OPINION

WHY THOSE EXPERIENCING "CLIMATE HELL" ARE TAKING THEIR CASE TO THE UN COURT

Those whose feet are already in the water, in the Pacific, have opened a front in the battle for climate justice before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Netherlands. Solicited by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, this Court will have to deliver an opinion with potentially major legal consequences, explains the author.

16 JUNE 2023 BY GÉRALDINE GIRAUDEAU, 

FOR THE CONVERSATION FRANCE

Two residents of Majuro Atoll, the capital of the Marshall Islands, make their way through areas flooded by extreme tides on 20 February 2011. © Giff Johnson / AFP

On March 29, 2023, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus a resolution requesting the opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on state obligations in relation to climate change. The resolution, initiated by Vanuatu, marks a decisive step from both a legal and political point of view.

Legally, the resolution poses two very general questions for the ICJ, the main judicial body of the United Nations. The Court is called to rule on States’ obligations to combat climate change "for the benefit of States and future generations", but also on the legal consequences for those who violate these obligations.

In other words, this raises the delicate question of the responsibility of greenhouse gas emitters for damage caused to other States, in particular small island developing States, as well as to the peoples and individuals affected.

Politically, the collective support for the text is a strong signal, albeit with limits. At the same time, it is emblematic of the new visibility of Oceania, and of a narrative shift: those experiencing "climate hell" have become actors pushing for change.

THE AMAZING CAMPAIGN OF PACIFIC STUDENTS

The General Assembly's approval is first and foremost a victory for civil society; coincidentally, the same day saw the opening of hearings before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in another case, that of the "Swiss pensioners" of the Elders for Climate Protection group.

It all began four years ago in a classroom at the University of the Pacific, on the campus of Port-Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. A few students, with the help of their supervisors, took up the aborted project of Palau and the Marshall Islands, which had tried in 2011 to bring the case before the ICJ.

A decade later, the context is more favourable and, above all, the campaign of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change is particularly active. In a part of the world where the effects of climate change have long been felt, the determination of those concerned is serious.

A PETITION TAKEN UP BY VANUATU

Vanuatu, a small Melanesian island state, is particularly prone to disasters, as this year's news tragically reminded us (a state of emergency had to be declared following the two-day passage of cyclones Judy and Kevin in March 2023).

The Vanuatu government then took up the young people's petition on an interstate level. At their 51st meeting in Suva, Fiji, in July 2022, the members of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) officially endorsed the request at the UN, and eventually won the support of the majority of the world's states.

This is the first time that a resolution requesting an ICJ opinion has been adopted by consensus, and at a time of crisis for multilateralism, this cohesion is not insignificant. However, its scope needs to be clarified.

CLARIFYING THE OBLIGATIONS OF STATES

Article 96 of the United Nations Charter provides that the General Assembly or the Security Council "may request the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal question".

Such opinions, given within the framework of the Court's advisory jurisdiction, have no binding legal force, but are not without effect. They have a very high moral authority and contribute to the development of the law by providing essential elements of interpretation.

In this case, the Court could give its opinion within the next two years, thereby clarifying the obligations of States in the field of climate change, in particular their obligation to cooperate.

The aim, moreover, is to influence the positions of the parties during negotiations under the climate regime, helping to boost ambitions and provide legal arguments for the most vulnerable states. Such an opinion is also likely to clarify the relationship between climate law and other areas of international law, in particular the protection of human rights and the law of the sea.

The text of the resolution refers not only to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, but also to a variety of instruments, such as the 1966 Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Montego Bay Convention.

RISK OF RESISTANCE

The more precise and substantiated the judges' opinion, the more likely it is to be effective at national level, by being taken up by domestic judges, particularly when they are approached by civil society on climate issues.

An ICJ opinion will not be enough, and the initiators of the project are themselves perfectly aware of this, as illustrated by the speech of Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau.

First of all, consensus does not mean unanimity of views. It was a pleasant surprise to see that the United States did not oppose it, whereas it had been feared like with China that it would ask for a formal vote.

The US representative, in his statement after the text was adopted, nonetheless voiced his government's "very serious concerns", arguing that a judicial process could complicate collective efforts, to the detriment of diplomatic channels.

THE RISK OF "SOFT" ANSWERS

Secondly, the judges' task will not be an easy one. The 26 opinions handed down by the ICJ, the most recent of which concerned the Chagos Archipelago, have met with varying degrees of success, not only because of the political contexts surrounding these cases, but also because the answers provided depend on the questions posed.

In this case, the questions posed by the resolution are particularly wide-ranging. First formulated by the legal advisors, they then pass through the filter of modifications discussed by the UN members supporting the text, and are thus the result of compromises.

This leaves room for the judges in The Hague to add more or less substance. However, responses that are too "soft" with regard to States' climate obligations could have detrimental effects, and thus run counter to the objective pursued.

The final risk is a clash of procedures, with two other international jurisdictions having recently been called upon.

A CLASH OF PROCEDURES?

In December 2022, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) received a request for an opinion from the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law - created by Tuvalu and Antigua and Barbuda specifically to be able to seize the Tribunal - on State obligations to protect the marine environment, in relation to climate change, under the Law of the Sea Convention.

In January 2023, Colombia and Chile requested an opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on State obligations to combat climate emergencies, under international human rights law. These interventions could usefully complement each other, but they could also, to a certain extent and in view of the timetables, diverge on certain points.

