US company to send team to look into Berlin aquarium rupture

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Police officers carry a plastic tub with rescued fish after a huge aquarium bursts in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. German police say a huge fish tank in the center of Berlin has burst, causing a wave of devastation in and around the Sea Life tourist attraction. (Soeren Stache/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — A U.S. company that helped build a huge aquarium in Berlin says it is sending a team to investigate the rupture of the tank, which sent a wave of debris, water and tropical fish crashing through the hotel lobby it was located in and onto the street outside.

Reynolds Polymer Technology, which says it manufactured and installed the cylinder component of the AquaDom tank 20 years ago, said in an emailed statement that “at this point, it is too early to determine the factor or factors that would produce such a failure.”

Police have said they found no evidence of a malicious act but the cause of the spectacular collapse shortly before 6 a.m. on Friday, in which two people were slightly injured, remains unclear. Berlin’s top security official, Iris Spranger, told German news agency dpa on Friday that “first indications point to material fatigue.”

Officials said on Friday evening that the hotel building itself was assessed to be safe.

The local government said that nearly all of the 1,500 fish that were inside at the time of the rupture died but “a few fish at the bottom of the tank” were saved. About 400 to 500 mostly small fish from a separate set of aquariums housed under the hotel lobby were evacuated to other tanks in a neighboring aquarium that was unaffected.

The AquaDom aquarium opened in December 2003 and was modernized in 2020.

Grand Junction, Colorado-based Reynolds Polymer, which says on its website that 41 of its acrylic panels were used in building the tank cylinder, said it “offers its sincere concern” to the hotel guests and workers who were affected and to those who were injured. It said that “we are also deeply saddened by the animals and aquatic life lost.”

Two people hurt as huge Berlin aquarium bursts

Agence France-Presse
December 16, 2022

The 14-meter high AquaDom aquarium held a million litres of water 

© John MACDOUGALL / AFP

A giant aquarium containing around 1,500 tropical fish burst in Berlin on Friday, flooding a hotel lobby and a nearby street and leaving two people injured, emergency services said.

It remains unclear what caused the incident at the 14-meter (26-foot) high AquaDom aquarium at around 5:50 am (0450 GMT), police said.

"A million liters of water and all the fish inside spilled onto the ground floor" of the hotel complex housing the aquarium, a spokesman for the Berlin fire department told AFP.

Two people suffered injuries from glass splinters and had to be hospitalized, the spokesman added.

More than 100 emergency workers were sent to the scene, which was scattered with glass and other debris.

The cylindrical AquaDom, which opened in 2004, was a popular tourist attraction in the German capital.

It is located in the foyer of a Radisson Blu hotel and had a clear-walled elevator built inside to be used by visitors to the Sea Life leisure complex.

According to the Sea Life website, the AquaDom is WAS  the largest cylindrical, freestanding aquarium in the world.

'Frozen parrot fish'

Berlin police said on Twitter that the incident had caused "incredible maritime damage" with the death of the hundreds of fish.

Water was also "massively" leaking onto the adjoining Karl Liebknecht Street, they said, forcing the partial closure of the major traffic artery. Tram service was also suspended.

The area around the complex was sealed off and sniffer dogs were being used to search for possible victims among the devastation.

Pictures and videos circulating online on Friday, apparently from guests staying at the hotel, showed extensive damage to the transparent aquarium, with only the frame still standing.

Bits of broken window panes and damaged furniture were scattered all around.

German lawmaker Sandra Weeser, who was staying at the hotel when the aquarium burst, said she was woken up by "a kind of shock wave".

"There was a slight tremor of the building and my first guess was an earthquake," she told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.

The area where the aquarium once stood was now just "dark and wet" she said, recalling how she saw "one of those large parrot fish lying on the ground, frozen".

A drone was being used to survey the extent of the destruction, he added.

© 2022 AFP

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We said they’d come for birth control next

Dec 17th, 2022 

by Charles Kuffner.

And here they are.

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee to a federal court in Texas, spent much of his career trying to interfere with other people’s sexuality.

A former lawyer at a religious conservative litigation shop, Kacsmaryk denounced, in a 2015 article, a so-called “Sexual Revolution” that began in the 1960s and 1970s, and which “sought public affirmation of the lie that the human person is an autonomous blob of Silly Putty unconstrained by nature or biology, and that marriage, sexuality, gender identity, and even the unborn child must yield to the erotic desires of liberated adults.”

So, in retrospect, it’s unsurprising that Kacsmaryk would be the first federal judge to embrace a challenge to the federal right to birth control after the Supreme Court’s June decision eliminating the right to an abortion.

Last week, Kacsmaryk issued an opinion in Deanda v. Becerra that attacks Title X, a federal program that offers grants to health providers that fund voluntary and confidential family planning services to patients. Federal law requires the Title X program to include “services for adolescents,”

The plaintiff in Deanda is a father who says he is “raising each of his daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality, which requires unmarried children to practice abstinence and refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage.” He claims that the program must cease all grants to health providers who do not require patients under age 18 to “obtain parental consent” before receiving Title X-funded medical care.

This is not a new argument, and numerous courts have rejected similar challenges to publicly funded family planning programs, in part because the Deanda plaintiff’s legal argument “would undermine the minor’s right to privacy” which the Supreme Court has long held to include a right to contraception.

But Kacsmaryk isn’t like most other judges. In his brief time on the bench — Trump appointed Kacsmaryk in 2019 — he has shown an extraordinary willingness to interpret the law creatively to benefit right-wing causes.

This behavior is enabled, moreover, by the procedural rules that frequently enable federal plaintiffs in Texas to choose which judge will hear their case — 95 percent of civil cases filed in Amarillo, Texas’s federal courthouse are automatically assigned to Kacsmaryk. So litigants who want their case to be decided by a judge with a history as a Christian right activist, with a demonstrated penchant for interpreting the law flexibly to benefit his ideological allies, can all but ensure that outcome by bringing their lawsuit in Amarillo.

And so, last Thursday, the inevitable occurred. Kacsmaryk handed down a decision claiming that “the Title X program violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.”

Kacsmaryk’s decision is riddled with legal errors, some of them obvious enough to be spotted by a first-year law student. And it contradicts a 42-year-long consensus among federal courts that parents do not have a constitutional right to target government programs providing contraceptive care. So there’s a reasonable chance that Kacsmaryk will be reversed on appeal, even in a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees.

