SPACE

A massive solar storm hits Mars, revealing a risk for future astronauts on the red planet

Ashley Strickland, CNN
Fri, 14 June 2024 

When the sun unleashed an extreme solar storm and hit Mars in May, it engulfed the red planet with auroras and an influx of charged particles and radiation, according to NASA.

The sun has been showcasing more activity over the past year as it nears the peak of its 11-year cycle, called solar maximum, which is predicted to occur later this year.


Within recent months, there has been a spike in solar activity, such as X-class flares, the strongest of solar flares, and coronal mass ejections, or large clouds of ionized gas called plasma and magnetic fields that erupt from the sun’s outer atmosphere.

Solar storms that reached Earth in May sparked colorful auroras that danced in the skies over areas that rarely experience them, such as Northern California and Alabama.

The storms originated from a massive cluster of sunspots that happened to face Earth. Then, that sunspot cluster rotated in the direction of Earth’s cosmic neighbor: Mars.

Astronomers used the plethora of orbiters encircling the red planet, as well as rovers driving across its surface, to capture the impacts of a solar storm on Mars firsthand — and to understand better what kind of radiation levels the first astronauts on the red planet may experience in the future.
Solar radiation hits Mars

The most extreme storm occurred on May 20 after an X12 flare released from the sun, according to data collected by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft currently studying the sun.

The massive flare sent X-rays and gamma rays hurtling toward Mars, and a coronal mass ejection released quickly on the heels of the flare, flinging charged particles in the direction of the red planet.

The X-rays and gamma rays traveled at the speed of light and reached Mars first, followed by the charged particles within tens of minutes, according to scientists tracking the activity from NASA’s Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale Crater just south of the Martian equator, took black-and-white images using its navigation cameras during the solar storm. White streaks resembling snow, which can be seen in the images, are the result of charged particles hitting Curiosity’s cameras, according to NASA.

The energy from the solar particles was so strong that the star camera aboard the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which helps orient the probe as it circles the planet, momentarily shut down. Fortunately, the spacecraft was able to turn the camera back on within an hour. The last time Odyssey faced such extreme solar behavior was during the solar maximum of 2003, when an X45 flare fried the orbiter’s radiation detector.

Fifty-seven images make up this selfie taken by the Curiosity Mars rover at one of its drill sites in January 2019. - NASA/Caltech-JPL/MSSS

Meanwhile, Curiosity used its Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, to measure the amount of radiation hitting the planet during the storm. An astronaut standing next to the rover would have experienced radiation equal to 30 chest X-rays, which isn’t deadly, but is the largest such surge of radiation that the rover’s instrument has measured since landing nearly 12 years ago.

Understanding the peak radiation that astronauts may experience on the red planet helps scientists to plan how to protect those on crewed exploration to Mars in the future.

“Cliffsides or lava tubes would provide additional shielding for an astronaut from such an event. In Mars orbit or deep space, the dose rate would be significantly more,” said Don Hassler, RAD principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado, in a statement. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this active region on the Sun continues to erupt, meaning even more solar storms at both Earth and Mars over the coming weeks.”
Auroras on the red planet

The MAVEN orbiter, short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, had an aerial view of auroras dancing in ultraviolet light over Mars during the solar storm. The orbiter launched to Mars in 2013 to study how the red planet has lost its atmosphere over time and how space weather generated by the sun interacts with the upper Martian atmosphere.

But these auroras appear much different from the northern lights, or aurora borealis, and southern lights, or aurora australis, that occur on Earth.

When the energized particles from coronal mass ejections reach Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with gases in the atmosphere to create different colored lights in the sky, specifically near its poles.

But Mars lost its magnetic field billions of years ago, which means the planet has no shield from incoming energized solar particles. So when the particles hit Mars’ thin atmosphere, the reaction results in planet-engulfing auroras.

“Given Mars’ lack of a global magnetic field, Martian aurorae are not concentrated at the poles as they are on Earth, but instead appear as a ‘global diffuse aurora’ that are associated with Mars’ ancient, magnetized crust,” wrote Deborah Padgett, Operational Product Generation Subsystem task lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in the space agency’s Curiosity rover blog.

Future astronauts may be able to witness these Martian light shows one day, according to NASA.

