Biggest African Port to Be Partially Privatized


Antony Sguazzin
Mon, July 17, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Africa’s biggest harbor will be partly owned and operated by the Philippines’ International Container Terminal Services Inc., a first for South Africa’s national ports company.

The company, known as ICTSI, has been selected as an equity partner to run and expand Durban Container Terminal Pier 2. Almost three quarters of the freight volume moved through the eastern port goes through the terminal and it accounts for 46% of South Africa’s total port traffic, according to state logistics company, Transnet SOC Ltd.

This agreement “is a key catalyst for repositioning the Port of Durban as a container hub port,” Transnet said in a statement on Monday.

South Africa is seeking to boost private participation in its ports, the poor performance of which is a drag on the economy. In a 2021 World Bank index of container port performance, Durban ranked 364th out of 370 and two other Transnet ports were in the bottom 10.

Transnet will own a 50% plus one share in a new company that will manage the terminal for 25 years and will seek to boost its annual capacity to 2.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, from two million, it said. TEUs are used to measure trade volumes at container ports.

ICTSI, whose chairman and chief executive officer is Filipino billionaire Enrique Razon, will make an “up front” payment to Transnet for the stake, the South African company said in a response to queries, declining to give a figure. Razon is a major shareholder in ICTSI

Ultimately Transnet wants to boost Durban’s total container capacity to 11.4 million TEUs from 3.3 million.

ICTSI, which operates terminals across six continents, was one of six bidders for the contract, Transnet said.

An announcement on the port of Ngqura will follow, Transnet said.

(Updates with ICTSI ownership and payment for stake in sixth paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

ANTI-ASIANISM, AN OLD U$ TRADITION

White House blasts RFK Jr for 'antisemitic conspiracy theories'


Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

 speaks at St. Anselm College in Manchester

Reuters
Mon, July 17, 2023

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's chief spokesperson sharply criticized Democratic presidential opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for alleging in a recently released video that COVID-19 was targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people and that Jewish and Chinese people are most immune.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre joined a chorus of Democratic outrage at the comments from the 69-year-old son of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a member of the Kennedy political dynasty who was assassinated while running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024, putting him directly in competition with Biden, who is seeking a second four-year term. Kennedy is a long shot for the nomination, with a poll average from election data website FiveThirtyEight showing that about 15% of Democrats support him.

"The assertion that COVID was genetically engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people is deeply offensive, and incredibly dangerous. Every aspect of these comments reflect some of the most abhorrent antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout history and contributes to today's dangerous rise of antisemitism," Jean-Pierre said.

The New York Post on Saturday published a video that appeared to show Kennedy speaking at a dinner in Manhattan. In the video, the candidate says "COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately."

"COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese," he says in the video, adding that it was not known whether the virus was deliberately targeted or not.

Kennedy said on Sunday on Twitter than the "insinuation by @nypost and others that, as as result of my quoting a peer-reviewed paper on bio-weapons, I am somehow antisemitic, is a disgusting fabrication."

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland; Editing by Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)

Farm fields don't just feed us. They store carbon. But a big question is how much



MELINA WALLING
Sat, July 15, 2023 

DYSART, Iowa (AP) — When Al Schafbuch cut back on plowing his Iowa fields decades ago and later began growing cover crops, he was out to save money on fertilizer and reduce erosion. He got those benefits and saw his soil change for the better, too: dark, chunky, richly organic matter that he said feels like “chocolate cake."

There's one more big payoff that benefits everyone: tilling the soil less, and growing more cover crops, can help farmers store more planet-warming carbon in fields. More plants take in more carbon dioxide, and soil microbes breathe out less carbon when undisturbed. That can mean money for participating farmers in the form of carbon offsets — payments that companies can make that support carbon storage in farms and, in theory, balance out their emissions elsewhere.

“The more carbon you store from the atmosphere with your crops, and the more crops grown throughout the year, you offset some of your waste, your wasted energy,” said Shalamar Armstrong, an associate professor of agronomy at Purdue University. “Because you’ve stored carbon that would have been emitted (into) the atmosphere.”

