Badly Damaged Nuclear Submarine USS Connecticut Seen In New Images

Story by Tyler Rogoway • Yesterday 

Badly Damaged Nuclear Submarine USS Connecticut Seen In New Images© USN

The Navy has posted new pictures of its Seawolf class nuclear fast attack submarine USS Connecticut (SSN-22), which was badly damaged when it struck a seamount while on patrol in the South China Sea on October 2nd, 2021.

IT WAS PROBABLY LAYING MINES!

The Connecticut is currently in Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, undergoing a long series of repairs that will last until 2026, at the soonest.

In December 2021, the prized submarine limped back to its home port in Washington State, completing an arduous voyage across the Pacific while surfaced after a long emergency stop in Guam and another stop in San Diego.


USS Connecticut (SSN 22) is docked for its Extended Docking Selected Restricted Availability July 12 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility.© Provided by The Drive

USS Connecticut (SSN 22) is docked for its Extended Docking Selected Restricted Availability July 12 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility. USN


Badly Damaged Nuclear Submarine USS Connecticut Seen In New Images© Provided by The Drive

Complicating the submarine's repair is an ongoing saga of badly needed seismic upgrades to the drydock facilities at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PSNS & IMF) and at the nearby Trident Refit Facility in Bangor, Washington.

USN

The Navy release that accompanied the photos of Connecticut states:

"Construction efforts include drilling holes for the installation of anchors inside the dry dock walls to enhance structural integrity and ensure the safety of the workforce, community, environment, and submarines. The mitigation efforts updated existing emergency response plans to better address the chance of a catastrophic earthquake, along with improved early-warning employee notification systems in the dry docks.

Related video: US Navy's submarine fleet flooded with repairs (Straight Arrow News)

Duration 2:50  View on Watch

Experts from private industry, Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command and PSNS & IMF will continue to plan and implement the structural upgrades, with an eye on the Navy’s future needs and in support of the PSNS & IMF mission to deliver modern, fully-mission capable warships on-time, every time, preserving our national security."

You can read all about the relatively sudden move to seismically reinforce the drydock facilities — which are absolutely critical national assets with a major backlog of work — in this piece by our friends over at USNI News.

USN

As for the USS Connecticut, as the images show, her state remains relatively the same, at least in terms of what is visible, compared to when she arrived over a year and a half ago. Her sonar dome is still missing and, clearly, the boat has been idle for some time, with huge sections of its anechoic coating missing from its sail.

Major repairs to the submarine's bow, sonar, and other underside structure components will be challenging as the Seawolf class is long out of production. On top of that, just three boats were ever built, with one being a heavily modified sub-type in its own right, the highly secretive USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23). In the past, similar damage has been fixed by leveraging spare parts and entire sections of decommissioned submarines of the same class. That simply is not an option in this case.



USS Connecticut (SSN 22) is docked for its Extended Docking Selected Restricted Availability July 12 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility.© Provided by The Drive

USN

Even though the SSN-22 has been operational for 25 years, it is such a prized asset that the Navy is going to move forward with the fixes that will take up precious drydock space and personnel for years. At least as of November 2022, nearly 40% of the Navy's submarine fleet was sidelined in maintenance or waiting for maintenance. This is just one facet of the slow-moving crisis of lack of drydock space and personnel to effect repairs across the Navy's maintenance enterprise. This is only made worse by the service's aging fleet.



USS Connecticut (SSN 22) is docked for its Extended Docking Selected Restricted Availability July 12 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility.© Provided by The Drive

So, the Navy clearly believes that repairing the Connecticut is the best option as it also comes to terms with a rapidly widening naval fleet size gap with its primary potential opponent, China. You can read about all these issues and how they are intertwined in this recent feature of ours.

Now that the Dry Dock 5 has been recertified, SSN-22 could get the TLC she desperately needs. It will be fascinating to see her reemerge from this ordeal and in exactly what configuration. With such deep work already planned to be done on the boat, other upgrades could come as well.

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

Stars hit Hollywood sidewalks as anger at studios simmers

Story by AFP • 1h ago

Stars including Ben Schwarz joined rank-and-file actors on the picket lines in Los Angeles© Michael Tran

Honking horns, simmering heat, a smattering of stars, and a lot of anger at Disney boss Bob Iger.

The Hollywood actors' strike kicked off on a sweltering Friday morning in Los Angeles, just over 24 hours after contract talks collapsed with studios.

Several hundred actors swelled the ranks of picketing television and movie writers, who have been pounding the palm tree-lined sidewalks outside Netflix, Warner, Paramount and more for well over two months already.


Recent comments by Disney CEO Bob Iger drew the ire of many striking Hollywood actors© KEVIN WINTER

"No contracts? No actors! No wages? No pages!" went the chants, as organizers from both unions begged strikers to keep hydrated and stay off the roads, where passing cars and trucks blared their horns in support.