By tracing the data from multiple Martian missions, scientists were able to watch how the solar storm unfolded.

“This was the largest solar energetic particle event that MAVEN has ever seen,” said MAVEN Space Weather Lead Christina Lee of the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, in a statement. “There have been several solar events in past weeks, so we were seeing wave after wave of particles hitting Mars.

Space weather forecasting needs an upgrade to protect future Artemis astronauts

Lulu Zhao, University of Michigan
Thu, 13 June 2024 

The Sun can send out eruptions of energetic particles. NASA/SDO via AP


NASA has set its sights on the Moon, aiming to send astronauts back to the lunar surface by 2026 and establish a long-term presence there by the 2030s. But the Moon isn’t exactly a habitable place for people.

Cosmic rays from distant stars and galaxies and solar energetic particles from the Sun bombard the surface, and exposure to these particles can pose a risk to human health.

Both galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles, are high-energy particles that travel close to the speed of light.

While galactic cosmic radiation trickles toward the Moon in a relatively steady stream, energetic particles can come from the Sun in big bursts. These particles can penetrate human flesh and increase the risk of cancer.

Earth has a magnetic field that provides a shield against high-energy particles from space. But the Moon doesn’t have a magnetic field, leaving its surface vulnerable to bombardment by these particles.

During a large solar energetic particle event, the radiation dosage an astronaut receives inside a space suit could exceed 1,000 times the dosage someone on Earth receives. That would exceed an astronaut’s recommended lifetime limit by 10 times.

NASA’s Artemis program, which began in 2017, intends to reestablish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since 1972. My colleagues and I at the University of Michigan’s CLEAR center, the Center for All-Clear SEP Forecast, are working on predicting these particle ejections from the Sun. Forecasting these events may help protect future Artemis crew members.

With Artemis, NASA plans to return humans to the lunar surface. AP Photo/Michael Wyke
An 11-year solar cycle

The Moon is facing dangerous levels of radiation in 2024, since the Sun is approaching the maximum point in its 11-year solar cycle. This cycle is driven by the Sun’s magnetic field, whose total strength changes dramatically every 11 years. When the Sun approaches its maximum activity, as many as 20 large solar energetic particle events can happen each year.

Both solar flares, which are sudden eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun, and coronal mass ejections, which are expulsions of a large amount of matter and magnetic fields from the Sun, can produce energetic particles.

The Sun is expected to reach its solar maximum in 2026, the target launch time for the Artemis III mission, which will land an astronaut crew on the Moon’s surface.

While researchers can follow the Sun’s cycle and predict trends, it’s difficult to guess when exactly each solar energetic particle event will occur, and how intense each event will be. Future astronauts on the Moon will need a warning system that predicts these events more precisely before they happen.
Forecasting solar events

In 2023, NASA funded a five-year space weather center of excellence called CLEAR, which aims to forecast the probability and intensity of solar energetic particle events.

Right now, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center, the center that tracks solar events, can’t issue a warning for an incoming solar energetic particle event until they actually detect a solar flare or a coronal mass ejection. They detect these by looking at the Sun’s atmosphere and measuring X-rays that flow from the Sun.

Once a forecaster detects a solar flare or a coronal mass ejection, the high-energy particles usually arrive to Earth in less than an hour. But astronauts on the Moon’s surface would need more time than that to seek shelter. My team at CLEAR wants to predict solar flares and coronal mass ejections before they happen.

The solar magnetic field is incredibly complex and can change throughout the solar cycle. On the left, the magnetic field has two poles and looks relatively simple, though on the right, later in the solar cycle, the magnetic field has changed. When the solar magnetic field looks like the illustration on the right, solar flares and coronal mass ejections are more common. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Bridgman, CC BYMore

While scientists don’t totally understand what causes these solar events, they know that the Sun’s magnetic field is one of the key drivers. Specifically, they’re studying the strength and complexity of the magnetic field in certain regions on the Sun’s surface.

At the CLEAR center, we will monitor the Sun’s magnetic field using measurements from both ground-based and space-based telescopes and build machine learning models that predict solar events – hopefully more than 24 hours before they happen.