It's an area getting more attention from lawmakers, researchers and industry professionals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week announced a $300 million investment to monitor agricultural emissions, including by creating a research network to monitor carbon in soil. And U.S. Sens. Tina Smith, D-Minn., and Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced a bill that Smith said would support the research needed to “properly credit soil carbon storage.”

The USDA announcement and the legislation are both aimed at the difficult question of how to quantify carbon stored in soil. It’s an obstacle to overcome if the young and booming soil carbon market is to avoid the scrutiny, and skepticism, directed at carbon credit markets.

“The science piece (of carbon credits) has really lagged behind, particularly when it comes to things like monitoring, reporting and verification,” said Cristel Zoebisch, deputy director of policy at climate organization Carbon180. “These are huge obstacles for not just soil carbon sequestration, but really any land-based carbon removal solution.”

Armstrong has been trying to help fix that problem. He runs a lab where researchers are investigating how farming management affects the amount of carbon in soil across different landscapes. He and others at Purdue have been studying soil samples that date back more than 40 years, comparing different types of tilling and cover crops to determine their long-term effects on carbon storage. It can take years of fieldwork, careful chemistry in the lab and lots of expensive equipment to puzzle that out.

He hopes his precise calculations will help farmers make decisions that allow them to receive worthwhile incentives for sequestering carbon while maintaining their existing profits.

But other academics worry that even if farmers do get paid for storing soil carbon, it won't solve a bigger problem: that carbon markets often don't work.

For offsets to be legitimate, they have to meet four criteria. They have to store carbon that would otherwise be emitted; they have to be verifiable in data; they have to be immediate (planting a tree that might grow up in 20 years doesn't cut it); and they have to be long-lasting, said John Sterman, a professor of management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Better quantifying soil carbon storage through research might make the offsets more verifiable, but it doesn't address other factors. For example, many farmers rent the land they work, and can't guarantee that carbon stored on their land will stay put in several decades if someone else is working the land.

Barbara Haya, director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at University of California, Berkeley, has worked on research that she said shows the effects of carbon offset projects are commonly overestimated, sometimes vastly so.

“Carbon trading is a mechanism that has failed miserably over the last 20 years that we really need to be moving away from," Haya said.

U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., last month introduced a bipartisan bill to support farmers in improving soil health, with incentives that don't necessarily involve the carbon market. He said farmers in his district have also described the benefits of regenerative practices, and that many would be interested in participating in carbon markets with “robust” accounting systems. But he added that those hoping for serious climate action shouldn't rely only on offsets.

“In my opinion, it’s really not the silver bullet,” Huffman said. “I think offsets are inherently sketchy."

Some farmers are moving cautiously.

Brad Wetli, an Indiana farmer who collaborates with Armstrong, has been trying techniques that use less tilling and has been planting cover crops like rye for a few years now. He's happy with the way his current fields look — “It feels like you're doing something” to contribute to sustainability, he said — but he's still weighing his options with possible carbon credit contracts, doing the math and waiting to see whether the price will be right, since many offset agreements can last for several years.

“I’m going to do maybe a field or two at a time, and as I learn more, I’ll hopefully incorporate the carbon or carbon credits more into the operation,” he said.

Schafbuch, for his part, is skeptical of carbon credits but would have been enthusiastic about regenerative farming no matter the upfront costs. He said he was an early adopter in the face of neighbors who laughed and suggested he would “end up being broke” — but he’s proved them wrong.

“I’m convinced that if you do it right, anybody can do it," he said.

___

Associated Press journalist Joshua Bickel contributed to this report from Fowler, Indiana.

___

Follow Melina Walling on Twitter @MelinaWalling.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/FactoriesPDF.pdf

Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow

As for the actual book, Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and Workshops and Colin ... urban and rural, between industrial worker and farm worker, would break.

Hong Kong's seafood businesses brace for a sales slump as Japan plans to discharge radioactive water

- Customers browse Japanese imported sea products at a supermarket in Hong Kong, Wednesday, July 12, 2023. As Tokyo plans to discharge treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, Hong Kong’s Japanese restaurants and seafood suppliers are bracing for a slump in business under a potential ban by Hong Kong on aquatic products from 10 Japanese regions.