Nevertheless, Kacsmaryk’s opinion reveals that there are powerful elements within the judiciary who are eager to limit access to contraception. And even if Kacsmaryk’s opinion is eventually rejected by a higher court, he could potentially send the Title X program into turmoil for months.

You can read the rest, and you should be upset by it. Note that there isn’t an injunction yet, just a terrible opinion by a terrible judge who hasn’t yet decided whether to impose his will on the entire country or not. But this is where we are, and it’s not going to end anytime soon. Daily Kos has more.

On Justice for Kashmir

BY RICHARD FALK    

DECEMBER 16, 2022Facebook

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Photograph Source: Steve Evans – CC BY 2.0

Among the self-determination struggles of our time, Kashmir is at risk of being forgotten by most of the world (except for Pakistan), while its people continue to endure the harsh crimes of India’s intensifying military occupation that has already lasted 75 years. In 2019, the Hindu nationalist government of the BJP, headed by the notorious autocrat, Narendra Modi, unilaterally and arbitrarily abrogated the special status arrangements for the governance of Kashmir that had been incorporated in Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, and although often violated in spirit and substance, at least gave the people of Kashmir some measure of protection.

1947 was a momentous year for South Asia as British colonial rule came to an end, followed by a partition of India that resulted in much bloodshed throughout the process of establishing the Muslim state of Pakistan alongside the secular Hindu majority state of India. At this time, Kashmir was one of 560 ‘princely states’ in India, governed by a Hindu Maharajah while having a population that was 77% Muslim. The partition agreement reached by India and Pakistan gave the peoples of these ‘states’ a partial right of self-determination in the form of a free choice as to whether to remain a part of India or join their destiny with that of Pakistan, and in either event retaining considerable independence by way of self-rule. It was widely assumed that these choices would favor India if their population was Hindu and to Pakistan if Muslim. In a confused and complicated set of circumstances that involved Kashmiris and others contesting the Maharahah’s leadership of Kashmir, India engaged in a variety of maneuvers including a large-scale military intervention to avoid the timely holding of the promised internationally supervised referendum, and by stages coercively treated Kashmir more and more as an integral part of India. This Indian betrayal of the partition settlement agreement gave rise to the first of several wars with Pakistan, and it resulted in a division of Kashmir in 1948 that was explicitly not an international boundary, but intended as a temporary ‘line-of-control’ to separate the opposed armed forces. It has ever since given rise to acute tension erupting in recurrent warfare between the two countries, and even now no international boundary exists between divided Kashmir. The leadership of Pakistan has always believed that Kashmir was a natural projection of itself, treating India’s behavior as occupying power as totally unacceptable and illegitimate as have the majority of Kashmiris.

The essence of India’s betrayal was to deny the people of Kashmir the opportunity to express their preference for accession to India or Pakistan, presumably correctly believing that it would lose out if a proper referendum were held. Back in 1947 the Indian secular, liberal leadership did itself make strong pledges to the effect that Kashmir would be allowed to determine its future affiliation in an internationally supervised referendum or plebiscite as soon as order could be there restored. The two governments even agreed to submit the issue to the UN, and the Security Council reaffirmed the right of Kashmir to the agreed process of self-determination, but India gradually took steps clearly designed to prevent this internationally supervised resolution of Kashmir’s future from ever happening. It appears that India sought control of Kashmir primarily for strategic and nationalist reasons associated especially with managing Kashmir’s borders with China and Pakistan, and in doing so converting Kashmir into a buffer state of India, giving it the security that supposedly accompanies strategic depth of a ‘Great Power.’ Unsurprisingly, Pakistan reacted belligerently to India’s failure to live up to its commitments, and the result for Kashmir was a second level of partition between India occupied Kashmir and a smaller Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. In effect, India’s unilateralism poisoned relations between these two countries, later to become possessors of nuclear weapons, as well as producing a Kashmiri population that felt deprived of its fundamental rights with accompanying atrocities (including torture, forced disappearances, sexual violence, extrajudicial killing, excessive force, collective punishment, the panopoly of counterinsurgency crimes), which amount to Crimes Against Humanity, in a manner somewhat resembling the deprivations associated with Palestine and Western Sahara.

Part of the blame for this Kashmiri prolonged tragedy reflects the legacy of British colonialism, which characteristically left behind its colonies as shattered and factionalized political realities, an obvious consequence of a colonialist reliance on a divide and rule strategy in its execution of its policies of control and exploitation. Such a strategy understandably aggravated the internal relations of diverse ethnic, tribal, and religious communities. This Indian story is repeated in the various British decolonizing experiences of such diverse countries as Ireland, Cyprus, Malaysia, Rhodesia, and South Africa, as well as in the quasi-colonial mandate in Palestine, which Britain administered between the two world wars. In these cases, ethnic and religious diversity was manipulated by Britain to manage the overall subjugation of a colonized peoples so as to minimize its administrative challenges, which became increasing troublesome in the face surging national independence movements in the 20^th century.

Adding to the misery, these cleavages were left behind as open wounds by Britain during the decolonization process, with a crude display of irresponsibility toward the wellbeing of the previously dominated native populations. The historical outcome was dramatized by a variety of post-colonial unresolved political conflicts that resulted in prolonged strife, producing severe suffering for the population while addressing such post-colonial challenges. These adverse results were only avoided, ironically enough, in the few ‘success’ stories of settler colonialism—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. Such successes were achieved through reliance on genocidal tactics by settlers that overcame native resistance by eliminating or totally marginalized hostile indigenous populations. South Africa is a notable instance of the eventual failure of a settler colonial enterprise and Israel/Palestine is the sole important instance of an ambiguous, ongoing struggle that has not reached closure, but is now at a climactic stage.

