Myanmar won't be allowed to lead Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2026, in blow to generals

NINIEK KARMINI and JIM GOMEZ
Updated Tue, September 5, 2023 



Indonesia ASEANCambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet, right, talks to Foreign Minister Sok Chenda Sophea as they attend attend the retreat session at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. (Mast Irham/Pool Photo via AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Southeast Asian leaders decided that Myanmar won’t take over the rotating leadership of their regional bloc as scheduled in 2026, Asian diplomats and a leader said Tuesday, in the latest blow to efforts by its ruling generals to gain international recognition after violently seizing power in 2021.

Western governments led by the United States have condemned the Myanmar army’s ouster of Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in 2021 and have demanded her immediate release from yearslong detention along with other officials.

The Philippines agreed to take over the regional bloc’s chairmanship in 2026 at an ASEAN summit hosted by Indonesia on Tuesday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a statement, citing what he told fellow leaders in the closed-door meetings.

“It is my pleasure to announce that the Philippines is ready to take the helm and chair ASEAN in 2026,” Marcos told his ASEAN counterparts in Jakarta, the statement said.

Marcos did not explain why Myanmar lost the prestigious yearlong ASEAN chairmanship, but two ASEAN diplomats told The Associated Press that it was related to the civil strife in the country and fears that the bloc's relations with the United States and the European Union, among others, might be undermined because of their non-recognition of the military-led government in Myanmar.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the delicate issue publicly.

Continuing deadly civil strife in Myanmar and new flare-ups in long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea were high in the agenda of the 10-nation bloc’s talks on Tuesday.

Thorny issues including the U.S.-China rivalry in the region have set off divisions within ASEAN, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo renewed his call for unity.

"All of us are aware of the magnitude of the world’s challenges today, where the main key to facing them is the unity and centrality of ASEAN,” Widodo told fellow leaders.

He likened the regional group to a big ship carrying Southeast Asia’s people. “ASEAN leaders must ensure that this ship is able to keep going, able to keep sailing,” Widodo said. “We must be captains of our own ships to bring about peace, to bring about stability, to bring about shared prosperity."

In a punitive step for their failure to comply with a five-point domestic peace plan crafted by ASEAN leaders in 2021, Myanmar’s top generals and their appointed officials were again barred from attending this year's summit in Jakarta despite suggestions by some member states that they be allowed back because their ejection had failed to resolve the country's crisis.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said ASEAN leaders decided to stick with the peace plan despite an assessment that it has not led to any progress in easing the crisis. They designated three nations — the bloc's previous, current and next chairs — to deal directly with Myanmar's civil unrest, she told reporters.

Myanmar's generals will continue to be barred from attending high-level ASEAN meetings, Marsudi said.

Myanmar security forces have killed about 4,000 civilians and arrested 24,410 others since the army takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization.

After their summit on Tuesday, the regional group’s leaders will meet with Asian and Western counterparts from Wednesday to Thursday, including U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is attending in lieu of President Joe Biden, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said before flying to Jakarta that he plans to offer assurances of the safety of the ongoing release into the sea of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. The release began on Aug. 24 and China immediately imposed a ban on all Japanese seafood.

Asked about the possibility of a meeting with Chinese Premier Li in Jakarta, Kishida said there had been no decision made on that.

Kishida and three Cabinet ministers recently ate flounder, octopus and sea bass sashimi caught off the Fukushima coast after the start of the wastewater release in an effort to show they were safe.

On the South China Sea territorial disputes, the ASEAN leaders “reaffirmed the need to enhance mutual trust and confidence, exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability and avoid actions that may further complicate the situation,” according to a post-summit communique to be issued by Widodo in behalf of the other leaders.

ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are involved in the territorial standoffs in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirely.

"We discussed the situation in the South China Sea, during which concerns were expressed by some ASEAN member states on the land reclamations, activities, serious incidents in the area, including actions that put the safety of all persons at risk, damage to the marine environment, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region,” the leaders planned to say, using similar language as in past communiques.

___

Associated Press writers Edna Tarigan in Jakarta and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.


Myanmar's jailed ex-leader Aung San Suu Kyi ailing - source

Reuters
Mon, September 4, 2023

Protest marking the second anniversary of Myanmar's 2021 military coup outside Myanmar Embassy, in Tokyo


(Reuters) - Myanmar's detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is ailing and a request for an outside physician to see her has been denied by the country's military rulers, a source familiar with the matter and the shadow government loyal to her said on Tuesday.

The 78-year-old Nobel laureate instead has been treated by a prisons department doctor.

"She was suffering swelling in her gums and could not eat well and is feeling light-headed along with vomiting," said the source, who declined to be identified due to fear of arrest.

Myanmar military junta spokesperson did not answer calls from Reuters.

The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since early 2021, when the military overthrew Suu Kyi's elected government and cracked down on opponents of military rule, with thousands jailed or killed.

Suu Kyi is facing 27 years of detention related to 19 criminal offences. She denies all the charges for which she was convicted, ranging from incitement and election fraud to corruption, and has been appealing against them.

In July, she was moved to house arrest from prison in the capital, Naypyitaw.

Myanmar's exiled National Unity Government, set up by opponents of military rule and the remains of Suu Kyi's previous government, said the healthcare and security of political detainees is the responsibility of the military junta.

"The international community should pressure the junta for the healthcare and security of all the political detainees including Aung San Suu Kyi," Kyaw Zaw, spokesperson for the National Unity Government, told Reuters.

