Exclusive-Tyson Foods plans to sell China poultry business -sources

Kane Wu and Abigail Summerville
Wed, August 16, 2023 


HONG KONG/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. meat and processed food maker Tyson Foods plans to sell its China poultry business, three people with knowledge of the matter said, in the latest case of a multinational firm looking to divest from the country in recent years.

The company has hired Goldman Sachs to advise on the sale and sent preliminary information to potential buyers including a number of private equity firms, said two of the people, adding the sale process was at an early stage.

While it was not immediately clear what valuation Tyson Foods is seeking for the China poultry business, it has annual sales of about $1.1 billion, one of the people said.

Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. The sources, who did not say why Tyson was planning to sell the business, declined to be identified because the information was confidential.

Calls to Tyson Foods' China headquarters in Shanghai went unanswered.

Tyson said this month it was evaluating all operations and closing four more U.S. chicken plants in the latest bid to reduce costs after its third-quarter revenue and profit missed Wall Street expectations.

China's meat market has become increasingly challenging, with livestock farm margins squeezed in the last two years due to weak demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and increased feed prices because of the Russia-Ukraine war, analysts have said.

A string of multinational firms have divested their China businesses or pared their holdings in the last few years as some found it hard to reap desired profits amid the country's slower economic growth, strong local competition or geopolitical headwinds, according to bankers.

Foreign companies have divested a combined $8.4 billion of Chinese assets across all sectors so far this year, following $13.5 billion of disposals in 2022, Dealogic data showed.

In the food industry, U.S. agricultural giant Cargill struck a deal in May to sell its China poultry business to private equity firm DCP Capital for an undisclosed price.

British consumer goods maker Reckitt Benckiser Group in 2021 sold its China infant formula and child nutrition business to investment firm Primavera Capital Group for an enterprise value of $2.2 billion.

Dutch dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina kicked off the sale of its Friso infant nutrition brand in December 2021 but has yet to find a buyer. It sold an infant-formula factory in China to local peer Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group in July 2022.

Major Chinese feed and meat producer New Hope Liuhe last month told investors it was reviewing its businesses and considering bringing strategic investors in its poultry and food businesses, in a bid to lower its debt-to-asset ratio.

Tyson Foods opened its first factory in China in 2001 and now has four research and development centres, several processing plants and dozens of breeding farms in the country, according to its website for China operations.

It operates throughout the industry chain in China, from breeding and slaughtering to processing and distribution, providing chicken, beef, pork and processed foods.

The company in June launched a new factory focusing on processed foods such as cooked chicken and pre-made Chinese cuisine in the eastern Chinese city of Nantong and another that focuses on frozen and heat-processed foods in the central Chinese city of Xiaogan, the website showed.

Tyson Foods reported $39.5 billion in total sales for the nine months ended July 1, of which $1.9 billion was from the international and other business segment that includes its China operations.

(Reporting by Kane Wu in Hong Kong, Abigail Summerville in New York and Roxanne Liu in Beijing; Additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Jamie Freed)

Armenia and Azerbaijan clash over plight of 120,000 people in Nagorno-Karabakh facing food crisis

EDITH M. LEDERER
Wed, August 16, 2023 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday over the plight of the 120,000 people in the Nagorno-Karabakh region that Armenia says are blockaded by Azerbaijan and facing a humanitarian crisis.

Armenia asked for the meeting saying Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting mainly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia since July 15, had left its people with dwindling food, medicine and electricity.

Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, but the region and substantial territory around it came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces who were backed by the Armenian military in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Azerbaijan regained control of the surrounding territory in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020, and the Russian-brokered armistice left the Lachin Corridor as Nagorno-Karabakh’s only connection to Armenia.

At the council meeting, many countries urged Azerbaijan to immediately reopen the road, pointing to orders from the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest tribunal, and all 15 nations urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to find a diplomatic solution to their nearly 30-year conflict.

