Two killed in roadblock collision as French farmers widen protests

PETITE BOURGEOIS PROTEST

A car rammed into a roadblock put up by protesting farmers in southwestern France on Tuesday, killing a woman and her teenage daughter, and seriously injuring her husband.

Issued on: 23/01/2024 - 

A view of the destroyed vehicle that killed a woman and her teenage daughter at a roadblock in southwest France on January 23, 2024. © Valentine Chapuis, AFP

By:NEWS WIRES

Farmers have been blocking roads across the country in protest at what they say are deteriorating conditions in the agriculture sector.

The three occupants of the car that crashed into the barrier on a motorway in the southwestern department of Ariege were taken into police custody on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, police said.

The vehicle was travelling on the dual-lane carriageway leading to the roadblock despite it being clearly marked as closed to traffic because of the protest, Ariege prefect Simon Bertoux told reporters.

But a local prosecutor, Olivier Mouysset, said that early results of the investigation suggested that the car, carrying a couple and a friend, had not rammed the barrier intentionally.

In the dark, the car ran into a wall made of bales of straw at the roadblock, hit the three people and only came to a halt when it crashed into the trailer of a tractor, Mouysset said.

The 35-year-old woman who was killed was a member of the powerful FNSEA farmers union, which has been leading nationwide protests.

Her 14-year old daughter was taken to hospital where she later died. The wounded husband is 40.
'At speed'

A police source added that the car was travelling "at speed" as it drove into the barrier.

A test showed that the driver, a 44-year-old man, was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

All three occupants of the car are Armenian nationals, Bertoux said.

The broader southwestern Occitanie region has been a focal point of farmers' protests in recent days.

Read moreWhy French farmers are up in arms: fuel hikes, green regulation, EU directives

Farming union representatives on Monday met Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to discuss their grievances, which include low food prices, rising charges for farmers, higher fuel prices and environmental protection rules that they say are unacceptable.

Tensions have been running high, with the FNSEA announcing protests all this week and beyond if the government failed to respond to its demands.

"In the current circumstances that farming has to endure, this kind of drama is difficult to bear," said FNSEA president Arnaud Rousseau, who first reported the incident.
'Nation is devastated'

At his meeting with the farming representatives on Monday evening, Attal made no immediate announcement but promised that a number of measures would be unveiled by the end of the week, according to Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau.

"The nation is devastated" by the accident, Attal said on Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter.

President Emmanuel Macron said he has asked his government "to offer concrete solutions" to the farmers' problems.


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"My thoughts go out to the victims and their loved ones who are mourning them," he said, also on X, calling Tuesday's accident "a drama that has devastated us all".

The FNSEA's Rousseau said the farmers' mobilisation would "not be affected by this drama" and that "the struggle continues".

Several motorways across the country were blocked by tractors on Tuesday.

Protesting farmers at roadblocks observed minutes of silence for those killed in the accident

(AFP)

PETITE BOURGEOIS REACTIONARY PROTEST

Why French farmers are up in arms: fuel hikes, green regulation, EU directives

FASCISM IS PETITE BOURGEOIS REACTION

French farmers have engaged in a standoff with the government to express anger over a perceived lack of respect, rising costs and suffocating EU regulation. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal seeks to calm the protesters while the far-right National Rally hopes to take advantage of their anger, just five months before the European elections.


Issued on: 23/01/2024 -

A woman passes by a farmer as he takes part in a protest against taxation and declining income, in Toulouse on January 16, 2024. © Ed Jones, AFP
By:Louis CHAHUNEAU

France’s farmers are angry with their government. Several dozen of them have been blocking a portion of the A64 highway near Toulouse since January 18 to express their anger. Then an explosion between Thursday and Friday night blew out the windows of a local government building in the nearby city of Carcassonne. Two graffiti tags left at the scene attributed the act to a mysterious collective of winemakers.

"It is not insignificant that this [the protest movement] comes from the south of the country," said François Purseigle, a sociology professor at the French agronomy faculty of the Toulouse Institute of Technology. "Farmers are on the frontline of climate change, with successive droughts taking place, and they have been repeatedly told they are not doing enough for the environment."

Read more Can technological fixes solve France’s water crisis amid record droughts?

Surprised by the farmers’ blockades, France’s government announced a delay of “several weeks’” for reforms announced over a year ago to help farmers. The stakes are high: France lost 20% (101,000) of its farms between 2010 and 2020, according to a recent survey.

“Many young people today prefer to avoid self-employment because they would earn less than a farm employee, and this should not be the case,” said Yohann Barbe, a cattle farmer in the Vosges department in northeastern France. Successive governments have been struggling to stop the phenomenon. “Nearly 200,000 farmers will be of retirement age by 2026, but there are not enough buyers [to take over their farms],” said Purseigle. “There is a gap between Macron’s speech on 'civic rearmament' and the reality of farmers who feel completely disarmed.”

‘We can’t expect farmers to shoulder the ecological transition’

The vulnerabilities of farmers are increasing day by day. “Emmanuel Macron made a great speech on agriculture during a meeting at Rungis International Market in 2017, but never acted upon it. We're fed up,” Barbe said.

