Isfahan: A city steeped in history - and home to Iranian nuclear facilities

Israel has targeted the city of Isfahan in retaliation for the barrage of missiles and drones Iran deployed over the weekend. But why Isfahan?

Michael Drummond
Foreign news reporter @MikeRDrummond
Friday 19 April 2024 

Shah Mosque in Naghsh-e Jahan Square, Isfahan, Iran. Pic: AP

The city of Isfahan has been targeted in an Israeli strike in retaliation for the barrage of missiles and drones that Iran unleashed at the weekend.

The attack, details of which are still emerging, coincided with the birthday of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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So far, there have not been any reports of damage or casualties.

Where is Isfahan and how significant is it? Sky News takes a look at Iran's third-largest city.

Follow latest: Tehran has 'no plan for immediate retaliation'




It was once the capital of Persia

Located in the centre of modern-day Iran at the nexus of the major north-south and east-west routes, Isfahan emerged as the capital of Persia in 1598.

Today it retains much of its history and the city is famous for its Islamic architecture such as tiled mosques and minarets.

It's home to around 2.2 million people.

The huge Naqsh-e Jahan Square in the city was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Naqhsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan during the festival of Eid-al-Fitr. 

It also has an airbase that has long been home to Iran's fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, bought before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

What connection does Isfahan have with Iran's nuclear programme?

Iran's nuclear research has long been a bone of contention with the West - worried that Tehran could be seeking to develop a nuclear weapon.

Israel has vowed never to let Iran obtain nuclear weapons. Iran has always denied having any intention to build a nuclear weapon.

There are nuclear facilities at a range of locations across the country, including in and around Isfahan.

A nuclear site near Isfahan in Iran in 2005. Pic: Reuters

The facility at Isfahan operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors, as well as handling fuel production and other activities for Iran's civilian nuclear programme.

There's also the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, located in the wider province but outside the city itself.

Nuclear site safe - Iranian media
'There was nothing going on' said an Iranian news agency reporter at the Isfahan nuclear site

What happened to the city in the Israeli strike?

Details are still emerging about the Israeli strike on Iran, including any impact on Isfahan.

Air defences were fired in several Iranian provinces, including from a major military airbase and nuclear facilities near Isfahan, where state media said three drones had been shot down.

Iranian state media television said the nuclear facilities near the city were "fully safe".

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also said there was no damage but said it was monitoring the situation "very closely" and called for "extreme restraint".

Sky News's military analyst Michael Clarke said Isfahan "would make sense" as a target as it hosts one of the least sensitive nuclear sites.

"It's a research site, about 3,000 or so scientists work there and there's no evidence this was targeted on the nuclear site," he added.

"But the fact that Isfahan is one of the cities that does quite a lot of nuclear work is also symbolically quite important, I think, if the Israelis are indicating that they're not frightened to go after these sites."

 

Canary Islands plead with British holidaymakers not to cancel trips despite surge in anti-tourism protests

19 April 2024, 13:34 | Updated: 19 April 2024, 13:49

The Canary Islands tourism minister has urged British holidaymakers not to cancel their trips. Picture: Alamy

By Jenny Medlicott

@JennyMedlicott

The Canary Islands tourism minister has pleaded with British holidaymakers not to cancel their holidays despite anti-tourism protests set to take place

Locals have voiced their outrage in recent weeks over water usage, a lack of housing and pollution across the islands - and have blamed the issues on over tourism.

Messages of 'go home' have been written in graffiti across walls, leaving some feeling unwelcome in the region.

But despite the recent outbreak of anti-tourism rhetoric in the area, the regional tourism chief Jessica de León has stressed that the islands are still open for business.

She told the Telegraph: “It is still safe to visit the Canary Islands, and we are delighted to welcome you.”

Ms de León acknowledged the frustrations of locals over matters such as a lack of housing but added it was “unfair to blame tourism”.

Meanwhile, the Canary Islands president Fernando Clavijo suggested that some of the sentiments expressed by locals “smack of tourist-phobia”.

“People who come here to visit and spend their money must not be criticised or insulted. We are playing with our main source of income,” Mr Clavijo said.

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Anti-tourism protesters have claimed the Canary Islands 'have a limit'. Picture: Alamy

It comes as British holidaymakers have reportedly been calling hotels in Tenerife to ask if it’s still safe for them to visit amid a series of protests planned across the islands.

Tourism accounts for roughly 40 per cent of the local economy in the Canary Islands, as the region welcomes some 12.3 million each year.

Foreign visitors spent more than €20.3 billion in the region last year, accounting for around a fifth of spending throughout Spain.

Last year alone, the islands hosted some 16.2 million tourists, 5.6 million of which were British tourists.

Activists are scheduled to hold a mass demonstration in Arrecife and Lanzarote on Saturday to fight for the “conservation of natural spaces, a tourist moratorium, and tougher regulation for foreigners buying property”.

Flyers for the event assert that the islands “have a limit”.

Activists are planning further marches across Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and La Palma in protest against ‘over tourism’.

They allege that the tourism industry is behind increasing rents and a lack of homes, as landlords snap up properties to use as Airbnbs and tourist lets.