In pushing the UN to take an important step towards climate justice, the Pacific voices and those who have joined them have chosen to believe that the balance of benefits and risks is in their favour. While we can only have reasonable expectations, the ICJ's perspective on the challenge of the century could well be a significant contribution.

This article, translated by Justice Info, is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

RECOMMENDED READING


VANUATU BRINGS CLIMATE JUSTICE TO THE ICJ
PODCAST

Géraldine Giraudeau is Professor of Public Law at the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) - Université Paris-Saclay, in France. She taught for several years in the Pacific, notably at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, and devotes a significant part of her research to this region.

El Nino: How the climate pattern may prolong food inflation

The latest El Nino climate phenomenon has arrived, threatening floods in some areas of the world and droughts in others

Deutsche Welle Published 17.06.23

El Nino causes disruption to harvests around the world through major changes to the weather pattern

Deutsche Welle

El Nino, a natural climate phenomenon that alters global weather patterns, has officially returned after four years, threatening to exacerbate already elevated food inflation.

Last week, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Climate Prediction Center said that El Nino conditions are already present and are expected to "gradually strengthen" over the next six to nine months, bringing a new period of extreme weather to much of the planet.

"There is a rather high probability [of another strong El Nino period]," professor Harald Kunstmann, from Germany's Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, told DW. "If it happens, we can expect the same climate extremes and anomalies that are usually associated with this phenomenon."

El Nino, which is Spanish for Little Boy, is marked by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator.

It fuels flooding to the Americas, tropical storms to the Pacific and brings droughts to many other parts of the world, including southern Africa.

These effects cause severe disruption to fishing, agriculture and other sectors of the economy and are also known to be exacerbating the effects of climate change.

In 2016, El Nino contributed to the hottest year ever recorded and scientists are concerned it could cause new record-high global temperatures.

Earlier this month, researchers at the EU's Copernicus earth observation unit saw global surface air temperatures rise 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels for the first time.

This is the limit that world leaders agreed to put on global warming at the 2015 Paris climate summit.

"It is quite unusual to approach the 1.5-degree Celcius temperature limit in June," Kunstmann said. "It is therefore likely that we will soon exceed this limit, not only for a few weeks but for a longer period of time."

Trillions of dollars in economic losses

The economic impacts of previous El Nino seasons have often continued even after the most extreme weather conditions have passed.

Following El Nino in 1982-83, the financial effects were felt for another half decade, totaling some $4.1 trillion (€3.7 trillion), according to research from Dartmouth College in the United States.

In a paper for the US journal Science, researchers said after the 1997-98 El Nino season, the damage to global economic growth was $5.7 trillion.

"We can say with certainty that societies and economies absolutely do not just take a hit and recover," said Christopher Callahan, a PhD student in Dartmouth College's Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems, and Society program, adding that growth could be impacted for up to 14 years after El Nino, possibly longer.

The Dartmouth researchers found that the 1982-83 and 1997-98 El Nino events steered US gross domestic product (GDP) lower by some 3% in 1988 and 2003. Countries like Peru and Indonesia — where agriculture is responsible for up to 15% of GDP — bled by more than 10% in 2003.

The Dartmouth researchers estimated the negative economic effects from the latest El Nino season could reach $3 trillion between now and 2029.

"The economic impact starts with the fishing industry, which suffers tremendously because of the higher ocean temperatures," Kunstmann told DW. "Then it hits the big agricultural regions of Africa, South America and even several regions of North America. Then, if harvests are poor and infrastructure is damaged by storms, the insurance sector will also suffer."

Food, energy inflation spikes

Modeling by Bloomberg Economics published this week found that previous periods of El Nino added nearly 4 percentage points to non-energy commodity prices and 3.5 points to oil prices, weakening global food security.

Bloomberg found that inflation was around 0.75 percentage points higher in Argentina and Brazil and half a percentage point higher in the Philippines and India,

With fears that the latest El Nino phase could be the warmest and costliest ever, analysts think it also has the potential to prolong high food inflation.

The peak of post-COVID, post-stimulus price rises may have passed, but it could be several years until the return of the 2% inflation target set by the US and European central banks.

Growing warnings about El Nino have already helped coffee, sugar and cocoa prices to rise sharply in recent weeks, Germany's biggest private lender, Deutsche Bank, said in a research note last week. Other food commodities are expected to follow as harvests get impacted by severe weather events.

"[Rising prices] could have a particularly negative effect on emerging markets, where it's regularly the case that food makes up at least a third of consumer expenditure. Their geographic position also leaves them more exposed to climatic changes such as flooding, which an El Nino event makes more likely," Deutsche Bank analysts wrote.

In India, where agriculture is a cornerstone of the economy and the annual monsoon is crucial to food output, policymakers have spoken of the need to stay vigilant.

"Close and continued vigil ... is absolutely necessary, especially as the monsoon outlook and the impact of El Nino remain uncertain," Reserve Bank of India chief Shaktikanta Das said recently.

GUN CONTROL AND LGBTQ RIGHTS

Biden ends gun control speech with ‘God save the queen, man’

an hour ago


US president Joe Biden speaks during an event. File photo

Joe Biden on Friday left Americans scratching their heads with an off-the-cuff remark that was, well, royally unusual for a US president: "God save the queen, man!"