With the forecast framework developed at CLEAR, we also hope to predict when the particle flux falls back to a safe level. That way, we’ll be able to tell the astronauts when it’s safe to leave their shelter and continue their work on the lunar surface.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Lulu Zhao, University of Michigan

Read more:

Solar storms can destroy satellites with ease – a space weather expert explains the science

Earth’s magnetic field protects life on Earth from radiation, but it can move, and the magnetic poles can even flip

Solar storm knocks out farmers’ high-tech tractors – an electrical engineer explains how a larger storm could take down the power grid and the internet

Lulu Zhao serves as the principle investigator of CLEAR at the University of Michigan, which receives funding from NASA.

Scientists can’t agree on how fast the universe is expanding – why this matters so much for our understanding of the cosmos

Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

Thu, 13 June 2024 

James Webb Space Telescope, NASA

It’s one of the biggest puzzles in cosmology. Why two different methods used to calculate the rate at which the universe is expanding don’t produce the same result. Known as the Hubble tension, the enigma suggests that there could be something wrong with the standard model of cosmology used to explain the forces in the universe.

Now, recent observations using the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are shaking up the debate on how close the mystery is to being resolved.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, two professors of astronomy explain why the Hubble tension matters so much for our understanding of the universe.

In February, the Nobel prize-winning physicist Adam Reiss, published a new paper. It said that new observations of far-away stars using the JWST matched those obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope.

These stars, called Cepheids, are commonly used in one method of calculating the rate at which the universe is expanding. Known as the local distance ladder, or cosmic distance ladder, this method has been around since observations first made by Edwin Hubble himself in 1929. And it generally produces a rate of expansion of around 73km per second per mega parsec.

But a second method, using predictions of the cosmic microwave background radiation left over by the Big Bang, has constantly arrived at a different number for the rate of expansion of the universe: 67km per second per mega parsec.

Reiss said that when the new data confirmed the earlier observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, the gap between the numbers remains unresolved. “What remains is the real and exciting possibility that we have misunderstood the universe,” he said.

A few months later, however, more data from the JWST, presented by Wendy Freedman, a physicist at the University of Chicago, using observations from a different set of stars, arrived at 69km per second per mega parsec, a number closer to the cosmic microwave background figure of 67. Freedman is excited that the numbers seem to be converging.

---

Listen to The Conversation’s podcast series Great Mysteries of Physics for more about the greatest mysteries facing physicists today – and the radical proposals for solving them. Hosted by Miriam Frankel it features interviews with some of the worlds leading scientists including Sean Carroll, Sabine Hossenfelder and Jim Al-Khalili.

---

Vicent Martínez and Bernard Jones are fascinated by the Hubble tension. Jones is an emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Martínez, his former student, is now a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of València in Spain.

“The fundamental basis of science, what distinguishes science from science fiction, is our ability to verify the information we are getting,” explains Jones.

That’s why Martinez says the mystery of the Hubble tension is still driving people to:

Research and imagine experiments and organise huge projects with the complicated observation of the cosmos in order to understand what’s going on. At the end, this will affect your idea of the whole universe and probably you will need to change some fundamental ingredient of your cosmological model.

Martinez and Jones have just written a book, along with their co-author Virginia Trimble, about moments in history when scientists realised they’d got something very wrong, and had to readjust their way of thinking. Martínez thinks this could happen again with the Hubble tension:

It could happen that, for example, a new theory of gravity could solve the problem of dark energy or dark matter. We have to be open to those ideas.

Listen to Bernard Jones and Vicent Martínez talk more about the Hubble tension, and how it fits in the wider history of science, on The Conversation Weekly podcast. The episode also features an introduction from Lorena Sánchez, science editor at The Conversation in Spain.

A transcript of this episode will be available shortly.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood, with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Gemma Ware was the executive producer. Sound design was by Eloise Stevens, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Stephen Khan is our global executive editor and Soraya Nandy helps with our transcripts.