Many governments have called for the unconditional release of Suu Kyi and thousands of other political prisoners, and some, including the United States, European Union and Great Britain, have targeted the Southeast Asian country's military with sanctions.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff)

Home insurers cut natural disasters from policies as climate risks grow

Jacob Bogage,

(c) 2023, The Washington Post
Sun, September 3, 2023 


In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most.

At least five large U.S. property insurers - including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway - have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events and raise monthly premiums and deductibles.

Major insurers say they will cut out damage caused by hurricanes, wind and hail from policies underwriting property along coastlines and in wildfire country, according to a voluntary survey conducted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state officials that regulates rates and policy forms.

Insurance providers are also more willing to drop existing policies in some locales as they become more vulnerable to natural disasters. Most home insurance coverages are annual terms, so providers are not bound to them for more than one year.

That means individuals and families in places once considered safe from natural catastrophes could lose crucial insurance protections while their natural disaster exposure expands or intensifies as global temperatures rise.

"The same risks that are making insurance more important are making it harder to get," Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund and nonresident scholar at the Insurance Information Institute, told The Washington Post.

The companies mentioned those policy changes as part of previously unreported responses to the regulatory group's survey. The survey was distributed in 2022 by 15 states and received responses - some sent as recently as last month - from companies covering 80 percent of the U.S. insurance market.

Allstate said its climate risk mitigation strategy would include "limiting new [auto and property] business . . . in areas most exposed to hurricanes" and "implementing tropical cyclone and/or wind/hail deductibles or exclusions where appropriate."

Nationwide has already pulled back in certain areas. The company said that in 2020, it "reduced exposure levels in some of the highest hazard wildland urban interface areas in California."

In its response to the regulators' survey, Nationwide said it no longer underwrites coverage for "properties within a certain distance to the coastline" because of hurricane potential.

Other changes will come. "More targeted hurricane risk mitigation actions are being finalized and will start by year-end 2023," Nationwide told regulators.

Berkshire Hathaway, which also offers reinsurance - insurance policies for insurance providers - wrote that increased climate disasters mean "it is possible that policy terms and conditions could be updated or revised to reflect changes in such risk."

U.S. homeowners have faced unprecedented disasters in recent weeks that have underscored the new challenges facing insurance markets.

Hurricane Idalia brought severe flooding to Georgia and the Carolinas, and tore through parts of Florida that had never experienced direct hits from a major storm. Tropical Storm Hilary caused $600 million in damage on the West Coast, according to Karen Clark & Co., a leading catastrophe modeling firm. The fires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, whose cause is still under investigation, led to $3.2 billion in property damage, the firm said.

Those catastrophes, insurance industry insiders said, show just how quickly claims costs are escalating in the face of climate change.

U.S. insurers have disbursed $295.8 billion in natural disaster claims over the past three years, according to international risk management firm Aon. That's a record for a three-year period, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

Natural catastrophes in the first six months of 2023 year in the United States caused $40 billion in insured losses, the third costliest first-half on record, Aon found.

"There's no place to hide from these severe natural disasters," said David Sampson, president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. "They're happening all over the country and so insurers are having to relook at their risk concentration."

That trend is too costly, insurers contend, and necessitates rewriting policies or eliminating coverages in growing geographic areas.

Rate increases for homeowners insurance are regulated by state agencies. That can prevent firms from pricing policies that accurately reflect risk, said Daniel Schwarcz, who studies insurance markets at the University of Minnesota Law School. Instead of setting much higher prices for policies in specific areas that might be more vulnerable - such as regions below sea level or on the edge of fire-prone areas - insurance firms must set prices that are relatively comparable across an entire state.

"We're in the business of pricing to risk," Matt Mayrl, vice president of strategy, performance and partnerships at American Family Insurance, said in an interview. "Sometimes your price can't match your risk."

Many of the policy changes, experts say, may be unfavorable to certain consumers but are important for the survival of the wider insurance market.

Typical home insurance policies cover damage from all manner of perils, including fire and smoke, wind and hail, plumbing issues, snow and ice, and vandalism and theft. Floods are generally covered by a separate federally administered program.

Under the policy changes many large insurers are reporting to regulators, firms will continue to offer baseline policies to clients in disaster-prone areas, but without protections for damage caused by those disasters. For example, a policy in a region afflicted by hurricanes may exclude coverage for wind or hail damage, or in wildfire country, a policy without fire and smoke protection.

Consumers who want those coverages would need to purchase a supplemental policy or shop for insurance from another provider.

"The fact that insurers have the capacity to limit their exposure or change their exposure over time means at the end of the day their concerns are not fully aligned with the concerns of their policyholders," Schwarcz said.

Representatives from Allstate and Erie declined to comment. Berkshire Hathaway and Nationwide did not respond to requests for comment.

Insurance markets, especially those that serve many regions across the country, rely on relatively stable risk projections when it comes to natural disasters. By balancing wildfire risk during the late spring in the Pacific Northwest with hurricanes in the early fall in the Southeast and winter storms in the Upper Midwest, insurers can spread risk across constituencies. In theory, providers can collect monthly premiums from a broad clientele without paying out claims on too many large-scale disasters at once.

But weather patterns are changing as the planet warms.

"There is no wildfire season anymore - it's year-round," said Sampson, who is also a member of President Biden's Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission.

Major hurricanes are becoming more frequent and hold more intense rains, said Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. Meanwhile, "tornado alley" - an area swarmed by twisters that runs from Texas and Oklahoma through Kansas and Nebraska - is moving east, according to 2018 and 2022 research published in the journals Nature and Environmental Research Communications.