Last week, some activists went on a hunger strike in protest of the effects of mass tourism on island life.

Activists have blamed lack of housing on over tourism. Picture: Alamy

They said they wanted the authorities to halt two tourist projects, one over the construction of a five-star hotel by one of Tenerife’s remaining virgin beaches called La Tejita.

Addressing the housing concerns, Ms de León said: “The problem is that the last five years have seen an average of 3,000 homes built on the islands, when demand is for 20,000.

“Last year just 200 public housing units were built.”

Helen, a Scottish regular visitor of Tenerife expressed sympathy with the locals who work in the tourism sector, who earn an average of €1200 a month.

She said: “I think the government should address these concerns and not dismiss them as just a few cranks. Otherwise, the situation probably will escalate.”

Meanwhile, Gabriel González, a councillor for the hard-Left Podemos party in the resort town of Adeje, said: “We have the feeling that we are not living off tourism; it is tourism that is living off us.”

Tourism industry leaders have flagged concerns over the rise in anti-tourism sentiment across the islands.

One restaurant owner in Tenerife, Carlos Magdalena said: “Tourists are worried and they tell us so.“We are being fools right now - they’ll be rejoicing elsewhere.”

He also blamed “savage development” for the area’s environmental issues and lack of housing and public service funds.

Néstor Marrero, secretary of a Tenerife ecology group called ATAN, said: “The number of tourists should be reduced. We should aim for higher-quality visitors, not people in all-included resorts who don’t leave the hotel or interact with locals and our culture in any way.

“Tourists are allowed to behave in ways here that they would not be allowed to at home. Do they fall drunk off balconies in London or Wales, or drive their cars where it is prohibited in a nature reserve?”

Mr Marrero said that if the region does nothing about the situation, it would be the best way to “create tourist-phobia” as he claimed locals are “sleeping in their cars as they cannot afford rents”.

Ms de León said Mr Clavijo’s government had just passed a housing emergency law to free up space for housing and also tighten rules on short holiday lets to ensure they stay on the rental market for locals.

MSF

Charges in case against rescues at sea dropped in Italy

On the morning of 16 March, MSF teams rescued 171 people from two nearby boats and brought them on board the Geo Barents safely. Central Mediterranean, March 2024.© MSF/STEFAN PEJOVIC

Press Release19 April 2024

ROME - After seven years of false accusations, defamatory statements, and a blatant criminalisation campaign towards organisations performing search and rescue operations at sea, the investigation launched by the prosecutor’s office in Trapani, Sicily, Italy, in late 2016, was dismissed today.

The case saw Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and other organisations conducting search and rescue activities, investigated on the unfounded charge of aiding and abetting ‘illegal immigration’. It involved a mammoth indictment based on inferences, wiretaps, false statements, and an interpretation of rescue mechanisms that was deliberately distorted to present them as criminal acts.

However, after a two-year preliminary hearing, the same prosecutor’s office that opened the investigation acknowledged that the evidence showed that the NGOs were working with the sole intention of saving lives, and asked that the case not continue to trial. The judge has now definitively closed the case, citing the baselessness of the accusations and erasing any suspicion of collaboration with smugglers.

 
An overcrowded boat capsized on the night of 15 March. The MSF team managed to retrieve all 45 people safely from the water. Central Mediterranean, March 2024.SIMONE BOCCACCIOSHARE


“These unfounded accusations have attempted to tarnish the work of humanitarian search and rescue teams for years,” says Dr Christos Christou, MSF International President. “They were intended to remove vessels from the sea, and to counter efforts of saving lives and bearing witness. Now these accusations have collapsed.”

“Our thoughts are with our colleagues from MSF, and other organisations, who have been living under the weight of accusations for legitimately doing their jobs: saving people in distress at sea, in full transparency and compliance with the laws,” says Dr Christou.

During the seven-year limbo, in waiting for the ruling on this case, attacks on search and rescue activities have continued through a series of harmful policies. These include restrictive laws, the detention of civilian vessels, and providing support to the Libyan Coast Guard, which hinders rescues, and exacerbates suffering and human rights violations for people forcibly returned to Libya. Meanwhile, deaths in the Mediterranean Sea have continued to rise. The impact is horrific: 2023 was the year with the highest number of deaths since the allegations were first made against our team members in 2017.
These unfounded accusations have attempted to tarnish the work of humanitarian search and rescue teams for years.DR CHRISTOS CHRISTOU, MSF INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT
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According to the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, at least 63 legal or administrative cases have been brought by European Union states against search and rescue NGOs (June 2023). In the past year, Italian authorities have detained humanitarian rescue vessels 21 times, amounting to 460 days where they were prevented to assist people in distress at sea. MSF’s search and rescue vessel, Geo Barents, has just resumed operations after 20 days of unjust detention on the fallacious charge of endangering people’s lives, after a Libyan patrol boat violently interrupted an ongoing rescue operation.

In addition, humanitarian ships are continuously being assigned distant ports in the north of Italy to disembark survivors, keeping them away from the search and rescue area longer, while people’s lives are at risk.