The Security Council did not issue any statement but U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who chaired the meeting, told the Associated Press afterward that “there were strong statements in the council from everyone that the Lachin Corridor needed to be reopened.” That was “the main accomplishment,” she said.

U.N. humanitarian coordinator Edem Wasornu told the council the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only international humanitarian body with access to the area, reported on July 25 that it had been unable to transport food through the Lachin Corridor since June 14 and medicine since July 7.

Wasornu said international humanitarian law requires all parties to facilitate rapid delivery of aid to all people in need, and “it is therefore critical that the ICRC’s delivery of humanitarian relief be allowed to resume through any available routes.”

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told the council that as a result of the blockade, there is no economic activity in Nagorno-Karabakh, thousands of people are unemployed, stores are empty and women, children and the elderly stand in long lines to be able to buy bread, fruit and vegetables. In addition, he said, Azerbaijan has disrupted the supply of electricity through the only high voltage line between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh since Jan. 9.

Mirzoyan quoted a report from Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, saying “there is a reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed” as a result of the blockade.

“Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon,” he said, warning that “without immediate dramatic change this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.”

Mirzoyan said preventing such a catastrophe is a duty of the Security Council, which is charged with ensuring international peace and security. “I do believe that this distinguished body, despite geopolitical differences, has capacity to act as genocide prevention body, and not as genocide commemoration when it might be too late,” he said.

Azerbaijan’s U.N. Ambassador Yashar Aliyev responded by “categorically rejecting all the unfounded and groundless allegations on (a) blockade or humanitarian crisis propagated by Armenia against my country.”

He accused Armenia of engaging in a “provocative and irresponsible political campaign” to undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor.

Aliyev said Azerbaijan installed a border checkpoint on the road to safeguard its sovereignty and security and prevent Armenia from using the route “for illegal military and other activities” including rotating its 10,000 military personnel “illegally stationed” in Azerbaijani territory, and transferring weapons and munitions as well as unlawfully extracted natural resources.

He called the genocide allegations false, saying prominent British human rights lawyer, Rodney Dixon, in a preliminary report said there is no foundation for Ocampo’s claim, citing Azerbaijan’s offer to supply good via the town of Aghdam.

Aliyev also held up what he said were photos from social media of people in Nagorno-Karabakh celebrating weddings and birthdays, saying they refute allegations about starvation and a humanitarian crisis.

Aliyev and Mirzoyan blamed each other for so-far failed diplomatic efforts.

The European Union’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Silvio Gonzato, told the council “humanitarian access must not be politicized by any actors,” and the Lachin Corridor must be reopened immediately.

“Azerbaijani authorities bear the responsibility to guarantee safety and freedom of movement along the Lachin Corridor, and to ensure the crisis does not escalate further,” he said.

VODOU MILITIA

Haiti gang leader vows to fight any foreign armed force if it commits abuses

EVENS SANON
Updated Wed, August 16, 2023 



Haiti Gang Leader Jimmy Cherizier, the leader of the "G9 et Famille" gang, speaks to a gaggle of journalists in Delmas 6, a district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. Cherizier, an ex-police officer considered to be Haiti's most powerful gang leader, warns he will fight any international armed force deployed to the Caribbean country if it commits any abuses.

(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — An ex-police officer considered by many to be Haiti’s most powerful gang leader warned Wednesday that he would fight any international armed force deployed to the Caribbean country if it committed any abuses.

Jimmy Chérizier, best known as “Barbecue,” also urged Haitians to mobilize against the government. “We are asking the population to rise up,” he said at a news conference.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led Haiti since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, has been pushing for the deployment of a foreign armed force since October to help fight powerful gangs that are estimated to now control 80% of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

In late July, the African nation of Kenya offered to lead a multinational force, and the U.S. said earlier this month that it would put forward a resolution in the U.N. Security Council to authorize a non-U.N. multinational mission.