You can find us on Instagram at theconversationdotcom or via email. You can also subscribe to The Conversation’s free daily email here.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Vicent J. Martínez receives funding from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MICIU)—Agencia Estatal de Investigación y de la Conselleria d’Educació, Universitats i Ocupació de la Generalitat Valenciana. Bernard J.T. Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Germany’s top climate envoy says ‘this is the critical decade’ after Dutton ditches 2030 target

Daniel Hurst and Adam Morton
Fri, 14 June 2024

Peter Dutton has been accused of planning to break Australia’s commitment to the Paris agreement by not committing to a 2030 emissions target.Photograph: David Gray/Getty Images

Germany’s climate envoy has dismissed claims the Paris agreement is only about reaching net zero emissions by 2050, warning that deep cuts by 2030 are “essential” and scientific evidence shows “this is the critical decade” to act on global heating.

Australia’s opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has refused to commit to a 2030 emissions reduction target prior to the next national election, prompting claims from Labor, the Greens and independents that the Coalition isn’t serious about acting on the climate crisis.

Dutton raised the prospect of watering down the target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – that Australia has already enshrined in law and committed to under the Paris agreement.

Related: Peter Dutton has reignited Australia’s climate wars. We factcheck the major claims

“Well, the Paris agreement is predominantly about net zero by 2050, and that’s what we’ve signed up to,” Dutton told 2GB radio on Tuesday, adding there was no need to cut emissions in a “linear way”.

But the German government’s special envoy for climate action, Jennifer Morgan, stressed the need for all countries to have strong 2030 targets as part of international attempts to hold global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is an important player in international climate negotiations and is working with Australia on a clean energy transition and the development of green hydrogen. Germany hosted talks in Bonn this week as part of international preparations for the Cop29 summit in November in Baku in Azerbaijan.

While being careful to avoid wading directly into the Australian political debate, Morgan told Guardian Australia that “science-based 2030 targets are essential” to keep the 1.5C limit “intact”.

“Therefore all countries agreed already in 2021 to strengthen their targets within their national climate plans for 2030,” Morgan said.

“This is the critical decade.”

The comments add to Morgan’s previous remarks, made during a visit to the Pacific late last year, that “all countries have to scale up their ambition for 2030” because the 1.5C goal is “a matter of life and death for many people here in this region”.

Morgan, a former Greenpeace co-executive director, has been involved in international climate negotiations for many years. Since 2022, she has served as a state secretary at Germany’s Foreign Office with responsibility for climate action.

The Paris agreement was adopted by more than 190 countries, including Australia’s then Coalition government, in 2015.

The agreement aims to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above preindustrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above preindustrial levels”.

Countries including Australia agreed that such action “would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.

Related: Peter Dutton’s plans will breach the Paris agreement on climate – that much is clear | Adam Morton

Experts say a critical part of the Paris agreement is the promise that countries don’t “backslide” on their level of climate action and that they act rapidly “in accordance with best available science”.

Article 4.3 of the agreement says each commitment a country makes will be a progression – an improvement – on its previous commitment and will “reflect its highest possible ambition”.

Later, the 2015 agreement said a country “may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution with a view to enhancing its level of ambition”.

Morgan’s comments also referenced commitments made in 2021 at the UK-hosted Cop26 summit.

Parties to the Paris agreement – including Australia’s then Coalition government – requested countries “revisit and strengthen” their 2030 targets. They recognised the need for “accelerated action in this critical decade” on the path to the mid-century net zero goal.

Dutton has promised to pursue nuclear energy in Australia, something that is prohibited by law and which experts say would be unlikely to come online before the 2040s – a point he reportedly conceded in an interview with News Corp last Saturday. He has argued Labor’s existing 2030 target is “unachievable”.

Experts have said the country needs to accelerate the rollout of renewable energy to reach the target, but that it could be reached.

Experts, activists slam 'pointless' G7 on climate

Ella IDE
Fri, 14 June 2024 

Europe is the fastest-warming continent and the Mediterranean is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events caused by climate change (Piero CRUCIATTI)

The Group of Seven rich democracies have failed to deliver significant new progress on climate during a summit in Italy, instead reiterating previous commitments, experts and activists said Friday.

"The G7 leaders could have stayed at home. No new commitments were made," said Friederike Roeder, vice president at Global Citizen.

The leaders meeting in Puglia confirmed a pledge by their environment ministers in April "to phase out existing unabated coal power generation in our energy systems during the first half of 2030s".