Kashmir’s status, despite the denial of self-determination, had given the beleaguered country substantial autonomy rights, and despite many encroachments by India during the 75 years of occupation, chief of which was blocking the Kashmiri people from exercising their internationally endorsed right of self-determination. Nevertheless, what Modi did on August 5, 2019 definitely made matters worse. It ended Kashmir’s special status in the Indian Constitution and placed the territory under harsh direct Indian rule, accompanied by various religious cleansing policies and practices counterinsurgency pretexts designed to promote Hindu supremacy in an undisguised framework of domination, discrimination, highlighted by altered residence and land ownership laws in a pattern favoring the Hindu settlement and minority control. After taking journalistic notice of these events in a surprisingly non-judgmental fashion, the world, especially in the West, has fallen silent despite the crimes against the people of Kashmir continuing to mount on a daily basis, including the branding of all forms of Kashmiri opposition to Indian behavior as ‘terrorism’ giving the incredibly large occupying Indian forces of 700,000 or more a green light to use excessive force without accountability and impose repressive conditions on the entire population.

This outcome in Kashmir should not cause much perplexity. International reactions to human rights abuses rarely reflect their severity, but rather the play of geopolitics. Washington sheds many tears about alleged violations of human rights in Cuba or Venezuela while giving Egypt and Saudi Arabia a free pass. More reflective of the international politics governing the inter-governmental and UN discourse on human rights is the insulation of Israel’s apartheid regime from any kind of punitive response at the international level while screaming for action in the same institutional settings against China’s far milder abuse of the rights of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. India like Israel is too valuable a strategic partner of the West to alienate the Modi leadership by objecting to its behavior however extreme and criminally unlawful. It is unfortunate that the best human rights defenders can hope for in such cases is silence.

India as a large country with a huge population and nuclear weapons which, under the best of circumstances, is hard to challenge with regard to policies that seem almost normalized by the passage of time within the domain of its territorial sovereignty, given the state-centric allocation of legal authority in the post-colonial world. Many important countries have ‘captive nations’ within their borders and are united in opposing internal self-determination claims. At the same time, the harshness and cruelty of India’s policies over time have given rise to an insurgent mood and movement on the part of Kashmiris who now seem themselves somewhat divided as between aspiring for accession to Pakistan or independent statehood. Despite the long period since partition, such a choice, however improperly delayed for decades, should be made available to the people of Kashmir if only the UN was in a position to implement its long ignored responsibility to organize and administer a referendum in Kashmir. Such a peaceful transition does not seem presently feasible given India’s recent further encroachment on Kashmir’s normal development.

Yet the situation is not as hopeless as it seems. The rights of the Kashmiris are as well established in law and morality as are the wrongs of India’s increasingly apartheid structure of domination, exploitation, and subjugation. The Kashmir struggle for justice enjoys the high ground when it comes to the legitimacy of its claims, and struggles of a similar sort since 1945 have shown that the political outcome is more likely to reflect the nationalist and insurgent goals of legitimate struggle than the imperial goals of foreign encroachment. In effect, anti-imperial struggles should be thought of as Legitimacy Wars in which the resistance of a repressed people backed by global solidarity initiatives are in the end more decisive and effective than weaponry or battlefield superiority. It is worth reflecting upon the startling fact that the major anti-colonial wars since 1945 were won by the weaker side militarily. At this preliminary stage, a liberation strategy for Kashmir needs to concentrate on raising global awareness of the criminal features of India’s treatment of the Kashmiri people. To achieve such awareness, it might even be helpful to grasp how Gandhi mobilized public opinion in support of India’s own struggle for independence and study of the brilliant tactics used by Vietnam in mobilizing global solidarity with its nationalist struggle and sacriice to neutralize the weight of the U.S. massive military intervention.

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global law, Queen Mary University London, and Research Associate, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB.

Historian: Virginia's 'Guiding Principles' are a right-wing fantasy of history

History News Network
December 17, 2022

Artist's depiction of March 22, 1622 attack by Powhatans against Jamestown colonists.

According to state law, Virginia’s learning standards are supposed to be reviewed by the state Board of Education at least once every seven years. During 2022, a team including teachers, parents, students, museums, historians, professors, political scientists, economists, and geographers met for months and developed a 402-page draft version for history and social studies. Before it could even be reviewed, the state’s Board of Education, dominated by appointees of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, rejected the draft. Last week they replaced it with their own 52-page statement of “Guiding Principles” without the curriculum frameworks, list of instructional resources, and student activities in the original draft. The new rightwing sanitized standards, quickly developed with input from conservative Christian Hillsdale College and the equally conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, will now undergo a months-long public review process.

According to the Youngkin BOE, “Virginia’s History and Social Science standards aim to restore excellence, curiosity and excitement around teaching and learning history. The teaching of history should illuminate insights from the past and inspire current and future generations to lead lives that are informed and inspired by those who walked this journey before them.”

Critics charge that rather than illuminate, these “Guiding Principles” indoctrinate. Youngkin has made clear that under his administration, teachers would not teach and students would not learn about what he considered “inherently divisive concepts.” In line with this, the “Guiding Principles” demand that teachers present students with “facts” in “ways that do not ascribe guilt to any population in the classroom.” It insists that teachers present “all of our history in an objective, fair, empathetic, nonjudgmental” and specifically orders teachers not to color lessons with their own “personal or political bias.” The “Guiding Principles” then lay out the political biases Youngkin and his appointees want to indoctrinate students with.

Meanwhile, conservative groups have rallied in support of the Virginia guidelines, praising them for disproving “the lie spread by Critical Race Theory supporters.” According to the Independent Women’s Forum, an anti-feminist, rightwing group financed by the Koch brothers and the Scaife and Bradley Foundations, “The message here is that historical evils are not unique to America. The bigger message, though, is about American greatness. The guidelines include “inspirational moments[,] including … the American Revolution, the triumph of America’s Greatest Generation in World War II, the Marshall Plan, the civil rights movement,” and more. The group also praised the fact that Virginia’s guidelines explicitly invite “informed engagement by parents” who will receive “open access to all instructional materials utilized in any Virginia public school” and require that a teacher remain an “apolitical and unbiased moderator between students.”

The Washington Post conducted an independent review of changes to Virginia’s history and social studies education proposed in the Youngkin standards and concluded that rightwing bias pervades the entire proposed “Guiding Principles.” What follows draws from the Washington Post analysis.

The existing social studies guidelines for kindergarten call for lessons teaching that “Indigenous People were the first inhabitants of the land that we now call Virginia and the United States” and that “multiple tribes have always and continue to live in Virginia and the United States today.” The Youngkin guidelines do not mention Indigenous peoples and delete a suggestion that kindergartners be taught “respect for diversity” and learn how to work collaboratively with “people of diverse backgrounds, viewpoints and experiences.”