Chérizier said he would welcome a foreign force if it were to arrest the prime minister and people he described as corrupt politicians and local police allegedly selling ammunitions and guns in Haiti’s slums.

“If the foreign force comes to help and provide security for life to start over again, we will also applaud,” he said.

But he said Haitians would rise up if any international force repeated the actions of previous U.N. peacekeepers, including committing sexual abuses and inadvertently introducing cholera into water sources.

“We will fight against them until our last breath,” he said. “It will be a fight of the Haitian people to save the dignity of our country.”

The United Nations had no comment, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Chérizier, who has been accused by authorities of masterminding several massacres in recent years and of organizing a fuel blockade last year that paralyzed Haiti for nearly two months, said the group he leads, G9 Family and Allies, is no longer warring with another group known as G-Pep.

“We became one,” he said. “We love life a lot.”

Chérizier is the only Haitian under U.N. sanctions, with the Security Council saying he “has engaged in acts that threaten the peace, security, and stability of Haiti and has planned, directed, or committed acts that constitute serious human rights abuses.”

He called on the Ministry of Education to reopen schools in Cite Soleil and other slums that have been closed because warring gangs who are raping and killing people. The violence has displaced nearly 200,000 Haitians whose homes have been torched by the gangs.

Chérizier spoke to nearly two dozen journalists at an outdoors construction site in Port-au-Prince. He wore sandals, white pants and an orange hoodie emblazoned with a religious symbol used in Vodou.

He was surrounded by several G9 members carrying small handguns visible under their clothes, unlike his previous media appearances at which they openly held assault rifles.

U$A

‘Politicians have too much power’: Sen. Tommy Tuberville just disclosed $250K in futures trading in corn, wheat, soy and cattle — all while influencing agricultural policies

Bethan Moorcraft
Wed, August 16, 2023 

United States Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has just disclosed $250,000 in futures trading in wheat, corn, soy and cattle.

On August 14, Tuberville — who sits on the Senate Committee for Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry — reported multiple agricultural trades through June and July, all in the range of $1,000 to $15,000.

The former college football coach’s trades caught the attention of Unusual Whales, a data hub leading the crusade to expose insider trading and conflicts of interest among U.S. politicians.

“He literally influences agricultural futures via legislation and is trading it actively,” Unusual Whales wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter — before pointing out Tuberville has “previously, scored some big gains on futures in wheat, corn and soy.”

The U.S. public have had enough

This isn’t the first time Coach Tuberville, as his constituents call him, has been a target over his trades. In 2021, he violated federal transparency laws when he failed to properly disclose trades worth more than $1 million on time. His trades included the sale of stock options in the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba around the same time that President Joe Biden issued an executive order targeting U.S. investments in Chinese companies.

“It is not only him. Members of Congress have inside knowledge of transpiring trends in the stock market,” one X user wrote in response to the Unusual Whales post.

Many high profile politicians — including Rep.Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE) — have been accused of using their connections, influence and insider information to score winning deals.

Those alleged conflicts of interest have riled up the U.S. public, where there’s growing support for a total ban on stock trading among members of Congress, according to a recent survey by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation.

“Any politician who uses their position of power to influence for personal and/or financial gain should immediately be removed from office and prosecuted,” one X user replied to Unusual Whales. “These positions are elected and/or paid for by the people. Federal politicians have too much power as is.”

Attempts to ban congressional stock trading

Some lawmakers are trying to tackle this problem. A new bipartisan law was proposed in late July, which would ban members of Congress and the federal executive branch — including the president — from owning or trading stocks, even in blind trusts.

However, two other bills on this matter — the TRUST in Congress Act and the PELOSI Act — have failed to move the needle this year, and it’s unclear if or when the new proposal will be debated and voted on.

What does Georgia's just-opened nuclear reactor say about the industry's future in the U.S.?

Nuclear fission doesn't release greenhouse gases, but skeptics say renewables like wind and solar are a better bet.