Together with cynical policies of outsourcing border management to unsafe third countries, such as Libya, Italy and European Union states are turning their back on people seeking safety in Europe, contributing to fuelling human suffering, and ultimately showing a complete disregard for the protection of human lives

.
After a dreadful weekend, 249 people, including many children, are slowly recovering on board the Geo Barents. They are recuperating from trauma and shock following a severe incident with the Libyan Coast Guard and a boat capsize that plunged many into the water. Central Mediterranean, March 2024.MSF/STEFAN PEJOVICSHARE

“In these years, the Italian authorities have invested enormous resources in creating barriers to humanitarian action and in policies of death, while doing nothing to stop shipwrecks and open legal and safe routes for people fleeing through the Mediterranean,” says Tommaso Fabbri, former MSF head of mission, who was involved in the case. “Saving lives is not a crime, it is a moral and legal obligation, a fundamental act of humanity which simply must be done.”

“Stop criminalising solidarity!” exclaims Fabbri. “All efforts must go into preventing unacceptable deaths and suffering, and guaranteeing the right to rescue – bringing back humanity and the right to life in the Mediterranean Sea.”

MSF teams first began search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015, to fill the void left by the closure of the Mare Nostrum rescue operation. Since then, eight different MSF ships have helped to save more than 92,000 lives. Despite the barriers, we have not ceased our search and rescue operations, and to this day our teams are engaged in rescue operations onboard our current vessel, Geo Barents.

“Our aid workers never stopped operating in MSF interventions across the world, just as our ships never stopped saving lives at sea,” says Dr Christou. “This has been our best response to all the accusations.”

 

Scandals rock German far right but party faithfuls unmoved

By

 AFP

When carpenter Tim Lochner decided to run for mayor in the German city of Pirna, he knew standing for the far-right AfD would give him the best chance of winning.

“My success proves me right,” Lochner told AFP at the town hall in Pirna, a picturesque mountain town with a population of around 40,000 in the former East German state of Saxony.

Surfing on a surge of support for the AfD across Germany, Lochner scored 38.5 percent of the vote against two other candidates in December, making him the AfD’s first city mayor.

Four months later, support for the anti-euro, anti-immigration party has been slipping as it battles multiple controversies.

But Lochner remains convinced the AfD is on a winning streak ahead of June’s European elections and three key regional polls in Germany in September.

People in Pirna are concerned about “petrol prices, energy prices, food prices”, Lochner said.

“People’s wallets are just as empty as they were the day before yesterday,” he said, arguing that voters will therefore continue to turn to the AfD.

‘Down the pan?’ –

The AfD was polling on around 22 percent at the end of last year, seizing on concerns over rising migration, high inflation and a stumbling economy.

But a recent opinion poll by the Bild daily had the party on just 18 percent support, albeit still in second place after the conservatives and ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party.

In January, an investigation by investigative media group Correctiv indicated members of the AfD had discussed the idea of mass deportations at a meeting with extremists, leading to a huge wave of protests across the country.

More recently, the AfD has been fighting allegations that senior party members were paid to spread pro-Russian positions on a Moscow-financed news website.

And Bjoern Hoecke, one of the party’s most controversial politicians, went on trial this week for publicly using a banned Nazi slogan.

According to political scientist Hajo Funke, the Russian propaganda scandal in particular could affect the AfD’s prospects in the EU elections.

“This is a problem for the party leadership because the elections could go down the pan,” Funke told the Rheinische Post newspaper.

The AfD is still polling in first place in three former East German states where elections are set to be held in September, including Saxony.

But Funke said the fallout from the scandal could even scupper the party’s chances in those polls.

“The AfD’s central strategic goal of gaining power in one of the federal states is in danger of failing,” he said.

‘Dissatisfied’ –

Residents of Pirna are more divided than ever about the party.

In the city’s cobbled pedestrian zone, a pensioner who did not want to give her name said she was “glad” to have an AfD mayor “because they address our problems (and) address them honestly”.

Fellow pensioner Brigitte Muenster, 75, said she had not voted for the AfD but she could understand why others had.

“People are dissatisfied. More is being done for others than for the people who live here themselves,” she said.

“I’m not a fan, but let’s wait and see,” added Sven Jacobi, a 49-year-old taxi driver. “Just because he’s from the AfD doesn’t mean it has to go badly.”

But not everyone is so accepting of the new mayor.

On the day Lochner was sworn in, around 800 people joined a protest outside the town hall coordinated by SOE Gegen Rechts, an association of young people against the far right.

“I think that when you look at Germany’s history, it should be clear that you should stand up against that and not let it happen again,” said group member Madeleine Groebe, 17.

Fellow activist Fritz Enge, 15, said that with so many scandals coming to light, the AfD was “making its own enemies”.

“The AfD is inhumane. It agitates against homosexuals and migrants, especially on social media, and I totally disagree with that,” he said.

Japanese auto giant Nissan cuts sales, profit forecasts

By

 AFP

Japanese auto giant Nissan said Friday it had lowered its sales and profit forecasts for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, citing higher costs.

“The forecast sales volume has been lowered to 3.44 million units, net revenue to 12.6 trillion yen ($81.6 billion), and operating profit to 530 billion yen. Net income is expected to reach 370 billion yen for fiscal year 2023,” it said in a statement.