Actors swelled have the ranks of television and movie writers, who have been pounding the palm tree-lined sidewalks outside Paramount and other studios for over two months© DAVID MCNEW

"It's a wonderful celebration of workers. This is more than an entertainment industry labor strike -- it's all of labor, all over the country and the world," said "Titanic" star Frances Fisher, 71.

"Everybody's standing up," she told AFP, yards award from the historic arched entryway to Paramount Picture studio.



Actress Mandy Moored joins SAG-AFTRA and WGA members on the picket line at The Walt Disney studios© KEVIN WINTER

Chanting writers welcomed the new influx of noticeably louder voices from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), and expressed hope that the arrival of globally recognizable faces should bring renewed attention to the movements.



SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher was swarmed by fellow actors outside Netflix as the Hollywood actors' strike began© VALERIE MACON

Stars including Allison Janney ("The West Wing"), Mandy Moore ("This is Us"), and Ben Schwartz ("Sonic the Hedgehog") joined rank-and-file actors on the picket lines, while Jason Sudeikis and Susan Sarandon showed up across the country at protests in New York.

"It feels historic," said Zev Frank, 36, a writer on Amazon Prime series "Patriot."

"To see them show up like this, in huge numbers, it feels different today. It feels electric."

"We're part of an industry that has so many people that are front-facing, so that extra PR is gonna be helpful, said Tien Tran, 36, star of sitcom "How I Met Your Father."

- 'Disgusting' -

Among other demands, SAG-AFTRA is asking studios for pay rises to keep pace with inflation, a greater share in the profit of hit shows or films.

Those proposals were dismissed by Disney CEO Bob Iger this week as "unrealistic" -- comments that invoked fury among several strikers interviewed by AFP.

"He's refurnishing his house right now for $5 million, and these people don't even have health insurance... it's disrespectful and disgusting," said Shawn Richardz, an actress who has appeared in "Treme" and "Nip/Tuck."

"This guy is saying we're asking for unrealistic things? Are you kidding me?"

"That was a really prime example of the mindset of the people on top," agreed actor E.J. Arriola 42.

"As artists, we've been around for so long, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of respect."

Many heaped praised on SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, whose similar language in a press conference announcing the strike Thursday went viral.

She was swarmed by fellow actors outside Netflix on Friday, as the crowd cheered her comments and took them up as chants.

Elsewhere, among the hundreds of SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America signs, placards from other Hollywood unions representing behind-the scenes crew and transport workers were visible among the marchers.

"I have no sets to build without actors," read one slogan.

Both of those guilds re-negotiate their own contracts with studios next year.

"If they need to walk off the job, then we're going to be there to support them too," said Frank, the writer.

amz/caw

Hollywood studios allegedly want screenwriters to lose homes before negotiating, sources say

Story by National Post Staff • 4h ago

Striking WGA workers march in solidarity on the picket line outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel on July 3, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.© Provided by National Post

Hollywood executives are allegedly delaying talks with the Writers Guild of America until screenwriters are cash-strapped in order to hold sway over negotiations, insiders told Deadline.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told the publication , with another source calling it a “cruel but necessary evil.”

WGA went on strike on May 2 and has not met with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Studios have no plans to meet with the WGA until the fall, another source, a top producer, told Deadline: “Not Halloween precisely, but late October, for sure, is the intention.”

AMPTP has since denied the allegations, telling Deadline “these anonymous people are not speaking on behalf of the AMPTP or member companies, who are committed to reaching a deal and getting our industry back to work.”

Sean Penn, backing WGA strike, says AI dispute is 'a human obscenity' at Cannes Film Festival

Some writers seem to believe the report is a negotiating tactic intended to create a rift within the WGA.

“They were planning for a three month strike — not Halloween,” writer Joe Russo wrote on Twitter. “They need projects up again or they’ll get killed after their quarterly earnings calls (at the) end of July.”

“After 70+ days with no writers to create their product for them, the pipeline is running dry. Their stock price isn’t tanking yet,” wrote writer David Slack. “If they don’t make a deal with us, it will.”

“What an inept attempt to scare WGA members into turning on each other,” wrote journalist Mark Harris.

On July 13, the Screen Actors Guild, Hollywood’s actors union, voted to join screenwriters on the picket line. The two guilds have similar issues with studios and streaming services.

They are concerned about contracts keeping up with inflation and about residual payments, which compensate creators and actors for use of their material beyond the original airing, such as in reruns or on streaming services.

The unions also want to put up guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence mimicking their work on film and television.

According to Deadline, studios hope to bring actors to the negotiating table within a few weeks.

Additional reporting from Associated Press

How the Hollywood actors' strike could impact Canada's film industry

Story by Brock Wilson • Yesterday 

It's official: the union representing film and television actors has voted to go on strike starting Thursday at midnight — and Canada's film industry will feel the effects.

Still reeling from an ongoing Hollywood writers' strike, industry insiders in Canada say this second strike will only make things worse for Canada's creative economy.