Alexander Nazaryan
·Senior White House Correspondent
Thu, August 17, 2023 

Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga., on July 31. 

(Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) (AP)


The opening of a new nuclear power plant reactor near Savannah, Ga., on July 31 was indicative of the challenges the industry has faced in recent years — and of the changes boosters say are being made to ensure that nuclear power can serve as a key component of a 21st century energy portfolio.

Amid the rapid growth of renewables like wind and solar, nuclear power may seem like a source of electricity from the past. But wind and solar are intermittent sources, which aren’t produced when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine, meaning dirty old coal and natural gas are still widely used to provide a reliable, steady supply of power.

That reality has led experts and policymakers such as Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to advocate for building up the nation’s nuclear energy portfolio as a cleaner source of base load power until renewables can meet a greater share of the demand.

Read more on Yahoo News: U.S. Support for Nuclear Power Soars, via Gizmodo

A tempting but expensive bet

A worker walks past steam pipes at Plant Vogtle on Jan. 20. (John Bazemore/AP)

Nuclear fission can produce vast amounts of energy without emitting greenhouse gases or other forms of air pollution. But after the Three Mile Island accident in central Pennsylvania in 1979, where a reactor partially melted down and prompted the evacuation of 140,000 people, and the deadly Chernobyl disaster in Soviet Ukraine in 1986, desire for new nuclear plants plummeted — and never really recovered.

There are only 93 nuclear reactors operating across the country, making the United States 11th globally in the share of power it produces from nuclear energy per capita.

Two new reactors at Plant Vogtle — where two reactors had originally opened in the late 1980s — were supposed to usher in a new era of nuclear energy. But the Vogtle project, along with another one in South Carolina known as V.C. Summer, faced cost overruns, construction delays and safety concerns.

V.C. Summer was eventually canceled, while Vogtle dragged on. Originally projected to cost $14 billion, the Georgia project wound up costing $31 billion and was completed seven years behind schedule.

So when Unit 3 of Plant Vogtle finally began sending electricity to customers in Georgia several weeks ago, it was a landmark moment — and a warning. Unit 3 (with Unit 4 soon to follow) was the first new nuclear reactor to come online in the United States in nearly a half-century, during which time fears of a Three Mile Island-style catastrophe have been replaced by concerns about the disastrous effects of continuing to burn fossil fuels.

According to Georgia Power, a fully operational Unit 3 can supply 1,100 megawatts, powering “500,000 homes and businesses.” But because the reactor was so lavishly expensive, ratepayers will have to foot some of the excess cost, with customers seeing their energy bills increasing by $14 per month in the near future.

Read more on Yahoo News: Does nuclear power have a place in a green-energy future?

Better technology is coming, boosters promise

A closer look at the cooling towers for Units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle. 

(Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Nuclear supporters insist that renewables, which now constitute around a fifth of all the energy produced in the United States, are simply not ready to power a nation of 335 million people — and that the challenges that plagued Plant Vogtle need not define the entire nuclear energy industry.

The third Vogtle reactor is an AP1000 model built by Westinghouse. Approved by regulators for construction in 2005, the AP1000 proved difficult to build, and the cost overruns at Vogtle and V.C. Summer, the never-completed South Carolina plant, led Westinghouse to declare bankruptcy in 2017.

The company has since emerged from financial calamity and recently introduced the AP300, a small reactor that supplies less electricity than the AP1000 but will also be easier to build. The market for these smaller “modular” reactors is expected to grow energetically in the next several years, as the need to phase out fossil fuels becomes ever more urgent.

Westinghouse is hoping to build the first AP300 reactors for commercial use in Slovakia and the United Kingdom.

Read more on Yahoo News: Small modular nuclear reactors: The race is on to actually build them, via Canary Media

Some remain unconvinced

The New Safe Confinement structure over the old sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine in 2021. 

(Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Yet the new AP300 models have their critics too. Those critics are unconvinced that the new reactor is much of an upgrade over the AP1000 model. So even as the Tennessee Valley Authority is planning to build as many as 20 small reactors, known as BWRX-300, that are similar to the AP300, some are wondering if it wouldn’t just be safer to use the older AP1000 model.

“Why are y’all building four 300-megawatt reactors that haven’t been built anywhere instead of an AP1000?” one regulator wondered.

Others simply believe that the risks of nuclear energy are too great — and that the resources being devoted to building new reactors would be better spent on developing renewable sources.

And though nuclear power doesn’t emit greenhouse gases or other atmospheric pollutants, it leaves behind radioactive waste that most communities want nothing to do with.

This past spring, Germany shut down its final three reactors, a transition it began after the massive 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.

“It is not simply ideological speculation. There is a very real danger that is posed by this power plant and by all nuclear power plants around the world,” one antinuclear German activist said. “And that’s why I think it’s so particularly important that we in Germany manage to phase out nuclear power. Because if we manage to do that, then maybe the other countries will think about what they could do better.”

Read more on Yahoo News: Nuclear energy backers say it’s vital for the fight against global warming. Don’t be so sure, via Los Angeles Times

SCOTLAND
Junior doctors accept record pay offer averting strike fears


Steph Brawn
Wed, 16 August 2023 

British Medical Association (BMAs) members have agreed to the offer from the Scottish Government (Image: NQ Staff)

JUNIOR doctors and dentists from a major union in Scotland have accepted a record 12.4% pay increase averting fears of strike action.

British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland members have agreed to the offer from the Scottish Government which the union says sets the country apart "from what is happening elsewhere in the UK".

The agreement means Scotland remains the only UK nation to have avoided strikes in the NHS.

Together with the pay raise of 4.5% awarded in 2022–23, it amounts to a total increase of 17.5% over two years.

READ MORE: Scottish independence poll: Five things we learned

The deal also includes a commitment to future year's pay, contract and pay bargaining modernisation and it brings to an end the threat of industrial action.

Scottish Health Secretary Michael Matheson (below) said: “I am very pleased that BMA members have overwhelmingly voted to accept this record pay deal for Junior Doctors.

"This is the single biggest investment in Junior Doctor pay since devolution and maintains our commitment to make Scotland the best place in the UK for Junior Doctors to work and train.

“Due to the meaningful engagement we have had with trade unions, we have avoided any industrial action in Scotland - the only part of the UK to avoid NHS strikes.

“We will now implement this pay uplift, and will work with BMA to take forward the other aspects of the deal including contract and pay bargaining reform.”

The National: Health Secretary Michael Matheson at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank

The news of BMA members accepting the deal comes after some 67.5% of members in the HCSA Scotland ballot backed it with a turnout of just over 74%.

The Scottish Government say the pay deal represents a £61.3 million investment in junior doctor pay – the largest in the last 20 years and the best offer in the UK.

It means a doctor at the beginning of their career would receive a salary increase of £3429 in 2023–24. For those at the end of their training, the rise would be £7111 over the same period.

Former nurse and SNP MSP Emma Harper added: “Once again Scotland has shown that a better, more constructive way is possible – as the only nation in the UK to have averted NHS strikes.

"That is not an accident. It is testament to the fact that Scottish Government ministers worked constructively to produce an acceptable offer befitting of the vital work junior doctors do, whilst the Tories have done nothing but level outrageous attacks on our NHS staff and unions."

Dr Chris Smith, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish Junior Doctor Committee (SJDC), said: “This offer moves us from a position where pay restoration was a strongly-held conviction within our profession to a shared goal that the Scottish Government has publicly committed to working with us to complete.

“Earlier this year, junior doctors in Scotland said enough is enough – they were clear that they will no longer stand aside and accept any more sub-inflationary pay awards year after year.

“The strong mandate for striking – with 97% of those who turned out in our ballot voting in favour of industrial action – speaks for itself.