The variability in weather patterns means insurance companies can no longer rely on the previous risk projections that helped them make decisions.

"Potential changes to the frequency and/or severity of weather-related catastrophic losses pose a risk in both the short and long term," Nationwide wrote in its survey response. "Activity has been observed in recent years that has differed from historical norms or modeled expectations."

As insurers leave certain markets or cut certain perils out of policies, some homeowners are going without insurance. State governments have erected insurance policies of last resort.

The taxpayer-backed Citizens Property Insurance in Florida was the state's second-largest insurer in 2021 in terms of policies written, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Fourteen insurance firms have either left Florida as of April or have policy portfolios that are failing. Farmer's, the fifth-largest homeowners' insurance provider in the United States, said in July that it would not renew nearly a third of its policies in the Sunshine State. A state-backed policy in California, where State Farm and Allstate have withdrawn or significantly cut back on new policies, covers 3 percent of residents.

But even state-backed policies must face climate risks.

"When you see the insurance companies pulling out en masse because the cost of rebuilding homes in Florida is bankrupting them," said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, "it's either hubris or folly to think the state wouldn't be bankrupted stepping in to help."

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Biden will nominate longtime aide who worked for the first lady to become US ambassador to UNESCO

DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Updated Mon, September 4, 2023 



- The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization logo is pictured on the entrance at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris. A White House official says President Joe Biden will nominate a top aide to both Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, to represent the United States at the United Nations agency devoted to education, science and culture. Courtney O'Donnell is Biden's choice to become the U.S. permanent representative, with the rank of ambassador, to the Paris-based UNESCO.

 (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will nominate a longtime aide who once worked for the first lady to represent the United States at the United Nations agency devoted to education, science and culture, a White House official said Monday.

The U.S. recently rejoined the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization after a five-year hiatus initiated by Biden's immediate predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump.

The Democratic president's choice to become the U.S. permanent representative to the Paris-based UNESCO, with the rank of ambassador, is longtime aide Courtney O'Donnell, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the nomination before a formal announcement.

O'Donnell currently wears two hats in the administration: She's a senior adviser in Harris' office and acting chief of staff for Harris' husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, and lends her expertise to a range of national and global issues, including gender equity and countering antisemitism, a top issue for Emhoff, who is Jewish.

O'Donnell also was communications director for Jill Biden, when she was second lady during Joe Biden's vice presidency when Barack Obama was president. O'Donnell helped Jill Biden raise awareness and support for U.S. military families and promote community colleges.

She has extensive experience in developing global partnerships, public affairs and strategic communications, having held senior roles in two presidential administrations, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, national political campaigns and the private sector, according to her official bio.

O'Donnell most recently oversaw global partnerships at Airbnb.

Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain said O'Donnell is trusted by colleagues worldwide.

“This is a fantastic pick and she will do a fantastic job at UNESCO,” he said in a statement.

Cathy Russell worked with O'Donnell in the second lady's office and said she is skilled at developing global partnerships, creating social impact campaigns and providing strategic counsel on a range of issues.

“Everyone who knows Courtney knows she is committed to the value of global engagement and strengthening American leadership around the world,” Russell said.

The Senate must vote on O'Donnell's nomination.

The first lady attended a ceremony in late July at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, where the U.S. flag was raised to mark Washington's official reentry into the U.N. agency after the absence initiated by Trump, a Republican. She spoke about the importance of American leadership in preserving cultural heritage and empowering education and science across the globe.

The United States announced its intention to rejoin UNESCO in June, and the organization’s 193 member states voted in July to approve the U.S. reentry. The ceremony formally signified the U.S. becoming the 194th member — and flag proprietor — at the agency.

The U.S. decision to return was based mainly on concerns that China has filled a leadership gap since Washington withdrew, underscoring the broader geopolitical dynamics at play, particularly the growing influence of China in international institutions.

The U.S. exit from UNESCO in 2017 cited an alleged anti-Israel bias within the organization. The decision followed a 2011 move by UNESCO to include Palestine as a member state, which led the U.S. and Israel to cease financing the agency. The U.S. withdrawal became official in 2018.

West Virginia University crisis looms as GOP leaders focus on economic development, jobs

LEAH WILLINGHAM and JOHN RABY
Mon, September 4, 2023 




 West Virginia University students, faculty and community members attend a protest outside the university's Mountainlair student center against proposed cuts to programs in world languages, creative writing and more amid a $45 million budget deficit Morgantown, W.Va., on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023. West Virginia University is recommending slashing its language department and dozens of other programs amid a $45 million budget shortfall.

 (AP Photo/Leah Willingham, File)

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — On the same day that dejected students pleaded with the board of West Virginia's flagship university not to eliminate its entire foreign languages department and dozens of other programs, Gov. Jim Justice said he was feeling hopeful about the future of education in the state.

“We’ve had tough times — there will be more tough times — but absolutely we are rising from the ashes,” Justice said Aug. 22, while signing a bill allocating $45 million for another state school, Marshall University, to open a new cybersecurity center 200 miles from West Virginia University.

Lawmakers approved the Marshall project, heralded as the nation’s “new East Coast hub” for cybersecurity, in a hastily called special session last month but rejected calls to send WVU funds to address its budget deficit, currently about $45 million.

The Legislature's lack of interest in bailing out the state’s largest university comes as WVU struggles with the financial toll of dwindling enrollment, revenue lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and an increasing debt load for new building projects. Administrators have pushed to take drastic action that raises questions about the responsibilities of states to offer diverse academic offerings — particularly at land-grant institutions in rural areas that traditionally lack access — and could be an early indicator of shifting priorities nationwide.