So, who is involved in the strike, and what does it mean for Canadian-made movies and TV?
The key players

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) confirmed strike action during a press conference Thursday, after contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a group representing studio executives, ended without a new deal.

"All of us will be on picket lines tomorrow morning," said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director of SAG-AFTRA.


A sign reads 'Unions Stand Together' as Hollywood actors walk the picket line in solidarity with striking writers in Los Angeles on July 11. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)© Provided by cbc.ca

It marks the first time that actors and writers are picketing film and television productions simultaneously since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was the actors' guild president.

"We are the victims here," said Fran Drescher, the actors' guild president.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said earlier it was disappointed by the failure to reach a deal.

"This is the Union's choice, not ours. In doing so, it has dismissed our offer of historic pay and residual increases, substantially higher caps on pension and health contributions, audition protections, shortened series option periods, a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors' digital likenesses, and more," the AMPTP said in a statement.

Issues in negotiations include: the unregulated use of artificial intelligence, and the effects on residual pay brought on by the streaming ecosystem that has emerged in recent years.

What it means for Canada

Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) have been on strike since early May, already slowing the production of films and television shows.

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) has 28,000 members working in Canadian productions. In a statement, ACTRA said "members from across Canada stand in steadfast solidarity with SAG-AFTRA and its members in their effort to achieve a fair and equitable contract."


Some Canadians are already being impacted by the labour unrest.

How will the Hollywood actors' strike impact your favourite shows? | Watch (msn.com)

Amanda Row is a Canadian director and producer who has worked on dozens of TV shows that have been shot in Canada. "People don't recognize how much of the content they watch is actually created here," Row told CBC News.

Row said the writers' strike has already impacted her ability to work — and the actors' strike will likely make things worse.

"I've definitely been working way less than I usually would. I know directors who have not worked at all."


SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher speaks during a press conference announcing a strike by The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists on Thursday. This marks the first time since 1960 that actors and writers will picket film and television productions at the same time. (Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press)© Provided by cbc.ca

Damian Petti, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 212 in Calgary, has similar concerns. Petti said the majority of IATSE's 1,500 members work in the film industry and will be impacted by the strike.

"This is a very large storm that has happened and it heavily impacts the employment of our members."

Petti said Calgary's film industry had been booming in recent years following updates to the city's filming incentives. But he is now seeing a lack of opportunities because of the writers' strike. He said the new actors' strike will worsen the situation.

Martin Katz is president and founder of Prospero Pictures in Toronto. He has produced a number of Hollywood movies, including five alongside director David Cronenberg.

He said the strike's impact will be felt on productions across the country.

"If they're shooting in Malta or they're shooting in Toronto or Vancouver or Newfoundland, SAG will take jurisdiction over that show and that show will be shut down now that those actors are on strike," he told CBC News.

This comes at a time when some productions in Canada were already facing delays due to the writers' strike.

Canadian co-productions like Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, which is shot in Toronto, and HBO's The Last of Us, which will film its second season in Vancouver, have both been delayed due to the WGA strike.

In an email, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto told CBC News "it's premature to speculate on any potential future impacts," the actors' strike could have on the city's film industry.

But if we take a look back at how things have gone this year amid the WGA strike, we can start to get a sense of how the SAG-AFTRA strike could further impact productions in Canada.

Looking ahead

As of last month, only 15 projects had set up shop in Toronto this year amid talk of the now-ongoing U.S. writers' strike, compared to 25 last year, Marguerite Pigott, the city's film commissioner, told CBC News in an interview last month.

Similar dynamics are playing out in western Canada.

British Columbia hit a low of 28 active productions just before the beginning of the WGA strike — around half of what it would typically see that time of the year, Gemma Martini, the CEO of Martini Film Studios in Langley, said in an earlier interview.



Shooting for HBO's The Last of Us, which will film its second season in Vancouver, has been delayed due to the writers' strike. (HBO)© Provided by cbc.ca

While the numbers may paint a bleak picture, Petti said the SAG-AFTRA strike could provide an opportunity for independent Canadian filmmakers and workers.

"For those who had projects ready to go, there's definitely opportunities here that are arising from this. So for Canadian independent productions, they are seeing a more highly skilled crew available to them currently," he told CBC News.

How long could this last?

While no one can say for sure, many industry insiders told CBC News they don't expect the strike to end anytime soon.

That could spell trouble for one of Canada's major cultural extravaganzas: The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Held in late September, TIFF is typically a star-studded event.

"If SAG is on strike and they won't allow their members to come and do promotion at TIFF, it might take a lot of the wind out of the sails at TIFF, which would be disastrous as well," said Katz from Prospero Pictures.

"It could be extremely devastating on the people who work in our industry at almost every level."

Canada's Tornado Alley may be moving from Prairies to Ontario-Quebec, warn researchers

Story by Thomas Daigle • 4h ago

The tornadoes that ripped across suburban Ottawa and near Montreal on Thursday highlight a growing concern for researchers.

Preliminary data trends suggest Canada's most densely populated zone — in Ontario and Quebec — may become the country's epicentre for twisters, with increasingly devastating consequences.