What he meant, which queen he was referring to, and why he threw in what sounded like the traditional patriotic British cry, no one could immediately tell.

Queen Elizabeth II, whom Biden met, died in September 2022 and was replaced by a king — her son Charles.

OR WAS IT CAR THEFT & LGBTQ RIGHTS

VIDEO: Biden ends speech with 'God save the Queen'

TEHRAN, Jun. 17 (MNA) – In the latest gaffe on Friday, Joe Biden unexpectedly ended a speech on gun control by saying, “God save the Queen, man” — after warning his audience they could be liable for the actions of people who steal their cars.

The 80-year-old president’s signoff confounded listeners, including journalists in the room at the University of Hartford’s campus in Connecticut.

Later Friday, deputy White House press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters that Biden “was commenting to someone in the crowd,” without further clarification.

“God Save the Queen” was the name of the British national anthem under Queen Elizabeth II, as well as a customary nationalistic statement during her 70-year reign. She died in September and was succeeded by her son, Charles III, reverting the anthem and royalist motto to “God Save the King.”

How Pyrex amassed a large fanbase who treasure hunt its cookware


By Tamia Fowlkes

The Washington Post

RETROPOLIS
June 16, 2023 

For Amanda Homrighausen, the best part of collecting antique Pyrex cookware is the hunt.

When the 41-year-old enters thrift stores looking for glassware made by the century-old brand, she says her “heart pounds a little bit,” as she wonders, “‘What am I going to find today?’ A piece of history is going to be mine, and it’s gotten harder to find.”

On TikTok and Instagram, Gen Z and millennial collectors have racked up more than a million views on videos sharing extravagant displays of Pyrex collections. Some collectors say they are searching for a rare gooseberry pink Pyrex featured on the first episode of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” On eBay, some Pyrex pieces have sold for more than $2,000.

Now, the brand that has dominated the county’s cookware industry for over a century looks questioningly toward its future.

On Monday, Instant Brands, the owner of Pyrex Cookware, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In an announcement, the company said it will acquire $132.5 million from lenders to keep the business running, restructure company finances and keep up with rising interest rates.

While consumers wonder if their favorite household dishes will vanish from store shelves, legions of Pyrex collectors are reflecting fondly on the brand’s 20th-century golden era (and stocking up on rare dishes in the meantime).

Before Corning Glass Works began producing cookware in 1915, the company was making heat-resistant glass for the bright-red signal lanterns used on railroads. The changing temperatures of a signal light would often cause glass to shatter. But in 1908, the company’s development of Nonex borosilicate glass provided a solution, a thermal shock resilient glassware with unparalleled durability.

Bessie Littleton knew her husband’s work for Corning dealt with special temperature-resistant materials. In an effort to stop cracking her favorite casserole dishes while baking sponge cake, she asked him to find something suitable for her baking needs. He brought home a sawed-off piece of battery casing. It was a rough cut of what would become America’s staple cake dish: Pyrex.

The Littletons were the first to see the potential utility of the Nonex glass in cooking. Shortly after Bessie’s first successful baking attempt, her husband pitched the idea to Corning corporate, and Pyrex was born. The Pyrex name is a combination of the word Nonex and “pie,” due to the pie-shaped appearance of the pan. In its debut collection, the company offered consumers a variety of clear glass baking dishes.

In his book, “The Generations of Corning: The Life and Times of a Global Corporation,” co-author Davis Dyer tracks the company’s transition from scientific and industrial glass production to the realm of household cookware. With the change in product, the company’s marketing gradually shifted to target women as well. “It was one of the big success stories of the pre-World War II era in terms of convenience products for the household,” Dyer said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The glass had a number of properties that stood out. It was easy to clean, you could see how your food was cooking through the transparent glass, and by 1940 special-edition collections brought colorful, intricately decorated cookware to the table for household display.

In 2023, the value of these revolutionary household items remains high among a cohort of devoted collectors.

Michael D. Barber, author of “Pyrex Passion: A Comprehensive Guide to Decorated Vintage Pyrex,” became a passionate collector after inheriting a small blue bowl from his grandmother.

Since 2003, Barber has sought to collect all of the “opal” ceramic Pyrex pieces produced between the 1940s and 1980s. Unlike the original clear Pyrex dishes, which dominated the early 1920s and 1930s, opal Pyrex dishes grew in popularity because of their variety and playful design. The 1940s and 1950s were defined by periwinkle blues and baby pinks, the 1970s by deep greens and the 1980s by a less than beloved rusty brown that colored the dishes and trays of Pyrex opal’s final years. Corning ended production of all opal Pyrex glassware in 1985, according archival documents at the Corning Museum of Glass.

Homrighausen, a follower of the 26,000-member Pyrex Collectors Facebook group, spends many of her afternoons flipping through Pyrex collectors’ guides and old editions of Family Circle magazine searching for rare dishes. She estimates that she has collected at least 2,000 antique Pyrex pieces in the last decade and is certain there are dozens of valuable pieces collecting dust in people’s basements that they just don’t know about.

“I’ve always been drawn to the colors and how pretty they are, but also how useful each dish is,” Homrighausen said. “The fact that it was mainly something that a woman used to support her household and provide her house with food and nourishment, it’s really cool to be able to actually use the pieces and still do that. And sometimes they’re 60-something years old.”