The firm previously estimated revenue of 13 trillion yen, operating profit of 620 billion and net income of 390 billion.

The firm said the revision was made because of lower sales volumes and higher costs paid to suppliers and other factors.

Nissan had already in February lowered its unit sales volume projection from 3.7 million to 3.55 million, citing “temporary logistics disruption and intensifying competition”.

On Friday it reiterated that under its recent new business plan, it aims to increase annual global sales volume by one million units by the end of fiscal year 2026 and accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. 

“To successfully deliver the plan, Nissan will adopt more efficient ways to collaborate with suppliers,” the statement said.

Under the strategy announced last month Nissan aims by 2030 to make electric models at the same price as traditional combustion engine cars.

While pledging to improve the firm’s bottom line globally, CEO Makoto Uchida said on March 25 that Nissan had experienced difficulties in the Chinese market.

“Honestly speaking, we have struggled there in terms of sales volume. In the last five months, things have improved somewhat. But still, our capacity remains excessive,” he said at a news conference.

“By working with joint venture partners (in China), we will continue to optimise our production levels and work with products that allow us to grow in the market,” Uchida said.

Rival Honda said last month it was exploring a strategic partnership in electric vehicles to face up to a “once-in-a-century” industry upheaval.

China overtook Japan as the world’s biggest vehicle exporter last year, helped by its global dominance in the EV market.

Japanese giants including Toyota and Nissan have also been more cautious than their Chinese counterparts such as BYD on EVs, banking instead on hybrid models.

Nissan’s full-year results are due to be announced on May 9.

Remote Indonesia volcano erupts again after thousands evacuated

Mount Ruang in Indonesia’s outermost region of North Sulawesi started erupting late on April 16. 

PHOTO: AFP

UPDATED
APR 19, 202

JAKARTA - A remote Indonesian volcano sent a tower of ash spewing into the sky on April 19, after nearly half a dozen eruptions earlier this week forced thousands to evacuate when molten rocks rained down on their villages.

Mount Ruang in Indonesia’s outermost region of North Sulawesi started erupting late on April 16, stirring a spectacular mix of fiery orange lava, a towering ash column and volcanic lightning.

Officials on April 19 morning said Ruang had calmed, but it started to belch ash again hours later after the authorities maintained the highest alert level and told residents to stay out of a 6km exclusion zone.

“I was very surprised, the mountain erupted again. We are scared,” said resident of neighbouring Tagulandang island Riko, 30.

The country’s volcanology agency said the eruption sent a plume of smoke 400m above the peak.

“There was an eruption of Mt Ruang, North Sulawesi” at 1706 hours local time, it said in a statement.

“The ash column was observed to be grey in colour... leaning towards the south.”

Hundreds of locals on neighbouring Tagulandang island were earlier seen cleaning up volcanic material from the harbour and their yards on April 19 morning with the help of soldiers and police officers, according to an AFP journalist.

Some described their panic and rush to safety when the eruptions began days ago.

“I evacuated. There was a house. I stayed there. And then it rained and rocks fell. I prayed: ‘God have mercy, please help me God’,” teacher Ninice Hoata, 59, told AFP on Tagulandang.

Other residents pleaded for more assistance and expressed fears of another eruption before it struck.

“We really need tarpaulin assistance as soon as possible, to temporarily cover the leaking roof,” said 64-year-old Herman Sahoa.

“We are worried there will be a follow-up (eruption) because there is information about that.”

The volcanology agency had earlier warned in a statement that the volcanic activity at Ruang was “still high” with potential dangers including flying rocks, hot clouds and lava flows.

It advised all residents to wear masks to prevent respiratory issues.

Volcanic material on Tagulandang island in Sitaro, North Sulawesi, on April 19. 

PHOTO: AFP

Thousands evacuated

Houses elsewhere could be seen lying empty and electricity was out in parts of the island before April 19’s eruption.

Officials said on April 18 that communications had been knocked out on parts of both Ruang and Tagulandang, which is home to around 20,000 people.

Mr Sahid Samihing, a 53-year-old Tagulandang resident, said he feared his belongings would be ruined after volcanic rocks peppered his roof.

“If it’s not covered, it will destroy the house,” the father of three said.

“It was terrifying. No one would not be scared. Everybody was scared. I experienced this event directly.”

More than 6,000 residents of Tagulandang had been evacuated to the other side of the island that faces away from the crater, Joikson Sagunde, an official from the Sitaro islands disaster management agency, told AFP.

There were no reports of deaths or injuries but authorities said a day earlier they hoped to evacuate 11,000 people from the exclusion zone.

Some of those affected took cover in makeshift shelters at churches and school buildings, the AFP journalist said.

The closure of a nearby international airport in Manado city, more than 100km from the crater, was also extended to April 19 evening, national disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) spokesman Abdul Muhari said in a statement.

The alert level upheld the exclusion zone around the crater, as well as warnings about further eruptions and parts of the volcano collapsing into the sea that could cause a tsunami.