With a budget shortfall projected to grow as high as $75 million in five years, West Virginia University is proposing cutting 32 programs — 9% of the majors offered on its Morgantown campus — including its entire department of world languages, literatures and linguistics, along with graduate and doctoral degrees in math, music, English and more. Other U.S. universities and colleges have faced similar decisions, but this is one of the most extreme examples of a flagship university turning to such dramatic cuts — particularly when it comes to foreign languages.

After an appeals process last week, school officials pivoted to recommending that WVU's board of governors retain five out of 24 full-time world languages faculty to teach some in-person Chinese and Spanish. They also moved to save the school's graduate creative writing program, which had been slated for elimination. But the English department would still lose a little over a fourth of its instructors under the current plan, which WVU's board will vote on Sept. 15.

WVU has labeled the shift an “academic transformation” amid an “existential crisis” in higher education. Speaking to faculty this year, WVU President Gordon Gee said higher education has “lost the support and trust of the American public.”

“I want to be very blunt: We have been isolated, we have been arrogant, we have told the American public what they should think,” he said, adding that institutions like WVU have to “turn that around almost immediately, otherwise we have a very bleak future.”

But critics see a different a set of circumstances, accusing the administration of financial mismanagement, poor strategic planning and lack of transparency in a state with the lowest rate of college graduates and highest rate of population exodus.

After being named WVU’s president in 2014, Gee promised to increase enrollment to 40,000 students by 2020, which never materialized. Instead, the student population at West Virginia University has dropped 10% since 2015, while on-campus expansion continued.

WVU has spent millions of dollars on construction projects in recent years, including a $100 million new home for the university’s business school, a $35 million renovation of a 70-year-old classroom building and $41 million for two phases of upgrades to the football team’s building.

The crisis, which the American Federation of Teachers called “draconian and catastrophic," has drawn outrage at WVU, where hundreds of students staged a protest against the cuts.

Freshman math and English major Joey Demes already had several college credits when he was looking at colleges. Demes was in the foster care system until he was 18 and chose WVU based on the strength of its math program and financial support the institution offered that “other colleges would not have.”

Now, he said he feels like both majors are being attacked.

“This is where I’ve grown up and lived and it is upsetting for me,” he told the university’s board Aug. 22, adding that he plans to continue his math education after undergrad and become a researcher. “What I’m being told with the grad program for math being cut, is that you guys don’t want me here, that you want me to go to another state and get an education elsewhere.”

Leaders agree that education is a key tool to attracting young people and improving quality of life in West Virginia, but WVU's predicament has raised serious questions about what kinds of education add the most “value."

For the GOP officeholders, value is in economic development and promoting innovative programs — like cybersecurity — that can’t be found almost anywhere else. Many at WVU, however, say the school's diverse offerings give students opportunities they might not be able to access — or afford — elsewhere that are just as valuable.

“We all know what’s going on at WVU, and they will work out their problems,” Republican Senate President Craig Blair said during the signing ceremony at Marshall. “Our No. 1 export has been our youth. That must change.”

As the flagship, WVU has always received a larger share of higher education funding, state leaders say. The school received $50 million from the state just two months ago for its cancer institute. But some insist money hasn’t always been spent wisely.

Lawmakers recently approved a higher education funding formula rewarding schools for degree attainment, workforce outcomes and graduate wages.

Republican Senate Finance Chair Eric Tarr said the way to benefit from the formula is to “provide degrees that lead to jobs.”

“WVU is now making changes that will permit that to occur,” he wrote in an opinion piece, raising concern about what he called “unbridled spending by liberal ‘educators’" across the country.

Professor Lisa Di Bartolomeo, who coordinates the university’s Russian studies and Slavic and East European studies programs, said the long-term effect of the program cuts will be profound. Di Bartolomeo said the blow to WVU’s language arts alone is the most extreme “that anybody has seen anywhere in the country.”

“I hope this is not a sign of things to come, but I do worry that it may be, and that other places will see what WVU is doing and say, ‘Oh, well we can get away with this, too,’” she said.

Mary Manspeaker, an English Ph.D. student, said she left her home state at 18 because she didn't see opportunity in West Virginia. She came back to the university where her parents went because her research is focused on Appalachia.

“To come back and be told that the English department doesn’t matter, that I was right, that there might not be a place for me in West Virginia is heartbreaking,” she said.

Peter Lake, who directs the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Florida's Stetson University said that in recent decades, institutions have increasingly taken a more business-focused approach centering on “return on investment.”

The concern for a flagship like WVU, Lake said, is whether these cuts eliminate a pathway for liberal arts studies for most students, preserving them only for “elite institutions that fairly wealthy or very fortunate people can attend."

He said the conflict reflects the fundamental question in higher education right now: How do we assess value?

“Where is the real wealth and where does it lie?” he said. "And it might be in cash, endowment and buildings, but it could arguably be in other things.”

___

Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia.

Chandrayaan-3 rover and lander in sleep mode but might wake up later this month

Tereza Pultarova
Mon, September 4, 2023

Chandrayaan 3 mission's Vikram lander photographed on the moon's surface by the Pragyan rover.

India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar rover and lander have completed their primary mission goals and are now preparing for the upcoming two-week lunar night. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) hopes the two iconic vehicles might wake up when the sun rises again above the moon's south pole.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission, India's first successful attempt to land on the moon and the world's first successful landing in the southern lunar region, spent a little under two weeks exploring the promising area where deposits of frozen water might exist trapped inside permanently shadowed craters.