Protestors say their movement, which originated in the southwest, is bound to spread nationwide, especially if the government does not quickly respond to their grievances. These include the government’s move to increase taxes on agricultural diesel, a polluting fuel, used by farmers, that has long benefited from government tax breaks. The move will directly affect the sector's production costs.

French politicians attempt to appease angry farmers ahead of European elections

Farmers are also denouncing non-compliance with a law passed in 2018 which guarantees that hikes in production costs be covered by the agrifood chain through trade negotiations.

"I sell my milk to Savencia (an agribusiness group), even though I don't even know how much milk will cost on February 1, because we didn’t reach an agreement with them in December," said Barbe, who is also a member of the National Federation of Farmers' Unions (FNSEA). In another example, the 2018 law required 20% of the food distributed in canteens to be organic by 2022, but the threshold is still stagnating at around 6%, according to the French newspaper Les Echos. "We can't expect farmers to shoulder the ecological transition by themselves,” said Barbe.

The European Union targeted

Also jarring to farmers are the mounting environmental standards put on agricultural production. They point out that the frequent transposition of European directives make national standards even stricter than European standards. “We are not against more supervision, but we need compensation on prices,” said Barbe. This comes at the risk of losing to foreign competition. France imported more than one chicken out of two consumed in 2022 from abroad (notably, from Belgium, Poland and Brazil).

The farmers are also holding the European Union itself responsible for their situation. With a budget of €53.7 billion for the 2023-2027 mandate, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) implements a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes. Farmers describe it as dysfunctional. “For the first time, the CAP subsidies have still not yet been paid to all our farmers in 2023. Several farmers are having problems with their bank or their suppliers, who they weren’t able to pay as a result," said Barbe.

The far-right National Rally did not hesitate to use this anger against Brussels to launch its campaign for the European elections in June. Jordan Bardella, chief of the National Rally, spent last Sunday with workers on the wine-growing lands of Médoc.

“The European Union and the Europe of Macron (want) the death of our agriculture,” said Bardella. "French farmers are exposed to unfair competition from products from around the world which don't respect the strict standards that they (French producers) have to observe," he added.

For Purseigle, the farmers' anger will be a major theme in the coming European elections. “If they have succeeded in one area, it is in putting agricultural issues on the political agenda,” he said. The newly appointed Prime Minister Gabriel Attal also rushed to the Rhône department in east-central France on Saturday before receiving the FNSEA and the Young Farmers Union Monday in an effort to calm the discontent. “Politics is also about responding to emotions,” Purseigle noted.

As for the farmers, they have already announced they won't hesitate to block Paris and disrupt the Paris International Agricultural Show, which begins on February 24, if the government ignores their demands.

This article was translated from the original in French.

Fears over economy grow as German train strike could cost up to a billion euros

German train drivers began on Wednesday their longest-ever strike, piling on travel misery for thousands of passengers in an escalating industrial dispute that economic experts warn could cost the economy up to a billion euros ($1.1 billion).


Issued on: 24/01/2024 - 

A high speed ICE train of Germany's railway Deutsche Bahn arrives at the central train station in Leipzig, eastern Germany, on August 16, 2021. © Christof Stache, AFP

By:NEWS WIRES


Transport Minister Volker Wissing has slammed as "destructive" the six-day industrial action that heaps further pressure on supply chains that are already facing disruption because of attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on shipping via the Red Sea.

The prolonged action "is a strike against the German economy," said Deutsche Bahn spokeswoman Anja Broeker, noting that cargo traffic handled by the service include supplies for power plants, refineries".

"DB Cargo will do everything to secure the supply chain, but it's clear that there will be some impact," she added.

The walkout called by the GDL union runs from 2:00 am (0100 GMT) Wednesday through to 1700 GMT on Monday for passenger traffic while the strike for freight trains began earlier on Tuesday.

Not only long-distance trains but also suburban services, some of which like Berlin's are operated by Deutsche Bahn, are affected, just over a week after the last round of walkouts between January 10 and 12.

The fourth strike since November left passengers scrambling to rebook or cancel their plans, and sparked warnings of huge costs to the state and industry at a time when the German economy was already ailing.

Deutsche Bahn estimated each strike day to cost "a low two-digit million figure", but industry experts warned the impact on the economy would be far bigger.
'Unreasonable'

Michael Groemling of Cologne's Institute for Economic Research said nationwide train stoppages can cost up to 100 million euros a day to the economy, but warned that the impact "may not rise linearly in a strike that lasts several days, but partially multiplies".

Given the disruptions with sea freight over the Huthi attacks, as well as issues on road transport, "rough estimates suggest that in extreme cases, this strike can cost up to a billion euros", he said.

Wissing slammed the GDL union for refusing to negotiate during the walkout.

"I find that it is unreasonable vis-a-vis train travellers that the trains are standing there blocked, while one's not at the same time sitting at the negotiations table," said the transport minister.

But the union said it had rejected the Deutsche Bahn's "third and allegedly improved offer" because bosses had shown "no sign of a willingness to reach an agreement.

The GDL is seeking higher salaries to compensate for inflation, as well as a reduced working week from 38 to 35 hours with no loss in wages, arguing that it needed to make train driver jobs "more attractive" to young people.