In 2018, the crater of Mount Anak Krakatoa between Java and Sumatra islands partly collapsed when a major eruption sent huge chunks of the volcano sliding into the ocean, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 400 people and injured thousands.

Mount Ruang’s last major eruption was in 2002, when residents also had to be evacuated.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”. 

AFP

Indonesia on alert for more eruptions at remote volcano

Tagulandang (AFP) – Indonesian authorities were on alert Friday for more eruptions from a remote island volcano that forced thousands to evacuate this week, as nearby residents began clearing debris after molten rocks rained down on their villages.


Issued on: 19/04/2024

Mount Ruang erupted nearly a dozen times in 24 hours, stirring a spectacular mix of fiery orange lava, a towering ash column and volcanic lightning © Ronny Adolof BUOL / AFP

Mount Ruang erupted nearly half a dozen times in 24 hours beginning late Tuesday, stirring a spectacular mix of fiery orange lava, a towering ash column and volcanic lightning.

While officials said Ruang had started to calm Friday, authorities maintained the highest alert level of a four-tiered system, which indicates high volcanic activity.

Hundreds of locals on neighbouring Tagulandang island were seen cleaning up volcanic material from the harbour and their yards on Friday morning with the help of soldiers and police officers, according to an AFP journalist.

Some described their panic and rush to safety when the eruption began.

"I evacuated. There was a house. I stayed there. And then it rained and rocks fell. I prayed 'God have mercy, please help me God'," Ninice Hoata, a 59-year-old teacher, told AFP on Tagulandang.

White smoke of "medium to high intensity" was seen billowing up to 100 metres (328 feet) above the crater, Abdul Muhari, the national disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) spokesman said in a statement.

Other residents pleaded for more assistance.
Police officers helped locals sweep volcanic debris on the ground after eruptions at Mount Ruang © Ronny Adolof BUOL / AFP

"We really need tarpaulin assistance as soon as possible, to temporarily cover the leaking roof," said Herman Sahoa, a 64-year-old Tagulandang resident.

"We are worried there will be a follow-up because there is information about that."
Thousands evacuated

Elsewhere houses could be seen lying empty and the electricity was out in parts of the island, the journalist said.

Officials said Thursday communications had been knocked out on parts of both Ruang and Tagulandang island, which hosts around 20,000 people.

More than 6,000 residents of Tagulandang had been evacuated to the other side of the island that faces away from the crater, Joikson Sagunde, an official from the Sitaro islands disaster management agency, told AFP.

A day earlier authorities said they hoped to evacuate 11,000 people in the exclusion zone.

The closure of a nearby international airport in Manado city, more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the crater, was also extended to Friday evening, Abdul said.

Indonesia volcano © John SAEKI / AFP

The alert level upheld a six-kilometre (3.7-mile) exclusion zone around the crater, as well as warnings about further eruptions and parts of the volcano collapsing into the sea that could cause a tsunami.

In 2018, the crater of Mount Anak Krakatoa between Java and Sumatra islands partly collapsed when a major eruption sent huge chunks of the volcano sliding into the ocean, triggering a tsunami that killed more than 400 people and injured thousands.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

Thousands evacuated, tsunami warning after Indonesia volcano erupts

Indonesian authorities closed an airport and residents left homes near an erupting volcano Thursday due to the dangers of spreading ash, falling rocks, hot volcanic clouds and the possibility of a tsunami.


Issued on: 19/04/2024

Mount Ruang volcano is seen during the eruption from 

Tagulandang island, Indonesia, Thursday, April 18, 2024.

 © Hendra Ambalao, AP

By: NEWS WIRES

Mount Ruang on the northern side of Sulawesi Island had at least five large eruptions Wednesday, causing the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation to issue its highest-level alert, indicating an active eruption.

The crater emitted white-gray smoke continuously during the day Thursday, reaching more than 500 metres (1,600 feet) above the peak.

People have been ordered to stay at least 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from the 725-meter (2,378 foot) mountain. More than 11,000 people live in the affected area and were told to leave. At least 800 have done so.

An international airport in Manado city was temporarily closed Thursday as volcanic ash was spewed into the air.

“We have to close flight operations at Sam Ratulangi Airport due to the spread of volcanic ash, which could endanger flight safety,” said Ambar Suryoko, head of the regional airport authority.

Eruptions Wednesday evening spewed volcanic ash approximately 70,000 feet into the atmosphere, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre. The bureau said in a statement Thursday it was tracking and forecasting the ash dispersion.

Indonesia's volcanology center noted the risks from the volcanic eruption include the possibility that part of the volcano could collapse into the sea and cause a tsunami. In December 2018, Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano island erupted and collapsed, losing around 3/4 its volume and triggering a powerful tsunami that killed more than 400 people.

An 1871 eruption at Mount Ruang also triggered a tsunami.

Tagulandang Island, east of the Ruang volcano, could be at risk if a collapse occurred. Its residents were among those being told to evacuate.

“People who live in the Tagulandang Island area and are within a 6-kilometre radius must be immediately evacuated to a safe place outside the 6-kilometre radius," Abdul Muhari, spokesperson of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said Thursday. “And especially those who live near the coast should be aware of the potential for incandescent rocks to erupt, hot clouds and tsunami waves that could be triggered by the collapse of a volcanic body into the sea.”

