, who spent much of the last year in D.C. to help make Canada's case.

"If it includes everybody else, well, we compete with everybody else anyway."

Volpe called it a bonus — "maybe an accidental bonus" — that for the moment, the law only includes the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But that was never the ultimate intent, he said.

"To be frank, the threat was that if it was only American, we were in big trouble, because we sell 80 per cent of the cars we make to those consumers."

Monday also happened to mark the third meeting of the Trade and Technology Council of the U.S. and the European Union, a coalition of senior leaders tasked by Biden back in 2021 with fostering their own bilateral trade ties.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who co-chairs the council, made it clear that Europe's concerns about the Inflation Reduction Act were top of mind during the group's meeting in Maryland.

"I think we advanced that discussion," said Blinken, noting that the group talked about electric and commercial vehicle tax credits, critical minerals and supply chains.

The U.S. and the EU have already established a task force to explore possible solutions, with Biden's own public comments helping to ramp up the urgency of those talks, he added.

"We are committed to moving forward together — not at the expense of each other, but to the benefit of each other."

Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president of the European Commission and one of Blinken's co-chairs, acknowledged that sense of urgency, noting that Europe, too, has its own work to do to improve its environmental bona fides.

"The most important thing is probably that the U.S. is fully engaged in fighting climate change," Vestager said.

"We can solve the things that are of concern — we have showed that before, we'll show that again — but the most important message I think for everyone is that we're together in what is needed to fight climate change."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

Richard Serra's art installation hard to miss in Qatar desert, once you get there

Yesterday 

ZEKREET, QATAR — Art stands tall in the desert some 75 kilometres northwest of Doha.


Richard Serra's art installation hard to miss in Qatar desert, once you get there© Provided by The Canadian Press

You need a rugged vehicle and no small resolve to find it, given signage is almost non-existent. The last few kilometres take time as you cross the desert on a slightly flattened but irregular path well away from the closest blacktop. Proceed with caution.

But "East-West/West-East" by American sculptor Richard Serra is worth the effort.

Completed in 2014, the installation comprises four giant steel plates — the outer two stand 16.7 metres high and the inner two 14.7 metres — and span more than a kilometre. Slightly different in height, to compensate for the difference in ground level, they line up like enormous fence posts in the barren desert flanked by gypsum plateaus at some points.

If not the middle of nowhere, it's well on the way.

Possibly the last place on earth you'd expect to see "one of the most significant artists of his generation," as Serra is dubbed by the Gagosian Gallery which has showcased his work in both New York and France.

"Taking art to the people," is how Qatar Museums, the country's arts and culture arm, explains it..

Depending on the direction you approach, you see only part of the art. As you get closer, the dark plates get bigger and bigger and you get to see all four.

"After the perceptual bombardment of Doha, with its architecture dominated by idiosyncratic shapes and kitschy facades, the sensuous experience prompted by the rigorous abstraction of the (desert) sculpture is at once bracing and sensitizing," wrote Artforum magazine.

"Serra reminds the viewer, like 19th-century German Romantic artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, of man’s frailty in the face of nature’s omnipotence," added Numero magazine.


For non art-critics, imagine the monolith in "2001: A Space Odyssey" on steroids and times four in the desert. Stand next to one and you feel like an ant — a very hot ant under the blazing Qatari sun.

You'll also likely be alone, albeit under review from what seemed like security in a nearby pickup truck.

The 84-year-old Serra, who worked in steel mills during college, is known for his large-scale abstract steel sculptures.

There is another in Doha itself. A sculpture called "7" — the number seven has spiritual significance in Islamic culture — was commissioned by Qatar Museums.

Built out of seven steel plates, it faces the sea at MIA Park, adjacent to the Museum of Islamic Art.

Like a billionaire stocking his mansion with objets d'art, the government of Qatar has dug deep into its oil-filled coffers to decorate the country with world-class art.

There are big-ticket art works all over.

In 2013, Qatar Museums Authority head Sheikha al-Mayassa al-Thani, the daughter of the emir of Qatar, was listed atop ArtReview magazine's annual Power 100 list "on account of her organization’s vast purchasing power and willingness to spend at a rate estimated to be (US)$1 billion a year — in order to get top works of art for its Doha museums," ArtReview said.

"Le Pouce," a giant golden thumb by French artist Cesar Baldaccini, is front and centre in Doha's Souq Waqif market. French-American artist Louise Bourgeois' "Maman," a giant spider that can also be found outside Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada, stands inside the Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC), which doubles as the World Cup's main press centre.

Another edition of "Maman," one of seven, was sold for US$32 million by Christie's in 2019.

"The Miraculous Journey" by English artist Damien Hirst is hard to miss outside Sidra Medicine centre just down the street from the QNCC. The 14 monumental bronze sculptures chronicle the gestation of a fetus inside a uterus, from conception to birth — ending with a statue of a 14-metre-tall anatomically correct baby boy.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press