"What we're seeing is lining up with climate change projections," David Sills, executive director of the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP), told CBC News. He pointed to information collected in recent years by the team based at Western University in London, Ont.

Canada's Tornado Alley, long considered to be largely in the Prairies, appears to be moving east, home to millions more people.

"We have a lot more work to do to collect data to make sure those trends are robust," Sills, a former Environment Canada tornado investigator, said in an interview. "But it certainly seems that that's the case. And that's not great news, [with] a lot of population in this area from Windsor [Ont.] to Quebec City."



Researchers from Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) survey damage in Tweed, Ont., on June 28. Preliminary data trends suggest Canada's most densely populated zone — in Ontario and Quebec — may become the country's epicentre for twisters. 

(Megan McCleister/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

Canada reports more tornadoes than any other country, except the U.S.

Sills's NTP team seeks to gain a clearer picture of exactly how many twisters are hitting Canada, by compiling the most comprehensive database the country's ever had.

When they started tracking the data, they pinpointed 70 tornadoes in 2017. As their work expanded and the team received more reports from the public, the numbers grew to 118 confirmed tornadoes in 2021 and another 117 last year.

"We've noticed just in the work we've done since 2017… there's a heck of a lot of tornadoes that seem to be happening in eastern Ontario [and] southwestern Quebec, and not quite as much happening on the Prairies," Sills said.

Related video: Enormous damage in Montréal area after a tornado and flooding swept through the city (The Weather Network) Duration 1:05 View on Watch

The Weather NetworkTornado touches down in south Ottawa damaging homes

0:42

ReutersNo one killed but it's lights out as tornado hits suburban Ottawa

0:38

The Weather NetworkDangerous setup for severe storms in Ontario and Quebec

1:18

A CBC News crew recently followed a team from the NTP as they investigated a suspected twister in rural Tweed, Ont., northwest of Kingston. Analyzing weather data, then using a drone to map damage from above and inspecting downed trees and other debris on the ground, the researchers concluded the area had been hit by two tornadoes — both classified on the enhanced Fujita (EF) scale as an EF-0.

By comparison, the tornado that destroyed several homes in central Alberta on Canada Day was considered an EF-4, one of the most powerful twisters in the country's history.



David Sills, seen at his office in London, Ont., is executive director of the NTP. The team is working to get a clearer picture of how many twisters are hitting Canada.

 (Megan McCleister/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca

An EF-4 signals wind speeds between 332 and 418 km/h. The EF scale tops out at 5, with even high wind speeds and "massive devastation," according to Public Safety Canada.

Canada's deadliest tornado tore through Regina in 1912. The EF-4 killed 28 people and left 2,500 homeless. If such extreme weather proves increasingly common in Central Canada, it poses an even greater risk, say experts, with some 18 million people living between Windsor and Quebec City.

Aaron Jaffe, an NTP researcher who led the team on the ground in Tweed, warned against minimizing twisters classified only as EF-0 or EF-1.

"All it takes is a tree to fall into the house or cottage, and then you have significant damage," he said.

Building resiliency

Part of the work by the NTP seeks to build Canada's resiliency to tornadoes.

"If we know where they're happening with greater precision, we can come up with adaptation strategies that make a lot more sense," said Greg Kopp, an engineering professor at Western University.


An image of the EF-4-rated tornado damage at the farm on the west side of Highway 2A between Didsbury and Carstairs, Alta., on July 1. A woman took shelter in the home's basement and survived. (Northern Tornadoes Project)© Northern Tornadoes Project

Kopp said Canadian building codes need to be updated to reflect the growing risk posed by tornadoes, and homebuilders should consider small investments to lessen the potential impact of a twister.

"Twenty years ago when we started talking about this, the only reaction we ever got was, 'You're crazy,'" said Kopp, who acts as NTP's lead researcher.

He said simple additions to new builds, such as hurricane straps or roof clips, could help prevent major damage and only cost a few hundred dollars. The small connectors can keep roofs attached, even in the event of an EF-2 tornado, Kopp added.

'A forgotten genocide, the broken voice of the Kurdish people'

Béatrice Dillies

The war in Iraq and Syria has shown the world the tremendous capacity of Kurdish fighters to resist Daesh. They stood up to barbarism while the great nations hesitated to engage. No doubt, this people has a long history of fighting and resistance, having suffered one of the greatest genocides of the 20th century under the orders of Saddam Hussein: Operation Anfal. The West was moved in March 1988 by the Halabja massacre: the tip of an iceberg of suffering, which caused in total the deaths of 182,000 Kurds, victims of a genocidal policy initiated in 1968 by the Baathist regime of Saddam.

This book plunges us into the heart of the tragedy of a people whose existence was denied in 1923 by the signatories of the Treaty of Lausanne. A story that the world must face, as does Snur – a common thread of this investigation – who discovers why her voice broke when she was a baby one day in Aug. 1988, when Chemical Ali had sent his Sarin bombs.

