UK to challenge court ruling against plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda

The UK government said it would challenge a court ruling issued Thursday that blocks its plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda on the grounds that the country is not a safe haven. For its part, the Rwandan government said it remains committed to the controversial deal.

Issued on: 29/06/2023 - 

Protestors demonstrate outside the Home Office against the British government's plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, in London, Britain, on June 13, 2022. © REUTERS - HENRY NICHOLLS

The Court of Appeal in London on Thursday ruled that the UK government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was "unlawful" as the East African country could not be considered safe.

Judges agreed with migrants and campaigners who brought the case to court, arguing that the UK government could not guarantee that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would not be sent back to the country from which they were fleeing.

The ruling was welcomed by human rights groups but sparked an indignant response from Kigali, which insisted it met UN standards for the treatment of refugees.

'Safe country'

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he respected the court but "fundamentally" disagreed with the judges' conclusions.

"I strongly believe the Rwandan government has provided the assurances necessary to ensure there is no real risk that asylum seekers relocated under the Rwanda policy would be wrongly returned to third countries," he said.

"Rwanda is a safe country," Sunak insisted. He added: "We will now seek permission to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court."

"Rwanda remains fully committed to making this partnership work," government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo told French news agency AFP, insisting that "Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world".

"While this is ultimately a decision for the UK's judicial system, we do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers and refugees," she said.

Humane alternatives

A majority of judges who studied the appeal were not convinced by Rwanda's assurances.

"In consequence, sending anyone to Rwanda would constitute a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights", which states that no one shall be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, they concluded.

• Denmark may follow UK lead on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda

Yasmine Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, called Thursday's verdict "some rare good news in an otherwise bleak landscape for human rights in the UK".

"Rather than treating human beings like cargo it can ship elsewhere, it (the government) should be focusing on ending the hostile environment towards refugees and asylum seekers," she added.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR urged the UK government to "pursue other measures, including cooperation with the UK's European neighbours and fair and fast asylum procedures, that would be more humane, efficient and cost-effective".

Stalled proposal

Tackling asylum claims has become a political headache for Sunak's Conservative government, which promised to "take back control" of the country's borders after the UK left the EU.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson brought in the contentious deportation proposal in 2022.

Rights groups and charities protested against the deportation plan, and the first removal flights due to take off last June were successfully blocked by legal action.

• UN, rights groups alarmed over British refugee deal with Rwanda

But two High Court judges in December dismissed the claims, ruling that the scheme was legal but the government should consider the circumstances of each case before deporting anyone.

That prompted a group of ten asylum seekers – from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania, plus the charity Asylum Aid – to appeal.

(with AFP)

 

Sunak's perilous waters: The PM will need all his experience as a City trader to find a safe harbour for Thames Water, says ALEX BRUMMER

By ALEX BRUMMER FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 29 June 2023

Britain has never had a prime minister better able to understand the complexities of the debt markets and securitisation.

As an alumni of Goldman Sachs and a former hedge fund trader, Rishi Sunak is eminently capable of analysing the acute choices the Government has to make if a safe harbour is to be secured for Thames Water.

There is the possibility of a straight- forward bailout on the lines of the rescue of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds in 2008.

The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown reluctantly took equity stakes in the banks in exchange for a capital injection, diluting the shares of all other holders.

An injection of up to £10billion might be needed to stabilise Britain’s biggest water provider. 

Dilemma: As an alumni of Goldman Sachs and a former hedge fund trader, Rishi Sunak is eminently capable of analysing the choices the Government has to make for Thames Water

If that is so, one imagines that other equity holders, including the Ontario Municipal Retirement System, Hermes (manager of the BT pension funds) and sovereign wealth investors from China and Abu Dhabi could be all but wiped out.

That may not be a good look for a post-Brexit Britain seeking to rocket fuel investment. An alternative rescue might seek to shift the burden to the holders of debt.

Investors in Kemble, Thames’ parent company, are already sitting on big losses with the £400million of bonds trading at 55p to the pound.