The agency said residents will be relocated to Manado, the nearest city, on Sulawesi island — a six-hour journey by boat.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, has 120 active volcanoes. It is prone to volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.

(AP)

‘Stitching the threads’: UK book offers radical vision of a grassroots ecology


Patrick Barkham

The Guardian
Fri, 19 April 2024

Wild Service contributors from front clockwise: Nick Hayes, Nadia Shaik, Jon Moses and Paul Powlesland at the River Roding near Barking, Essex.

Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

It is a call to action that might just be the founding text for a new environmentalism. A forthcoming book by a diverse band of right to roam campaigners offers a radical new vision of how people can repair both the natural world and their broken relationship to it.

Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You, inspired by the rare wild service tree, calls on communities to develop new relationships with the natural world, combining the hard graft of conservation science with the ceremony, gratitude and fun bound up in festivals, Indigenous traditions and even church services.

The campaign group Right to Roam also argues that the first step to enjoying, caring and acting for the natural world must be access reform to end citizens’ exclusion from the vast majority of land in England and Wales. Right to Roam has 110,000 followers on social media, the largest of any access organisation in Britain. Its Dartmoor protest last year attracted 3,500 people.

“All around the country we’re already seeing wild service – a huge flowering of grassroots ecology in the last 10 years,” says Jon Moses, a co-author of the book. “But there hasn’t been a narrative binding all that energy. The idea of this book is to stitch the threads together.”

Moses and three fellow Wild Service contributors are explaining what “wild service” is all about on the banks of the River Roding where the barrister and tree campaigner Paul Powlesland is putting the concept into practice. Powlesland, who lives on a barge on London’s third-largest river, has founded the River Roding Trust, whereby residents clear up rubbish, campaign against illegal sewage discharges and open up riverbank pathways.

His group recently spent a weekend clearing rubbish, planting trees – including a wild service – and improving the riverside path.

But wild service, which one contributor suggests could become a voluntary national service, is not just hard labour for nature. As the folk singer singer Sam Lee writes in his chapter, it encompasses paying homage through poetry and song, sparking a new culture that will return wild species to the heart of human life.

“We know that people are disconnected from nature and we know that the restoration of nature is the work of this century,” says Powlesland. “So we must put them together. I’ve found that hippy ceremonies are often ungrounded in action but equally a lot of action is ungrounded in ceremony. Nature restoration days are sometimes a complete slog. We’re trying to give people a bit more joy rather than just, ‘Here’s a bag, a muddy river and seven hours hard labour collecting rubbish.’

“If regarding nature as sacred happens in the UK, it’s not going to come from the politicians saying, ‘Oh, we now believe in this’; it’s going to come from a grassroots movement of people who are connected with a specific local nature, who then demand rights for nature on a national level.”

For co-author Nick Hayes, an artist, writer and activist, a renaissance of nature in culture can only flourish alongside challenging property rights that exclude others from accessing land.

“If you take away the notion of property as we’ve defined it in western law, how do you enact belonging in Indigenous cultures? From New Zealand to North America to Australia to India, it’s through culture. Culture comes from the land. When communities come together on the land, you celebrate. The only vestige that we’ve got [in England] is a church service – rituals and songs that everyone knows from childhood. I’ve got no time for God – just its original source. Wild service wraps up all of that, and they are just beautiful trees.”

Hayes and Moses compare the church in the Berkshire village of Englefield whose doors are open every day, with the thousands of acres of a nearby estate which, apart from a few public footpaths, is shut to the public.

“It’s only now that we have this idea that land ownership equates to absolute dominion, to absolute exclusivity, and anyone forming their own relationship of care or connection to the land around them is prohibited,” says Moses.

He lives beside the River Wye in Wales, one of only 3% of rivers in England and Wales with a statutory right of navigation and historic access to its banks. Now it is home to a vociferous local campaign against river pollution.

“Those two things are obviously connected,” argues Moses. “No one will describe what’s happening on the Wye as an access story but it absolutely is. All the time, the access discussion is, ‘How do we mitigate the damage? How do we protect people from themselves and protect nature from everyone?’ This innate sense of caution is completely blind to the magic that bringing people into the land has done for the environment.”

Open churches suffer from theft and there is concern from conservationists and landowners that extending the right to roam will damage rare species, with chicks of ground-nesting birds destroyed by an off-the-lead dog, for instance.

“Undoubtedly there will be repercussions because people don’t have a generational relationship with the Earth,” says Hayes. “And that will come. But [opponents] will try and pin that on [the] right to roam when the source is people’s exclusion in the first place – landowners’ barbed wire fences.”

Right to roam campaigner Nadia Shaikh writes a powerful chapter on the colonial and exclusionary mindset of mainstream conservation. “I’ve worked in nature conservation for so many years and so many meetings are centred around really not liking people,” she says. She thinks the sector suffers from a “toxic positivity” – unable to criticise itself – because practitioners are so attached to their self-image as “good” people doing “good” for nature.