 (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)


KANIS LEUNG
Sun, July 16, 2023

In this article:
Sam Lam
Canadian soccer player

HONG KONG (AP) — As Tokyo plans to discharge treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, Japanese restaurant operator Sam Lam is busy finding substitutes for Japanese seafood that could soon be banned from entering Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong government said last Wednesday that the city would immediately bar the import of aquatic products from 10 Japanese prefectures if wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is released into the Pacific Ocean.

Lam said his team could get seafood from other sources and change menus to adjust to the ban, but he predicted that revenues could nevertheless drop from 10% to 20% if the Japanese and Hong Kong governments press ahead with their plans.

“My customers told me that once the water is discharged, they will eat fewer (aquatic products) or stop eating them,” he said in an interview Friday.
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Lam is not alone among Japanese restaurants and seafood suppliers in Hong Kong who are bracing for a slump in business under the potential ban, and who fear that the discharge could lead to a general decline of confidence in the safety of seafood.

The financial hub was Japan's second biggest market for fishery exports after mainland China and purchased 75.5 billion yen ($546 million) worth of aquatic products from the country last year, the Japanese government's data showed.

The 10 affected prefectures — Tokyo, Fukushima, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama — provide about 15% of the total amount of imported aquatic products from Japan, according to estimates by Simon Wong, president of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trade.

Wong said the city's Japanese restaurants could find substitute seafood products from other regions, but they may not share the same level of prestige, and that could mar a restaurant's image or make customers feel that the food is less authentic.

“After moving past the pandemic, businesses were hoping that crisis is a thing of the past already. They don't know if this incident will bring another crisis," he said.

He said the industry took about a year to restore the public's confidence in Japanese food after the Fukushima nuclear crisis in March 2011. He said if the current safety concerns aren't immediately resolved, the industry might need more than nine months to restore some level of confidence.

A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and releasing large amounts of radiation. The tanks where water used to cool the reactor cores is stored will reach their capacity in early 2024.

In 2021, Japan’s government announced plans to gradually release the treated — but still slightly radioactive — water after being diluted to what it says are safe levels. The U.N. nuclear agency endorsed the plans, saying they meet international standards. But the idea is opposed by groups in South Korea, China and some Pacific Island nations because of safety concerns and political reasons. Local fishing organizations fear that their reputation will be damaged even if their catch isn’t contaminated.

Christine Huang, who imports Japanese food from outside the 10 prefectures targeted in the potential ban, remembered the pain in 2011.

Consumer worries triggered by the Fukushima accident led to her company's revenues being halved for a period of two to three months, said Huang, the director at Best Quality Food. Workers at her company were forced to take unpaid leave, she added.

She worried that the release at Fukushima could again shake Hong Kongers’ confidence in the safety of Japanese food in the short term. “If business at Japanese restaurants turn bad, we will be quite miserable,” she said.

Murakami Satoshi, a wholesaler who imported seafood such as saury from the affected prefecture of Miyagi, also predicted a potential drop in sales due to the ban. To allay concerns of his restaurant clients, he said he would boost efforts to get seafood from unaffected regions, such as the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Hokkaido.

Those who sell seafood products from outside Japan also voiced concerns. Local seafood wholesale company worker Fung See foresaw his company's revenues could drop at least 20% to 30% due to consumers’ worries even though they mainly trade fish from Hong Kong and mainland China.

Oyster shop owner Wilson Lau, who sells shellfish from Miyagi, said he was not bothered. “Fresh oysters also exist in many countries," said Lau, who is director of the HK Oyster Concern Group. “Even if consumers do not eat Japanese oysters, they can eat other types of oysters.”

At about Friday's noon at Sam Lam's Japanese restaurant, fewer customers were ordering sashimi than usual. Of about 10 meal sets Lam checked, only one was sashimi, he said.

Customer Yo Kong said she's been dining more at Japanese restaurants lately to get her fill ahead of the expected discharge at Fukushima. Once that happens, the 50-year-old insurance manager said she might stop eating sashimi for a few months.

“I will just have more when it's still OK to eat,” she said.

___

Associated Press news assistant Annie Cheung contributed to this report.