“Key to this offer, that sets it apart from what is happening elsewhere in the UK, is that the Scottish Government recognises this reality and has agreed to ongoing negotiations towards full pay restoration to 2008 levels, with an unprecedented commitment to set inflation as the floor of the pay offer at each round of negotiation.

“This structure will maintain the momentum of our campaign in Scotland for full pay restoration over the next few months and into next year.”

SCOTLAND

School staff in 10 council areas set strike date amid pay dispute with Cosla

Abbi Garton-Crosbie

The National
Thu, 17 August 2023 

GMB Scotland said members had set a strike date (Image: Unknown)

SCHOOL staff in 10 council areas have set a strike date in September in a dispute with Cosla over pay, a union has said.

GMB Scotland said Aberdeen, Clackmannanshire, the Western Isles, Dundee, East Dunbartonshire, Falkirk, Glasgow, Orkney, Renfrewshire and South Ayrshire will be affected.

Staff in schools and early years working across catering, cleaning, pupil support, administration and janitorial services will walk out next month on September 13 and 14.

READ MORE: Pete Wishart: Every General Election should be a de facto referendum

The action comes after GMB Scotland’s members rejected the 5.5% offer from council umbrella body Cosla in April, branding it unacceptable amid surging inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.

Members of the Unite union working in education and early years services have also voted for industrial action but have not yet announced dates.

Schools could be forced to close if the strikes go ahead.

Keir Greenaway, GMB Scotland senior organiser for public services, said that a meeting on Friday August 25 will be the final opportunity for Cosla to avert disruptive strikes.

The National: School could be closed by strikes

“The latest figures show that, despite rising wages, pay is still being outstripped by inflation,” he said.

“The pay offer to council workers does not come close to matching the surging cost of living and one that is worth less with every month that passes.

“Scotland stands on the shoulders of our local authority workers and the value of their work must be reflected in their salaries.

READ MORE: Steve Barclay's former aide calls for NHS 'full privatisation'

“Cosla has refused to seriously engage with our members during what has been a protracted, frustrating process.

“If they had, parents and pupils would not now be facing disruption. Cosla and Scottish ministers need to engage now or risk turning a crisis into a calamity.”

 

WILDFIRE UPDATE l Northwest Territories under a state of emergency

Chandrayaan-3: Indian Mission racing against Russian spacecraft for historic Moon landing

Vishwam Sankaran
Thu, 17 August 2023 

Chandrayaan-3: Indian Mission racing against Russian spacecraft for historic Moon landing

India’s Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission is in a tight race with Russia’s Luna-25 in setting down a lander and a rover on the lunar south pole.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission, launched from India’s main spaceport on 14 July, completed its orbiting maneuvres around the Moon on Wednesday, setting the stage for spacecraft’s Propulsion and Lander modules to start their separate journeys.

“Separation of the Lander Module from the Propulsion Module is planned for August 17, 2023,” the Indian space agency ISRO posted on Twitter, which has been rebranded as X.

The mission’s rover and lander are expected to make history when they reach the lunar surface on 23 August, making India the first country to soft land a probe on the lunar South pole – a coveted region believed to hold pockets of water ice.

But a Russian mission Luna-25, launched a week earlier, entered the circular polar orbit around the Moon on Wednesday, and may land close to the lunar south pole a day or two earlier.

Luna-25, which is Russia’s first moon mission in five decades, blasted off on Friday from the Vostochny cosmodrome 5,550km (3,450 miles) east of Moscow.

The lander is expected to touch down near the lunar South Pole on 21 August, according to Russia’s space chief Yuri Borisov.

“Now we will wait for the 21st. I hope that a highly precise soft landing on the moon will take place. We hope to be first,” Mr Borisov said after the launch.

If the Russian mission goes successfully, it may make history as the first to soft land a probe on the lunar south pole, with India’s Chandrayaan-3 having to settle for being a close second.