In third grade, students have been learning about ancient societies in Egypt, Greece, Rome, China and Mali. The Youngkin guidelines drop China and Mali. The fourth grade guidelines currently recommend that students learn about the history of “the Algonquin, the Siouan and the Iroquoian” as well as “the lives of Indigenous People ... living in Virginia today.” In the Youngkin guidelines Indigenous people no longer exist in the current era.

Existing fifth and sixth grade guidelines state that an overarching theme for U.S. history should be “racism,” defined as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” The new guidelines do not mention teaching students about racism. In addition, the Youngkin recommendations drop references to the United States as an “imperialist world power” and the Women’s Rights Movement and an examination of America’s response to the European Holocaust.

The 8th grade guidelines currently include a section on “Resources and the Environment” with lessons “examining the sustainable use and management of resources” as well as instruction on how human growth, development and technology has “driven changes in energy resource management.” This is watered down so that students only learn “how humans influence the environment and are influenced by it.”

In high school, students were expected to dissect, compare and contrast the concepts of “colonialism,” “imperialism,” “nationalism” and “racism.” This will all be dropped if the Youngkin standards are approved. According to the old guidelines, slavery was the root cause of the Civil War. The Youngkin guidelines list slavery as one of the “cultural, economic, and political issues that divided the nation.”

In the Youngkin guidelines, students are told that the United States has “led the world in political, social and economic thought and action” and that America’s founders invented the ideas incorporated in the Declaration of Independence; they were not borrowed from British Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke.

Student understanding of the United States Constitution shifts to the right. Previously the writers of the Constitution “built a system designed to evolve over time.” Students will now be taught that the Constitution is “the nation’s fundamental and enduring law.” Economic planning is now denounced as “socialism or communist” and students are told it is “incompatible with democracy and individual freedoms.”

Students learn “optimism, ideals and imagery” were best presented by former President Ronald Reagan in his speech describing the United States as a “shining city upon a hill,” a phrase his speechwriters borrowed from 17th century Puritan sermons. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial aren’t mentioned.

Virginia students, if the Youngkin guidelines are approved, will learn about “our nation’s exceptional strengths, including individual innovation, moral character, ingenuity and adventure” and “study inspirational moments that have “made America the world’s exemplar of freedom, opportunity and democratic ideals.” All of this will be done, supposedly, without promoting ideology, avoiding indoctrination, and ensuring that students develop critical thinking skills.

Alan Singer is a historian and professor in the Hofstra University Department of Teaching, Learning and Technology. He is the author of New York’s Grand Emancipation Jubilee: Essays on Slavery, Resistance, Abolition, Teaching, and Historical Memory (SUNY Press, 2018). His email address is catajs@hofstra.edu

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SEND THEM NORTH TO TRUDEAULAND😎

Title 42: Trump-era border policy creates headache for Biden

Bernd Debusmann Jr - in Washington
Fri, December 16, 2022

Recent mass crossings into El Paso are among the largest in recent memory.

A policy introduced by former President Donald Trump that has blocked thousands of people from crossing the US-Mexico border is set to expire next week, with attempted crossings expected to spike if it does.

The policy, known as Title 42, gives the government the power to automatically expel undocumented migrants seeking entry and was designed to stop the spread of Covid-19,

It is due to expire on 21 December, but this is subject to a legal battle as some Republican-led states have asked for the policy to remain in place beyond this date.

It creates a political headache for the Biden administration, which has come under withering criticism from its opponents over its handling of border issues.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been detained at the border in recent months, while more than two million migrants were detained at the border in the 2022 fiscal year that ended on 30 September. That's a 24% jump from the year before.

The statistics show that the number of migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba rose dramatically over the last year, while the number from Mexico and Central America's Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras fell.
Why the recent spike?

The number of migrants arriving at the border rose dramatically after Mr Biden took office in late January 2021.

Experts point to a number of reasons for the increase, including environmental disasters and economic woes in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. In other cases - such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela - economic problems have been compounded by political repression.

There are also large numbers of repeat crossings and lingering pandemic-related economic issues across Latin America, experts say.

Migrant detentions at the Mexican Border 2000-2022. . .

"There's a level of desperation we hadn't quite seen before," said Adam Isacson, a migration and border expert from the Washington Office on Latin America.

"And you've got people coming from countries that had not sent migrants in significant numbers before now becoming top senders of migrants, due largely to a lack of economic opportunities. Smugglers take advantage of that."

Many of the migrants are now seeking asylum, a process which was severely restricted by the previous US administration of Donald Trump.

President Biden's proposal to provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented Americans has also been blamed for spurring the record influx at the southern border.
Where are the migrants from?

Migrants from Mexico and the countries of Central America's Northern Triangle - Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras - continue to account for the bulk of the total, with Mexicans alone accounting for about 744,000 of the detentions in the 2022 fiscal year.

CBP figures, however, highlight shifting migration patterns.

In October, for example, nearly 70,000 people detained at the border were from Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua - a 149% increase over October 2021. The number of Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans, on the other hand, fell 12% from October 2021 to just under 61,000.

Collectively, Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaraguans accounted for about 494,000 of the migrant detentions in the 2022 fiscal year.

Ariel Ruiz, a policy expert with the Washington DC-based Migration Policy Institute, noted that the links between these countries also contribute to increases in each.

Why are migrants being sent to Democrat-run areas?

'They'd rather die than return to Nicaragua'

Cuba, for example, has lost much of the aid it received from Venezuela pre-pandemic - creating more economic difficulties there - while Nicaragua's decision last year to eliminate visa requirements for Cubans means they now have a starting point to begin their journey from Central America to the US.

A lack of diplomatic relations between the US and these countries also means that the US cannot repatriate them home.

"We have a system of enforcement at the border that's really meant to respond to Mexican migration," Mr Ruiz said. "All these policy schemes have combined in some ways to provide an opportunity for migrants to head northward, at the same time as economic conditions and political repression worsen in these countries."

Mr Biden, for his part, has said that sending migrants back to Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua is "not rational" and that he is working with Mexico and other countries to "stop the flow".

In mid-October, US and Mexican officials agreed to a plan that would enable the US to expel Venezuelans while at the same time granting humanitarian access to them by air.