But Deutsche Bahn blasted the latest round of industrial action, saying it had offered pay rises of up to 13 percent and a one-off inflation bonus, as well as the chance to reduce the working week by one hour from 2026.

Deutsche Bahn last year also clashed with the EVG rail union, which represents around 180,000 non-driver rail personnel, reaching an agreement in late August.

The latest walkout breaks the previous record of a May 2015 action, also called by GDL, that lasted around five days.

Transport Minister Volker Wissing has slammed as "destructive" the six-day industrial action that heaps further pressure on supply chains that are already facing disruption because of attacks by Yemen's Huthi rebels on shipping via the Red Sea.

(AFP)

Thousands of workers in Argentina to protest against Milei's budget cuts

Argentine President Javier Milei faces the first major challenge to his budget-slashing policies Wednesday as workers are expected to down tools in their thousands and take to the streets in protest.

Issued on: 24/01/2024 - 

Members of the Union of Construction Workers of Argentina (UOCRA) attend a protest against President Javier Milei's economic reforms, December 27, 2023. © Agustin Marcarian, Reuters

By:NEWS WIRES

The South American country's biggest union, the CGT, with some seven million members, has vowed a massive mobilisation against Milei's campaign of deregulation and economic reform, which many fear will leave them vulnerable to exploitation, and poorer.

They will be joined by other, smaller unions and civic groups, vowing to "not yield an inch of what has been achieved" in terms of labor and consumer protections, according to CGT leader Pablo Moyano.

Never before has a mass strike been called so soon into the term of a new Argentine government: just 45 days.

The government is not taking the challenge lying down.

It has set up an anonymous, toll-free line for people to report "threats and pressure" on workers to stay away from their jobs.

It has also said it will take a day of pay from each striking public servant and will hand unions the bill for Wednesday's police deployment.

Milei took office in December after a campaign vowing to slash public spending.

Ten days after he came to power, Milei announced a set of sweeping reforms that lessened some worker protections, abolished a price ceiling on rent and lifted price controls on certain consumer goods.

Poverty levels in Latin America's third-biggest economy are at 40 percent and the country is battling annual inflation exceeding 200 percent after decades of financial mismanagement.
Peso investment 'a loss'

Milei's reforms are also being challenged in court, with more than 60 lawsuits under way by labor unions, business chambers and NGOs.

One chapter of Milei's so-called "mega decree" on spending reforms -- dealing with labor matters -- has already been frozen by a court pending a review by Congress.

Among other things, it sought to increase the job probation period from three to eight months, reduce compensation in case of dismissal and cut pregnancy leave.

For the rest of the decree, the government is putting pressure on lawmakers for a quick adoption, but is facing some resistance from the center-right opposition.

The economy, too, has resisted Milei's attempts to boost export competitiveness by devaluing the peso by more than 50 percent last month.

"What was gained in competitiveness is lost with inflation," economist Martin Epstein told AFP.

And with interest rates far below inflation, "any investment in pesos is a loss," he added, meaning people are buying US dollars -- sending the exchange rate of the peso soaring on the informal market to 1,235 to the dollar.

The official rate is 868 pesos.

The markets expect another devaluation in the coming months, and analysts say more unrest is likely to follow especially with higher cost of supplies for school, resuming soon, on top of fuel, food and transport price increases.

In yet another blow to his reforms, Milei's government has had to walk back a plan to cut public funding of the film industry after a backlash from the sector drew backing of international stars including Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.

The South American country's biggest union, the CGT, with some seven million members, has vowed a massive mobilisation against Milei's campaign of deregulation and economic reform, which many fear will leave them vulnerable to exploitation, and poorer.

(AFP)

'Thousand-year storm' leaves San Diego reeling from punishing rainfall, floods

Grace Toohey
Tue, January 23, 2024 

In a matter of minutes Monday morning, communities across southeastern San Diego were transformed into disaster zones: Families fled their homes in chest-deep floodwaters; vehicles were swept downstream as roads became rivers; residents cried for help atop their rooftops.

A deluge of rainfall from what city officials are calling a "thousand-year storm" forced hundreds of rescues, flooded an untold number of homes and businesses and caused millions of dollars in estimated damage. The floodwaters had mostly receded by Tuesday afternoon, revealing the devastating aftermath of California's latest climate emergency — and leaving hundreds without housing and transportation, and with ruined valuables and personal belongings.

“The damage and the impact was absolutely devastating," San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said at a Tuesday news conference. “Entire lives changed in just a few minutes."

“The amount of water that we saw yesterday would have overwhelmed any city drainage system," he said. "This dumping of rainwater is unprecedented in most San Diegans' lifetimes. None of us alive have seen anything quite like this.”


Map shows where rainfall over San Diego County from Monday.

More than 4 inches of rain fell in several areas in and around San Diego on Monday — much of it in just a few hours — a historic rainfall event, according to Elizabeth Adams, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego. The airport recorded 2.73 inches, more than its typical total for the entire month of January.

"That is not only the wettest January day on record, but it's the fourth-wettest day of any calendar day” for San Diego, Adams said. Many areas saw rainfall rates well above three-quarters of an inch per hour. Over half an inch per hour can easily cause dangerous flash flooding.