Snur never went to school because of her injuries, although she did began to speak gradually at the age of 12. She has not completely overcome her disability, even though today she is doing well. So, with Kavout Mahy, my main translator, we told her about our encounters with genocide survivors in all regions of Kurdistan just like a history lesson at home. She has become the red thread of this book and has allowed the ellipses to fill in the little holes over 50 years of history.

Snur plays the role of Candide (the title of an 18th-Century book by the French philosopher Voltaire). Through her reactions, her questions, and the answers we give her, Snur allows us to project Kurdish history over several years, from 1968 to 2018.

With the help of Kavout, but also of his father Zoubeyr, his uncle Ismaël, their friend Osmane and two other French-speaking Kurds, I interviewed more than 100 survivors of all the great massacres suffered by the Kurds these last 50 years. Headlining the group of interviewees were three of the judges who condemned Saddam Hussein and his accomplices. I had access to some pretty terrible video archives, I have to say. However, I had received parts of the investigation file against Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan al-Majid. This allowed me to gather a lot of information.

The result is this book, written like a historical novel, with very colorful, almost cinematographic writing, and it immerses Snur and readers in the heart of the important periods of Kurdish history. Maps help French readers understand the book's narrative.

Pierre Perret, a famous French singer who wrote "La Petite Kurde" in 1992, wrote the book's afterword. And Joost Hiltermann, former head of the Human Rights Watch in Iraq, wrote the preface. The preface was followed with an introduction to the Kurdish question, from the end of the 19th century to the Treaty of Lausanne, which helps explain the context of the book's setting—the past 50 years.

I have also chosen to write 21 chapters for this book. 21, a symbolic number, since the sun in the center of the Kurdistan flag has 21 rays, and it is also the day of Newroz, March 21.

I consider the official recognition of the Kurdish genocide by France first, and then the entire international community participating in the rebirth of the Kurds, a people who have already shown resilience, as the name that I chose for my blog: The Kurdish Phoenix (Le Phénix Kurde, in French). But Kurds need recognition. Helping the victims heal their physical and moral wounds to allow them to rebuild themselves is a critical condition for helping Kurdistan move forward.

Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not explicitly and/or necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Kurdistan 24.

HYDROCARBON RICH KURDISTAN

ZeroWaste hopes to create a sustainable future for Kurdistan

“Through raising awareness, you can change the mentality of the people.”

 Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2023/07/07 

Evin Ghazi Harris, one of the founders of the Zero Waste (Photo: Evin Ghazi/ZeroWaste)
Kurdistan Environment CleanWaste Kurdistan


ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Evin Ghazi Harris, a co-founder of the ZeroWaste Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), founded in 2021, is dedicated to raising awareness about the perils of climate change and environmental pollution among the residents of the Kurdistan Region.

“We have decided to take this initiative to create a sustainable future for Kurdistan, as you can see, not only in Kurdistan, but in all of the world. Climate change is a dangerous issue and we have to take immediate action today in order to save the future,” she told Kurdistan 24.

“So we have done several activities such as planting campaigns, cleanup activities, and education campaigns. My main focus is on that because through raising awareness, you can change the mentality of the people.”

Read More: PM Masrour Barzani thanks activists and diplomats for clean-up campaign near Shaqlawa

Up until now, a significant number of citizens in the Kurdistan Region continue to litter when disposing of trash, exacerbating the issue. Much of the littering is done by picnickers that frequently leave behind substantial amounts of trash in the natural surroundings of the Kurdistan Region.

“They don’t clean the place after an outdoor visit. So we have to change this mentality in order to make a positive change in our community.”

“We have to change the policy from the first step to raise awareness of the dangers behind what will happen in 10 years in Kurdistan and how to create a caring community. So I have started by raising awareness in elementary school in universities for the young people and sharing my skills and experience to add value to their skill as well.”

Read More: US Consul General joins cleanup activity in Erbil

Last year, the then-US Consul General Robert Palladino participated in a cleanup effort together with ZeroWaste and other volunteers, which was supported by the American Corners and the US consulate.

Ghazi Harris hoped this “motivated and inspired others to do similar activities as well. So my main goal here is to inspire others and to be a role model for young people in my community.”

She added that in other countries there are many volunteering activities to cleanup and advertisements to protect the environment. “But here in Kurdistan we don't have that many environmental activities.”

Moreover, ZeroWaste has developed an action plan to reach out to other organizations, not just in Erbil, but also other cities in Kurdistan to work together and protect the environment.

ZeroWaste has also worked with a recycling company. “We have placed some space in public places just for plastics. So they have collected all the plastics and they will recycle it again to be used for the construction.”

Furthermore, the organization plans to do more cleanup activities in the future.


In April, ZeroWaste also published a Kurdish story book for new and future generations of children that will add value to their knowledge about the environment.

“This book contains stories of children who are making a difference in Kurdistan. It explores the story of two friends and how they are striving to enact change in their community or champion a cause they are passionate about. This is the perfect book for any young person looking for ideas and inspiration to make a change in the environmental sector.”