Conservation charities “say that people need to connect to nature in order to care for it and make change. But then understanding what it is for everyone to connect to nature in a meaningful way, the blank face starts to come.”

Shaikh undertook community engagement for the RSPB when it assumed the management of Sherwood Forest. “The locals were pissed off. It was visceral. ‘Now the kids can’t climb the oak trees. Great!’ they’d say. I’d reply, ‘You do realise it’s the biggest collection of ancient oaks in Europe, and home to some of our rarest wildlife, and these trees can’t be climbed on.’ But the tree-climbing creates relationships that in the future the charity will want to capitalise on – the children will become members, but also the people who love and care for the place.”

The book’s publication on 25 April is followed by book discussion groups and collaborative events with grassroots green collectives across the country.

“This is not the definitive conclusion of what wild service means,” says Hayes. “It’s a provocation – throwing it open to other people to define it. It is totally up to the reader. We’re just trying to say that belonging has an active dynamic to it.”

People are often desperate to help but overwhelmed by the scale of global heating and ecological breakdown. “We’ve been breastfed on leadership,” says Hayes. “People have forgotten their own collective community power. We’ve been taught that coming together is somehow seditious but it is the true power and the true way. It’s a democracy.”

Extreme Dubai rainfall linked to 

climate change, not cloud seeding:

 Scientists

ByJayashree Nandi

Apr 19, 2024 

Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at the Imperial College

 London’s Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the 

Environment, said focusing on cloud seeding is misleading

Extreme rainfall in Dubai late on Monday and Tuesday triggered the worst flooding in over seven decades in one of the world’s most advanced but arid cities. The intensity of the rainfall sparked speculation that cloud seeding may have led to it, prompting climate scientists to underline the climate change link to it.

Dubai’s flooded Ras al Khor district on Friday. (Bloomberg)

Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at the Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment, said the heaviest rainfall in Dubai for 75 years did not happen because of cloud seeding. “When we talk of heavy rainfall, we need to talk of climate change. Focusing on cloud seeding is misleading,” said Otto, one of the leading climate attribution scientists, in a video Imperial College London released on Thursday evening.

Otto based her opinion on evidence of how climate change caused extreme rainfall events across the world. She said extreme rainfall is becoming much heavier globally because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. “Cloud seeding cannot create clouds from nothing that encourages water...already in the atmosphere to condense faster and drop water in certain places...first you do need moisture. Without it, there would be no clouds. Even if cloud seeding did encourage clouds around Dubai to drop water, the atmosphere would have likely been carrying more water to form clouds in the first place because of human-induced climate change.”

Otto underlined it is important to note that it would have rained in the region irrespective of cloud seeding just because of the big scale of the rainfall system. She warned: “If humans continue to burn oil, gas, and coal, the climate will continue to warm, rainfall will continue to get heavy and people will continue to lose their lives in floods.”

In a post on X, former earth sciences ministry secretary and climate scientist M Rajeevan called the Dubai rain a clear signal of climate change. He wrote that with global warming when it rains, it rains heavily. He added warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which condenses and falls as heavy rains.

Rajeevan wrote a low-pressure weather system over the region caused heavy rains in Dubai. He added anticyclone over the Arabian Sea helped to transport plenty of moisture into the region. Rajeevan wrote models could accurately predict this event almost 72 hours in advance.

UK

Renting reforms risk 'trapping' victims of domestic violence with abusers, government warned

MPs will debate controversial government amendments to ‘water down’ the Renters Reform Bill when it is back in parliament on 24 April

LIAM GERAGHTY
19 Apr 2024

Campaigners have warned an amendment to the Renters Reform Bill that could see tenants forced to sign up to six months in a property may make life even more difficult for domestic abuse victims. 

Image: Kira auf der Heide / Unsplash

The Renters Reform Bill is set to return to parliament next week featuring controversial government amendments that domestic abuse campaigners have warned could leave victims trapped with their abusers.

The long-awaited bill is set to deliver on the government’s five-year-old promise to scrap no-fault evictions, among other reforms to make renters more secure in their homes. Commons leader Penny Mordaunt has confirmed MPs will scrutinise the bill when it returns for its third reading on Wednesday (24 April).

However, a leaked letter from levelling up minister Jacob Young revealed the bill will be back with a number of amendments that campaigners have said will “water down” the bill to “appease landlords”.

Now the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) has warned one of the amendments which may see tenants forced to sign up to tenancies for six months could put those experiencing abuse at home at further risk.

“The six months ‘tenant trap’ would leave many renters stuck in poor quality, mould ridden properties, with no accountability for bad landlords who are now being guaranteed half a years’ worth of rent,” said a DAHA spokesperson.

“But, even more dangerous than that, the ‘tenant trap’ threatens to force victims of abuse to remain in homes with their abusers – unable to flee or move away. Because they will be legally liable to pay the rent on the property for six months, victims and their children may have to remain in extremely dangerous situations, at the mercy of their perpetrators.

“If victims of abuse want to get out of this ‘tenant trap’ they will need to go through the courts to do it, putting the onus on survivors to fight to be free of tenancies causing them direct harm. This is completely unacceptable and must not be allowed to happen.”