Read more: Rain soaks L.A. but shocks San Diego as deluge leads to hundreds of rescues amid flooding

“It’s a ton,” Adams said. “Pretty much anywhere in the country that receives 3 to 4 inches in a three- to four-hour time period is going to see flooding."

Parts of San Diego were completely inundated.

The city's southeastern neighborhoods, including Southcrest, Mountain View, Encanto, Logan Heights and San Ysidro, saw some of the worst damage.

Gloria said city and county leaders are focused on recovery. Both the city and county declared a local emergency. The mayor estimated, conservatively, that the storm caused $6 million in damage, but officials say assessments are far from complete.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday proclaimed a state of emergency for San Diego and Ventura counties, both of which have been walloped by wet winter storms. At the end of December, torrential downpours in and around Oxnard caused similar damage. During that event, Oxnard saw rainfall rates of 3 inches an hour, one of the heaviest downpours ever recorded in the area.

Homeowner Maria Ramirez walks through her flood-damaged home in San Diego. (Denis Poroy / Associated Press)

The worry now is that the number of people displaced in San Diego could continue to grow in the coming days. Though no official figure was provided Tuesday, city leaders said they estimated hundreds had been forced from their homes, at least temporarily.

“What was generally assumed to be the impact yesterday … was probably an underestimate," said San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, whose district includes some of the communities that saw the worst of the flooding. He said he visited many of those residents early Tuesday, touring a whole apartment complex that took on water, likely displacing dozens of families.

The American Red Cross is operating two emergency shelters at Lincoln High School and Bostonia Recreation Center. As of Tuesday, the nonprofit said 18 households — more than 50 people — had registered to stay. But with so many people probably still returning home after fleeing, Elo-Rivera said he expected those numbers to rise. City and county officials are asking residents to fill out a voluntary survey about flood damage.

“I think it’s going to take a little bit more time to realize the extent of the damage," Elo-Rivera said.

On Monday afternoon, Manuel DeLeon was unexpectedly called back to the office during his shift driving a tow truck — only to find the office flooded. Roaring water had swept away his personal vehicle.

“The water was out of control," said DeLeon, 47. "My car slipped with the mud and went right into [a nearby] ditch and it was just fully submerged."

DeLeon, whose 2007 BMW was one of dozens of cars carried away in the flash floods, said he wasn't sure how he'd get to work in the coming days. He attempted to clean the soggy and caked-in mud from the interior, but that was a lost cause.

“This rain took everybody by surprise," he said. "It’s crazy.”

San Diego Fire Chief Colin Stowell said his crews made at least 150 rescues Monday, in addition to 30 animal rescues.

"We literally saw over 100 rescues in the Southcrest neighborhood alone," Stowell said.

“Luckily we saw very few injuries and no fatalities,“ Stowell said, calling that feat "remarkable” given the extent of the emergency.

More than 1,000 people remained without power Tuesday, after widespread outages Monday, according to the San Diego Gas & Electric outage map.

Although much of San Diego was under a flood watch all day Monday, city officials said they were not prepared for the extent — and speed — of what came down.

“Nobody anticipated the severity of the storm," Gloria said. “We got a lot more rain than [what was predicted] in a much shorter amount of time."

He said he planned to meet with the National Weather Service to discuss the disparity between forecasts and what occurred but emphasized that his teams were currently focused on recovery.

Adams said the circumstances Monday ended up being a perfect storm for rare, heavy rainfall in San Diego: extreme atmospheric moisture and a storm path over its downtown — which forecasters warned residents about as soon as possible, she said.

Just after 8 a.m. Monday, the agency issued a flash flood warning for a stretch of coastal communities just south of Orange County, including Oceanside, Carlsbad and Vista. Soon after, a larger stretch of southwestern California was placed under a flash flood warning.

Marlene Sanchez-Barriento salvages items behind her home, which was damaged by flooding. (Denis Poroy / Associated Press)

“We used pretty intense warnings," Adams said. "We tried to really heighten the message … [that] this is a really dangerous situation that doesn’t happen in San Diego proper that often."

The day before the storm, the National Weather Service's forecast discussion warned that the ground, already saturated from storms over the weekend, could heighten flood concerns. But forecasters said it was still hard to predict how much rain would fall, and where.

By Monday morning, Adams said the situation developed rapidly, with that intense atmospheric moisture — what she called 250% to 350% of normal — and the direct storm path aligning.

That "really lead to torrential rainfall across the county, but especially focused on downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods," Adams said.

City officials said these extreme circumstances are likely to become a new normal requiring more preparation, coordination and investment.

“This is called climate change. It is real, it is happening," Gloria said, "and we experienced it yesterday in San Diego."

Officials agreed that the city's outdated stormwater drainage system, for which $2 billion of necessary work hasn't been budgeted, didn't help.

Elo-Rivera said he would like to see those much-needed funds allocated, and in an equitable way — noting that many of the communities affected most were working-class, with a majority of Latino and Black residents.

These communities "have long been under-invested in and divested in and ignored by the city," he said. “Public investment in climate resiliency is incredibly important … [especially] prioritizing the communities that have been left behind and are most likely to be devastated by events like yesterday.