Christians in Kurdistan Region protest Iraq’s presidential decree

The decree revocation came after a period of tension between the Church’s leader and Rayan al-Kildani, the leader of Babylon Movement, a Christian political party close to Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq.

Christians gathering in front of Cathedral Saint Joseph in Erbil protest an Iraqi presidential decree, 

July 13, 2023. (Photo: Rebaz Siyan/Kurdistan 24)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Hundreds of Christians on Thursday gathered in Kurdistan Region’s Ankawa district to protest a recent Iraqi presidential decree, which revoked an earlier decision that had recognized Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako as the head of Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and the world.

Members of various Christian political parties gathered in front of the Cathedral of Saint Joseph in the district, where they read a joint statement, slamming the new decree issued on July 3 by Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rasheed.

Per the new decree published in the official gazette, Decree No. 147 of 2013, which had recognized Patriarch Sako as the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and the world as well as custodian of the Church’s assets.

“We protest this decision because we believe it is an attack on one of the biggest churches in Iraq and the Middle East,” Goran Abdul Jabar, an official from a Chaldean party, told reporters, adding the decision sets a precedent that attacks Christians.

The decree revocation came after a period of tension between the Church’s leader and Rayan al-Kildani, the leader of Babylon Movement, a Christian political party close to Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq.

The two leaders have recently engaged in a war of words, accusing each other of exploiting the minority group, whose population has dramatically dwindled in Iraq.

The militia leader is “self-aggrandizing and wants to become a leader,” Patriarch Sako told Kurdistan 24 in May.

Al-Kildani heads the 50th Brigade of the Shiite militias, known as Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The U.S. Treasury designated al-Kildani for “serious human rights abuses,” on July 18, 2019.

“In May 2018, a video circulated among Iraqi human rights civil society organizations in which al-Kildani cut off the ear of a handcuffed detainee,” the Treasury noted.

Although the Movement presents itself as a Christian military unit of the PMF, most of its recruits are Shiite Muslims from Baghdad, Sadr City, Al-Muthanna, and Dhi Qar, according to Michael Knights, a Shiite militia expert at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.

In 2017, al-Kildani founded the militia group, whose members were expelled from the Hamdaniya district by the PMF command and Prime Minister Office for stealing ancient artifacts from the Mar Behnam Monastery and homes.

Swedish top court blocks extradition of two wanted by Turkey

The ruling comes just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was ready to allow Sweden to join the military alliance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (Photo: Turkish Presidency)

Sweden's Supreme Court said Thursday it was blocking the extradition of two people wanted by Turkey for involvement in the so-called Gulen movement, a key demand by Ankara to ratify Stockholm's NATO membership.

The ruling comes just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was ready to allow Sweden to join the military alliance.

However on Wednesday, Erdogan said the country would not be able to ratify Sweden's NATO candidacy until at least October, when the Turkish parliament is due to re-open after its summer break.

In Sweden, the government makes the final decision on extradition requests but cannot grant a request to another state if the Supreme Court rules against it.

The two cases concerned individuals wanted for being members of the Gulen movement, which Erdogan blamed for masterminding a bloody coup bid by a renegade army faction in July 2016.

According to the court, the evidence provided by Turkey was that they had both downloaded an app for encrypted communication used by members of group -- which Turkey has designated a terrorist group.

"In one case extradition is requested for the enforcement of a prison sentence and in the other for prosecution. In its opinion to the government, the Supreme Court has explained that there are obstacles to extradition in both cases," the court said in a statement.

The court said the extraditions could not go forward because downloading the app would not by itself be enough to convict someone of participating in a terrorist organisation under Swedish law.

It also added that the individuals had been granted refugee status in Sweden and would risk persecution if they were returned to Turkey.

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO member states yet to ratify the Sweden's bid -- which requires unanimous ratification.

Erdogan had until earlier this week blocked Sweden, accusing Stockholm of being a haven for "terrorists".

Cracking down on extremist groups and approving the extradition of dozens of suspects it believed were linked to the failed 2016 coup attempt had been key demands from Turkey.

2016

 

The ‘problem’ of where ancient Jerusalem was built gets thornier

A new find near the Temple Mount suggests that the ‘City of David’ was more likely a suburb of ancient Jerusalem.

An aerial view of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Temple Mount. Photo by Avraham Graicer/Creative Commons

July 6, 2023

By 

David I. Klein

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(RNS) — As tourism to Jerusalem rebounded from the pandemic last year, more than 2 million visitors came to see the Old City of Jerusalem’s gleaming stone walls and the attraction known as “the City of David,” and the large stone structure, standing opposite the Temple Mount, said to be the remnants of King David’s palace.

But a paper published in June in Tel Aviv, the journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, gives further credence to growing suspicions that David’s headquarters was located elsewhere. 