But they left some wiggle room: countries can commit instead to phase out "in a timeline consistent with keeping a limit of 1.5C temperature rise within reach, in line with countries' net-zero pathways", according to the final statement.

"To stay below 1.5C, the G7's plan to phase out coal is simply too little, too late and gas is neither cheap nor a bridge fuel to a safe climate," said Greenpeace's climate politics expert Tracy Carty.

Together the G7 makes up around 38 percent of the global economy and was responsible for 21 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, according to the Climate Analytics policy institute.

The group, responsible for nearly 30 percent of fossil fuel production, "left the door open for continued public investments in gas", said Nicola Flamigni from climate-oriented communications firm GSCC.

Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States also reiterated the need to agree on a new, post-2025 climate financing goal, with them as leading contributors -- but again, this was not new.

- 'No evidence' -

Dozens of climate protesters held a sit-in outside the G7 media centre in Bari, wearing T-shirts featuring an olive tree in flames emerging from a red-hot Mediterranean sea.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent and the Mediterranean is particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events caused by climate change, from droughts to floods.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose hard-right government voted against the European Green Deal, told a summit session that climate change needed to be dealt with "without ideological approaches".

But activists charged that the presence of the CEO of Italian oil and gas giant ENI at a leaders' roundtable on Africa, energy and climate showed how closely Rome's political and fossil fuel interests are entangled.

"There is no evidence that gas in Africa serves the needs of the people better and cheaper than clean energy and electrification more broadly," Luca Bergamaschi, co-founder of ECCO think tank, told AFP.

"On the contrary, gas investments in Africa have a negative impact on public budget and are a key factor in driving a worsening debt crisis," he said.

Experts also pointed to the G7's lack of commitment to remain leading contributors to the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA), which helps African countries fight against climate change.

- 'Half baked' -

The G7 announced a new Energy for Growth in Africa initiative, launched alongside several countries, from the Ivory Coast to Ethiopia and Kenya, but did not say what -- if any -- funding was attached.

It also unveiled the Apulia Food Systems Initiative -- the fourth major G7 food security initiative in 15 years -- as part of a push by the G7 to tackle the root causes of unwanted migration.

Nga Celestin, permanent secretary of the Regional Platform of Farmers' Organizations in Central Africa (PROPAC), said it was a "half-baked" initiative that would not work without engaging family farmers.

Africa's small-scale farmers produce up to 70 percent of the continent's food, according to the UN, and experts say failure to engage them has thwarted previous G7 initiatives.

The ONE Campaign slammed the G7's "pointless platitudes in Puglia", with executive director David McNair saying "this year's summit sorely missed the mark".

ide/ams/imm

Pope Francis warns AI poses risk to 'human dignity itself' as he becomes first pontiff to address G7

Sky News
Updated Fri, 14 June 2024 



Pope Francis has issued a warning about AI as he became the first pontiff to address the G7 summit of world leaders.

A hush fell as he entered the room in his wheelchair - and he greeted each of the leaders in turn, including President Biden, President Zelenskyy and Rishi Sunak.

His countryman, Argentinian President Javier Milei, gave him an especially warm welcome, while there was a hug from Jordan's King Abdullah and a whispered exchange with President Biden.

The Pope told leaders artificial intelligence offered "epochal transformation" that included "exponential" advances in scientific research.

However, he warned it must be closely monitored to maintain "human dignity" and control.

"We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people's ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines," he said.

"We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programmes: human dignity itself depends on it."

"No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being," he added.

The speech echoed his annual peace message, which called for a treaty to ensure AI is developed ethically to uphold values such as compassion and morality.

The meeting is taking place in Italy's southern Puglia region, some 260 miles from the 87-year-old Pope's home in The Vatican.


The core G7 is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US.

However, the leaders of India, Brazil, Turkey, Algeria, Kenya and Tunisia - who together represent 1.6 billion people - are also there.

The first day of the summit on Thursday brought about a renewed pledge to support Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Migration from Africa, a particular concern for Italy, the Gaza war, and climate change are also on the agenda.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will host an informal dinner on Friday evening and on Saturday afternoon there will be a final press conference on the summit's outcomes.