The bigger chunk of £14billion of debt, held in the name of Thames Water Utilities, would be a more meaningful target.

If Thames Water were Greece or Sri Lanka there would be a debt restructuring which would see the bondholders take a haircut – a reduction in value – in exchange for lowering interest rate coupons and stretching out the period of repayment.

Achieving such a financial restructuring, in the fierce political heat of the current moment, looks fairly far-fetched.

A short-term solution would be to force existing shareholders to pony up new capital, at least the £1billion promised, in exchange for the right of the regulator Ofwat to force through a hefty price rise.

That would allow the debts to be serviced and eventually a dividend paid. It would definitely be a simpler solution but wouldn’t do much for Rishi’s election prospects in the prosperous South East or help in his battle to halve Britain’s stubborn inflation rate by the end of the year.

The ideal route would be a white knight takeover in the manner of the Bulb rescue by Octopus or HSBC’s absorption of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK subsidiary.

That might also require some kind of credit guarantees and an implicit recognition that prices would have to rise.

One thing is certain: Macquarie, the ‘vampire kangaroo’ which triggered the mess, should not be allowed anywhere near valuable British infrastructure assets again.

Risk aversion

Meanwhile, over at HM Treasury, mandarins are seeking to lift the nation’s spirits with that promise to ‘rocket boost’ the UK economy now that the post-Brexit Financial Services bill has been signed off.

The key idea is to unlock £100billion of productive investment for innovation.

That is the prize for ditching Brussels bureaucracy in the shape of Solvency II. Never mind that City regulators wrote most of the EU rules in the first place! 

The aspiration to unlock new funding to drive investment in Britain’s leading-edge tech, AI and life sciences industries is admirable.

The Government can take asset managers to the water’s edge but may find it impossible to make them drink.

This week, ten of Britain’s biggest pension funds, which look after £300billion of assets, warned against proposed changes to the UK’s listing rules on the stock market on the grounds that it would damage ‘fundamental investor protections’.

It is this very lack of bravery and ambition which has seen fund managers retreat from UK equities and led to a calamitous 40 per cent collapse in UK listings since 2008.

Let’s hear it for the animal spirits!

Sounds of silence

OPEC decisions affect the lives of citizens and businesses around the world.

So it is extraordinary that, without warning, the oil producers’ group has decided to exclude news services and other media from its gathering in Vienna on July 5 and 6.

Saudi Arabia, which dominates proceedings, has been seeking to remove the shadow of the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. 

Banning the press from an event of enormous global interest, at a time of surging inflation, is not the way to go.

UK 

Ofgem plans clamp down on power station owners

Published: 16:10 29 Jun 2023

Ofgem is planning to clamp down on power station owners making “excessive profits” from supplying the UK electricity network.

The energy regulator said it intends to introduce new licence conditions after it found some generators have been holding back electricity supplies so they can fetch higher prices in the market for back-up power generation.

As a result, costs have been pushed for consumers at the height of last year’s energy crisis, resulting in a total bill of £3.1bn to ensure supply and demand matched in 2021-22.

“The proposed new licence condition will ensure electricity generators don’t take advantage of existing rules to make excessive profits in the Balancing Mechanism,” said Eleanor Warburton, Ofgem’s acting director for energy systems management and security.

“Following on from our previous consultation we are now inviting final feedback from across the industry on the proposed changes, which we hope to have in place to protect consumers this winter.” 

OpenAI sued for 'stealing' data from the public to train ChatGPT

A new class action lawsuit targets the data ChatGPT was trained on. Here's what it alleges and what it hopes to accomplish.

Written by Sabrina Ortiz, Associate Editor 

on June 29, 2023
ZDNET

Getty Images/PhonlamaiPhoto

OpenAI's wildly popular ChatGPT is a generative AI model that was trained on vasts amount of data, specifically the entirety of the internet prior to 2021.

The data ChatGPT was trained on is now the subject of a new lawsuit against OpenAI.