However, a successful landing would still make India only the fourth to delicately land a probe overall on the Moon after the US, former Soviet Union, and China.

Observers say the specific landing dates for the two missions are however more of a coincidence, and the two nations are not in a cold war-era race to the Moon.

The lunar south pole has become a region of interest among scientists at many space agencies in recent years as it has been found to contain traces of water ice in its shadowed craters.

Until now, no country has made a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission is a follow-up mission four years after is first attempt to do so failed in 2019.

Discovering water ice in this part of the Moon could be historic for both missions, and may propel nations to extract fuel and oxygen from the lunar surface.

Maxim Litvak, head of Luna-25’s scientific equipment planning group, said the Russian mission’s most important task was to land where no one else had landed and to find water.

Chandrayaan-3: Indian lunar mission inches closer to Moon

Geeta Pandey - BBC News, Delhi
Thu, August 17, 2023 

A series of images sent by Chandrayaan-3 show the craters on the lunar surface getting larger and larger as the spacecraft gets closer

India's third lunar mission is inching closer to the Moon's little-explored south pole where it aims to set down a lander and rover on 23 August.

On Thursday, the lander detached from the propulsion module, which carried it close to the Moon, beginning its last phase of the mission.

Chandrayaan-3, however, may not be the first to land on the south pole if it's beaten by a new Russian mission.

Luna-25, launched last week, is expected to land a day or two earlier.

If the Russian spacecraft - its first Moon mission after nearly half a century, when Russia was part of the Soviet Union - is successful in making a soft landing on 21st or 22nd August as planned, Chandrayaan-3 will have to settle for being a close second.

India, however, will still be only the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.

On Thursday, the Indian Space Research Agency (Isro) said the landing module was set to descend to a slightly lower orbit upon "a deboosting" planned for 4pm IST (11.30 am BST) on Friday. It is expected to begin its final descent for touchdown on the Moon on 23 August.

Russia launched Luna-25 on 10 August, but propelled by the much more powerful Soyuz rocket, it escaped the Earth's gravity in no time and reached lunar orbit on Wednesday, the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced.

Chandrayaan-3 was launched on 14 July, but it went around the Earth a few times before entering the lunar orbit on 5 August. The spacecraft has been orbiting the Moon since then, while preparing for the landing.

India's latest Moon mission sends first photos


Historic India Moon mission lifts off successfully

The two missions aiming for the Moon are being described by many as a "mini space race".

Isro, however, told the BBC it's not a race and the two nations will have a new 'meeting point' on the Moon.

"Isro has never been in any race right from the day one of its inception in 1960s," an Isro spokesman told me.

"We planned the mission based on the readiness of the spacecraft and the available technical window to reach the far side of the Moon. Luna-25 is also a mission planned long time ago. They also must have some technical considerations, which we don't know precisely," he said.

Graphic showing how the Chandrayaan-3 will get to the Moon, from take off, to orbiting the Earth in phases until it reaches the Moon's orbit, when the lander will separate from the propulsion module before landing near the Moon's south pole

Chandrayaan-3, the third in India's programme of lunar exploration, is expected to build on the success of its earlier Moon missions.

It comes 13 years after the country's first Moon mission in 2008, which discovered the presence of water molecules on the parched lunar surface and established that the Moon has an atmosphere during daytime.

Chandrayaan-2 - which also comprised an orbiter, a lander and a rover - was launched in July 2019 but it was only partially successful. Its orbiter continues to circle and study the Moon even today, but the lander-rover failed to make a soft landing and crashed during touchdown.

The women scientists who took India into space


Was India's Moon mission actually a success?

Isro chief Sreedhara Panicker Somanath has said India's space agency had carefully studied the data from its crash and carried out simulation exercises to fix the glitches in Chandrayaan-3, which weighs 3,900kg and cost 6.1bn rupees ($75m; £58m).