According to Nadav Na’aman, an Israeli archaeologist who’s been studying the region’s ancient history since the early 1960s, cuneiform tablets discovered in an area known as “the Ophel” at the base of the Mount suggest that the royal palace and historical core of the city was likely there.

The compound known as the City of David is popular among Jewish and Christian tourists alike, drawing more than 400,000 people every year. The site includes the Gihon Spring, where, according to Christian legend, the Virgin Mary washed Jesus’ swaddling clothes, and the Siloam Tunnel, built by the biblical king Hezekiah to supply the city with water while it was under siege by an Assyrian army in the eighth or seventh century B.C.E. 

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The iconic walls that ring today’s Old City are in fact of Ottoman construction, built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century. 

In the biblical era, and the Middle Bronze Age period before it, the city had a very different footprint. Though it still incorporated the Temple Mount, much of what is today the Armenian and Christian quarters was outside its walls, while the city spilled down to the south into the valley that today makes up the largely Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan. There on a ridge is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 19th century, long identified as the core of the ancient city of Jerusalem.

It made a certain sense that David’s palace, the administrative and political center of the oldest iteration of the city, would stand opposite the Temple Mount, the center of the city’s religious hierarchy.

But many archaeologists have long felt that the evidence pointing to the City of David complex is far from conclusive. The question has become colloquially known as “the problem with Jerusalem” in the Israeli archaeological community. 

“The ‘problem with Jerusalem’ is the location of its original ancient site,” Professor Israel Finkelstein, head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa, told Religion News Service. Most puzzling is that the structures on the “City of David” ridge do not have the characteristics of an ancient mound, the type of settlement structure that made up the earliest cities in the area in the Middle Bronze Age. 

The location of the tablets reported last month by Na’aman, believed to be royal correspondence, suggest they fell further north. 

“The discovery of the two tablet fragments in the Ophel area,” Na’aman argued in his paper, “has changed the balance of evidence. As observed above, the fragments indicate that the royal palace, from where they must have swept, was probably on the Temple Mount.”

In Na’aman’s thinking, the City of David would have been an outlying suburb in the early days of the city. 

“This would account for the scanty architectural remains and the paucity of objects dated to the Late Bronze Age uncovered in the excavations conducted in the Southeastern Hill,” Na’aman wrote, referring to the City of David’s ridge. “According to this logic, the centre of the city at the time was located on the Temple Mount, north of the Southeastern Hill, with the latter having been a peripheral, poorly inhabited area in its vicinity.”

The lack of significant structural remains between the City of David and the Temple Mount from the earliest days of Jerusalem, he concluded, suggests a city in two parts.

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RELATED: First known depictions of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah uncovered in Israel

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“The picture that emerges from the discussion is perplexing. On the one hand, the Temple Mount, where the royal palace and temple were located, was probably the economic and administrative centre of the city as early as the second millennium BCE,” Na’aman wrote. “On the other hand, the fortifications that encompassed the Southeastern Hill formed a separate urban entity, detached from the Temple Mount.”

Still, it may be a long time before the matter is resolved. Any digging on the Temple Mount itself has been strictly forbidden amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the past, the suggestion of disturbing the site has been met with strong condemnations from Jewish and Muslim leaders alike. 

“I can only speak about the current situation and the near future — I see no possibility to dig on the Temple Mount,” Finkelstein told RNS. 

A new, thin-lensed telescope design could far surpass James Webb – goodbye mirrors, hello diffractive lenses

The Conversation
July 12, 2023, 

A light, cheap space telescope design would make it possible to put many individual units in space at once. Katie Yung, Daniel Apai /University of Arizona and AllThingsSpace /SketchFab, CC BY-ND

Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 planets outside of the solar system to date. The grand question is whether any of these planets are home to life. To find the answer, astronomers will likely need more powerful telescopes than exist today.

I am an astronomer who studies astrobiology and planets around distant stars. For the last seven years, I have been co-leading a team that is developing a new kind of space telescope that could collect a hundred times more light than the James Webb Space Telescope, the biggest space telescope ever built.

Almost all space telescopes, including Hubble and Webb, collect light using mirrors. Our proposed telescope, the Nautilus Space Observatory, would replace large, heavy mirrors with a novel, thin lens that is much lighter, cheaper and easier to produce than mirrored telescopes. Because of these differences, it would be possible to launch many individual units into orbit and create a powerful network of telescopes.


Exoplanets, like TOI-700d shown in this artist’s conception, are planets beyond our solar system and are prime candidates in the search for life. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

The need for larger telescopes

Exoplanets – planets that orbit stars other than the Sun – are prime targets in the search for life. Astronomers need to use giant space telescopes that collect huge amounts of light to study these faint and faraway objects.


The James Webb Space Telescope is just barely able to search exoplanets for signs of life. NASA

Existing telescopes can detect exoplanets as small as Earth. However, it takes a lot more sensitivity to begin to learn about the chemical composition of these planets. Even Webb is just barely powerful enough to search certain exoplanets for clues of life – namely gases in the atmosphere.