Venezuelan nationals who attempt to cross the border and are detained are ineligible for the legal pathway in the future. Since the plan was introduced, "encounters" with Venezuelan migrants fell from 1,100 to 300 per day.

Trump policy expiring

A federal appeals court has dismissed a request by 19 Republican-led states to delay the end of Title 42.

The Republican state officials had previously said they would take their legal challenge to the Supreme Court if they failed at the appeals court.

The Biden administration said in a separate court filing that it was prepared to officially halt the expulsions at midday on Wednesday in compliance with a court-imposed deadline.

In November, a federal judge ruled that Title 42 was "arbitrary and capricious" and the expulsions must stop by 21 December.

Some experts believe that Title 42 caused migrant figures to rise, as the policy does not prevent migrants from multiple crossing attempts.

In September, CBP said "the large number of expulsions during the pandemic has contributed to a higher-than-usual number of migrants making multiple border crossing attempts".

Mr Isacson said that the policy leads to statistical "distortions".

"Title 42 has made it easy for people to try over and over and over," he said. "If they keep getting caught, there's no real sanction."

Statistically, Mexican citizens are likely to be repatriated back to Mexico, which also accepts migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Collectively, more than 962,000 citizens of these countries were sent back across the border using Title 42 in the 2022 fiscal year, compared to less than 10,000 from Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela.

Migrants after being detained in El Paso, Texas on 12 September

A political headache for Biden

The rising migrant figures represent a political problem for the Biden administration, setting him on a collision course with Republican-led states.

Three Republican-run states - Texas, Arizona and Florida - have announced initiatives to move migrants to Democratic-led ones, sometimes leaving them at high-profile locations such as wealthy Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts or near Vice-President Kamala Harris' residence in Washington DC.

Officials in these states have argued that the tactic is aimed at mitigating the impact of migration flows in local communities. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example - who in September flew a group of migrants to Massachusetts - said that "the minute even a small fraction of what those border towns deal with every day is brought to their front door, they [Democrats] all of a sudden go berserk".

The battle over immigration has also found its way back to Capitol Hill.

In early December, House Republicans introduced legislation that would expand the Department of Homeland Security's power to swiftly remove detainees without a hearing if they have been in the country less than two years.

Under current regulations, the process is limited to migrants detained within 100 miles (160km) of the border or those who have been in the US less than 14 days.

"President Biden's failed policies are crushing our southern border," Tennessee congressman Mark Green said in a statement.

"This legislation is a huge step forward in ensuring those who illegally enter our country cannot circumvent the law and are swiftly removed."

Zombie COVID: Corpses can still spread the virus for weeks after death, study finds

BY ERIN PRATER
December 17, 2022 

Infectious virus was present in “large amounts” in cadavers of COVID victims up to 13 days after death.
PHOTO BY ARTUR WIDAK/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Just because a COVID patient dies doesn’t mean the virus in their body does.

A recent study by researchers in Japan that has yet to be peer reviewed found that infectious virus was present in “large amounts” in cadavers of COVID victims up to 13 days after death. Meanwhile, a March 2021 study out of Germany came to a similar conclusion—that COVID virus can exist in corpses up to 17 days after death.

It was already known that the virus can remain infectious on surfaces for extended periods of time. Multiple studies have indicated that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, can last up to three days on household surfaces like stainless steel, plastic, and glass, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, mortuary workers have been advised to handle bodies of COVID casualties with caution, and to wear protective equipment while doing so. For those who merely attend funerals, the greatest risk of catching COVID at them is from other attendees who have the virus—not from a corpse.

“There is currently no known risk associated with being in the same room at a funeral or visitation service with the body of someone who died of COVID-19,” the CDC wrote in April. “However, being in crowded or poorly ventilated indoor spaces may make you more likely to get sick if people around you are infected.”

Ebola is known to spread at funerals, during which family members and others touch or wash a cadaver during religious rights, or distribute the deceased’s personal property, according to the World Health Organization. That’s because the body and items continue to carry the virus.

It’s not just the airways of COVID casualties that can harbor the virus. A study published this week in the journal Nature found SARS-CoV-2 in 84 distinct anatomical body locations and fluids in the bodies of 44 unvaccinated individuals who had died with COVID-19 (though not necessarily of it). Those locations included the brain, plasma, the heart, lymph nodes, adrenal gland, and eyes.

In one case, a patient who died with COVID 230 days following the onset of symptoms still had the virus in multiple locations in their body upon autopsy, according to the study.

AZERBAIJAN

Illegal activity and destroyed history at “Demirli” mineral deposit – INVESTIGATION

 17 December 2022 

The protest action initiated by Azerbaijani environmentalists, representatives of non-governmental organizations, public activists and volunteers demanding an end to the illegal exploitation of Azerbaijan's natural resources and monitoring of the “Gizilbulag” gold and “Damirli” copper-molybdenum deposits has been going on for five days now. Unfortunately, the discussions the monitoring group, which is expected to investigate the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits in the areas where Russian peacekeepers are temporarily stationed, held with the command of the peacekeeping contingent on 3 and 7 December have not yet yielded any results. Despite the demands of environmental activists, conditions for the monitoring to go ahead have not been provided yet. It has been announced that the monitoring did not take place today as a result of yet another provocation. The illegal exploitation of “Gizilbulag” and “Damirli” mineral deposits has been topping the country’s agenda since the first days of December.

AZERTAC is publishing a research by Sabuhi Huseynov, researcher at the Strategic Communication Center, senior specialist of the Institute of History of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.

The development of the “Damirli” (Armenians call it Kashen – ed.) mineral deposit was started by “Base Metals” JSC, a subsidiary of “Vallex” group of companies, in 2012. The copper-molybdenum ore obtained at the initial stage was taken to an enrichment plant located at the Gizilbulag deposit and processed there. The construction of “Damirli” mining complex commenced in April 2014. After only a year and nine months, the mining complex with an initial processing capacity of approximately 2 million tons of ore per year was commissioned.

Throughout the period of illegal operation, the company managers and political circles of Armenia attempted to portray their work as a lawful undertaking, pledging at early stages that the exploitation of the deposit would not have any environmental implications. In addition, the development of the field was concealed from the international community and environmental organizations.