Flooding makes fourth wettest day in San Diego: Photos

Ahjané Forbes, USA TODAY
Tue, January 23, 2024 

A car sits partially submerged on a flooded road during a rain storm Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, in San Diego. Heavy rainfall around the U.S. on Monday prompted first responders in Texas to conduct water rescues and officials in California to issue evacuation warnings over potential mud slides in parts of Los Angeles County. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) ORG XMIT: CAGB10

Heavy downpours Monday caused flooded roadways, car wrecks and water rescues across San Diego County, California. The worst of the storm started in the morning, prompting the state to issue travel warnings across the county. San Diego officials urged residents to stay at home unless travel was absolutely necessary.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had declared a state of emergency in the city due to the extreme rainfall and flash flooding. Gloria advised residents to, "never attempt to travel on flooded roads."

Video shows Interstate 5 in downtown San Diego flooded as a driver drove through the high water level.

The National Weather Service reposted the video on their page on X issuing a warning for the dangers of driving through flooded roads.

Photos and a video recorded by a teacher from Village Elementary School showed the water levels in the hallways and classrooms.

A car sits partially submerged on a flooded road during a rain storm Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, in San Diego. Heavy rainfall around the U.S. on Monday prompted first responders in Texas to conduct water rescues and officials in California to issue evacuation warnings over potential mud slides in parts of Los Angeles County. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) ORG XMIT: CAGB102More

A flash flood warning was in effect Monday for parts of North County including; Oceanside, Carlsbad, Vista and Solana Beach. The warning was extended to include Chula Vista, San Diego and El Cajon until 12:45 p.m., the weather service said.

The San Diego Airport received 2.73 inches on rain just before midnight on Monday. According to the weather service, Jan. 22, 2024, was the fourth wettest day in the area.

The record for the wettest day was set nearly 170 years ago, on Dec. 02, 1854, with 3.34 inches of rain reported.

An Encanto resident video taped the flood waters as it swept cars away.

The resident, who spoke in Spanish, said, "Look at the cars my God, my God!"

San Diego firefighters and lifeguards conducted 24 rescues from the San Diego and Tijuana rivers and hundreds more from homes and cars.

The organizations have reported no fatalities from the flooding thus far, according to a post from the San Diego Fire Department on X.

A woman removes debris from floods during a rain storm Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, in San Diego.

Tony Blas points to the water line inside his home that flooded during a rain storm Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy) ORG XMIT: CAGB107

Residents move furniture from a home damaged by flooding next to cars moved by the waters during a rainstorm Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy) ORG XMIT: CADP101

Mail carrier Felipe Estrada delivers mail in front of cars moved by flooding during a rainstorm Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy) ORG XMIT: CADP102

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Floods in San Diego lead to record rainfall; photos show damage

Clues from last ice age 'show how oceans may respond to global warming'

Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Mon, January 22, 2024 

Could the oceans make climate change even worse? (Getty Images)


Ancient deposits on the ocean floor could offer a clue as to how the seas will respond to global warming, scientists believe.

The deposits could also show whether oceans will release greenhouse gases from carbon stored within deep waters.

Researchers in the US analysed ocean oxygen level and its connections with carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth's atmosphere during the last ice age, which ended more than 11,000 years ago. They said their findings could offer an insight into how the oceans will respond as the world warms.


Oceans adjust atmospheric CO2 as ice ages transition to warmer climates by releasing carbon – and the researchers warned that carbon release from the deep sea may rise as the climate warms.

"The research reveals the important role of the Southern Ocean in controlling the global ocean oxygen reservoir and carbon storage," said Yi Wang, lead researcher and an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Tulane University School of Science and Engineering in New Orleans. "This will have implications for understanding how the ocean, especially the Southern Ocean, will dynamically affect the atmospheric CO2 in the future."
How did they do it?

The team analysed sea floor sediments collected from the Arabian Sea to reconstruct average global ocean oxygen levels thousands of years ago. They precisely measured isotopes of the metal thallium trapped in the sediments, which indicate how much oxygen was dissolved in the global ocean at the time the sediments formed.

"Study of these metal isotopes on glacial-interglacial transitions has never been looked at before, and these measurements allowed us to essentially recreate the past," said Wang, who specialises in marine biogeochemistry and paleoceanography.

The thallium isotope ratios showed the global ocean lost oxygen overall during the last ice age compared to the current warmer interglacial period.

The study revealed a thousand-year global ocean deoxygenation during abrupt warming in the Northern Hemisphere. The ocean gained more oxygen when abrupt cooling occurred during the transition from the last ice age to today.
What could this mean for climate change?

The oceans release carbon during warmer periods, the researchers said, and it could mean that the Southern Ocean releases more carbon as the world warms.

The researchers attributed the observed ocean oxygen changes to Southern Ocean processes.

The Antarctic or Southern Ocean plays a large role, according to researchers. (Getty Images)

Sune Nielsen, associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts and co-author of the research, said: "This study is the first to present an average picture of how the oxygen content of the global oceans evolved as Earth transitioned from the last glacial period into the warmer climate of the last 10,000 years.

"These new data are a really big deal because they show that the Southern Ocean plays a critical role in modulating atmospheric CO2. Given that high latitude regions are those most affected by anthropogenic climate change, it is troubling that these also have an outsize impact on atmospheric CO2 in the first place."
Recommended reading

MIT researchers have discovered a remarkable new way to clean up air pollution — by starting with our oceans

Brett Aresco
Mon, January 22, 2024


Carbon capture — commonly thought of as the use of technology to remove carbon dioxide from the air — is a hotly debated topic.