In a class action lawsuit filed on June 28 against OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, the plaintiffs claim that OpenAI used "stolen data" to "train and develop" its products including ChatGPT 3.5, ChatGPT 4, DALL-E, and VALL-E.

Also: Human oversight key to keeping AI honest

The lawsuit claims that OpenAI stole data from "millions of unsuspecting consumers worldwide" including data from children of all ages to enable the chatbot to replicate human language.

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that OpenAI is "harvesting massive amounts of personal data from the internet" such as private conversations, medical data, and more, without asking for users' permission.

Also: The best AI chatbots to try

A section of the 157-page lawsuit specifically delineates a list of private information that is allegedly being collected, stored, tracked, and shared by OpenAI including social media information, cookies, keystrokes, typed swatches, payment information, and more.

In addition, the list claims that OpenAI is collecting data from applications that have incorporated GPT-4 such as image-related data through Snapchat, music preferences in Spotify, and financial information in Stripe.

The plaintiffs ask that the defendants immediately implement transparency about what data it is collecting, where and from whom it collected it, and how it is being used. They also seek that all the plaintiffs and class members are compensated for their stolen data.

Also: AI arms race: This global index ranks which nations dominate AI development

Lastly, the plaintiffs seek that OpenAI introduces an option where users can opt out of all data collection and that OpenAI stops the "illegal" scraping of internet data.

This isn't the first lawsuit brought upon OpenAI. Earlier this month, OpenAI was sued because of misinformation that ChatGPT output about a person.

UNRAVELING THE COSMIC SYMPHONY: THE TOP 5 WAYS THE GRAVITATIONAL WAVE BACKGROUND DISCOVERY REVOLUTIONIZES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE

MJ BANIAS·JUNE 29, 2023

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) have detected a persistent gravitational wave background (GWB). The monumental finding, reported yesterday by the Washington Post, could potentially revolutionize our understanding of the universe and its origins.

Gravitational waves, first predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity, are ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by the acceleration of massive objects. The detection of these waves has been a significant focus of astrophysics since the first direct observation by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015. However, the GWB detected by NANOGrav is a different beast altogether.

So let’s dive into the top five ways this discovery revolutionizes our understanding of the universe.

 
NEW ERA IN GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ASTRONOMY

The detection of the gravitational wave background (GWB) by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) marks a significant milestone in gravitational wave astronomy. Unlike the individual gravitational wave events detected by LIGO, the GWB is a persistent, “humming” signal resulting from countless unresolved sources. Dr. Sarah Burke-Spolaor, a member of the NANOGrav team, likens it to “a symphony of the universe.” This discovery ushers in a new era of gravitational wave astronomy, where we can listen to the cosmic symphony and uncover the secrets of the universe.

UNVEILING THE DANCE OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES

The GWB is thought to be largely composed of gravitational waves from pairs of supermassive black holes spiraling toward each other. These cosmic behemoths, each millions or billions of times the mass of our sun, have long been a subject of fascination and study. The detection of the GWB provides a unique opportunity to study these black hole pairs, offering insights into their behavior, their distribution in the universe, and the processes involved in their formation and evolution.

PROBING THE EARLY UNIVERSE

The GWB could potentially provide a window into the early universe, including the era of cosmic inflation, a brief period just after the Big Bang when the universe expanded at an astonishing rate. As Dr. Chiara Mingarelli, a scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics, explains, “The gravitational wave background could be a treasure trove of information about the early universe.” This could revolutionize our understanding of the Big Bang and the subsequent evolution of the universe.

TESTING THE LIMITS OF GENERAL RELATIVITY

Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which predicts the existence of gravitational waves, has passed every test so far. However, the detection of the GWB could provide a new testing ground for this theory. Dr. Mingarelli suggests that the GWB could help us “test the limits of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.” This could potentially lead to new insights into the nature of gravity and the fundamental laws of physics.

UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES OF DARK MATTER AND DARK ENERGY

Dark matter and dark energy are two of the biggest mysteries in modern physics. Together, they make up about 95% of the universe, but we know very little about them. The GWB could provide new clues about these elusive phenomena. As Dr. Mingarelli points out, the GWB could help us understand the nature of dark matter and dark energy. This could have profound implications for our understanding of the universe and its ultimate fate.