The fact of the matter is that the site of the deposit was very rich both from a natural and historical perspective. This part of Karabakh had fascinating nature and forests. There were hundreds of historical and architectural sites belonging to the Azerbaijani people in several villages located and around the deposits. Many of these sites were ancient cemeteries, castles, churches, palaces, etc. related to Caucasian Albania.

However, while engaging in illegal construction and mining activities in the area in an effort to start production as soon as possible, the company disrupted the natural and historical environment of the area and destroyed all our of its historical, architectural and archeological sites. As if this wasn’t enough, out of more than 850 hectares of land on which the “Damirli” mining complex is located, an area of about 82 hectares of forests, which included some of the most wonderful species of Karabakh trees, was razed to the ground. The political authorities of Armenia somehow managed to conceal this environmental tragedy and the savage destruction of cultural sites from the world.

In fact, the monitoring system of the “Global Forest Watch” organization shows that this environmental tragedy had resulted in the loss of only three hectares of forest cover for some reason. It seems that “Base Metals” and the breakaway regime managed not only to deceive ordinary Armenians living in Karabakh, but also to do that unbeknownst to international organizations.

This investigation reveals evidence of barbarism committed during the construction and development of the “Damirli” deposit. To do this, the historical-natural environment of the area was recreated in the Geographical Information System and a comparative analysis of the current situation carried out.

Investigation method – remote sensing

In modern times, remote sensing, especially the analysis of satellite imagery, is highly instrumental in documenting archaeological sites and conducting effective and successful research. Satellite images have recently become a reliable tool for documenting ecological, historical, historical and archaeological, monumental and other sites. The key advantage of this technique is that the researcher gets the opportunity to analyze the area where the site is located without actually visiting it. This investigation uses declassified American satellite images of 1977-1980, detailed maps developed by Soviet topographers, and topographic maps of the General Staff of the Soviet Union published in 1989.

The artificial satellites series known as the Hexagon program consisted of 20 reconnaissance satellites launched by the United States during the Cold War from 1972 to 1986. The satellites were sent into space to provide the United States with high-resolution images of the Earth, in particular to monitor the development of strategic weapons technologies in the USSR after the agreement on the limitation of anti-missile defense systems.

From 1979 to 1986, twenty reconnaissance satellites included in the program took pictures of almost every location of the Earth (including the territory of Karabakh). The satellite images provide information about the condition of any location on Planet Earth 30 or 40 years ago. The images are now stored in a special archive of the US Department of the Interior’s Geological Service. They contain scientific information on the state of natural resources, which is then monitored and analyzed. The Geological Service’s Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center is a data provider with a total of 29,000 scanned and declassified negatives of KH-9 satellite images. This study uses images of the Earth's locations captured by the KH-9 satellite as part of the Hexagon program.

Damage caused to the natural environment of the area during

the construction of the “Damirli” mineral complex

Prior to the analysis, certain facts that surfaced in the Armenian media during the years of illegal exploitation of the “Damirli” deposit were also examined. In 2012, Armenian media outlet “Heqt.am” published an article on the results of an investigation by journalist Hayk Ghazaryan, “What is in store for the sites located in the territory of the Kashen (Damirli) deposit?”. When the construction of the mine was initiated, both “Base Metals” and the leaders of the breakaway regime were stating that there were no forests in the area. However, the Armenian journalist wrote in his article that this wasn’t the case. The article also stated that there were 2,500 monuments and tombstones in the area. When the matter surfaced in the media, the management of “Base Metals” promised that it would relocate the monuments.

Therefore, we managed to calculate the area of the forest cover as shown on a 1989 map of the area where the “Damirli” mineral complex was built by integrating the military-topographic maps of the Geographical Information System into the WGS-8 coordinate system. It is an area of 280 hectares.

Then the forest area identified on the map was also confirmed by the images taken by the KH-9 satellite on 22 August 1977. A spatial analysis of the forest cover in the area was carried out in the Geographic Information System with reference to both pieces of evidence. If we compare the satellite images of the time when the mine was built with those of the modern era, we will see that “Base Metals” destroyed 82 hectares of forest in 2012-2015.

Vandalism unleashed against Azerbaijan’s material and cultural sites during

the construction of the “Damirli” complex

The results of the investigation explicitly show that both environmental and material-cultural heritage in the area has been destroyed. This crime was hidden both from the press and international organizations. We appeal to international organizations and tribunals with authority to make decisions on the preservation of the material and cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people, as well as the cultural heritage of the world. The evidence provided represents an act of culturcide, the systematic destruction of the cultural heritage of people who have lived in the region for centuries. Each of these facts is documented by artificial satellite imagery. These crimes were perpetrated as a result of the joint activity of the Republic of Armenia, the breakaway regime in Karabakh and “Base Metals”. The material and cultural heritage, as well as the natural resources of the Azerbaijani people, were intentionally destroyed and looted.

The revealed facts once again confirm the importance of establishing a monitoring group of representatives of the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan, scientists and experts to carry out inspections in the area together with environmentalists.

At issue is the destruction of more than 2,500 material and cultural sites on an area of more than 850 hectares we have already examined. These include the fortress of Melik Allahverdi, the Melik of the Cross, the fortress of Melik Israel, churches and other architectural monuments that are relics of the Albanian era, and hundreds of cross stones. The cross stones were Christian monuments belonging to Caucasian Albania and the Melik of the Cross of the later period.

Fortress of Melik Allahverdi, the Melik of the Cross

Albanian grave in Gulyataq village

Albanian grave in Janyatag village

There is sufficient evidence in the scientific literature and archive documents on the resettlement of the Armenian population to Janyatag and Gulyatag villages after 1828. The areas populated by Armenians were rich in ancient monuments of Caucasian Albania. Some of them are archaeological sites. Archaeological excavations in the village of Gulyatag, where the mineral deposit was established, began as early as 1896. Back then, the Moscow Archaeological Society seconded a certain A. Ivanovsky to the South Caucasus. He conducted archaeological excavations in several locations around Karabakh, including burial mound No. 81 in the village of Gulyatag. The diameter of the mound was more than 40 meters. The report on these archaeological excavations is known to a number of archaeologists working in the region. At that time, A. Ivanovsky wrote that there were many burial mounds in the territories of Janyatag and Gulyatag villages. The material and cultural evidence he discovered made a significant contribution to further archeological research of the South Caucasus.