Though the U.S. Department of Energy committed $131 million to various carbon capture projects, opponents claim that focus on carbon capture distracts from other, more effective strategies for combating our warming planet.

Now, an MIT research team may have found a way to make everybody happy: by removing carbon dioxide from the world’s oceans.

In a paper published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, six MIT engineers have detailed a comprehensive plan for cleansing seawater of carbon dioxide.

The process utilizes two asymmetrical electrochemical cells consisting of silver and bismuth electrodes. The first cell releases protons into the water that converts to carbon dioxide that is then collected by a vacuum. The second cell then returns the seawater to a more basic state before releasing it back into the ocean, free from carbon dioxide.

The researchers say the process has “a relatively low energy consumption” and “high electron efficiency.” It’s also expected to cost less than comparable air-based carbon capture technologies. After capture, the isolated carbon dioxide could be stored under the seafloor or used on land to make fuels, chemicals, or even products.

Removing carbon dioxide from the world’s oceans is more important than ever, as they absorb 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and 20 times more than all the world’s plants and soil combined.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, 26% of the carbon dioxide produced by human activity is absorbed by the ocean, and high carbon dioxide concentration has caused widespread ocean acidification. The more acidic oceans become, the harder it is for coral and other species to build their shells and exoskeletons, leading to disrupted ecosystems and less marine life.

The researchers behind the new carbon capture technology note that carbon dioxide in seawater is more than 100 times more concentrated than it is in the air but that a focus on water-based carbon capture has been lacking.

“The total amount of CO2 emissions partitioning into the oceans rivals that retained by the atmosphere,” the researchers write, “and thus effective means for its removal could augment the other negative emissions technologies to reduce the environmental burden imposed by this greenhouse gas.”

The technology proposed by the new research, which is expected to be demonstration-ready in 2025, has the potential to change the face of carbon capture.

Currently, the nonprofit Food & Water Watch says the idea of carbon capture amounts to “pie-in-the-sky greenwashing technologies” that will “only prolong the fossil fuel industry.”

But the deployment of large-scale, energy-efficient, ocean-based carbon capture could turn be a powerful tool for creating a healthier planet.

The trial of a Honolulu businessman is providing a possible glimpse of Hawaii's underworld
BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Mon, January 22, 2024 

A sign for the Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Federal Building and Courthouse is displayed outside the courthouse on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, in Honolulu. A trial underway at the U.S. courthouse is providing a possible glimpse into Hawaii's underworld. (AP Photo/Jennifer Kelleher)


HONOLULU (AP) — A U.S. prosecutor revealed a possible glimpse into Hawaii's underworld on Monday as he outlined the crimes a Honolulu businessman is accused of orchestrating: the kidnapping of a 72-year-old accountant who owed a debt, the release of a toxic chemical into a rival's nightclubs and the killing of his late son's best friend, among them.

Michael Miske Jr. was arrested in 2020, along with seven people whom prosecutors described as associates. But following a series of guilty pleas by the others — including a plea deal signed by his half-brother on Saturday — the trial opened with Miske as the lone defendant.

“The defendant used fear, violence and intimidation to get what he wanted," Assistant U.S. Attorney William Akina said in his opening statement. “What he wanted was money, control and revenge.”

Miske's attorney, Michael Kennedy, painted a completely different picture of his client.

Miske, 49, wasn't a crime lord, but rather a “self-made man" who, despite growing up "on the wrong side of the tracks,” successfully built a family business called Kamaʻaina Termite and Pest Control, Kennedy said in his opening statement.

The company saved iconic Hawaii structures and “cultural treasures," including outdoor theater Waikiki Shell, ʻIolani Palace and the Polynesian Cultural Center, Kennedy said. Miske even fumigated a Honolulu concert hall for free after the city couldn't afford the $200,000 estimate, Kennedy said.

Akina alleged that Miske also owned several nightclubs where disputes over bar tabs would be met with physical assault from his “thugs.” In addition, he made millions selling illegal commercial-grade aerial fireworks on the black market, Akina said.

The businessman also groomed people from his Waimanalo neighborhood to violently rob drug dealers and carry out other orders, the prosecutor said.

Akina said Miske ordered hits on people, and though many were never carried out, at least one was: the 2016 killing of Johnathan Fraser, best friend to Miske's only son, Caleb. Miske had long thought Fraser was a bad influence on Caleb, and blamed Fraser when the friends got into a car crash in 2015 that led to Caleb's death, Akina said.

“There could be only one price to pay for the death of the defendant’s son," Akina said. "A life for a life.”

An indictment alleges that Miske purchased a boat to dump Fraser’s body into the ocean, though the body has never been found.

Kennedy told jurors on Monday that Miske didn't blame Fraser for the crash and had nothing to do with his disappearance.

The people who will be testifying against Miske have something to gain from authorities, Kennedy said, referring to plea deals made by his alleged associates.

“Lies are going to rain down into this courtroom from that stand," he said.