See Also
NASA ANOMALY REVIEW BOARD INVESTIGATES “INCIDENT” WITH THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE


The detection of the GWB by NANOGrav is a game-changer in the field of astrophysics. Still, the researchers caution that the detection of the GWB needs to be confirmed by independent observations, and there is much work to be done to understand its implications more fully.

Regardless, this discovery underscores the importance of patience, collaboration, and meticulous data collection in scientific research. More importantly, it highlights the power of gravitational waves as a tool for understanding the universe, from the dance of supermassive black holes to the earliest moments of the Big Bang. As we continue to listen to the “cosmic symphony,” who knows what other secrets we might uncover; perhaps, this will help us develop a better understanding of our place in the mysterious cosmos.


MJ Banias is a journalist and podcaster who covers security, science, and tech. Follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.

A neutrino portrait of our galaxy reveals high-energy particles from within the Milky Way

Jenni Adams
Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury

THE CONVERSATION
Published: June 29, 2023 

IceCube Collaboration/Science Communication Lab for CRC 1491

Our Milky Way galaxy is an awe-inspiring feature of the night sky, viewable with the naked eye as a hazy band of stars stretching from horizon to horizon.

For the first time, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica has produced an image of the Milky Way using neutrinos – tiny, ghost-like astronomical messengers.

A portrait of the Milky Way combining visible light and neutrino emissions (in blue). IceCube Collaboration/US National Science Foundation (Lily Le & Shawn Johnson)/ESO (S. Brunier)

In research published today in the journal Science, the IceCube Collaboration – an international group of more than 350 scientists – presents evidence of high-energy neutrino emission coming from the Milky Way.

We have not yet figured out exactly where in our galaxy these particles are coming from. But today’s result brings us closer to finding some of the galaxy’s most extreme environments.

Read news coverage based on evidence, not alarm.Get newsletter
Neutrino astronomy

Neutrinos offer a unique view of the cosmos as they can travel directly from places no other radiation or particles can escape from. This makes them very interesting to astronomers, because neutrinos offer a window into the extreme cosmic environments that create another kind of particle called cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that permeate our Universe, but their origins are difficult to pin down. Cosmic rays are electrically charged, which means their path through space is scrambled by magnetic fields, and by the time one arrives at Earth there is no way to tell where it came from.

Read more: Spotting astrophysical neutrinos is just the tip of the IceCube

However, the environments that accelerate cosmic rays to extraordinary energies also produce neutrinos – and neutrinos have no electric charge, so they travel in nice straight lines. So if we can detect the path of neutrinos arriving at Earth, this will point back to where the neutrinos were created.

But detecting those neutrinos is not so easy.
How to hunt neutrinos

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is not far from the South Pole. It uses more than 5,000 light sensors arrayed throughout a cubic kilometre of pristine Antarctic ice to search for signs of high-energy neutrinos from our galaxy and beyond.

Vast numbers of neutrinos are streaming through Earth all the time, but only a tiny fraction of them bump into anything on their way through.

Each neutrino interaction makes a tiny flash of light – and those tiny flashes are what the IceCube sensors look out for. The direction and energy of the neutrino can be determined from the amount and pattern of light detected

.
IceCube Collaboration

IceCube has previously detected high-energy neutrinos coming from outside the Milky Way. However, it has been more challenging to isolate the lower-energy neutrinos coming from within our galaxy.

This is because some flashes IceCube detected can be traced to cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere, which create neutrinos and other particles called muons. To filter out these flashes, IceCube researchers have developed ways to distinguish particles created in the atmosphere and those from further afield by the shape of the light patterns they create in the ice.