The James Webb Space Telescope cost more than US$8 billion and took over 20 years to build. The next flagship telescope is not expected to fly before 2045 and is estimated to cost $11 billion. These ambitious telescope projects are always expensive, laborious and produce a single powerful – but very specialized – observatory.
A new kind of telescope

In 2016, aerospace giant Northrop Grumman invited me and 14 other professors and NASA scientists – all experts on exoplanets and the search for extraterrestrial life – to Los Angeles to answer one question: What will exoplanet space telescopes look like in 50 years?


In our discussions, we realized that a major bottleneck preventing the construction of more powerful telescopes is the challenge of making larger mirrors and getting them into orbit. To bypass this bottleneck, a few of us came up with the idea of revisiting an old technology called diffractive lenses.


Diffractive lenses, left, are much thinner compared to similarly powerful refractive lenses, right. Pko/Wikimedia Commons


Conventional lenses use refraction to focus light. Refraction is when light changes direction as it passes from one medium to another – it is the reason light bends when it enters water. In contrast, diffraction is when light bends around corners and obstacles. A cleverly arranged pattern of steps and angles on a glass surface can form a diffractive lens.

The first such lenses were invented by the French scientist Augustin-Jean Fresnel in 1819 to provide lightweight lenses for lighthouses. Today, similar diffractive lenses can be found in many small-sized consumer optics – from camera lenses to virtual reality headsets.

Thin, simple diffractive lenses are notorious for their blurry images, so they have never been used in astronomical observatories. But if you could improve their clarity, using diffractive lenses instead of mirrors or refractive lenses would allow a space telescope to be much cheaper, lighter and larger.



One of the benefits of diffractive lenses is that they can remain thin while increasing in diameter. Daniel Apai/University of Arizona, CC BY-ND

A thin, high-resolution lens

After the meeting, I returned to the University of Arizona and decided to explore whether modern technology could produce diffractive lenses with better image quality. Lucky for me, Thomas Milster – one of the world’s leading experts on diffractive lens design – works in the building next to mine. We formed a team and got to work.

Over the following two years, our team invented a new type of diffractive lens that required new manufacturing technologies to etch a complex pattern of tiny grooves onto a piece of clear glass or plastic. The specific pattern and shape of the cuts focuses incoming light to a single point behind the lens. The new design produces a near-perfect quality image, far better than previous diffractive lenses.



A diffractive lens bends light using etchings and patterns on its surface. 

Daniel Apai/University of Arizona, CC BY-ND

Because it is the surface texture of the lens that does the focusing, not the thickness, you can easily make the lens bigger while keeping it very thin and lightweight. Bigger lenses collect more light, and low weight means cheaper launches to orbit – both great traits for a space telescope.

In August 2018, our team produced the first prototype, a 2-inch (5-centimeter) diameter lens. Over the next five years, we further improved the image quality and increased the size. We are now completing a 10-inch (24-cm) diameter lens that will be more than 10 times lighter than a conventional refractive lens would be.

Power of a diffraction space telescope

This new lens design makes it possible to rethink how a space telescope might be built. In 2019, our team published a concept called the Nautilus Space Observatory.

Using the new technology, our team thinks it is possible to build a 29.5-foot (8.5-meter) diameter lens that would be only about 0.2 inches (0.5 cm) thick. The lens and support structure of our new telescope could weigh around 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms). This is more than three times lighter than a Webb–style mirror of a similar size and would be bigger than Webb’s 21-foot (6.5-meter) diameter mirror.



The thin lens allowed the team to design a lighter, cheaper telescope, which they named the Nautilus Space Observatory. 

Daniel Apai/University of Arizona, CC BY-ND

The lenses have other benefits, too. First, they are much easier and quickerto fabricate than mirrors and can be made en masse. Second, lens-based telescopes work well even when not aligned perfectly, making these telescopes easier to assemble and fly in space than mirror-based telescopes, which require extremely precise alignment.

Finally, since a single Nautilus unit would be light and relatively cheap to produce, it would be possible to put dozens of them into orbit. Our current design is in fact not a single telescope, but a constellation of 35 individual telescope units.

Each individual telescope would be an independent, highly sensitive observatory able to collect more light than Webb. But the real power of Nautilus would come from turning all the individual telescopes toward a single target.

By combining data from all the units, Nautilus’ light-collecting power would equal a telescope nearly 10 times larger than Webb. With this powerful telescope, astronomers could search hundreds of exoplanets for atmospheric gases that may indicate extraterrestrial life.

Although the Nautilus Space Observatory is still a long way from launch, our team has made a lot of progress. We have shown that all aspects of the technology work in small-scale prototypes and are now focusing on building a 3.3-foot (1-meter) diameter lens. Our next steps are to send a small version of the telescope to the edge of space on a high-altitude balloon.

With that, we will be ready to propose a revolutionary new space telescope to NASA and, hopefully, be on the way to exploring hundreds of worlds for signatures of life.

Daniel Apai, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.