Collectors share some concern about the company’s future. Some told The Post that the allure of Pyrex’s new tempered-glass food dishes and bakeware has failed to match the magic of the special-edition 20th-century items.

In 2016, Pyrex released a Vintage Charm Inspired collection, an attempt to celebrate the nostalgia of its earliest eras. But collectors like Hormrighausen say the effect of buying a remake doesn’t feel the same.

“It’s been around for so long that I still learn things that they made,” Hormrighausen said. “I use mine as dog water bowls. I put plants in them. I use mine to serve. I think it’s cool and creative.”



By Tamia Fowlkes is a general assignment reporting intern at The Washington Post. She recently graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Before joining The Post, she worked at USA Today Network, "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC, WISC-3 TV News, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin State Journal and Isthmus. Twitter

Instant Pot and Pyrex maker Instant Brands files for bankruptcy

Amelia Pollard, Bloomberg News June 12, 2023

An Instant Brands Inc. Instant Pot is arranged for a photograph in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., on Tuesday, March 5, 2019. ,

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Instant Brands, maker of the Instant Pot pressure cooker and Pyrex glassware, filed for bankruptcy on Monday after high interest rates and the pandemic’s gnarled supply chain drained its cash, making its debts unsustainable. 

The Downers Grove, Illinois-based company listed estimated assets and liabilities of as much as US$1 billion in a bankruptcy petition filed in Texas. The Chapter 11 filing allows Instant Brands to keep operating while it seeks approval of a plan to repay creditors.

The company is slated to receive around US$133 million in debtor-in-possession financing to fund itself through the bankruptcy process, the company said in a statement. Instant Brands is owned by private equity firm Cornell Capital, which oversees around $6 billion in capital, according to its website. 

“After successfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and the global supply chain crisis, we continue to face additional global macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges that have affected our business,” Ben Gadbois, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said in the statement.

Over the last three years, the company has faced a “parade of significant macroeconomic and company-specific headwinds,” Adam Hollerbach, the firm’s chief restructuring officer, said in a court filing on Tuesday.

The kitchenware company initially benefited from the pandemic, but the surge in demand ultimately stretched wait times for products, and drove up the cost of goods, according to court papers. Those conditions worsened when a series of crucial Asian ports shut down in 2021.

Sales and profit started to slide and in a last-ditch effort to stay afloat, the company completed a debt deal in January to raise new money and buy the firm some time. The so-called drop-down transaction — which was infamously pioneered by J. Crew — is a complex debt maneuver that transfers some of its most valuable assets into a new unit. 

With its bankruptcy filing, Instant Brands joins a slate of companies that have completed so-called liability management deals in recent months, only to wind up in Chapter 11 anyway. Other major firms that have followed this trajectory include Diebold Nixdorf, Incora and Envision Healthcare. 

The Instant Pot pressure cooker, which first launched on Amazon in 2010, enjoyed an explosion of popularity in the following years. Nearly a decade later, the firm was bought by Corelle Brands, known for its kitchen products including Pyrex and Snapware.

The case is Instant Brands Acquisition Holdings Inc., 23-90716, US Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas.

Probe Agency NIA To Investigate Attack On Indian Missions In US And Canada

A grenade was also thrown during the protest at the High Commission of India in Canada, which is why Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Explosives Act provisions have been invoked in the FIR.

HINDUTVA SECRET POLICE 

HUNT DOWN SIKH PROTESTERS

India News

Reported by Mukesh Singh Sengar, Edited by Akhil Kumar

Updated: June 17, 2023 11:44 

The Indian Consulate in US's San Francisco was also attacked by Khalistan supporters in March.

New Delhi:

After London, India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) will now also probe the attacks on the Indian diplomatic missions in Canada and the US. The Special Cell of Delhi Police have registered two separate cases on the attacks under the stringent anti terror law, UAPA. Sources say the Home Ministry will soon transfer them to the NIA.

First Information Reports, or FIR, have been filed on the attacks in March 2023 by Khalistan supporters when the police were on the hunt for the since-arrested separatist Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh.

A grenade was also thrown during the protest at the High Commission of India in Canada, which is why Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Explosives Act provisions have been invoked in the FIR.

The Indian Consulate in US's San Francisco was also attacked by Khalistan supporters in March, and the FIR in this case too includes provisions of the UAPA.

The NIA is already investigating the attack on Indian High Commission in London after registering a case regarding the insult of the tricolour flag. NIA officials have gone to London for investigation, and the probe agency has also released photographs of 45 suspected attackers.

The NIA had on Monday released five videos and sought the help of the public in identifying individuals involved in the protests in London.

Post a commentThe nearly two-hour-long footage from CCTVs was posted by the NIA on its website, and the link was shared on its official Twitter handle.

Aliens must now ask each other: are we the baddies?

16th June 

By Robert McNeil 

Columnist 

The Scottish Herald

THE world went UFO-mad this week. By “world”, I mean the United States, which is kinda the same thing. At any rate, extra-terrestrial developments there were widely reported here, with the most worrying claim being that some aliens are malevolent and have killed people.

Damn. I’d predicated all my hopes on the aliens being kind and rescuing us from the Earthlings. David Grusch, a Pentagon whistleblower who served 14 years in the US Air Force, said: “The logical fallacy there is because they’re advanced, they’re kind.” Fair point. People were kinder in the 1950s than they are now.