Read more: An Antarctic neutrino telescope has detected a signal from the heart of a nearby active galaxy

Filtering out the unwanted detections has made IceCube more sensitive to astrophysical neutrinos. The final breakthrough that allowed the creation of a neutrino image of the Milky Way came from machine-learning methods that improve the identification of cascades of light produced by neutrinos, as well as the determination of the neutrino’s direction and energy.
Closing in on cosmic rays

The new neutrino lens on our galaxy will help reveal where the most powerful accelerators of galactic cosmic rays are located. We hope to learn how energetic these particles can get, and the inner workings of these high-energy galactic engines.

However, we are yet to pinpoint these accelerators within the Milky Way. The new IceCube analysis found evidence for neutrinos coming from broad regions of the galaxy, but was not able to discern individual sources.

Our team, at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the University of Adelaide in Australia, has a plan to realise that next step.

Five views of the Milky Way: the top two bands show visible light and gamma rays, while the lower three show expected and real neutrino results, plus a measure of the significance of neutrino events detected by IceCube. IceCube Collaboration

We are making models to predict the neutrino signal close to likely particle accelerators so we can target our searches for neutrinos.

Undergraduate student Rhia Hewett and PhD student Ryan Burley are examining pairs of accelerator candidates and molecular dust clouds. They plan to estimate the flux of neutrinos produced by cosmic rays interacting in the clouds, after the neutrinos travel from the accelerators.

They will use their results to enable a focused search of IceCube data for the sources of neutrino emissions. We believe this will provide the key to using IceCube to unlock the secrets of the most energetic processes in the Milky Way.

A timeline of neutrino astronomy. IceCube Collaboration

Author

Jenni Adams
Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury
Disclosure statement
Jenni Adams has received funding from the Marsden Fund Council from New Zealand Government funding, managed by the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

 

Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship Soars, Stock Sinks

By Doug Messier

Parabolic Arc

June 29, 2023

Twitter

Col. Walter Villadei (center) holds up an Italian flag during the Galactic 01 research flight.

Image credit: Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) capped off nearly 19 years of effort by flying its first commercial mission with paying customers from Spaceport American in New Mexico on Thursday (June 29). However, while the VSS Unity rocket plane soared into the heavens on a research flight, the company’s stock declined by almost 11 percent.

VSS Unity carried Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, Italian Air Force physician Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi, and engineer Pantaleone Carlucci of the National Research Council of Italy to an altitude of 52.9 miles (85.1 km) where they enjoyed about three minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth.

The WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve mothership took off with VSS Unity beneath it at 8:30 AM mountain time with Kelly Latimer in command and former Canadian Air Force Maj. Jameel Janjua as pilot. They air-launched the spacecraft at an altitude of 44,500 feet (13,564 meters).

As the spacecraft neared its apogee, Villadei unbuckled himself from his seat and spent about 30 seconds activating and monitoring experiments installed on a rack at the rear of the cabin. He then held up an Italian flag for a global audience watching the flight on Virgin Galactic’s webcast.

The Galactic 01 flight, which the Italian government refers to as “Virtute 1,” carried equipment for 13 experiments that were conducted by the researchers or autonomously. Landolfi measured the effects of microgravity on two very different phenomena: human cognitive performance and how certain liquids and solids mixed. Carlucci wore multiple sensors that measured his heart rate, brain function, and other human performance metrics during the flight.

“I am beyond proud to be a part of this historic spaceflight. ‘Galactic 01’ is Italy’s first commercial suborbital research spaceflight, and an amazing achievement made possible thanks to the long-lasting collaboration between the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy,” Villadei said in a press release.

Virgin Galactic astronaut instructor Colin Bennett joined the three Italians in the passenger cabin. Bennett assisted the researchers and assessed the research flight experience. He previously flew on a suborbital flight test in July 2021.

VSS Unity fires its engines during the Galactic 01 flight. Image credit: Virgin Galactic.

Mike Masucci commanded VSS Unity with Nicola Pecile as pilot. Masucci was on his fourth suborbital flight aboard the spacecraft. It was the first suborbital flight for Pecile, who retired from the Italian Air Force as a lieutenant colonel.

