Ecology: Exploring the evidence behind the ‘wood-wide web’

Nature Ecology & Evolution

February 14, 2023

Citation bias and the over-interpretation of results could be leading to a misinterpretation of common mycorrhizal networks — the ‘wood-wide web’— and their role in forests, a Perspective published in Nature Ecology & Evolution argues. The findings, based on literature reviews and citation analysis, suggest that three common claims about the networks of mycorrhizal fungi are insufficiently supported by scientific evidence.

Many plant species, including forest trees, benefit from partnerships with mycorrhizal fungi, which live on plants’ roots and spread in vast networks under the forest floor. That trees can communicate with each other through these fungal networks, for example by sending warning signals to their offspring when damaged, has gained recent traction in the popular media and scientific literature. However, the role of these networks has been debated.

Justine Karst and colleagues analysed evidence for three common claims about common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs) from the media and scientific literature. The authors find that claims that CMNs are widespread in forests and that they transfer resources and increase seedling performance are insufficiently supported because the results from field studies vary, have alternative explanations or are too limited to support generalizations. They also find that claims that older trees communicate with offspring through CMNs are not supported by any peer-reviewed or published evidence. To examine citations, the authors looked at how 593 papers on CMN structure and 1,083 papers on CMN function referenced findings from 18 early influential papers. They found citations making unsupported statements have risen to 25% for CMN structure and almost 50% for CMN function, and also document a bias toward citing positive effects.

The authors conclude that claims about the positive effects of CMNs are disconnected from the available evidence. They indicate that further research is needed to explore these networks.

This press release refers to a Nature Ecology & Evolution Perspective piece, not a Nature Ecology & Evolution research article. A Perspective is a format for scholarly reviews and discussions of the primary research literature. They are peer reviewed.

doi:10.1038/s41559-023-01986-1

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/the-word-for-world-is-forest

The Word for World is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin 

The Word for World Is Forest was originally published in the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions in 1972. It was published as a standalone book in 1976 by ...

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ursula-k-le-guin-the-word-for-world-is-forest-1

The Word for World Is Forest | The Anarchist Library 

Written in the glare of the United States' war on Indochina, and first published as a separate book in that war's dire aftermath, The Word for World is Forest ...

Natural hazards: Global threat of glacial lake outburst floods assessed

Nature Communications

February 8, 2023

About 15 million people globally could be under threat from glacial lake outburst floods — with populations living in High Mountains Asia (India, Pakistan, China) and the Andes (Peru and Bolivia) the most exposed to this danger — suggests a study published in Nature Communications. The paper reports that more than half of the globally exposed population are found in just four countries: India, Pakistan, Peru, and China.

As climate warming melts glaciers, melt water can collect to form lakes close to glaciers. These lakes represent a substantial natural hazard in the form of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). These floods can often happen with little prior warning when a natural dam containing a glacial lake fails. GLOFs have the potential to damage property and infrastructure and have previously resulted in extensive loss of life.

Tom Robinson, Caroline Taylor and colleagues present a global compilation of glacial lake conditions, exposure, and vulnerability mapping, to quantify and rank the damage potential from GLOFs in 2020. They found that populations living in India, Pakistan, China, Peru, and Bolivia are the most exposed. The authors highlight the Andes as an under-studied hotspot of GLOF danger and suggest that this region should be targeted for more detailed study. They note that areas with the highest danger are not those with the largest, most numerous, or most rapidly growing glacial lakes, but rather the number of people within the region and their capacity to cope with disaster that is central to their risk.

By identifying regions with the highest GLOF danger, the findings could allow for more targeted GLOF risk management. How GLOF danger might change in the future remains subject to debate. As glaciers continue to recede owing to climate change, existing glacial lakes will expand and many new lakes will form, altering the spatial pattern of GLOF danger. Further research is required to evaluate temporal changes in lake conditions, exposure, and vulnerability to determine the relative roles of each for GLOF risk.

Glacial lake outburst floods threaten millions globally | Nature Communications

Shell lawsuit: Institutional investors back legal challenge over climate risk

BY:CITY AM REPORTER


A group of European institutional investors is backing a novel London lawsuit against energy giant Shell’s board over alleged climate mismanagement in a case that could have far-reaching implications for how companies tackle emissions.

Client Earth, an environmental law charity turned activist Shell investor, said it had filed a High Court claim on Wednesday, alleging Shell’s 11 directors have failed to manage the “material and foreseeable” risks posed to the company by climate change – and that they are breaking company law.