Mr Grusch bases his claim of extra-terrestrial malevolence on “witness testimony”, provided to him in briefings. I see. Over the last week, he has also gone public with claims that the US government has been lying for decades about discovering UFOs and extra-terrestrials.

The whistleblower, who represented the National Reconnaissance Office at meetings with the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (formerly UFO) Task Force, says the US runs a reverse-engineering programme using UFO technology and is in an arms race with Russia and China to deploy it for benignly violent purposes.

Sensationally, Mr Grusch also claimed the US government would do anything to protect the secret, including killing people. “I’ve heard some reallyw un-American things I don’t want to repeat right now,” he hinted darkly.

The problem with all this, as with the malevolent Earthlings claim, is that Mr Grusch’s information is all second-hand. He was told about it by others involved. Meanwhile, yon Pentagon denied any knowledge of the programme, but pretended it would investigate his claims. In a third explosive claim this week, Mr Grusch claimed Pope Pius XII acted as a go-between during the Second World War to ensure a crashed UFO was moved from Italy to the US. He said the Catholic Church was “certainly” aware of “non-human” existence on Earth. Adding to the sinister vibe, the Vatican declined to comment.

However, Nick Pope, no relation and a former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator, said of the extra-terrestrial phenomenon: “Gone are the days when it was regarded as part fringe, part-science fiction, and part conspiracy theory.” Pretty sure these days are still here, mate.

All this was just the tip of the UFO iceberg this week. A top attorney involved in bringing whistleblowers to Congress claimed a UFO recovered by the US military “distorted space-time”. When investigators entered it, they found it “bigger on the inside”. Er, think that was Dr Who, mate.

Meanwhile, a study revealed Virginia would be the safest state in the event of alien attack, with plentiful cover available in caves and woodland, while the wide open landscape and high number of UFO sightings made the West Coast most dangerous. Finally, someone posted film on yon YouTube of a UFO flying into Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico. He said magnetic jiggery-pokery therein made it a portal to another universe. I see. You are busy people, so on your behalf I’ve examined this evidence. It’s certainly interesting though, if you remove “desired sight” from your imagination, the “UFO” could be a meteor or drone. Still, any portal in a storm, eh?

Greater Mekong Proves an Ark of Biodiversity, With 380 New Species in a Year


The most urgent threats to the region’s wildlife and habitats include the construction of hydropower dams, climate change, illegal wildlife trade, and loss of natural habitats.


By Liz Kimbrough

June 17, 2023 

Mongabay 

Scientists described 380 new-to-science species from the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia between 2021 and 2022.

Researchers working in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam identified 290 plant, 19 fish, 24 amphibian, 46 reptile and one mammal species, including a thick-thumbed bat, a color-changing lizard, and a Muppet-looking orchid.

However, many of these species already face the threat of extinction due to human activity, prompting advocates to call for increased protection of their habitats by regional governments.

The most urgent threats to the region’s wildlife and habitats include the construction of hydropower dams, climate change, illegal wildlife trade, and loss of natural habitats.

A thick-thumbed bat, a color-changing lizard, and a Muppet-looking orchid are just a few of the 380 new-to-science species found and described in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia between 2021 and 2022.

In a report released this week by WWF, researchers highlight the remarkable diversity in this underexplored hotbed of life. The report documents the collaborative efforts of hundreds of scientists who ventured into Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam to survey the biodiversity there in what is sometimes called the Indo-Burma hotspot. They identified 290 plant, 19 fish, 24 amphibian, 46 reptile and one mammal species.

“These remarkable species may be new to science but they have survived and evolved in the Greater Mekong region for millions of years, reminding us humans that they were there a very long time before our species moved into this region,” said K. Yoganand, WWF-Greater Mekong regional wildlife lead. “We have an obligation to do everything to stop their extinction and protect their habitats, and help their recovery.”

The report highlights several notable new species, including the Cambodian blue-crested agama (Calotes mystaceus), an aggressive lizard known for changing color to defend itself against predators.

The Suzhen’s krait (Bungarus suzhenae), an extremely venomous snake named after Bai Su Zhen, a snake goddess from a popular traditional Chinese myth, the Legend of White Snake, was described in 2021.

Another find is the Hayes’ thick-thumbed myotis (Myotis hayesi), a bat with unique fleshy thumbs that distinguish it as a separate species. A preserved specimen of the bat had been stored in a Hungarian museum for 20 years before its identification.

The report also mentions Khoi’s mossy frog (Theloderma khoii), so named for its mossy-green skin that allows it to blend in with lichens and moss. Additionally, scientists described the miniature orchid Dendrobium fuscifaucium, which displays vibrant pink and bright yellow colors reminiscent of the Muppets who sang the song “Mah na mah na.”

However, many of these newly described species already face the threat of extinction due to human activity, prompting WWF to call for increased protection of their habitats by regional governments.

For instance, Cleyera bokorensis, an evergreen shrub, is threatened by the development of a Cambodian casino. Likewise, the Thai crocodile newt (Tylototriton thaiorum) in Vietnam is threatened by agricultural encroachment, logging, and its use in traditional medicine.

“To reverse the rapid biodiversity loss in the region, more concerted, science based, and urgent efforts need to be made, and conservation measures need more attention from governments, NGOs and the public,” said Truong Q. Nguyen, one of the report authors from the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

Nguyen emphasized the need for immediate action and the adoption of advanced technologies like bioacoustics and genetic sequencing to learn what lives in this biodiversity hotspot.