  

EU’s Influence Push in Latin America Dented by Ukraine Clash

“The arms race makes it even more difficult to face climate change.” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said 

Jorge Valero, Maria Tadeo and Samy Adghirni
Mon, July 17, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Leaders of the European Union are seeking to reboot relations with Latin America in a competition for influence against Russia and China, but wrangling over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is hampering their efforts.

The EU will help invest over €45 billion ($50.6 billion) in Latin America and the Caribbean until 2027, Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, told a business conference Monday ahead of a two-day summit in Brussels with leaders from the regions.

The funding — which would come from a combination of EU funds, member states’ contributions, development banks and the private sector — will be focused on areas including clean energy, critical raw materials, health and education.

A key goal for Europe in the summit is seeking stronger support for Ukraine in its efforts to counter the Russian invasion, reduce China’s sway, and ensure access to critical raw materials for its digital and green transition.

But diplomats are clashing on a possible statement to mark the end of the summit. The EU wants a section condemning “the ongoing war against Ukraine,” deploring “in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation” and demanding “its complete and unconditional withdrawal,” according to a draft seen by Bloomberg.

Latin American and Caribbean countries, however, currently prefer to “express concern” about the war, and support efforts for an immediate cessation of hostilities, the draft shows.

Cuba and Nicaragua are among the main countries blocking a harder stance in the statement against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, according to two people who asked not to be identified on confidential talks.

“The war at the heart of Europe throws a blanket of uncertainty on the world and channels for war purposes resources that were until then essential for the economy and social programs,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the business roundtable. “The arms race makes it even more difficult to face climate change.”

Trade Accord

The EU and the Mercosur countries — Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay — have been in talks to try to clinch a trade accord for more than 20 years. But the Latin American countries have balked at the EU’s Green Deal, and rules to reduce CO2 emissions that include strict conditions to gain access to the European market.

“We want to discuss today how to further connect our people, how to further connect our businesses, how to de-risk, how to strengthen and diversify our supply chains and how to modernize our economies in ways that reduce inequalities and benefit all,” von der Leyen told reporters earlier as she welcomed Lula.

By announcing the €45 billion investment goal in the region, the EU is trying to compete with Chinese influence in region. Spain is planning to help provide some €9.4 billion worth of public funding, using a mix of development funds, export credits and other tools.

Von der Leyen said all the objectives she set out are “within reach if we get the Mercosur-EU agreement across the finishing line.” She added that the EU “will invest strongly in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Lula told reporters his country wants to share its “intense economic activity” with EU and Mercosur partners. “And more importantly, we want to deepen with the European Union the discussion — not only about industrial development and economic growth — but we want to deeply discuss the climate question,” he added.

--With assistance from Lyubov Pronina, Joao Lima and Sofia Gerace.

(Updates with Cuba, Nicaragua stance in seventh paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

More Americans Are Getting Turned Down for Loans, Fed Data Shows

Alex Tanzi
Mon, July 17, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Americans are increasingly likely to get turned down when they apply for credit, according to a new Federal Reserve survey that shows the combined impact of high interest rates and a cautious turn among the country’s lenders.

The rejection rate for loan applicants jumped to 21.8% in the 12 months through June, the highest level in five years, according to the latest edition of the Fed survey, which is published every four months. Overall credit applications declined to the lowest level since October 2020.

In the previous survey, published in February before the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and other US lenders, the rejection rate was 17.3%. The increase since then has been broad-based across age groups, and highest among those with credit scores below 680.

In auto loans, for the first time since the survey began in 2013 the rejection rate — which climbed to 14.2% from 9.1% — exceeded the application rate.

What’s more, almost one-third of auto-loan applicants expected that their loan would be rejected, a record high. There were also steep increases in reported expectations that requests for new mortgages, mortgage refinancing or increases in credit-card limits would be turned down.

SO MUCH FOR BEING WOKE
BlackRock names Aramco boss to board

THEY HAVE ABANDONED ESG

BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink  kept to his pledge to no longer use the acronym ESG.

China Development Forum 2023 in Beijing

Updated Mon, July 17, 2023 
By Natalie Grover

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's top asset manager BlackRock has named Amin Nasser, the chief of the world's largest oil company Saudi Aramco, as an independent director.