“Today, our team successfully flew six people and more than a dozen research payloads to space in VSS Unity, our unique, suborbital science lab,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in the press release. “This historic flight was our first commercial flight and our first dedicated commercial research mission – ushering in a new era of repeatable and reliable access to space for private passengers and researchers.”

Virgin Galactic will fly its second commercial flight with paying customers in August. The company then intends to fly VMS Eve on a monthly basis.

“‘Galactic 02,’ our first spaceflight with private astronauts, is planned for August and we expect VSS Unity to continue with monthly space missions while we simultaneously work to scale our future spaceship fleet for a global audience,” Colglazier continued.

Shares Decline

On Thursday, prior to the flight, Virgin Galactic’s stock rose to $4.86. However, it then declined by more than 10 percent after the flight to close at $4.23.

Although the flight was a success, Virgin Galactic’s financial prospects are limited in the near term. The company has only one SpaceShipTwo, capable of flying four passengers, and a single mothership.

Virgin Galactic’s path to profitability lies with a new generation of Delta-class SpaceShipTwo vehicles and WhiteKnightTwo motherships that are now under development. The spacecraft will not enter service until 2026. Virgin Galactic recently raised $300 million and filed to raise an additional $400 million to fund its expansion.

Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson first announced plans to fly people on suborbital flights in September 2004. The goal was to begin commercial service as early as 2007, but more than a decade of delays and two fatal accidents caused the schedule to slip.

AUSTRALIA
AFTERSHOCK TWO YEARS LATER
Magnitude-4.6 earthquake strikes Rawson in Victoria's east, tremors felt across Melbourne

By Melissa Brown
Posted 10h ago10 hours ago,

In short: Thousands of people have reported feeling the effects of an earthquake that struck at Rawson, in Victoria's east, about 1:30am
What's next? Geoscience Australia says the tremor may be a part of a sequence that began in 2021, when a magnitude-5.9 quake was felt across four states

Seismologists say a magnitude-4.6 earthquake has occurred in the High Country in Victoria's east.

Geoscience Australia said the tremor occurred at Rawson, at a depth of 3 kilometres about 1:30am.

About 9,000 people officially reported light-to-moderate shaking to the national earthquake alert centre.



Michael Leaney lives 12km north-east of Rawson in the town of Walhalla.

Having experienced past tremors at his home, Mr Leaney said it was typical for the noise to arrive before the quake itself.

"The first thing that actually wakes you up is the roar that starts before the earthquake actually comes through and you get a few seconds in advance to the shaking that occurs," he said.

"You get this roar … like a train going past, and it's really, really loud, and that's what you notice when you're so close to the epicentre of an earthquake."

This was the third time Bec Closter had felt a quake since she moved to the town of Erica on the fringe of the Baw Baw National Park six years ago.

She said she and her husband woke to the tremor shaking their entire home, including their bed.

Ms Closter said her husband thought the house might fall.

"It was the weirdest feeling," she said.

"It was like that dream state of, 'Is the house shaking, is a truck coming through, or is it actually an earthquake?'

"I hope everyone's OK. It's not a massive one, [but] I know for some people it can trigger things."
'My house was shaking'

Residents of Melbourne's eastern and southern suburbs called ABC Radio.

Sue in Healesville, east of Melbourne, said it was a strong shake.

"It sort of eased a bit for a minute then it came back again as if the house had been picked up and shaken."

Another listener said they were in the kitchen when the quake struck.

"I've got big cedar windows and they're the first things that start and it's really frightening," another listener said.

One man in south-east Melbourne said it was strong enough to wake him.


"I've never experienced anything like it," he said.

"It absolutely shook my home out at Noble Park. It rattled and rolled the place and I just jumped out of bed."

So far there are no reports of damage.
Tremor could be aftershock from 2021 quake

Geoscience Australia senior seismologist Jonathan Bathgate said the tremor was likely to be part of a sequence of quakes dating back to the September 2021 earthquake that was felt across Melbourne and Victoria's east and as far away as New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia.