The Greater Mekong region is a vast area that straddles six countries in Asia: China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The region covers an area of 81 million hectares (200 million acres), an area roughly the size of Texas and Arkansas.

The Mekong River is at the heart of the region, stretching some 4,900 kilometers (3,000 miles) from the Tibetan Plateau to the South China Sea. The Mekong River is the largest inland fishery in the world, providing a livelihood for millions of people and accounting for up to 25% of the global freshwater catch.

The region is home to iconic animals such as Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), tigers (Panthera tigris), Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica) and giant freshwater stingrays (Urogymnus polylepis). Since 1997, the total number of plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals described in the Greater Mekong region has reached 3,389 species.

The rapid social and economic development in the Greater Mekong region poses significant challenges for conservation efforts. The most urgent threats to the region’s wildlife and habitats include the construction of hydropower dams, climate change, illegal wildlife trade, and loss of natural habitats.

“While the Mekong region is a global biodiversity hotspot, it is also experiencing a vast array of threats,” Nilanga Jayasinghe, WWF-US Asian species manager, said in a statement. “We must continue to invest in the protection and conservation of nature, so these magnificent species don’t disappear before we know of their existence.”

—

This post was previously published on news.mongabay.com and under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.

BEFORE ASSANGE, MANNING, SNOWDON 

RIP

Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked Pentagon Papers, dies at 92

17 Jun 2023, 

Daniel Ellsberg, the famed whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers exposing the US government's doubts and deceit about the Vietnam War, has died at the age of 92

Daniel Ellsberg dies: 'His cause of death was pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed on February 17. He was not in pain, and was surrounded by loving family,' his wife and children said in a statement. (AFP)


NEW YORK: Daniel Ellsberg, the history-making whistleblower who by leaking the Pentagon Papers revealed longtime government doubts and deceit about the Vietnam War and inspired acts of retaliation by President Richard Nixon that helped lead to his resignation, has died. He was 92.

Ellsberg, whose actions led to a landmark First Amendment ruling by the Supreme Court, had disclosed in February that he was terminally ill with pancreatic cancer. His family announced his death Friday morning in a letter released by a spokeswoman, Julia Pacetti.

“He was not in pain, and was surrounded by loving family," the letter reads in part. “Thank you, everyone, for your outpouring of love, appreciation and well-wishes to Dan in the previous months. It all warmed his heart at the end of his life."


Until the early 1970s, when he disclosed that he was the source for the stunning media reports on the 47-volume, 7,000-page Defense Department study of the U.S. role in Indochina, Ellsberg was a well-placed member of the government-military elite. He was a Harvard graduate and self-defined “cold warrior" who served as a private and government consultant on Vietnam throughout the 1960s, risked his life on the battlefield, received the highest security clearances and came to be trusted by officials in Democratic and Republican administrations.

He was especially valued, he would later note, for his “talent for discretion."

But like millions of other Americans, in and out of government, he had turned against the yearslong war in Vietnam, the government’s claims that the battle was winnable and that a victory for the North Vietnamese over the U.S.-backed South would lead to the spread of communism throughout the region. Unlike so many other war opponents, he was in a special position to make a difference.


“An entire generation of Vietnam-era insiders had become just as disillusioned as I with a war they saw as hopeless and interminable," he wrote in his 2002 memoir, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers." “By 1968, if not earlier, they all wanted, as I did, to see us out of this war."

The Pentagon Papers had been commissioned in 1967 by then-Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, a leading public advocate of the war who wanted to leave behind a comprehensive history of the U.S. and Vietnam and to help his successors avoid the kinds of mistakes he would only admit to long after. The papers covered more than 20 years, from France’s failed efforts at colonization in the 1940s and 1950s to the growing involvement of the U.S., including the bombing raids and deployment of hundreds of thousands of ground troops during Lyndon Johnson’s administration. Ellsberg was among those asked to work on the study, focusing on 1961, when the newly-elected President John F. Kennedy began adding advisers and support units.


As much as anyone, Ellsberg embodied the individual of conscience — who answered only to his sense of right and wrong, even if the price was his own freedom. David Halberstam, the late author and Vietnam War correspondent who had known Ellsberg since both were posted overseas, would describe him as no ordinary convert. He was highly intelligent, obsessively curious and profoundly sensitive, a born proselytizer who “saw political events in terms of moral absolutes" and demanded consequences for abuses of power.

As much as anyone, Ellsberg also embodied the fall of American idealism in foreign policy in the 1960s and 1970s and the upending of the post-World War II consensus that Communism, real or suspected, should be opposed worldwide.


The Pentagon Papers were first published in The New York Times in June 1971, with The Washington Post, The Associated Press and more than a dozen others following. They documented that the U.S. had defied a 1954 settlement barring a foreign military presence in Vietnam, questioned whether South Vietnam had a viable government, secretly expanded the war to neighboring countries and had plotted to send American soldiers even as Johnson vowed he wouldn’t.

The Johnson administration had dramatically and covertly escalated the war despite the “judgment of the Government’s intelligence community that the measures would not" weaken the North Vietnamese, wrote the Times’ Neil Sheehan, a former Vietnam correspondent who later wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the war, “A Bright Shining Lie."