Testimony is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Opening statements proceeded despite a motion filed Sunday night by Miske's defense team. His attorneys argued that a new jury should be selected because Miske's half-brother John Stancil pleaded guilty after a jury had been assembled and sworn and Miske’s daughter-in-law Delia Fabro Miske pleaded guilty after four days of jury selection.

Defense attorney Lynn Panagakos noted that Stancil pleaded guilty early Monday before the courthouse was even open to the public.

U.S. District Chief Judge Derrick Watson denied the motion.

Japan is rich, but many of its children are poor; a film documents the plight of single mothers

YURI KAGEYAMA
Tue, January 23, 2024 








Japan Film Poor Mothers
Australian filmmaker Rionne McAvoy speaks about his film "The Ones Left Behind: The Plight of Single Mothers in Japan" on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, in Tokyo. The award-winning independent documentary film released in 2023 tells the story of single mothers in Japan, weaving together interviews with the women and experts, and showing the other side of a culture whose ideal is for women to get married and become stay-at-home housewives and mothers. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TOKYO (AP) — The women work hard, sleeping only a few hours a night, as they juggle the demands of caring for their children and doing housework — all while suffering from poverty.

The award-winning independent documentary film “The Ones Left Behind,” released last year, tells the story of such single mothers in Japan, weaving together interviews with the women and experts, and showing the other side of a culture whose ideal is for women to get married and become stay-at-home housewives and mothers.

"This is a topic that no one wants to really touch. In Japan, it’s very taboo,” Australian filmmaker Rionne McAvoy said Tuesday. “I think it’s a very apt title because I feel that single mothers and their children have really been left behind in society.”

One woman in the film says she works from 8:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m., while earning less than 200,000 yen ($1,350) a month.

Tomiko Nakayama, another woman in the film, says: “I have to do everything on my own."

Despite being one of the world’s richest nations, Japan has one of the highest rates of child poverty among OECD countries, with one in every seven children living in poverty. About half of single-parent households live below the poverty line.

Japanese society also tends to favor full-time male workers, and women often receive lower wages and fewer benefits, even when they are working full-time and overtime.

Another woman in the film is near tears as she describes how her child stopped asking her about take-your-parent-to-school days. She knew her mom was too busy and couldn’t attend.

McAvoy’s wife, Ayuri, who produced the film, was formerly a single mother. But both deny that's why Rionne McAvoy made the film. Initially, she wasn’t interested in getting involved in his filmmaking.

What makes the story so “Japanese,” according to Rionne McAvoy, is how the country's conformist culture makes many women accept their hardships, too ashamed to ask for help, “keeping their public face and private face separate,” he told The Associated Press.

“The Ones Left Behind” was the Best Documentary Winner at the Miyakojima Charity International Film Festival last year and an official selection at the Yokohama International Film Festival.

Despite repeated promises by the Japanese government to provide monetary assistance to people with children, action has been slow, said Akihiko Kato, a professor at Meiji University who appears in the film.

That’s partly why the birth rate is crashing in Japan from 1.2 million births in the year 2000 to below 700,000 today. Japan also lacks a system that can force fathers to pay child support, according to Kato.

In the past, grandparents, neighbors and other members of the extended family helped look after children. In the modern age of the nuclear family, the single-parent household is often on its own.

What this means for the children is sobering, said Yanfei Zhou, a social science professor at Japan Women’s University who appears in the film. The gap between the haves and have-nots is growing, and the children are destined to inherit the cycle of poverty, she said.

The story of the underclass, including those who are forgotten and don’t have a voice, has long fascinated McAvoy. His next film will be about young people driven to suicide in Japan. He said that being an outsider allows him to tell stories with a fresh perspective and without bias.

“It’s one thing we can do more of in society: to try recognize people’s cries for help,” McAvoy said.

___

Yuri Kageyama is on X https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

Scientists discover near-Earth asteroid hours before it exploded over Berlin

Kiley Price
Mon, January 22, 2024 

An asteroid flying past earth.


In the wee morning hours on Sunday (Jan. 21), a tiny asteroid came hurtling through the sky and smashed into Earth's atmosphere near Berlin, producing a bright but harmless fireball visible for miles around. Such sightings typically occur a few times a year — but this one was unique because it was first detected by scientists roughly three hours before impact — only the eighth time that researchers have spotted one of these space rocks before it hit.

The asteroid, dubbed 2024 BXI, was first discovered by self-proclaimed asteroid hunter Krisztián Sárneczky, an astronomer at the Piszkéstető Mountain Station, part of Konkoly Observatory in Hungary. He identified the cosmic rock using the 60-cm Schmidt telescope at the observatory. Shortly after the space rock's discovery, NASA gave a detailed prediction of where and when the meteor would strike.

"Heads Up: A tiny asteroid will disintegrate as a harmless fireball west of Berlin near Nennhausen shortly at 1:32am CET. Overseers will see it if it's clear!" NASA tweeted on the night of Jan. 20.


A live camera in the city of Leipzig in northern Germany caught footage of the exceptionally bright meteor, watching it appear and disappear in the span of a few seconds. The asteroid, which measured an estimated 3.3 feet (1 meter) wide before impact, likely started to disintegrate around 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Berlin and "probably dropped some meteorites on the ground" along the way, Denis Vida, a postdoctoral associate in meteor physics at Western University in Canada, told CBS News.