Nasser joined Saudi Arabia's state oil giant as a petroleum engineer in 1982, and decades later in 2019 led Aramco's initial public offering.

His expertise in the Middle East will fill the gap left by Bader Alsaad, chairman of the board of the Arab Fund for Economic & Social Development, who is not standing for reelection on BlackRock's board in 2024, the asset manager said on Monday.

BlackRock has sought to strike a balance on the issue of climate change, continuing to invest in fossil fuel companies, while nudging them to adopt energy transition plans.

In a note to clients earlier this month, the asset manager estimated global average annual investment in the energy system would jump to $4 trillion through 2050, up from $2.2 trillion in recent years.

BlackRock, which had about $9.4 trillion assets under management as of end-June, has projected that by 2030 at least three quarters of its investments will be with issuers of securities that have scientific targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions on a net basis.

Aramco, for its part last October unveiled a $1.5 billion sustainability fund to initially focus on areas including carbon capture and storage, greenhouse gas emissions, as well as hydrogen, ammonia and synthetic fuels.

However, Nasser said the current global energy transition plan was flawed.

"We need to realise that today alternatives are not ready to shoulder a heavy load of the growing energy demand and therefore we need to work in parallel until alternatives are ready."

Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Arab states have sought to bolster their green credentials. Riyadh in 2021 said the kingdom aims to reach net zero emissions of greenhouse gases, mostly produced by burning fossil fuels, by 2060.

Scientists say the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by around 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels to stand any chance of realising targets agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

UK Support to Rejoin the EU Passes 50% for the First Time Since Brexit



Ellen Milligan
Mon, July 17, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- More than half of Britons would vote to rejoin the European Union for the first time since the nation opted to leave the bloc seven years ago, YouGov polling showed.

Some 51% of Britons told the polling company that they would vote for the UK to become an EU member again, while 32% said they’d stay out, according to the survey conducted last week. The proportion in favor of rejoining has risen 11 points since January 2021, when Brexit formally took place.

The findings reflect growing disillusionment among British voters about Brexit, which triggered years of divisive debate in Parliament before the UK finally left the bloc.

Britons are yet to see the promised fruits of departure from the EU, with UK holidaymakers facing longer queues at European airports and shoppers facing higher food prices fueled by both Brexit curbs on migrant workers and its effect on supply chains. A trade deal with the US, meanwhile, held as one of the great prizes of Brexit, doesn’t look likely to materialize anytime soon.

Seven years on from the referendum, the UK remains in a cost-of-living crisis with inflation outstripping price rises elsewhere in Europe. Meanwhile, many regions which voted for Brexit are more likely to face a widening wealth and opportunity gap relative to richer parts of the UK, according to Bloomberg analysis earlier this year.

Some 57% of Britons told YouGov the UK was wrong to vote for Brexit in 2016, the highest figure the polling firm has recorded. One in five Britons who voted to leave the EU in 2016 now say it was the wrong decision.

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has repeatedly said he believes in Brexit and the opportunities it presents, but his government is nevertheless seeking to renegotiate parts of the UK’s exit deal that it fears will cause disruption and added costs to businesses and consumers.

UK officials are currently in talks with their EU counterparts to delay upcoming tariffs on electric vehicles shipped between the UK and the EU and the government is also weighing options to limit the cost of post-Brexit border checks on European food imports due to start in the next six months.

In April, Bloomberg reported that Sunak also hopes to reach an agreement to let Britons use EU e-gates for passport checks, another friction point for tourists and business travelers since Brexit.

IT'S A FUCKING WALL

Saudi Arabia is exploring plans to raise $2.7 billion for its futuristic mega-city in an effort to complete most of the construction by 2030

Hasan Chowdhury
Mon, July 17, 2023 

Saudi Arabia's futuristic city in the desert aims to accommodate 9 million people, NEOM

Saudi Arabia is seeking a $2.7 billion loan from local lenders for its Neom project, per Bloomberg.

The planned city is a central part of the kingdom's plans to diversify its economy.

It aims to accommodate 9 million people in a mirror-like structure that's 170 km in length.

Saudi Arabia's mega-city project is reportedly seeking to raise a 10 billion riyal, or $2.7 billion, loan to help fuel the development of the kingdom's futuristic city in the desert.