Armenian scientists who conducted research in the village of Gulyatag acknowledged that Melik Allahverdi's castle was located in the village. The castle was 34 meters long and 14 meters wide. There were medieval ruins 4 kilometers southwest of the village. In addition, there was a cemetery nearby rich in ancient tombstones belonging to Caucasian Albania.

There were six such monuments in the village of Janyatag, which is famous for its anthropomorphic sculptures of Karabakh. This was established as a result of a research conducted in 1964-1987. However, the stone monuments then mysteriously disappeared. Their fate still remains unknown. In 1973, the number of monuments in the villages of Janyatag, Mollalar and Shafibayli reached 10.

There was a place in Gulyatag village where Karabakh horses were kept at the time of Tsarist Russia. The fate of this historical site also remains unknown.

In 2012, a journalist of Armenian publication “Hetq.am” wrote in his article: “It is not clear why historians of “Artsakh”, who have yet to express an opinion on this situation, remain silent.” The company, which stated during the construction of the mine that the monuments would be moved to a different location, then simply destroyed them secretly under the mine. As a matter of fact, it was not possible to move those monuments to a different location.

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COP15

Why biodiversity is good for our health

17 December 2022


The natural world has gifted humanity with untold health benefits, and it is believed that it harbours many more undiscovered health breakthroughs. However, we risk losing these benefits, if we continue to degrade the environment.

The UN biodiversity conference, COP15Opens in new window, is due to wrap up on 19 December. This weekend, we are looking at some of the ways that humanity is reliant on a healthy and thriving global ecosystem.

One million species are now said to be at risk of extinction, and if species losses continue to mount, ecosystem functions vital to human health and life will continue to be disrupted.

Ecosystems provide goods and services that sustain all life on this planet, including human life. While we know a great deal about how many ecosystems function, they often involve such complexity and are on a scale so vast that humanity would find it impossible to substitute for them, no matter how much money was spent in the process.

The Living Laboratory

The majority of prescribed medicines in industrialized countries are derived from natural compounds produced by animals and plants. Billions of people in the developing world rely primarily on traditional plant-based medicine for primary health care.

Many cures from nature are familiar; painkillers such as morphine from opium poppies, the antimalarial quinine from the bark from the South American cinchona tree, and the antibiotic penicillin that is produced by microscopic fungi.

Microbes discovered in the soil of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) fight heart disease by lowering cholesterol. AZT, one of the first anti-HIV/AIDS drugs, came from a large shallow-water sponge that lives in the Caribbean, and happens to be the same sponge that yielded antivirals to treat herpes and serves as the source for the first marine-derived anti-cancer drug to be licensed in the US.

Unsplash/ Hans-Jurgen-MagerDespite being fat to a degree that would be life-threatening to humans, polar bears are apparently immune to Type II diabetes.

A crucial reservoir for future cures

To date, only around 1.9 million species have been identified (and in many cases barely studied). It is believed that there are millions more that are completely unknown.

Everything alive is the result of a complex “living laboratory” that has been conducting its own clinical tests since life began – approximately 3.7 billion years ago. This natural pharmaceutical library harbours myriad undiscovered cures, if only we don’t destroy them before they’re recognized.

Take the polar bear, now classified as “threatened”. As its Arctic habitat melts due to climate change, the world’s largest terrestrial predator has become an icon of the dangers posed by rising global temperatures. It might also be an icon for health. Polar bears amass huge volumes of fat before hibernating. Despite being fat to a degree that would be life-threatening to humans, they are apparently immune to Type II diabetes. They remain immobile for months, yet their bones remain unchanged. While dormant they do not urinate, yet their kidneys are undamaged. If we understood and could reproduce how bears detoxify waste while hibernating, we might be able to treat - and perhaps even prevent - the toxicity from kidney failure in humans.

Currently 13 per cent of the global population is clinically obese, and the number of Type II diabetes sufferers is predicted to rise to 700 million by 2045. Over the course of their lifetimes, 1 in 3 women over the age of 50, and 1 in 5 men will experience osteoporosis-related bone fractures. In the US alone, kidney failure kills more than 82,000 people and costs the US economy $35 million a year. Polar bears have naturally developed ‘solutions’ to these problems - Type II diabetes from obesity, osteoporosis from being immobile, and toxicity from kidney failure - all of which cause misery to millions.

© Unsplash/Teddie HumaamCoral reefs have the potential to solve many diseases

Coral reefs and morphine

Another example is from coral reefs, sometimes referred to as “rainforests of the sea” due to their high biodiversity. Among the myriad inhabitants of these reefs are cone shells, a predatory mollusc that hunts with darts that deliver 200 distinct toxic compounds.

The drug Ziconotide exactly copies one cone shell’s toxic peptide, and is not just 1,000 times more potent than morphine, but also avoids the tolerance and dependency that opioids can cause. To date, of all the 700 cone snail species, only six have been scrutinized in detail, and of the potentially thousands of unique compounds they harbour, only 100 have been studied in detail. Coral reefs and all their occupants are being destroyed at alarming rates.

Providing chemical compounds is not the only way biodiversity is crucial to our health. A surprising array of species have helped revolutionize medical knowledge. Zebrafish have been central to our knowledge of how organs, especially the heart, form; a microscopic roundworm has led to an understanding of ‘programmed cell death’ (apoptosis) which not only regulates organ growth, but which, when disrupted, can cause cancer. Fruit flies and bacterial species were principal contributors to research that mapped the human genome.

There may be undiscovered species which, like scientific laboratory animals, possess attributes rendering them particularly well suited for studying and treating human disease. Should these species be lost, their secrets will be lost with them.

What’s driving biodiversity loss?

The main factor currently driving biodiversity loss is habitat destruction—on land; in streams, rivers, and lakes; and in the oceans.

Unless we significantly reduce our use of fossil fuels, climate change alone is anticipated to threaten with extinction approximately one quarter or more of all species on land by the year 2050, surpassing even habitat loss as the biggest threat to life on land.

Species in the oceans and in fresh water are also at great risk from climate change, especially those like corals that live in ecosystems uniquely sensitive to warming temperatures, but the full extent of that risk has not yet been calculated.