Victorian earthquake caused by 'blind fault'

A magnitude-5.9 earthquake, which was felt across five Australian states and territories, was caused by a previously unknown fault line deep within the Earth's crust, according to new research.

Read more

"This event that occurred early this morning is part of that sequence that started in September in 2021 with that magnitude-5.9 and we've recorded at least 47 earthquakes now between magnitude-2 and this 4.6," Mr Bathgate said.

"This is the largest aftershock that we've had since the main shock back in September 2021."

Mr Bathgate said the number of earthquakes being recorded in Victoria was not increasing or unusual.

"Australia does get quite a bit of seismicity that people don't often appreciate, more than people appreciate in general.

"This one's slightly larger at magnitude-4.6 and, as I say, it's part of that larger sequence of earthquakes, but Australia, in general, we get earthquakes because we're on a continent that's moving north at about 7 centimetres every year," he said.

"That in parts stresses on our local fault lines and that stress is released through through small earthquakes.”

ABC weather presenter and meteorologist Nate Byrne said earthquakes normally occur where tectonic plates meet, but that Australia is in the middle of a plate.

"It's like getting a pavlova and squeezing the sides," he said.

"Instead of being on the sides where big crumbling would happen, we're in the middle and you would expect to see cracks forming in the middle. That's what’s happening here."
Quake part of normal seismic activity

Hazard seismologist Elodie Borleis from the Seismology Research Centre in Melbourne said while the quake was an aftershock to the 2021 event, it would produce its own sequence.

"It is a larger event so we would expect aftershocks," she said.

She agreed it was part of the normal seismic activity for Victoria.

"This is very normal. Yes, we've had an increase in the last, you know, couple of years of people actually feeling them but the actual background seismicity hasn't changed at all.

"If you look at it, over the last 100 years, it is quite normal seismic activity."

Her colleague, Juan-Santiago Velasquez says strong quakes, like in 2021, can generate long-lasting sequences.

"In places that tend to be more stable like here in Australia, we see that sometimes the aftershock sequences can last longer.

"After the main shock, it can [take] years until the stresses or the pressures of the earth in t

The Greenland Ice Sheet cannot wait

Twila MoonJune 30, 2023 

The days in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, are growing longer. Even after setting, the sun lingers below the horizon, casting a glow over the rocky coastal landscape. On sun-drenched days, when the skies are as blue as the ocean, one can admire Greenland’s striking mountains. Their jagged summits contrast with the smoothness of their lower slopes, fjords shaped by the relentless force of ancient ice sheets. Here and there, splashes of fragrant brownish-green tundra punctuate the scene. Everywhere, the snow is melting, making for slushy treks through a wet and heavy snowpack.

Before landing in Greenland at the start of the melt season, I expected to see more snow. But only patches of winter snow remained. One does not need to be a scientist to observe the trends that we researchers can detect via satellites and other long-term measurements. The snowfall has been arriving later in the year, sometimes after Christmas, and has not been as persistent as it once was. After a quarter-century of losing mass, the Greenland Ice Sheet has been undergoing a rapid and radical transformation.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Report Card for Greenland, which I co-authored, paints a grim picture. In 2022, Greenland marked its 25th consecutive year of ice loss, accompanied by “unprecedented late-season melt events.” On September 3, more than a third of the ice sheet’s surface – including Summit Station, a research camp near the ice sheet’s apex – experienced melting conditions. A year before, in August 2021, Summit Station documented its first-ever recorded rainfall, although it was impossible to say exactly how much it received, owing to the absence of rain gauges at such high altitudes.

Greenland’s accelerating rate of ice loss is projected to exceed that of any period during the Holocene, the geological epoch that began roughly 12,000 years ago. There is compelling evidence that the western portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet is growing increasingly unstable, edging toward a tipping point beyond which its dynamics and structure fundamentally and irreversibly shift.

In fact, scientists may have underestimated how sensitive glaciers are to global warming, which means that the tipping point may be reached sooner than we think. My own research shows that ice loss has been reshaping the ice sheet’s margins and the Greenland coast, altering glacier speeds and rerouting the flows of ice, water, and sediment. These changes, in turn, influence the ice sheet’s response to future temperature increases.