The leaker’s identity became a national guessing game and Ellsberg proved an obvious suspect, because of his access to the papers and his public condemnation of the war over the previous two years. With the FBI in pursuit, Ellsberg turned himself in to authorities in Boston, became a hero to the antiwar movement and a traitor to the war’s supporters, labeled the “most dangerous man in America" by National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, with whom Ellsberg had once been friendly.

The papers themselves were seen by many as an indictment not just of a given president or party, but of a generation of political leadership. The historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt would note that growing mistrust of the government during the Vietnam era, “the credibility gap," had “opened into an abyss."


“The quicksand of lying statements of all sorts, deceptions as well as self-deceptions, is apt to engulf any reader who wishes to probe this material, which, unhappily, he must recognize as the infrastructure of nearly a decade of United States foreign and domestic policy," she wrote.

The Nixon administration quickly tried to block further publication on the grounds that the papers would compromise national security, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the newspapers on June 30, 1971, a major First Amendment ruling rejecting prior restraint. Nixon himself, initially unconcerned because the papers predated his time in office, was determined to punish Ellsberg and formed a renegade team of White House “plumbers," endowed with a stash of White House “hush money" and the mission of preventing future leaks.


“You can’t drop it," Nixon fumed privately to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. “You can’t let the Jew steal that stuff and get away with it. You understand?"

Ellsberg faced trials in Boston and Los Angeles on federal charges for espionage and theft, with a possible sentence of more than 100 years. He had expected to go to jail, but was spared, in part, by Nixon’s rage and the excesses of those around him. The Boston case ended in a mistrial because the government wiretapped conversations between a defense witness and his attorney. Charges in the Los Angeles trial were dismissed after Judge Matthew Byrne learned that White House “plumbers" G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt had burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, California.


Byrne ruled that “the bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case."

Meanwhile, the “plumbers" continued their crime wave, notably the June 1972 break-in of the Democratic Party’s national headquarters, at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The Watergate scandal didn’t prevent Nixon from a landslide reelection in 1972, but would expand rapidly during his second term and culminate in his resignation in August 1974. U.S. combat troops had already left Vietnam and the North Vietnamese captured the Southern capital, Saigon, in April 1975.

“Without Nixon’s obsession with me, he would have stayed in office," Ellsberg told The Associated Press in 1999. “And had he not been removed from office, he would have continued the bombing (in Vietnam)."


Ellsberg’s story was depicted in the 2009 documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers." The movie had its West Coast premiere only a few blocks from the Rand Corp. headquarters in Santa Monica, Ellsberg former workplace. He sent college students with fliers to urge old colleagues to attend the screening, but none attended.

Ellsberg was born in Chicago in 1931, to Jewish parents who converted to Christian Science. His father was an unemployed engineer in the early years of the Great Depression and the family later moved to suburban Detroit, where his father worked in a plant making B-24 bombers. Daniel held vivid memories of learning that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, and of reports of the Nazis bombing London and the U.S. bombing Germany and Japan.


In his teens, Ellsberg found himself in agreement with Harry Truman and other “Cold War liberals," believing in civil rights and economic justice at home, and containing the Soviet Union overseas. He was also shaped profoundly by personal tragedy. During a car trip in 1946, his father nodded off at the wheel and crashed into a sidewall, killing Ellsberg’s mother and younger sister. Ellsberg would look back with a sense of loss and mistrust — his father, the authority figure, had failed to keep his family safe.

With thoughts of becoming a labor organizer, Ellsberg won a scholarship to Harvard University and graduated summa cum laude. He served in the Marines as an act of defiance against his Ivy League background, but eventually returned to Harvard and earned a doctorate in economics. In 1959, he became a strategic analyst at the Rand Corp., a global policy think tank based in Santa Monica, California, and consulted for the Defense Department and the White House on nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans and crisis decision-making. Ellsberg spent two years in the mid-1960s with the State Department in Vietnam, where he learned first-hand how casually military and political officials lied and became convinced the conflict was unwinnable, in part through the firefights with the North Vietnamese that he survived.


Encouraged by a close friend from Rand, researcher Anthony J. Russo, Ellsberg had decided by the fall of 1969 that the Nixon administration would continue the policies of other presidents and that the McNamara study needed to be seen. His life would soon resemble an espionage thriller.

Ellsberg removed some of the bound, classified volumes from his safe in the Rand offices, placed them in his briefcase and walked past security guards and a sign reading “Loose Lips Sink Ships." With Russo’s girlfriend owning an advertising agency, Ellsberg spent months copying the documents on an office Xerox machine, sometimes helped by his teenage son Robert. On occasion, the office alarm would mistakenly ring, police would show up, and leave soon after. Ellsberg became so worried that he began slicing off the “Top Secret" markings from the papers, in case authorities wanted to inspect more closely.


Leaking to the Times was not his first choice. He had hoped that government officials, including Kissinger, would read the study and realize the war was hopeless. Legislators turning him down included Sen. William J. Fulbright of Arkansas, the longtime chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, who in 1972 would run for president as an antiwar candidate.

A final plot twist was unknown to Ellsberg until decades later. He had showed some of the report to Marcus Raskin and Ralph Stavins of the liberal think tank the Institute for Policy Studies before approaching Sheehan. Only in the early 2000s did he learn that Raskin and Stavins, who had recommended that he speak with Sheehan, had already given some of the papers to the Times reporter. Sheehan, who died in 2021, also defied Ellsberg’s request not to make duplicate copies and did not give him advance notice before the first Times report ran.