On Sunday, Sept. 2, ISRO announced that Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover had completed its assignments and had been "set into sleep mode" with its scientific instruments turned off.

"Currently, the battery is fully charged," ISRO said in a post on X, previously known as Twitter. "The solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, 2023. The receiver is kept on."

Related: See 1st photos of the moon's south pole by India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander

The Vikram lander, which delivered Pragyan to the lunar surface and conducted its own scientific campaign, followed suit on Monday, Sept. 4.

"Vikram will fall asleep next to Pragyan once the solar power is depleted and the battery is drained. Hoping for their awakening, around September 22, 2023," ISRO said in a post on X on Monday, Sept. 4.

Just before it went to sleep, the lander performed a short "hop," briefly firing its thrusters to move by about 16 inches (40 centimeters), closer to the already sleeping Pragyan rover. This hop may be seen as a test for a future sample return mission that would need to launch from the moon's surface

Chandrayaan-3 landed on the moon on Wednesday, Aug. 23. The Pragyan rover disembarked from the Vikram lander one day later and has since traversed over 330 feet (100 meters) of the lunar surface.

Since the mission began, ISRO scientists have received various measurements including chemical analysis of the moon's surface, a temperature profile of the top 4 inches (10 cm) of the surface regolith and measurements of the tenuous plasma above the moon's surface.

Related stories:

— Why Chandrayaan-3 landed near the moon's south pole — and why everyone else wants to get there too
— India's Chandrayaan-3 landed on the south pole of the moon − a space policy expert explains what this means for India and the global race to the moon
— India tests parachutes for Gaganyaan crew capsule using a rocket sled (video)

India previously attempted to land on the moon in 2019 with Chandrayaan-3's predecessor Chandrayaan-2. That mission's lander, however, crashed due to a software glitch. Landing on the moon is notoriously difficult. Only four countries — the U.S., USSR, China and India — have so far accomplished the feat. Only three days before the Chandrayaan-3 success, Russia's Luna-25 mission slammed into the moon's surface following a botched orbital maneuver. Earlier this year, the Hakuto-R spacecraft operated by Japan-based company ispace hit a crater rim during its descent.

In the future, the NASA-led Artemis 3 mission intends to touchdown in the moon's southern polar region with the first humans to land on the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972 on board. The deposits of water in the permanently shadowed craters make this area convenient for setting up a lunar base, as this water could be extracted and used for drinking as well as to make oxygen for the astronauts, which would considerably reduce the cost of maintaining the base.

Velshi: The U.S. should not reward Israel’s bad behavior

MSNBC  Sep 3, 2023  #MSNBC #Israel #Velshi

Israel’s internal politics has been upended, with indicted Prime Minister Netanyahu returning to office and, in a situation echoing American politics, trying to use his power and influence to remain in power to avoid prosecution for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. His return has brought with it an outright assault on Israel’s ostensible democracy, though Israel is effectively an Apartheid state, because only some people who live under its control enjoy its protections – Palestinians who live under illegal occupation are subject to Israeli persecution and prosecution without either its protections or the right to vote. This summer, Netanyahu approved illegal plans to expedite construction of thousands of new settlements in the Occupied territories, and Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villagers have increased. Former Israeli security officials, politicians and advisers, U.S. ambassadors, entrepreneurs, activists and great thinkers have all urged Biden not to meet with Netanyahu until he stops.

Greece is working with Israel on AI 

technology to quickly detect wildfires

MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS
Updated Mon, September 4, 2023 

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, center, Greek Prime Minister

 Kyriakos Mitsotakis, right, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

 shake hands after a press conference at the presidential palace in Nicosia, 

Cyprus, on Monday, Sept. 4, 2023. Israel's prime minister is floating the idea 

of building infrastructure projects such as a fiber optic cable linking countries 

in Asia and the Arabian Peninsula with Europe through Israel and Cyprus.

 (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, Pool)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Greece is working with Israel on developing artificial intelligence technology that would help in early detection of dangerous wildfires, the Greek prime minister said Monday.

After talks with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, Kyriakos Mitsotakis also said that Israel could be brought into the European Union fold when it comes to civil protection initiatives to better coordinate firefighting efforts.

Israel and Cyprus are among several countries that have dispatched firefighting aircraft and crews to help battle wildfires in Greece that consumed vast tracts of forest over the last two months, including the EU's largest such blaze on record that claimed the lives of 20 people.

Mitsotakis said Greece could act as a proving ground for Israeli AI technology in early detection of wildfires.

“We are already talking to Israel about AI-based solutions that will offer us early detection capabilities,” Said Mitsotakis.

Netanyahu said the three leaders discussed “going well beyond” dispatching firefighting aircraft and crews by deploying AI systems for early detection.

“This is really one of those areas where when we say we’ll do it better together, there’s no question that that’s the case,” Netanyahu said.

The three leaders said they delved into how to harness recent natural gas discoveries in Israeli and Cypriot waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Netanyahu said decisions on how Israel and Cyprus will export natural gas to foreign markets will have to be made within the next three to six months.

Israel and Cyprus are looking into plans for a pipeline that would convey offshore natural gas from both countries to the east Mediterranean island nation where it would be liquefied for export by ship.

“We agreed that natural gas and renewable energy is a prime pillar of cooperation in the region, especially in light of the recent geopolitical developments and energy insecurity, especially in Europe, dictating the need for energy diversification and increase interconnectivity,” Christodoulides said.