It is the first, notable lawsuit by a shareholder against a board over the alleged failure to properly prepare for a shift away from fossil fuels – and comes one week after Shell posted a record $40 billion profit for 2022, partly fuelled by the energy crunch after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Shell rejected the allegations, saying its climate targets were ambitious and on track and that its directors complied with their legal duties and acted in the company’s best interests.

READ MORE
Equinor joins rivals Shell and BP with record £23.8bn profits as Norwegian energy giant props up Europe’s gas supplies

Carbon conflict: Shell struggles with green agenda

Shell has ramped up spending on renewable energy and low-carbon technologies.

But British pension funds London CIV and Nest, Swedish pension fund AP3, French asset manager Sanso IS, Degroof Petercam Asset Management in Belgium and Denmark’s Danske Bank Asset Management and Danica Pension and AP Pension are among those to have written letters supporting the claim.

The investor group has around £450bn ($543bn) in assets under management collectively, and owns about 12m of Shell’s seven billion shares.

London CIV said its Shell stake was a “primary hotspot of risk and exposure within our portfolio”.

“We hope the whole energy industry sits up and takes notice,” added Mark Fawcett, Nest’s chief investment officer.

If judges allow the so-called derivative action to proceed, it could encourage investors in other companies, including in those funding carbon emitters, to litigate against boards that fail to adequately manage climate-related risks, experts say.

Some banks are reducing their funding of fossil fuel companies.

The case comes two years after Shell was ordered to slash carbon emissions in a landmark Dutch climate case.

Shell, which is appealing, plans to reduce the carbon intensity of its products – which measures greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy produced – by 20 per cent by 2030, 45 per cent by 2035 and by 100 per cent by 2050 from 2016 levels.

According to third-party assessments, the strategy excludes short to medium-term targets to cut the absolute emissions from products Shell sells, known as Scope 3 emissions, although they account for more than 90 per cent of overall emissions, Client Earth said.

“The board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed, leaving the company seriously exposed to the risks that climate change poses to Shell’s future success – despite the board’s legal duty to manage those risks,” said Client Earth’s senior lawyer Paul Benson.

The UK Companies Act imposes a legal duty on directors to promote the success of businesses.

Client Earth declined to divulge which other companies it has invested in.

Reuters – Kirstin Ridley, additional reporting by Simon Jessop and Shadia Nasralla

 MIND THE GAP

U.S. Gen Z is historically slow getting driver's licenses. Boomers aren't letting theirs go.

PETER WEBER

FEB.14,2023

Olivia Rodrigo is, evidently, an anomaly. Unlike the singer, who got her driver's license at age 16 in 2020 and recorded a hit song about it a year later, most members of Generation Z (born 1996 to 2012) do not get their license before age 18 anymore, according to Federal Highway Administration data and multiple surveys. In 2021, 25 percent of U.S. 16-year-olds and 42 percent of 17-year-olds had a driver's license. 

In 1997, 43 percent of 16-year-olds and 62 percent of 17-year-olds had their driver's license, The Washington Post noted Monday. "Even older members of Gen Z are lagging behind their millennial counterparts. In 1997, almost 90 percent of 20- to 25 year-olds had licenses; in 2020, it was only 80 percent." 

U.S. Driver's Licenses, 2021

Federal Highway Administration

The Post runs through several reasons for this shift away from car culture — cost of auto insurance, fear of accidents, environmental and climate concerns, comfort with public transportation, and ride-sharing apps, among them. "If there's an emergency, I'll call an Uber or 911," Philadelphia resident Madison Corr, 24, told the Post.

But if Gen Z is shunning cars, the Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) are holding tight to the wheel. In 2021, 91 percent of older boomers — age 70 to 74 — had a driver's license, versus about 85 percent in 1997. And an eye-catching 69 percent of Americans 85 and older still had their driver's license in 2021 (including 88 percent of 85+ men). That's a "hefty increase from 43 percent in 1997," the Post notes.

"Millennials went through a similar phase" in their teen years, the Post reports, and though many of them got their license and joined the commuting masses when they got married, had kids, and/or moved out of urban centers, they still drive less than Gen X and the boomers at similar life stages, according to a 2021 study. 

"It's too early to tell if the same will be true for Generation Z," the Post writes. After all, "its youngest members are only 10 years old, and the COVID-19 pandemic has likely interrupted some driving plans of older Gen Zers." But if the trend holds, U.S. carbon emissions will drop, as will car sales, and public policy will have to adapt. You can read more about Gen Z and driving at The Washington Post.