© UNICEF/Zar Mon

Healthy planet, healthy humans

Losses to biodiversity impinge on human health in numerous ways. Ecosystem disruption and the loss of biodiversity have major impacts on the emergence, transmission, and spread of many human infectious diseases. The pathogens for 60 per cent of human infectious diseases, for example malaria and COVID, are zoonotic, meaning they have entered our bodies after having lived in other animals.

The virus that causes HIV/AIDS, and which has killed over 40 million people to date, likely made the species jump from chimpanzees butchered for bushmeat in West Central Africa. All in all, there may be 10,000 zoonotic viruses capable of jumping species to us circulating silently in the wild today.

This makes the One Health approach - a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach that brings together various intergovernmental agencies, governments and local and regional actors to tackle human health and environmental health together - critical to minimizing the risk of future disease spillover.

Selfishly, if the natural world is healthy, we will be too.

Planetary life insurance

A key challenge for organizations working to preserve biodiversity is to convince others – policymakers and the public in particular – that human beings and our health are fundamentally reliant on the animals, plants, and microbes we share this small planet with. We are totally dependent on the goods and services the natural world provides, and we have no other choice but to preserve it.

The World Economic Forum estimates that half of the world’s GDP ($44 trillion) depends on nature. Globally, the pharmaceutical industry’s annual revenue is $1.27 trillion, and each year healthcare in the US alone costs over $4 trillion.

In comparison, the amount of money needed to close the finance gap to conserve biodiversity is only $700 billion a year. For planetary health and life insurance, that figure is not just a bargain, it’s a necessity.

Humans cannot exist outside of nature. Protecting the plants, animals, and microbes we share our small planet with is not voluntary, for it is these organisms that create the support systems that make all life on Earth, including human life, possible.

The story is based on the UN Development Programme (UNDPOpens in new window)

 booklet, How Our Health Depends on BiodiversityOpens in new window.

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Why biodiversity is good for our health

COP15: Xi calls for harmonious co-existence between man and nature

First Voice



Editor's note: CGTN's First Voice provides instant commentary on breaking stories. The daily column clarifies emerging issues and better defines the news agenda, offering a Chinese perspective on the latest global events.

"A sound ecosystem is essential for the prosperity of civilization," Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday as he reiterated China's commitment to elevating global biodiversity governance to a new height. "We must work together to promote harmonious co-existence between man and nature, build a community of all life on the Earth, and create a clean and beautiful world for us all."

Xi made the remarks as part of his address via video link at the opening ceremony of the high-level segment of the second part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Montreal, Canada.

China holds the COP15 presidency. The first part of the UN biodiversity conference was held virtually in Kunming, the capital city of China's Yunnan Province, from October 11 to 15, 2021 that concluded with the adoption of the Kunming Declaration.

Emphasizing that China has promoted ecological progress and biodiversity protection, Xi noted that this has led to an improvement in the diversity, stability and sustainability of the ecosystem over the decades. "We have found a path of biodiversity protection with Chinese characteristics," he said.

The Chinese President promised that going forward, China will continue to advance ecological progress, and plan its development in the context of promoting harmonious co-existence between man and nature. "We will respond to the Action Plan for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and launch a large number of key projects on biodiversity protection and restoration. We will deepen international exchanges and cooperation," Xi said.

"We will do our best to provide support and assistance to fellow developing countries through the Belt and Road Initiative International Green Development Coalition and the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, so as to elevate global biodiversity governance to a new height," he added.

The ongoing COP15 is the biggest biodiversity conference in a decade. A total of 167 ministerial representatives from 155 parties and two observer states are attending the COP15 high-level meeting from December 15 to 17. Senior representatives of 71 international organizations and institutions are also in attendance. A total of 18 ministers and 35 heads of international organizations are expected to deliver speeches at the high-level meeting over the next three days.

The UN biodiversity conference has caught worldwide attention as it is expected to agree on a Global Biodiversity Framework for the coming decade, believed to have the potential to be a "Paris moment" for nature and biodiversity. More than 20 targets are included in the draft agreement for the framework, including the fundamental pledge to protect 30 percent of the world's land and seas by 2030, as well as objectives to eliminate harmful fishing and agricultural subsidies, tackle invasive species and reduce pesticides.

The prickly issue of biodiversity financing

China hosts the ongoing high-level segment of the second part of COP15 in Montreal, Canada. /CFP

Negotiations at the COP15 started last week and have entered a critical stage with just days left for discussion over the outcome document on reversing global biodiversity loss. Significant differences remain between the parties at COP15, chief among them the issue of how much must the developed nations pay the developing countries to assist them in saving ecosystems, and whether a new, special fund can be established for this purpose.

The Global South, home to most of the world's biological diversity, is demanding a special Global Biodiversity Fund (GBF) to help them meet goals, for example by setting up protected areas. But wealthy countries are reluctant and do not favor the idea. They are proposing instead to make existing financial mechanisms more accessible.

A number of developing nations, including India, Brazil, Indonesia and many African countries are also seeking funding of $100 billion yearly, or one percent of global GDP, until 2030. Current financial flows from high-income countries to lower-income ones are in the order of $10 billion per year.

Disagreements over the prickly issue of biodiversity financing led to a walkout by negotiators from developing nations overnight Tuesday and caused a temporary halt in talks, according to reports. China showed the right leadership and held a crisis meeting of heads of delegations on Wednesday to convince all parties to return to the negotiating table ahead of the start of the high-level segment.

China hopes that the parties could arrive at a consensus for a larger cause. As President Xi said in his address: "Humanity lives in a community with a shared future. Be it in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, or in enhancing biodiversity protection and achieving sustainable development globally, solidarity and cooperation is the only effective way to address global challenges."

As the presiding country, China also hopes that all the goals and commitments achieved at this conference will be acceptable to all parties and stand the test of time. The framework should balance ambition and pragmatism, and a resource mobilization system commensurate with the goals of the framework must be established to ensure its effective implementation and mobilize the full participation of a wide range of parties and stakeholders.

The key to the success of the COP15 endeavor could be found in the old Chinese saying that Xi cited in his address: "All living things should flourish without harming each other; all ways of life should thrive without hindering each other."

Through its experience, recent efforts and visionary leadership, China has demonstrated its commitment to open a new chapter "in building a community of all life on the Earth and create a bright future of harmonious co-existence between man and nature." It is now for the rest of the world to act in the interest of a shared future for humanity.