Another project the three leaders expressed keen interest on is an undersea electricity cable stretching 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) that would link the power grids of Israel, Cyprus and mainland Greece.

"That’s something that we’re eagerly interested in pursuing and we discussed ... (including) the mechanism of how to advance this,” said Netanyahu.

Energy has been the focus of a series of ongoing meetings between the three leaders to deepen their countries' ties since 2016, which Mitsotakis said reflected their importance on the political, economic and other levels.

Putin Sees Turkey Gas-Hub Agreement in ‘Very Near Future’


Bloomberg News
Mon, September 4, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- Russia is close to an agreement with Turkey to set up a natural gas trading hub as the Kremlin seeks alternative export routes for the fuel.

“I hope that in the very near future we will complete our negotiations,” President Vladimir Putin said in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as he opened a meeting with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A gas hub in Turkey will “make the energy situation in the region more stable and balanced.”

Moscow is looking to tighten ties with Ankara after relations with the European Union deteriorated sharply amid Putin’s war in Ukraine. The president came up with the gas-hub plan last year, suggesting that building more Black Sea links to Turkey would make that route Russia’s main westbound export corridor.

The project “will enrich” bilateral ties, Erdogan said Monday.

The venture will take the form of an electronic trading platform rather than a physical facility to store large volumes of Russian fuel, Putin said in July. He didn’t specify whether such a setup would mean less gas trading there than initially envisaged.

Russian gas producer Gazprom PJSC has submitted a draft road map for the gas hub to Turkish state energy importer Botas, Putin said at a press briefing after meeting Erdogan. The two sides now need to set up a joint working group, discuss the legal framework for the hub and agree on trading rules, he said.

Russia piped more than 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey in the first eight months of the year, according to Putin, who said last year’s flows reached 21.5 billion cubic meters.

Ankara has been a close political and economic ally of Moscow as vast numbers of Western countries shun Russian trade following the invasion of Ukraine. The two governments are already cooperating on construction of a $20 billion nuclear power station in southern Turkey.

The nation had previously hoped to see the first of four reactors at the 4,800-megawatt Akkuyu plant operational this year. The initial batch of Russian nuclear fuel has been delivered to the site and the unit will now come online in 2024, Putin said Monday.

G20 per capita coal emissions growing: research

AFP
Mon, September 4, 2023

While 12 G20 nations managed to slash per capita coal emissions, others including India and China saw their's rise (GREG BAKER)

G20 per capita coal emissions continue to rise despite climate pledges and transition efforts by some members of the group of major economies, new research showed Tuesday.

The group, whose leaders meet in New Delhi this weekend, accounts for 80 percent of global power sector emissions.

But in talks in July, it failed to agree that global emissions should peak by 2025 or to massively ramp up renewable energy use.

Between 2015 and 2022, per capita G20 coal emissions rose nine percent, according to the research published Tuesday by Ember, an energy thinktank that pushes for renewable power.

Twelve G20 members, including Britain, Germany and the United States, were able to significantly decrease per capita emissions.

But other countries, including G20 host India, Indonesia and China, all saw their emissions rise.

Indonesia, which last year received pledges of $20 billion from rich nations to wean itself off coal, saw its per capita emissions from the fuel jump 56 percent from 2015.

Even some countries that achieved reductions in their emissions continue to emit far above the global average on a per capita basis, the report said.

"China and India are often blamed as the world's big coal power polluters," said Dave Jones, Ember's global insights lead.

"But when you take population into account, South Korea and Australia were the worst polluters still in 2022."

The rises come despite persistent warnings that deep cuts to fossil fuel emissions are necessary to keep the planet liveable.

Coal-fired power plants that do not deploy carbon capture technology must decline by 70-90 percent within eight years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But many G20 members have yet to unveil comprehensive coal drawdown strategies, Ember noted.

"Growing wind and solar are helping to reduce coal power emissions per capita in many countries, but it's not enough yet to keep pace with rising electricity demand in most emerging countries," the report warned.

The group called on G20 members to agree this weekend on tripling renewables by 2030 and to offer clear policies on coal power phaseout.

sah/dan

Secret Belief Means Wagner’s Most Dangerous Men Won’t Back Down

Will McCurdy

The Daily Beast
Mon, September 4, 2023

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters

All eyes are on the Russian mercenary group Wagner in the aftermath of a mysterious plane crash that presumably killed the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, last week. Angry over what many suspect was an assassination plot ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, many factions within the infamous mercenary group are now emerging with shadowy threats of vengeance and violence.

The “Rusich” Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group, a Wagner-linked unit of fighters that have received additional sanctions for “special cruelty" in battles in the Kharkiv region in Ukraine, has recently taken to Telegram to post one such ominous warning. “Let this be a lesson to all. Always go all the way,” the group said in a statement after the plane crash.

There’s good reason for Vladimir Putin to take threats from Rusich, and other like-minded Wagner fighters, seriously.

That’s because behind the headlines, many of the Wagner units most known for their violence—including the Rusich battalion, and even the now-deceased commander Dmitry Utkin—are fighting what they believe is a spiritual battle, taking religious and ideological inspiration from sources far removed from the Russian mainstream.


These soldiers are shunning Jesus, Mary, and the Russian Orthodox patriarchs, and instead booking to Gods such as Perun— the ancient Slavic god of thunder and lightning—for protection and inspiration.