Neom, the company behind the venture, is turning to local lenders as it seeks to finance the early stages of the project, Bloomberg reported. A loan could be agreed within months, it said.

The Neom development is expected to include two huge buildings as part of a project known as The Line. It aims to be a "civilizational revolution that puts humans first," The Wall Street Journal first reported, citing a video in which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed the project.

According to the Neom website, The Line will be just over 100 miles long and 200 meters wide, and will have no roads and cars. It will sit 500 meters above sea level on the border of the Red Sea with mirror-like walls encasing it.

Saudia Arabia hopes the city will be zero-carbon and accommodate 9 million people. Facilities are planned to be located within a five-minute walk from where people live to ensure "people's health and wellbeing" are prioritized, according to details from Neom's site.

The Line forms just one part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's grand vision to diversify the oil-rich state's economy as the world seeks to shift away from fossil fuel consumption in an effort to meet net-zero emission commitments.

Plans for the Neom development were unveiled in 2017 but progress has been slow. The Crown Prince told Bloomberg in 2018 that the city would be completed in 2025.

Other parts of the vision include building a tourist destination on Saudi Arabia's West coast, as well as embarking on a global investment spree to increase the kingdom's stakes in everything from sports to tech companies.

Representatives for Neom did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.

S N A F U 

Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali

MORE DANGEROUS THAN A RUSSIAN TROLL FARM

Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News, Washington
Mon, July 17, 2023

A spokesperson said the defence department was aware of the issue and it was being taken seriously

Millions of US military emails have been mistakenly sent to Mali, a Russian ally, because of a minor typing error.

Emails intended for the US military's ".mil" domain have, for years, been sent to the west African country which ends with the ".ml" suffix.

Some of the emails reportedly contained sensitive information such as passwords, medical records and the itineraries of top officers.

The Pentagon said it had taken steps to address the issue.

According to the Financial Times, which first reported the story, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier identified the problem more than 10 years ago.

Since 2013, he has had a contract to manage Mali's country domain and, in recent months, has reportedly collected tens of thousands of misdirected emails.

None were marked as classified, but, according to the newspaper, they included medical data, maps of US military facilities, financial records and the planning documents for official trips as well as some diplomatic messages.

Mr Zuurbier wrote a letter to US officials this month to raise the alarm. He said that his contract with the Mali government was due to finish soon, meaning "the risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US".

Mali's military government was due to take control of the domain on Monday.

Mr Zuurbier has been approached for comment.

Boost for Wagner as Mali shuns UN troops

The robot maker who lost £100,000 to cyber criminals

US military communications that are marked "classified" and "top secret" are transmitted through separate IT systems that make it unlikely they will be accidently compromised, according to current and former US officials.

But Steven Stransky, a lawyer who previously served as senior counsel to the Department of Homeland Security's Intelligence Law Division, said that even seemingly harmless information could prove useful to US adversaries, particularly if it included details of individual personnel.

"Those sorts of communications would mean that a foreign actor can start building dossiers on our own military personnel, for espionage purposes, or could try to get them to disclose information in exchange for financial benefit," Mr Stransky said. "It's certainly information that a foreign government can use."

Mali has become increasingly close with Russia since a 2020 coup unseated its former government

Lee McKnight, a professor of information studies at Syracuse University, said he believed the US military was fortunate that the issue was brought to its attention and the emails were going to a domain used by Mali's government, rather than to cyber criminals.

He added that "typo-squatting" - a type of cyber-crime that targets users who incorrectly misspell an internet domain - is common. "They're hoping that a person will make a mistake, and that they can lure you in and do stupid things," he said.

When contacted by the BBC, a spokesperson said the defence department was aware of the issue and it was being taken seriously.

They said the department had taken steps to ensure that ".mil" emails are not sent to incorrect domains, including blocking them before they leave and notifying senders that they must validate intended recipients.

Both Mr McKnight and Mr Stransky said human errors were prime concerns for IT specialists working in government and the private sector alike.

"Human error is by far the most significant security concern on a day-to-day basis," Mr Stransky said. "We just can't control every single human, every single time".