Biden fires Architect of the Capitol amid report he abused his office, impersonated a cop

PETER WEBER

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Biden fired Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton on Monday, three years into his 10-year term, after reviewing a report by the office's inspector general that accused Blanton of abuses of office, the White House said. The report, issued in October, said Blanton and his family used his government vehicle as their personal car, and accused Blanton of impersonating a police officer. 

Blanton was appointed by former President Donald Trump, but there was broad bipartisan support for his dismissal. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) joined those calling for his exit on Monday.

The Architect of the Capitol manages operations and preservation of the Capitol building and grounds, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress, overseeing a federal agency with about 2,400 workers. The architect also sits on the board of the Capitol Police. Blanton's job got significantly more tenuous after a Feb. 9 House Administration Committee hearing at which he defended not coming to work at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as a "prudent" decision "because of the security situation" at the besieged Capitol.

Lawmakers said Blanton also failed to adequately address the allegations in the inspector general's report, which found "administrative, ethical, and policy violations," as well as "evidence of criminal violations." During the hearing, Blanton said he "wholeheartedly" rejected "any assertion that I have engaged in unethical behavior" in "this particular role," and said the inspector general's report was "filled with errors," though he also said he did not read the entire thing. 

The Oct. 26, 2022, report said Blanton used his official car for errands and family vacations, and let his wife and adult daughter drive it when he wasn't present. The daughter "transported both her friends and boyfriend in the vehicle and referred to using the AOC's fuel as 'free gas,'" the report said. Blanton also used his work vehicle's emergency lights and siren to chase down a vehicle he believed hit his daughter's boyfriend's car, and identified himself as "law enforcement," the driver's lawyer said, though Blanton denied doing so. Blanton's credentials "specifically do not delegate law enforcement authority," the report said. 

Replacing Blanton will involve "a long and arduous process that could take months or years," Politico reports. Ordinarily, the deputy architect would take over in the interim, but that position is currently vacant, so the chief of operations — Joseph DiPietro, who began the job Monday — will fill the void.

NATO should hold meeting over Nord Stream blasts after recent findings, Russia says

Gas leak at Nord Stream 2 as seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark, on September 27, 2022. (Reuters)

Reuters
Published: 12 February ,2023

NATO should hold an emergency meeting to discuss recent findings about the September explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said late on Saturday.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970, said in a blog post on Wednesday, citing an unidentified source, that US navy divers had destroyed the pipelines, with explosives on the orders of President Joe Biden.

The White House dismissed as “utterly false and complete fiction” the claim that the United States was behind explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which send Russian gas to Germany.

Sweden and Denmark, in whose exclusive economic zones the blasts occurred, have concluded the pipelines were blown up deliberately, but have not said who might be responsible.

The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have called the incident “an act of sabotage.” Moscow has blamed the West for the unexplained explosions that caused the ruptures. Neither side has provided evidence.

“There are more than enough facts here: the explosion of the pipeline, the presence of a motive, circumstantial evidence obtained by journalists,” Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging platform.

“So, when will an emergency NATO summit meet to review the
situation?”

NATO did not immediately respond to Reuters request for a comment.

Singapore commuters keep masks on despite discarded COVID-19 public transport rule

On the first day where masks were no longer required to be worn on public buses or trains, CNA observed most people taking off their face coverings after alighting from a ride or exiting a station.


Ang Hwee Min@HweeMinCNA
13 Feb 2023 

SINGAPORE: Mask-wearing on public transport in Singapore ceased to be mandatory on Monday (Feb 13) but most commuters were seen retaining their face coverings while on trains and buses Monday morning.

A multi-ministry task force announced last week that from Monday, it would no longer require masks to be worn on public transport, as Singapore steps down its disease alert level for COVID-19 to the lowest.

But a 37-year-old lawyer, who only wanted to be known as Mr Ang, kept his mask on for his train commute on the North-South Line from Ang Mo Kio to his Raffles Place workplace on Monday morning.

"The train was really crowded," he told CNA. "For me, I just recovered from an illness so it's more out of consideration for others as well ... It's just more socially responsible."

He observed that about 90 to 95 per cent of other people on the train were also wearing a mask.

"Eventually (I will stop wearing one). But for now, probably out of precaution, because it has worked so far, so why change something that has worked?" said Mr Ang, adding that trains and buses were more enclosed than other indoor areas.

"Over the next two weeks, if cases get higher and then we'll see if it actually works."