On my recent visit to Nuuk, I continued work on the QGreenland project, building a geospatial data tool for researchers and educators interested in exploring Greenland and learning about the scientific research taking place there. Although one cannot smell the tundra or hear the Arctic birds through interactive maps, such tools promise to familiarize people with the world’s largest island and help them understand how changes in the Arctic could affect their own communities, even if they are thousands of miles away.

To avoid catastrophe, we must act immediately. Much like the light from distant stars enables us to peer into the past, the changes we now see in Greenland – the result of our previous inaction on greenhouse-gas emissions – offer a frightening glimpse into the future. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent Synthesis Report notes, “sea-level rise is unavoidable for centuries to millennia,” largely owing to ice-sheet melt.

Rising sea levels may not seem like a pressing issue if one’s own backyard is not flooding. But roughly 40% of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of coasts. Beyond coastal erosion and saltwater inundating freshwater resources and ecosystems, sea-level rise will also affect groundwater levels, causing potential flooding and water contamination further inland. And those of us living thousands of miles from the coastline depend on coastal infrastructure for goods and shipping. We must all plan for a future with continued sea-level rise and work together to respond to it.

The extent and pace of sea-level rise, however, still depends on the choices we make now. The latest IPCC report, which shows global temperatures heading toward a 3.5° Celsius increase by 2100, underscores the urgent need to close the gap between current measures to combat climate change and what must be done to meet our agreed global goal of less than 2°C. If temperatures rise by 2-3°C, the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets could be lost “almost completely and irreversibly over multiple millennia,” causing several meters of sea-level rise. Estimates suggest that the Greenland Ice Sheet alone holds the equivalent of 7.4 meters (24 feet) of potential sea-level increase.

Fortunately, humanity’s future is not fully predetermined. By taking strong climate-focused action now, we could save much of the Greenland Ice Sheet, curb the spread of wildfires, minimize the rise in drought frequency and severity, enhance food security, and ensure a habitable world.

But achieving this requires a concerted and sustained effort to limit global temperature rise; every degree matters. To prevail against climate change, we must adhere to established deadlines and honor existing commitments to shift away from fossil fuels as our primary energy source. The message from Greenland is clear: ice will not negotiate.

Copyright: Project Syndicate

-- Contact us at english@hkej.com

TWILA MOON

Deputy Lead Scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center

at the University of Colorado Boulder.

THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS...

Electrical accident at Chile’s El Teniente copper mine leaves one dead

...ONLY PREVENTABLE INCIDENTS

Reuters | June 29, 2023 | 

El Teniente is the world’s biggest underground copper mine and the sixth largest by reserve size. (Image courtesy of Codelco)

An electrical accident at Codelco’s El Teniente mine in central Chile, the company’s largest copper mine, left one dead, the state-owned mining giant said in a statement on Thursday.


Codelco said the accident happened at the mine’s Andes Norte expansion project at about 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) when Osvaldo Bustamante Frias, a 29-year-old electrical technician, suffered an electric discharge during the installation of a generator.

The company said work in the area was immediately halted and started an investigation to determine the cause of the accident.

State-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, said the technician was employed by German construction firm Zublin, which had been contracted to work on the Andes Norte project.

Chile’s mining regulator announced the death earlier on Thursday and said its national director had been dispatched to the site to begin an investigation.

Last July, Codelco reported two separate, fatal accidents that prompted it to temporarily halt some mining projects.

“The company reiterates its call to improve safety as an essential aspect of any work we carry out,” Codelco said in a statement, urging those who work on its facilities to respect safety standards and protocols.

Parts of El Teniente’s mining operations had been halted recently due to recent torrential rainfall, but underground operations and work on the Andes Norte project continued.

The mine produced 405,429 metric tons of copper in 2022.

(By Fabian Cambero, Carolina Pulice and Sarah Morland; Editing by Isabel Woodford and Sonali Paul)