 

G-7 Leaders (AND MORE) Gather for Historic Family Photo With Pope Francis

Bloomberg News
Fri, 14 June 2024



(Bloomberg) -- Few things capture the mood among world leaders better than a Group of Seven family photo. The simmering rage at perceived slights, the relegation of unpopular leaders to the back, smiles that seem a tad forced given all the problems left back home.

All this and more was revealed in the body language of presidents, prime ministers and — for the first time ever — a pope plopped center stage after being brought over in a golf cart.

One got an immediate sense of who is down and out, and who is on the up. Everyone may try and put on a brave face, but the grinning looked a tad forced for Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak.

Joe Biden’s movements were being literally scrutinized by his conservative critics when his Republican rival is only three years younger (Donald Trump turned 78 on Friday, sharing a birthday with Germany’s Olaf Scholz).

For the UK leader this could well be his last G-7, given polls show he is likely to be voted out on July 4 (Independence Day for the US) before the NATO summit in Washington.

Macron will limp on — he’s president until 2027 — but he faces his own potential comeuppance at the hands of the French electorate soon. His colleagues were baffled at why he would call a snap legislative election he didn’t need to and his host, Giorgia Meloni, was irritated by his lateness for dinner.

This is her moment.

Not only is she — politically speaking — the leader on the firmest footing (having won big in recent European parliament elections) but she showed swagger: taking selfies while waiting for Biden, giving Macron a death stare, ducking away from Sunak’s enthusiastic greeting, and being very attentive to His Holiness.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was placed bang center stage early on — which kept him at arm’s length from Biden and Canada’s Justin Trudeau (given the furor around the assassination of a Sikh nationalist in North America).

But in a telling moment, Modi made the gesture and came down toward Biden to have a brief chat. He also later helped Pope Francis back into the golf cart he arrived in.

--With assistance from Ania Nussbaum, Ellen Milligan, Brian Platt, Jennifer Jacobs, Josh Wingrove, Annmarie Hordern, Alberto Nardelli, Donato Paolo Mancini, Chiara Albanese and Arne Delfs.

G7 leaders sing 'Happy Birthday' to Germany's Scholz

Reuters Videos
Updated Fri, 14 June 2024 

 

STORY: ::G7 leaders sing 'Happy Birthday' to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

::Borgo Egnazia, Italy

::June 14, 2024

Leaders including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke into song, to the apparent delight of Scholz who was beaming throughout the celebration.

Friday marks the final day of talks at the annual summit, with China topping the agenda before Pope Francis puts in a historic appearance to discuss artificial intelligence.

Many of the leaders will leave Italy late on Friday, including Biden, and Meloni said they had already agreed on the summit's conclusions, to be approved at the end of the day.

Welcome to the most unpopular G7 summit ever
James Crisp

THE TELEGRAPH
Thu, 13 June 2024 

Lame ducks in a row: Of the G7 leaders gathering in Italy, only Giorgia Meloni is not struggling with high disapproval ratings


Rishi Sunak will meet some of the world’s most unpopular leaders at the G7 summit – but none have such high disapproval ratings as the British Prime Minister.

It means that Mr Sunak will win at least one contest this year as he hurtles towards wipeout in July’s general election.

He will feel understandably envious when he meets Giorgia Meloni, his host, who is fresh from a landslide triumph in European elections that has boosted her international influence.


Apart from Ms Meloni, who placed herself front and centre of the European campaign, he will find himself in depressing company.

He would have hoped that the G7 would provide some much needed foreign glamour and gravitas to distract from his domestic woes.

Instead, Mr Sunak finds himself hobbling at the head of a parade of lame ducks, including Emmanuel Macron of France.

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won a landslide victory in the European elections, taking roughly double the vote as Mr Macron’s party.

The G7 summit set to be dominated by talks over a plan on how to use interest on frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine - Andrew Medichini/AP

Ms Le Pen has called for an alliance with Ms Meloni, who said she has “points in common” with the hard-Right leader.

The French president, like Mr Sunak, called a surprise snap election for July, which could leave him denuded of many powers and stuck with an NR prime minister.

Like the British premier, he faces being badly punished by his electorate. Telegraph calculations put the centrist’s net approval rating (voters who approve, minus voters who disapprove ) at -31 per cent.