Waiting at Dover MRT station to catch a bus to Bukit Merah was Ms Patricia Yap, a personal assistant. She was not wearing a mask then, and was not wearing a mask either when taking a train to Dover earlier.

"It feels good, because it doesn't smear my makeup," she said, adding that the train she took this morning was less crowded.

"There are still a lot of people wearing masks, even outside. But I've not been wearing masks in indoor places since that restriction was lifted," said Ms Yap, who had been looking forward to Monday's further relaxation of public transport safeguards.

"I'm used to not wearing masks now."

From 8am to 9am on a crowded East-West Line train with people making their way to work, only a handful of commuters in each cabin chose not to wear a mask, CNA observed.

On the slightly less packed Circle and North-East Lines, commuters had more standing room. But CNA observed most passengers still continuing to wear a mask, with some putting them on specifically for when they were about to board a train.

After alighting from the trains or exiting the stations, many commuters removed their masks.

Related:

Mask-wearing no longer mandatory on public transport from Feb 13, as Singapore steps down COVID-19 restrictions

Commentary: Here’s why I’ll continue wearing masks on Singapore public transport

Singapore to scrap all COVID-19 border measures from Feb 13

Ms Irit Regev, a 52-year-old tourist from Israel, alighted at Raffles Place station and removed her mask after stepping outside. She wore one for her short train ride from City Hall MRT station.

While researching her trip to Singapore, she knew that Monday was the first day that masks would be optional on public transport - but chose to wear one all the same.

"Because a lot of people still had their masks on ... I'm not from here so I wore one, I thought people would give me trouble if I didn't wear it," she said.

Ms Denise Ho, 27, chose not to wear a mask as she took the North-East line to her Clarke Quay workplace at about 9am.

She said the "normalcy" reminded her of pre-pandemic times.

"Most people still had their masks on, almost 90 per cent of them. Perhaps because it's only the first day, so some adjustment is required," she said.

Although this did not influence her to keep a mask on, she admitted to feeling "slightly insecure".

Like Mr Ang the lawyer, she said she would opt to wear a mask if she was feeling unwell.

Retiree Sim Choon Fook, who took the North-East Line from Boon Keng to Chinatown MRT station, wore a mask on the train and removed it immediately after alighting.

"I nearly forgot it was today until I saw a few people not wearing one on the bus this morning," he said in Mandarin.

The 64-year-old said he would still wear a mask on trains or buses if it was crowded.

"I don't know who here on the train will be sick and coughing everywhere. So I have to protect myself."
Source: CNA/hw(jo)

BENGHAZI CROWD GOES FULL McCARTHYISM

US House Republicans Launch Probe Into COVID-19 Origins With Letter to Fauci

February 13, 2023 
Associated Press

WASHINGTON —

House Republicans kicked off an investigation Monday into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony.

The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested information from several people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, surrounding the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab.

"This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again," Representative Brad Wenstrup, chair of the virus subcommittee, said in a statement.

Representative James Comer, chairman of the oversight committee, added that Republicans will "follow the facts" and "hold U.S. government officials that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable."

The letters to Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to make good on promises made during the 2022 midterms campaign.

SEE ALSO:
Five Key House Republican Investigations

Wenstrup, who is also a longtime member of the House Intelligence Committee, has accused U.S. intelligence of withholding key facts about its investigation into the coronavirus. Republicans on the committee last year issued a staff report arguing that there are "indications" that the virus may have been developed as a bioweapon inside China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.

That would contradict a U.S. intelligence community assessment released in unclassified form in August 2021 that said analysts do not believe the virus was a bioweapon, though it may have leaked in a lab accident.

The letters sent Monday do not require the cooperation of recipients. But in announcing the Republican staff report in December, Wenstrup said that lawmakers would issue subpoenas if potential witnesses didn't cooperate.

It is extremely difficult for scientists to establish definitively how diseases emerge, but studies by experts around the world have determined that COVID-19 most likely emerged from a live animal market in Wuhan, China.

SEE ALSO:
Red Cross: World Is Dangerously Unprepared for Next Pandemic

Initially dismissed by most public health experts and government officials, the hypothesis that COVID-19 originated from an accidental lab leak began to receive scrutiny after President Joe Biden ordered an investigation into the matter in May 2021.

The 90-day review was meant to push American intelligence agencies to collect more information and review what they already had. Former State Department officials under President Donald Trump had publicly pushed for further investigation into virus origins, as had scientists and the World Health Organization. But the review proved to be inconclusive, with intelligence agencies saying that barring an unforeseen breakthrough, they wouldn't be able to conclude the origin either way.