Members of the far right Russian paramilitary unit Rusich take a walk in the Kremlin square during a break in their participation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
STR/NurPhoto/Getty

The “Rusich” battalion is formed almost entirely of adherents of a variant of Slavic neopaganism known as “Rodnovery,” according to former unit commander Alexei Milchakov’s interviews with local Russian media. Marat Gabidullin, who served in the Wagner group from 2015 to 2019 and rose to the rank of commander in Syria, also confirmed these reports to The Daily Beast.

Members of the Rusich group, which has been active in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Africa, and Syria since 2014, have often adorned their badges, tanks, and banners with images of what’s known as the ‘kolovrat’. This spinning wheel—one of the critical symbols of the pagan revivalist belief system—could be easily mistaken for a swastika by the untrained eye. Pagan symbols such as the ‘Valknut’ and ‘Black Sun’ have also frequently appeared on the groups’ uniforms and banners.

These pagan symbols have prompted disgust and confusion in several news outlets, in both Ukraine and Africa, due to the symbols bearing a distinct similarity to the SS imagery of Nazi Germany. Outside of the Rusich unit, these pagan beliefs are common among members of the Wagner Group, and the Russian military more widely, according to several sources who spoke to The Daily Beast.

‘Rodnovers’ practice polytheism, the belief in multiple gods, roughly seven, all said to be manifestations of the one true god Rod. These ideas began to take root in the ’90s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and state atheism led to a revival of religious faiths of all kinds, including Christianity.

Men are hugely overrepresented in Rodnovery, particularly those involved in martial arts clubs and the heavy metal community, where its imagery often crops up. A core text of Rodnovery, “The Book of Veles” places the Slavs as a type of chosen people, with a unique destiny. Though texts like the above have proven likely to be 19th-century forgeries and much of the faith represents guesswork based on incomplete records from Medieval scholars, that hasn’t stopped these beliefs from slowly rising in popularity.

There are estimated to be between several 100,000 to several million Pagans in Russia, divided between different sects with quite diverse beliefs. The deity that receives the bulk of the attention, at least among male devotees, is Perun, a deity who in the Book of Veles engages in constant war against the forces of evil, not unlike the popular Norse god Thor. The belief in reincarnation is also common among believers.

Gabidullin, the ex-Wagner soldier, told The Daily Beast the practice of Rodoverny within the group as merely a type of “fashion hobby” for a marginalized community of soldiers.

The ex-mercenary says the popularity of these beliefs stems from the “laziness to study the scientific school of history” and the desire to find a justification “for self-aggrandizement in the past.” He terms the vision of the history of Rodverners in Wagner as an: “invented version with great ancestors and achievements.”

Expressing sympathy with Rodnovery may even get you promoted within the Wagner Group. A group of anonymous informants, who served in the Wagner group in Syria, told a Ukrainian publication Radio Liberty in 2018 “it is desirable to be a Rodnover” to progress in the Wagner group.

Hundreds of Wagner Men Vanish From Putin’s Designated Exile

Gabidullin, in a previous interview with a Russian language publication, has alleged that Dimitry Utkin, the group’s recently deceased commander, has Pagan beliefs of his own, alleging the general has multiple Rodnovery-inspired tattoos.

Portraits of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin are seen at a makeshift memorial in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia August 27, 2023.
Anastasia Makarycheva/Reuters

The insider also alleged that there was “an ideological department within the Wagner PMC (private mercenary company),” formed back in 2019 that is promoting the movement, which he derides as merely a “disguised form of Nazi ideology.”

Denys Brylov, a Ukrainian scholar focused on religion in the Slavic world, believes that the actual specific religious practices of the Rodnovers serving in Wagner may come secondary to the wider ideological component it can provide for soldiers.

Brylov believes that for Wagnerites neo-paganism is attractive due to its ability to provide a spiritual justification for the “cult of force”. In these types of fringe, hardline interpretations of pagan beliefs, the very act of battle or the shedding of blood can be “considered as an act of sacrifice to the pagan patron deities of warriors and war.”

That said, Brylov feels that in many cases persons “inclined to cruelty” may simply gravitate to neo-pagan ideology to justify these instincts, rather than the beliefs themselves being inherently warlike.

Rusich commander Alexei Milchakov, for instance, went viral on VK—effectively Russia’s Facebook—for beheading and eating a puppy, while barely out of his teenage years, and well before he joined the army. He would later joke he respected canines' rights to be “1-tasty, 2-fried, 3-not have a lot of veins and bones.”

Neopaganism in the West, which started to first grow in the 1960s, has yet to shake lingering associations with flower power and the hippie movement, though this hasn’t always been the case. Norse Neopaganism, the revival of old Viking and Northern European religious traditions, has often been co-opted by the far right, both in Scandinavia and in the U.S. Popular heavy metal musicians such as the Norwegian Varg Vikernes, who has served a 15-year jail sentence for murder, employ long-winded, fairly academic descriptions of Nordic paganism as a justification for antisemitism and a protest of what they view as the corrupting influence of Anglo-American liberalism. In the U.S., Norse revivalist ideas have become popular in Neo-nazi or skinhead groups, and there are even seen Asatrú ministries—a type of revivalist Norse paganism—popping up in jails across the country.

Western neo-pagans, at least between the 1960s and early 1980s, generally but by no means always, leaned left, anti-war, and pro-environment, and were seeking a more earth-centric religious philosophy. Now, western neo-pagan movements have shifted to include large numbers of individuals from across the left and right of the political spectrum.

Still, there is a definite bent towards libertarianism, according to Adrian Ivakhiv, a professor at the University of Vermont who has conducted research into Ukrainian pagan revivalism, which includes 'Ridnoviry,’ among other overlapping traditions.