Germany’s Olaf Scholz arrives after leading his centre-Left SPD to their worst ever European results.

The chancellor was defeated by the centre-Right CDU and the pro-Putin and extremist Alternative for Germany, despite the latter being embroiled in a slew of scandals.

Rishi Sunak arrives with other G7 leaders to watch a parachute drop at San Domenico Golf Club - CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES EUROPE

Now Mr Scholz is facing calls to collapse his unpopular coalition government and call a snap election like Mr Macron and Mr Sunak have done.

His calamitous rating is -51 per cent but it still isn’t as bad as Mr Sunak’s mammoth -54 per cent.

Joe Biden is tied with Donald Trump in polling for the US presidential elections this November, despite Mr Trump’s recent federal convictions.

Mr Biden arrives in Puglia after his son Hunter was convicted on federal gun charges with a comparatively buoyant net rating of -18.5 per cent.

Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Japan’s Fumio Kishida also have problems, with scores of -38 and -40 per cent respectively.

Giorgia Meloni, facing the camera, is hosting G7 leaders following a successful result in the EU elections - DOMENICO STINELLIS/AP

The G7 summit set to be dominated by talks over a plan on how to use interest on frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine.

The leaders will also call on China to stop helping Russia and criticise Beijing for anti-competitive economic policies.

It’s a welcome chance for Mr Sunak to dish out some statesmanlike criticism rather than being a victim of it.

The EU leaders may also find time on the margins to discuss the allocation of the bloc’s top jobs after European elections that saw big gains for the hard-Right but the pro-EU centre hold.

It is in none of the assembled leaders’ interests for this summit to be a foreign failure to compound their domestic problems.

The sunshine of Puglia and the company of other world leaders in front of the cameras should provide some blessed relief from the boos and brickbats back home.

For Ms Meloni, however, it will be yet another crowning moment in a week of success.

CTHULHU STUDIES
For the First Time Ever, the Colossal Squid Might Have Shown Its Secret Face

Darren Orf
Thu, 13 June 2024



Although its the largest invertebrate species in the world, scientists have never glimpsed the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural habitat.

However, a non-profit ocean research team named Kolossal may have finally spotted a juvenile colossal squid as it traversed the waters around Antarctica. If true, this would be the first video of its kind.



The team captured this footage by rigging a deep-sea camera to a polar tourism vessel.

Humans spend nearly their entire lives on land, but the Earth we call home is really a water world. With 71 percent of the Earth’s surface covered by water, this expansive ecosystem has been difficult to study, and many animals of the deep ocean remain a complete mystery. One of the most spellbinding of these animals is the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). When full-grown, this creature is about as long as a bus and weighs nearly 1,100 pounds.

Believed to live in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, this immense cephalopod—the largest invertebrate species on the planet— has never been observed in its natural habitat. Scientists only get a good look at these animals when trawlers accidentally catch them in their nets. But a new kind of oceanographic study seems to have struck gold last year when international research team and non-profit called Kolossal appeared to have stumbled across a juvenile colossal squid during one of its four trips to Antarctica from December of 2022 to March of 2023.

The team used a novel approach for imaging the ocean—outfitting a polar tourism vessel called the Ocean Endeavor with a deep-sea camera. Thankfully, the research team released the footage, which the website IFLScience promptly posted to YouTube.

“Antarctica is experiencing rapid and complex change, and it is critical to have a better understanding of these changes for the region’s ocean ecosystems,” the Kolossal team wrote in a paper detailing the method in February. “The costs and logistical challenges to operate scientific research vessels prohibits the scaling of crucial science and discovery in the region. Yet, the tourism industry in Antarctica is growing rapidly, and collaboration between tourism companies and researchers provides important access to the region.”

While leveraging tourism for marine exploration is a logistical win-win, finding verified footage of a colossal squid is as hard as ever. Even the short clip of the above specimen isn’t confirmed, as the video could be capturing an adult glass squid Galiteuthis glacialis or perhaps even a species completely unknown to science. The video is currently being peer-reviewed by experts, but it’s unlikely that scientists will ever know for sure. But because footage of any squid species in the Southern Ocean is rare, the footage is a huge victory for marine biologists studying these famously elusive animals regardless of its contents.