Many scientists, including Fauci, who until December served as Biden's chief medical adviser, say they still believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to humans, a well-documented phenomenon known as a spillover event. Virus researchers have not publicly identified any new key scientific evidence that might make the lab-leak hypothesis more likely.

SEE ALSO:
Biden to End COVID-19 Emergency Declarations on May 11

But Republicans have accused Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May that the National Institutes of Health funded "gain of function" research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world — at a virology lab in Wuhan. Republican Senator Ted Cruz even urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci's statements.

Fauci, who served as the country's top infectious disease expert under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has called the GOP criticism nonsense.

SEE ALSO:
WHO: Scope, Scale of Health Emergencies Growing

Cruz and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky have previously said that an October 2021 letter from NIH to Congress contradicts Fauci. But no clear evidence or scientific consensus exists that "gain of function" research was funded by NIH, and there is no link between U.S.-funded research to the emergence of COVID-19. NIH has repeatedly maintained that its funding did not go to such research involving boosting the infectivity and lethality of a pathogen.

Nonetheless, Fauci indicated in November that he would "cooperate fully and testify" if Republicans followed through with their plans to investigate COVID's origin.

"I have no trouble testifying — we can defend and explain everything that we've said," he told reporters during a White House briefing last year.

'Are we going to die?': Trauma haunts Turkish kids after quake

Fulya OZERKAN
Mon, February 13, 2023


Serkan Tatoglu is haunted by the question his six-year-old keeps asking since their house collapsed in last week's earthquake in Turkey.

"Are we going to die?" she wonders, while looking up at scenes reminiscent of an apocalyptic movie set.

Coffins line roadsides, and ambulance sirens wail around the clock.

Walking through the rubble of flattened buildings, children watch as rescue workers lift body bags from the putrid-smelling debris.

Tatoglu helped his four children -- aged between six and 15 -- escape their house after the first 7.8-magnitude tremor rattled southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria before dawn on February 6.

Their building crumbled in one of the nearly 3,000 aftershocks. More than 35,000 have died across the region and the toll is likely to keep climbing for days.

Tatoglu lost nearly a dozen relatives.

But the 41-year-old knows he has to stand strong in the face of his unbearable heartache.

Tatoglu's first job is to shield his children from the horrors that keep popping into their heads as they wait out the aftershocks in a tent city near the quake's epicentre in southern Kahramanmaras.

"The youngest, traumatised by the aftershocks, keeps asking: 'Dad, are we going to die?'" Tatoglu said.

"She keeps asking about our relatives. I don't show them their dead bodies. My wife and I hug them and say 'everything is alright'."

- 'I can't do anything' -

Psychologist Sueda Deveci of the Doctors Worldwide Turkey volunteer organisation said adults need as much emotional support as children in the aftermath of such a tragedy.

She said older generations were quicker to internalise the profound scale of how much their lives have changed -- and just how much they have lost.

"One mother told me: 'Everyone tells me to be strong, but I can't do anything. I can't take care of my kids, I can't eat'," Deveci said while working in the tent city.

Deveci is gaining better insight into what the children are feeling from what they draw as they while away the time in the cold.

"I don't talk to them about the earthquake much. We are drawing. We will see how much of it is reflected in their drawings," she said.

For now, their art is mostly normal.

Child rights expert Esin Koman said this was because children adapt to their surroundings more quickly than adults.

But she added that the quake's destruction of existing social support networks left them dangerously exposed to long-term trauma.

"Some children have lost their families. There is nobody now to provide them with mental support," Koman said.

-'Where's my mum?'-

Psychologist Cihan Celik posted one exchange on Twitter he had with a paramedic involved in rescue work.

The paramedic told Celik that kids pulled from the rubble almost immediately asked about their missing parents.

"The wounded children ask: 'Where's my mum, where's my dad? Are you kidnapping me?'," the paramedic recalled.

Turkey's vice president Fuat Oktay said 574 children pulled from collapsed buildings were found without any surviving parents.

Only 76 had been returned to other family members.

One voluntary psychologist working in a children's support centre in Hatay province -- where the level of destruction was some of the worst in Turkey -- said numerous parents were frantically looking for missing kids.

"We receive a barrage of calls about missing children," Hatice Goz said by phone from Hatay province.

"But if the child still cannot speak, the family is unable to find them."