The lander module (called Vikram, after the founder of Isro) weighs about 1,500kg and carries within its belly the 26kg rover which is named Pragyaan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom.

Once the craft entered the Moon's orbit, scientists gradually reduced the rocket's speed to bring it to a point which will allow a soft landing for Vikram.

Chief of India's first Moon mission Mylswamy Annadurai told the BBC that after Thursday's separation from the propulsion module, the lander module will do two manoeuvres over the next few days, getting closer to the Moon with each one, and will reach an orbit of 30km by 100km a day before it lands.

Once it lands, he says, it will take a few hours for the dust to settle after which the six-wheeled rover will crawl out and roam around the rocks and craters on the Moon's surface, gathering crucial data and images to be sent back to Earth for analysis.

The rover is carrying instruments which will focus on finding out about the physical characteristics of the surface of the Moon, the atmosphere close to the surface and the tectonic activity to study what goes on below the surface.

The south pole of the Moon is still largely unexplored - the surface area that remains in shadow there is much larger than that of the Moon's north pole, and scientists say it means there is a possibility of water in areas that are permanently shadowed.

One of the major goals of both Chandrayaan-3 and Luna-25 is to hunt for water ice which, scientists say, could support human habitation on the Moon in future. It could also be used for supplying propellant for spacecraft headed to Mars and other distant destinations.

Graphic showing the LVM3 launch rocket, with three engine phases, and where the Chandrayaan-3 will be while it it carried into orbit

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UK windfarm red tape to cost billpayers £1.5bn a year, say analysts

Energy experts have criticised the government for giving tax breaks to oil companies and not allowing windfarms to thrive.

Helena Horton Environment reporter
Thu, 17 August 2023 

Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

New offshore windfarms will be strangled by government red tape, costing UK billpayers £1.5bn a year, an analysis has found.

The latest government auction for new offshore windfarms, due to be completed in September, could result in few projects making it through Treasury rules, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a non-profit organisation.

Rules set by the Treasury do not take account of predictions that the gas price will stay high and put an arbitrary limit on the number of farms that can be contracted. They mean that the budget set in the government’s contracts for difference auction is unlikely to be spent, because many windfarms will not get through the auction, so bills will be kept higher.

Despite the fact that the government recently increased the budget for the auction from £170m to £190m, analysts at the ECIU said this was likely to make little difference to the outcome of the auction and ignored the fact that renewables were predicted to save customers money.

The previous auction round did not meet the budget and previous analysis found that 1GW of wind power was missed out on, along with savings of £225m a year. The ECIU found that the current auction could secure as little as about 2GW of offshore wind, leading to missed savings of more than £1.5bn a year from cheaper renewable energy, compared with about 7GW that could have been secured.

Energy experts have criticised the government for giving tax breaks to oil companies and not allowing windfarms to thrive.

Jess Ralston, an energy analyst at the ECIU, said: “The government seems to be focused on North Sea gas licences and tax breaks for oil companies that won’t bring down bills, while tying up offshore wind farms that generate electricity cheaper than gas in red tape. What is going on?

“Even with inflation pushing costs up for offshore wind, it will still generate electricity much cheaper than gas power stations. Stifling windfarms pushes up bills. The Treasury’s rules seem to be actively working against bringing them down.”

If the rules around these auctions were not loosened, the ECIU said, it could put the goal of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 at risk.

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We do not recognise these figures – last year’s Contracts for Difference scheme auction was the largest ever, issuing contracts to nearly 100 clean tech projects, and we increased this year’s budget to reflect the large volume of eligible applications received.

“The UK is a world leader in renewable technologies, with the four largest operational offshore wind farms in the world providing enough capacity to power the equivalent of at least 10 million homes per year.

“Contracts for Difference is designed to protect generators against price fluctuations, and compares favourably to other international schemes. We understand there are supply chain pressures for the sector globally, and we are listening to their concerns.”