“It was just luck that he didn’t get the whistle blown on the whole damn thing," Sheehan later said of Ellsberg, whom he regarded as “out of control."

In his later years, a spry, silver-haired Ellsberg became a prominent free speech and anti-Iraq war activist, drawing parallels between U.S. involvement in Iraq and Vietnam, and called for impeachment of President George W. Bush. He expressed similar fears about Afghanistan during the Obama administration, saying it had the potential to become “Vietnamistan" if the U.S. increased troops there.

He was active in campaigns to prevent nuclear arms proliferation and drew upon his history in government for the 2017 book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner," in which he included a once-top secret document showing that the U.S. had considered launching nuclear attacks on the Chinese in 1958. He also defended other leakers and whistleblowers, among them WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, the government contractor who disclosed details of secret U.S. surveillance programs and is now living in Russia.

“Many of the people whistle-blowers work with know the same things and actually regard the information in the same way — that it’s wrong — but they keep their mouths shut," Ellsberg told The New York Times in 2023.

On Friday, Snowden tweeted that he had spoken with Ellsberg last month and found him more concerned about the world's fate than about his own.

“He assessed the risk of a nuclear exchange to be escalating beyond 10%," Snowden wrote. “He had hoped to dedicate his final hours to reducing it, for all those he would leave behind. A hero to the end."

Ellsberg is survived by his second wife, the journalist Patricia Marx, and three children, two from his first marriage. He and Marx wedded in 1970, the year before the Pentagon Papers were made public. In a New York Times wedding announcement, he was identified as a “senior research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies, where he was writing a critical study of United States involvement in Vietnam."

US to send satellite data to Canada to help detect wildfires

The United States has already dispatched more than 600 firefighters to Canada to help battle the flames

Reuters Published 17.06.23, 


The U.S. Department of Defense began sending real-time satellite and sensor data to Canadian authorities on Friday, technology it said would help more quickly identify new fires as that nation endures one of its most destructive early wildfire seasons.

The U.S. has already dispatched more than 600 firefighters to Canada to help battle the flames. President Joe Biden, who has linked wildfires to climate change, said U.S. officials were monitoring air quality and aviation delays.

"Starting today, DOD personnel will analyze and share real time data derived from U.S. satellites and sensors and convey it via a cooperative agreement between the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center and the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre," U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said in a statement.

He said the Biden Administration was also deploying additional U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), USDA Forest Service (USFS), and state wildland firefighting personnel and equipment to Canada. Canada is suffering through its most destructive start to wildfire season, with about 4.8 million hectares (48,000 square kilometers) already burned, an area larger than the Netherlands.

China’s Xi tells Bill Gates he hopes US-China friendship will continue

Reuters Published June 16, 2023 

Microsoft founder Bill Gates reacts during a visit with Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the Imperial College University, in London, Britain, February 15, 2023. — Reuters

Xi Jinping called Bill Gates “an old friend” and said he hoped they could carry out activities together beneficial to both China and the United States, in the Chinese president’s first meeting with a foreign entrepreneur in years.

In a meeting at Beijing’s Diaoyutai state guesthouse, where China’s leaders have historically received senior foreign guests, Xi told the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist that he was very happy to see him after three years and described Gates as the first American friend he had met this year.




“I often say the foundation of US-China relations lies with its people. I place my hopes on the American people,” a video published by state broadcaster CCTV showed Xi saying.

“With the current global situation, we can carry out various activities beneficial to our two countries and people, activities that benefit humanity as a whole,” he said.

Gates, who arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, told Xi that he was “honoured” to have the chance to meet. “We’ve always had great conversations and we’ll have lot of important topics to discuss today. I was very disappointed I couldn’t come during the last four years so it’s very exciting to be back.”

Xi stopped travelling abroad for nearly three years as China shut its borders during the pandemic and his international meetings since the reopening have mostly been with other state leaders. Plans for his meeting with Gates were first reported by Reuters.

A number of CEOs have visited China since it reopened early this year, but most have met with government ministers.

Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board in 2020 to focus on philanthropic works related to global health, education and climate change.

The last reported meeting between Xi and Gates was in 2015, when they met on the sidelines of the Boao forum in Hainan province. In early 2020, Xi wrote a letter to Gates thanking him and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for pledging assistance to China, including $5 million for the country’s fight against Covid-19.

Not pursuing hegemony

The mood of the foreign business community towards China has turned cautious as Sino-US. tensions intensify and Xi increases the country’s focus on national security.

Gates’ visit comes ahead of a long-delayed visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China aimed at stabilising relations between the world’s two largest economies and strategic rivals.

Blinken had a tense call with China’s foreign minister Qin Gang on Wednesday, during which Qin urged the United States to stop meddling in its affairs and harming its security.

During his meeting with Gates, Xi said China would not follow the old path of a “strong country seeking hegemony” but would work with other countries to achieve common development, according to the People’s Daily newspaper. China often accuses the United States of pursuing hegemony.

Apart from meeting Xi, Gates has given a speech at the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute about the need to use technology to solve global health challenges during his visit.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Beijing municipal government, which founded the institute with Tsinghua University, also pledged to each provide $50 million to bolster the institute’s drug discovery capacity.