Rodnovery, in contrast, tends to be marginally more socially right-wing than Western forms of neo-paganism and may portray Western liberalism and consumerism as a corrupting influence.

Rodnovers, according to Ivakhiv, ‘definitely’ often have a streak of Western anti-liberalism, because they see liberalism as a secularizing force that threatens traditional social institutions such as families and communities.

Ivakhiv feels that Rodnovery, in some but certainly not all manifestations, can play into the vaguely esoteric, right-wing sort of spirituality you can find the world over, uniting the Steve Bannon wing of the American right with the “Alexander Dugin wing” of Russian conservative politics that is intensely anti-secular.

Alexander Dugin, a Russian far-right political philosopher, is primarily known for conspiratorial rhetoric. He promotes neo-imperialist viewpoints known as ‘Eurasianism’ and characterizes Western liberalism as a spiritual evil. His popular book, The Foundations of Geopolitics, has been attributed by some sources as having some influence on Russian foreign policy and Vladamir Putin, even being called “Putin’s Brain,” although these claims are heavily disputed.

According to Ivakhiv, you would find certain strains of this anti-western thinking in both Ukrainian and Russian pagans. Ivakhiv believes this is more common among Russian pagans than in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians still see Russians as fellow slavs and blame Putin’s regime, not Russians in general, for the war.

Ivakhiv admits it is difficult to generalize, but that Ukrainian Rodnovers will tend to see as much commonality with Polish, Czech, Slovak, and South Slavic pagans as with Russian or Belarusians.

No area better demonstrates the appeal of Rodnovery among young Russian males than combat sports. In fact, these beliefs are held by some of the most successful Russian athletes. Heavyweight boxer Alexander Povetkin, who at one time held the WBA belt and had a high-profile title bout against Vladamir Klitschko in 2014, is a self-admitted pagan. He regularly wears a necklace of the Axe of Perun on his chest and on his left shoulder, and he has a tattoo of the star of Rus, another popular symbol in Rodnovery.

Povetkin has expressed some of the nationalist views that are so often parceled up with Russian interpretations of Rodnovery, telling a Russian sports publication: “I am a person who loves his homeland and his people. Therefore, consider myself a nationalist.” Though he shoots down the idea that nationalism necessarily means fascism or Nazism.

Denis Aleksandrovich Lebedev, who was also a WBA champion and was ranked as the best cruiserweight in the world at one point in 2016, has also come out as a believer, though he may have pivoted back to the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years, at least in public. Alexander Pavlovich Shlemenko, who has successfully competed in the middleweight division of UFC-competitor Bellator, has expressed pagan sympathies to local sports media.

In a collection of photos posted on the Russian social network VK, we can see members of the popular Moscow MMA club “R.O.D.b.,” potentially named after the supreme deity Rod, celebrating the key pagan festival the ‘Day of Perun.’ The aforementioned world-famous boxers are pictured wearing Rodnover garments.

Though it may be an overstatement to call combat sports clubs a recruitment pipeline for the military, there is certainly a connection there. These clubs are popular targets for Russian military advertising due to their core demographics of young males. It’s also not uncommon for the coaches and founders to have served in the Russian military, as is the case with the founder of the ROD MMA club.

Ivakhiv feels that young men involved in fields such as boxing, MMA, and military service all might be attracted to Rodnovery in part because of its traditional representations of masculinity, such as the god Perun, because it can provide a source of inspiration for hard training, a type of intense motivation that seems rooted in traditional ‘martial arts.’

Magda, a practicing Slavic pagan from Poland, who is attempting to reconstruct pagan traditions as part of the Witia Project, has her own theories about why Rodnovery might be popular with young men.

“I think that men are really lost in modern times. I think that masculinity, nobody really knows what it is anymore. Men are just looking for something that will tell them how to be.”

Magda also believes that Rodnovery may also appeal to young men because, at least in comparison to the Russian Orthodox church, it is pro-sex and physicality.

“In Slavic Native Faith, there's absolutely no question that physical stuff is part of it.”

“During Kupała, the Slavic pagan celebration of summer solstice, you are supposed to be in couples. You have the whole tradition of going off into the forest, which is where the couples were intimate. Men likely find this appealing.”

Russian language message boards dedicated to paganism, blocked to Western IP addresses, generally contain conservative viewpoints on most social issues such as homosexuality, abortion, and women’s place in society. There is also a clearly anti-establishment bent, with a number of posts critical of the Russian military's abuses of power as well as government censorship of the populace.

“A part of the searching for their own identity was basically just making up stuff,” Magda said. “You have all these crazy people nowadays, mostly men, and they get it in their head that they are the sons of Perun. Whether they are these fighters or these warriors, they have to gain fame or honor on the battlefield.

“It is just crazy,” she added.

Though many within the movement may use Rodnovery as a way to justify Russian nationalist ideals, so do many followers of the Russian Orthodox Church. There are likely more Muslims serving in the Russian army than Pagans, and yet many more Christians or Atheists. The Orthodox Church has arguably provided just as much backing for Russian Nationalism as Rodovery ever has, with Patriarch Kirill even personally blessing the invasion of Ukraine.

Still, it’s not surprising that a faith based so much on guesswork surrounding a long forgotten way of life, and with no central hierarchy, can attract devotees of questionable morals. For those who go into with a pre-existing tendency to be violent, bigoted, or nefarious, it’s a blank slate that offers a justification to do what they please.

And considering the current instability within Wagner and the Russian military more widely—that spiritual justification could spell trouble ahead.

The Daily Beast.