The group added that the government is exploring exemptions so that renters can get out of tenancies if they have been mis-sold the property or faced domestic abuse.

But DAHA argued the exemption will be useless as it will take tenants too long to go through the courts to escape their tenancy.

“It is also extremely expensive and time consuming for people to use the courts – time and money that many renters, especially victims of abuse, simply do not have,” the DAHA spokesperson added.

Housing secretary Michael Gove has promised that no-fault evictions will be scrapped by the general election despite citing the need for court reforms to be completed first.

Another amendment to the bill would see no-fault evictions only axed for new tenancies when the bill comes into law with the practice still allowed for existing tenancies until promised court reforms are delivered.

The Renters Reform Bill also faces a race against time to make it into law. Next week’s third reading is the final stage before completing its passage through the House of Commons but the bill still needs to face scrutiny in the House of Lords before it can achieve royal assent.

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “We are absolutely committed to the Renters (Reform) Bill, which will have its remaining stages in the House of Commons next week.

“This bill will abolish Section 21 evictions and deliver a fairer rented sector for tenants and landlords. We will continue to work across the sector to ensure it passes into law as soon as possible.”

They added: “We know there will be sensitive or unexpected situations for some tenants and that is why we are looking at exemptions to the six-months’ requirement in certain circumstances, including domestic abuse.”

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, said the amendments the government is proposing “strikes the balance” between landlord and tenant needs.

“Our focus has been on ensuring that when section 21 repossessions end, the replacement system works and is fair, to both tenants and responsible landlords,” said Beadle.

“Tenants should rightly be empowered to hold rogue and criminal landlords to account to root out the minority who bring the sector into disrepute. However, it is vital that the majority of responsible landlords have confidence in the bill to provide the homes for rent the country needs. The amendments proposed by the government strike that balance.

“It is now important to provide certainty to the market, so it can transition smoothly to the new system. We therefore call on MPs to ensure swift passage of the bill through Parliament with the government’s planned changes. This should be underpinned by action to improve the justice system for renters and landlords alike.”

Scots gran onboard 5,500 tonne flotilla to break aid embargo in Gaza

Margaret Pacetta, 69, is joining hundreds of volunteers from across the world on vessels that began leaving Istanbul on Thursday.

Margaret Pacetta said it was a 'deep honour' to be involved in the flotilla.

STV News

A Glasgow grandmother is among those on board an “international freedom” flotilla taking aid to Gaza to break the Israeli blockade.

Glasgow Palestine Human Rights campaign founder Margaret Pacetta, 69, is joining hundreds of volunteers on board numerous vessels that began leaving Istanbul on Thursday.

An international group of NGOs, spearheaded by Turkey’s IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, is coordinating the mission to transport aid, food and medical supplies to Gaza.

Currently, aid agencies say only about a fifth of needed supplies are entering Gaza as Israel continues its air and ground offensive, pushing parts of the Hamas-run enclave to the verge of famine.

Ms Pacetta, from Bishopbriggs, told STV News it was a “deep honour” to be involved in the flotilla.

She said: “If we don’t continue to oppose the illegal blockade, Israel will keep committing genocide until Palestine is wiped out.
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“People will starve to death. We’ve seen pictures of children looking like skeletons.

“It breaks my heart to witness that. How would people feel if that was their own child? It’s heart-breaking.”

The flotilla comes 14 years after ships led by a Turkish-government backed aid group entered eastern Mediterranean waters in a bid to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza by delivering aid and supplies.

The flotilla was intercepted by the Israeli military in a deadly offshore raid that touched off a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

In the 2010 incident, nine pro-Palestinian activists aboard the Mavi Marmara aid ship were killed and a tenth died in 2014 after years in a coma.

Ms Pacetta has regularly visited the West Bank for charity work. She was previously detained by Israeli authorities at Ben Gurion Airport in 2016.

Despite the risks, she said joining the effort is “the right thing” to do.

Ms Pacetta said: “The people organising it have been doing it for years and years – they know exactly what they are doing.

AP

Palestinians look for survivors inside the remains of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip in November 2023

“Any of us could have been born in Gaza. To think that nobody cared is horrific. Now is my time to try and give aid to people who are suffering.

“I know I’m doing the right thing. I can’t just sit back and look at TV thinking ‘that’s awful’.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take along with hundreds of other people.”

Earlier this week, the United Nations appealed for $2.8bn (£2.39m) on Tuesday to provide desperately needed aid to three million Palestinians.

The UN stressed that tackling looming famine in Gaza requires not only food but sanitation, water and health facilities.

Israel promised to open more border crossings into Gaza and increase the flow of aid into Gaza after its drone strikes killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen who were delivering food into the territory on April 1.

The killings were condemned by Israel’s closest allies and heightened criticism of Israel’s conduct in the six-month-old war with Hamas, sparked by the extremist group’s surprise attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and led some 250 others to be taken hostage.

Israel says it puts no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and blames problems in it reaching civilians on UN agencies, which it says are inefficient.

But humanitarian groups blame Israel’s blockade and red tape, with UK-based agencies describing the region as the “world’s most dangerous place to deliver aid”.