Sárneczky has discovered hundreds of asteroids in recent years, and was the first to detect asteroid 2022 EB5 around two hours before it slammed into Earth's atmosphere. He used Konkoly Observatory data to spot that incoming rock, too.

His sighting is incredibly unusual. According to the European Space Agency, 99% of near-Earth asteroids smaller than 98 feet (30 meters) across have not yet been discovered. The smaller an asteroid is, the closer it must be to Earth before scientists can detect it, which can make it difficult to forecast impacts in advance, experts say.

In some cases, near-Earth asteroids can hide in the glare of the sun, such as the meteor that shot out from the direction of the rising sun over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. That surprise space rock shattered windows, temporarily blinded pedestrians, inflicted instantaneous ultraviolet burns and injured more than 1,600 people.

Government space agencies are currently developing new technologies to scan the skies for asteroids before they make contact with Earth, including NASA's NEO Surveyor satellite, currently planned to launch in 2027, and ESA's NEOMIR, which isn't expected to launch until after 2030. Starting in 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile — funded by the National Science Foundation — will catalog the solar system from the ground, and is expected to greatly help asteroid-hunting efforts.

"It took us 200 years to discover all the asteroids we know to date, about 1.2 million asteroids," Mario Jurić, the Rubin Observatory's solar system discovery team lead and the director of the University of Washington's DiRAC Institute, told Astronomy. "In the first three to six months of Rubin, we will double that."


Video shows asteroid burning up as it zooms through skies over Germany

Emily Mae Czachor
Sun, January 21, 2024 

A small asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up early Sunday morning as it hurled through the skies above eastern Germany.

Videos shared on social media throughout the day showed the glowing object's descent over Europe, shortly after the Hungarian researcher and self-described "asteroid hunter" Krisztián Sárneczky spotted it from an observatory in Hungary. Sárneczky is well-known for discovering minor planets and other space objects headed toward our planet, including two asteroids that respectively fell over France in 2023 and the Arctic Ocean in 2022, according to EarthSky, an astronomy website run by scientists and experts in the field.

A small asteroid fell through the skies over eastern Germany early Sunday morning on Jan. 21, 2024. / Credit: Augustusplatz Live Cam via Denis Vida on X

The asteroid seen early Sunday measured about 1 meter end-to-end, according to Denis Vida, a Ph.D. associate in meteor physics at Western University in Canada and the founder of the Global Meteor Project, which aims to better observe meteors using a worldwide cooperative of cameras pointing upward to space.

Vida shared one of the clearest video clips of the falling asteroid, which was originally captured by a livestream camera set up in the German city of Leipzig, in a post on X, formerly Twitter. The asteroid "probably dropped some meteorites on the ground" as it zoomed through the atmosphere and broke apart, Vida wrote alongside the video. He clarified in an email to CBS News that the asteroid began to disintegrate about 50 kilometers, or about 30 miles, west of Berlin.

The asteroid was initially dubbed Sar2736 before the International Astronomical Union's minor planet center went on to officially name it 2024 BX1, EarthSky reported. Funded by a grant through NASA's near-earth object observation program, the minor planet center collects data on comets and "outer irregular natural satellites of major planets," including their sizes and various locations, from observatories everywhere, according to its website.


The center's data log on 2024 BX1 shows input from numerous observatories in various European countries, such as Spain, Croatia and Romania, in addition to Hungary and Germany.

NASA Asteroid Watch first flagged the asteroid's imminent arrival in a social media post shared on Saturday evening.

"Heads Up: A tiny asteroid will disintegrate as a harmless fireball west of Berlin near Nennhausen shortly at 1:32am CET. Overseers will see it if it's clear!" the post read.

The space agency's prediction was correct, and the asteroid rained down after midnight in central Europe as a "fireball," the astronomical term for a shooting star, which the agency defines as "exceptionally bright meteors that are spectacular enough to be seen over a very wide area.


Watch: Fireball lights up Berlin sky

Hillary Andrews
Mon, January 22, 2024

BERLIN, Germany – One scientist caught an amazing display early Sunday morning, an asteroid lighting up Berlin as it burned up, falling through the Earth's atmosphere.

The photographer, Michael Aye, a researcher at the Planetary Research Institute, acted on a tip from a colleague at the SETI Institute.

DEEP IMPACT: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT ASTEROIDS AND WHEN WE SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT THEM

A webcam over Leipzing caught the asteroid.

"A 1-meter (3.2 feet) asteroid called Sar2736 is going to impact Earth, West of Berlin (city of Rathenow) at 00:32 UT, so in 30 min," SETI scientist Franck Marchis posted on X, formerly Twitter. "HARMLESS but several fragments will probably fell on the ground. Look up if you live in the area. It will be a beautiful show."

A Hungarian astronomer detected the Earth-bound rock about 3 hours before impact. He detailed the time and place, Aye told Reuters. He said this is only the eighth time impact, by the minute, was forecast.

Even NASA joined the asteroid watch on social media.

One astrophysicist told German media that it is possible that the asteroid burned completely. But, there is also a possibility that stones, as big as a thumb or fist, survived.

No word yet if any pieces of the asteroid have been found.

Original article source: Watch: Fireball lights up Berlin sky