- Happy thoughts -

Selma Karaaslan is trying her hardest to keep her two grandchildren safe.

The 52-year-old has been living with them in a car parked along one of the debris-strewn roads of Kahramanmaras ever since the quake struck.

Karaaslan tries to talk to them about anything but the quake. She figures that they are much less likely to have haunting memories of the disaster if she fills their heads with happy thoughts.

But the questions still come.

"Grandma, will there be another earthquake?" the six-year-old demanded at one point.

fo/zak/raz/fb

China delivers aid supplies for earthquake relief in Syria, urges lifting of unilateral sanctions

By Global TimesPublished: Feb 14, 2023

Second shipment of humanitarian aid supplies provided by the Red Cross Society of China to Syria arrives in Damascus, Syria on February 13, 2023 local time. Photo: IC

A chartered plane carrying the Chinese government's first shipment of humanitarian aid supplies including first-aid kits for earthquake relief left Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu on Tuesday morning and is expected to arrive in Damascus, Syria, on February 15 local time, according to China International Development Cooperation Agency.

The supplies include 30,000 first-aid kits, 10,000 sets of cotton clothes, 300 cotton tents, 20,000 blankets and 70,000 adult pull-up diapers, as well as emergency medical equipment and supplies such as ventilators, anesthesia machines, oxygen generators and LED shadowless lamps.

In addition to supplies provided by the Red Cross Society of China to Syria that has arrived in Damascus, the second batch of humanitarian aid supplies has arrived in Damascus on Monday local time.

The supplies included cotton tents, relief kits for families, thermal outdoor jackets and other living supplies as well as medicines and other medical supplies urgently needed in the disaster area, which can benefit more than 10,000 people affected by the disaster.

Nearly a week since the most devastating earthquakes in recent history, rescuers in Turkey and Syria were searching for signs of life in freezing temperatures as the death toll surpassed 33,000.

The United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths on Sunday said in a post on Twitter that international help has "failed the people in northwest Syria," where more than 12 years of civil war have resulted in a complex political situation.

Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, on Monday called for an immediate lifting of unilateral sanctions by the countries concerned to return the "hope of survival" to children in countries like Syria.

Zhang pointed to the "harsh reality" at the UN Security Council Briefing on Children and Armed Conflict, saying that unilateral sanctions are decimating the economic foundations and development capacity of the countries affected, robbing many children of their right to development and right to survival, which are the most fundamental of all rights.

In the aftermath of the powerful earthquake in Syria, the unlawful unilateral sanctions have led to a severe shortage of heavy equipment and search and rescue tools, raising grave concerns that many children under the rubble may have perished as a result of untimely rescue or insufficient rescue capacity, Zhang said.

"We urge the countries concerned to lift all their unlawful unilateral sanctions immediately without conditions, not to become accomplices to the natural disaster, not to rob Syrian children of their hope of survival, and desist from their hypocritical political grandstanding," he said.

Zhang said children are the most innocent group and the most vulnerable victims in armed conflict, and stressed that conflict prevention and resolution must be the primary and ultimate means of protection.

The envoy highlighted the needs to seek political solutions to resolve conflict, and invest more efforts in negotiation, good offices, and mediation, instead of resorting to sanctions and other coercive measures, much less fanning the flames or adding fuel to the fire, which would only serve some parties' self-interests by prolonging and spreading conflicts.

To have that peace, it is imperative to act in accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in good faith, and that entails respecting other countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity, refraining from interference in their internal affairs, opposing maneuvers aimed at government change, and opposing the practice of creating chaos and exporting unrest in the name of counterterrorism or democracy, Zhang said.

To have that peace, it is imperative to uphold true multilateralism, strengthen dialogue and cooperation, work together to build the architecture of common security, and unequivocally reject and oppose unilateralism, the Cold War mentality, bloc politics, and confrontation between "us and them," Zhang added.

The rule of law must be the fundamental guidance for prevention, Zhang said, adding that "supporting children's development must be the overarching direction of our endeavors."

"To effectively prevent violations against children, we must enhance the spirit of rule of law, and put into practice the requirements of international law on the protection of children in armed conflicts," he said.

"The UN must coordinate humanitarian and development resources in a way that prioritizes the eradication of poverty, zero hunger, universal education, and physical and mental health in its work to protect children," Zhang added.

Zhang urged "the last country in the world" that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to act without delay, "so that this vital Convention can truly achieve universal coverage."

The US is the only country unwilling to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Global Times