“The two known Cranchiidae taxa seen in the Antarctic are Galiteuthis glacialis and Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni,” Aaron Evans, who is peer reviewing the footage, told IFLScience. “The squid seen here could belong to different life stages of either of those taxa—and is an exciting example of wild cranchiid behavior, as I cannot think of existing video footage of either of those squid in their natural environment.”

Although the team’s stated goal is to capture footage of an adult colossal squid in its natural environment, according to IFLScience, the camera filmed nearly 80 species. Among them were giant volcano sponges, Antarctic sunflower stars, and many other marine invertebrates.

For now, the world’s largest invertebrate species frustratingly remains one of the animal kingdom’s largest mysteries. But as marine biologists team up with tourism vessels to explore the oceans, some of the our water planet’s biggest questions could slowly be answered.

At The Mountains of Madness (2021) 

H.P. Lovecraft feature film adaptation in full for free.

Newly discovered Amazon fish species is named after ‘The Lord of the Rings’ villain for its odd pattern

Taylor Nicioli, CNN
Thu, 13 June 2024 



Thousands of fish species — about 2,500 of them named — call the Amazon River home, but scientists estimate nearly half of the marine creatures lurking in the massive stretch of water remain undiscovered.

While studying piranhas and pacus in an effort to better assess vital fish biodiversity in the 4,000-mile-long (6,400-kilometer-long) river, an international team of researchers has found and identified a new species of pacu, a piranha relative with a plant-based diet and humanlike teeth.

Besides its odd pearly whites, the newfound species has striking orange and black markings — including a bold vertical black bar stretching across its flank — that the researchers say resemble the fiery eye symbol for the villain Sauron from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” book and film series. The marks inspired the fish’s name, Myloplus sauron, according to a study published Monday in the journal Neotropical Ichthyology.

“Me and the coauthors thought (the name) would be a nice idea — it really looks like the Sauron’s eye,” said study coauthor Victória Pereira, a graduate student in biology at the University of Paulista in São Paulo, Brazil. The researchers hoped the pop culture reference would draw attention to the fish and efforts to protect biodiversity in the Amazon, Pereira added.

The eye-catching fish is not the only animal named for Tolkien’s Dark Lord. A genus of butterflies was found in May 2023 with spots that looked like eyes on its wings, reminding researchers of the well-known symbol from the trilogy. There is also a species of tree frog, a dung beetle and a genus of dinosaurs named after the character.
The confusion around pacus

Besides Myloplus sauron, the researchers also discovered the species Myloplus aylan, which they described as having a slightly thicker black bar on its flank. The Myloplus genus falls within the Serrasalmidae fish family, which is made up of piranha and pacu species.

Because piranhas and pacus are closely related and have similar features, differentiating the species can be difficult, the authors noted in the study. Both pacu and piranha species can change appearance throughout various stages of their life, and males and females often look different from one another, also making the various species hard to tell apart, according to London’s Natural History Museum.

Myloplus sauron and Myloplus aylan have flat, blunt teeth used to chew on plants, a stark contrast with the razor-sharp teeth found in piranhas, but similar to their other pacu counterparts. While some species of piranhas are known for their carnivorous diets, all species of pacus are primarily herbivores.

Previously, these two new species were grouped in with another fish, Myloplus schomburgkii, because of the shared design of the black mark on the fish’s round body. However, through closer inspection and DNA analysis, researchers found three different species shared the eye-catching design.

Researchers hope to study Myloplus sauron and Myloplus aylan further to learn more about their evolution and relation to other species, Pereira said.

“People studying pacus have recognized for a while that there were multiple species ‘hiding in plain sight,’” said Matthew Kolmann, an assistant professor in the department of biology at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, who has studied the fish. He was not involved with the new study.

“The size of the Amazon and other basins, and their inaccessibility, makes it a place of constant discovery,” Kolmann said in an email. “What this means is that it has and will continue to take generations of scientists’ effort to increase our knowledge of the area.”
Pacus’ impact on their ecosystem

Pacus are important to their ecosystem largely due to their role in spreading seeds through their diet of mostly fruit, which make them vital for the growth of rainforest trees and other plants. The fish tend to spread seeds far from their parent plants, helping to expand the forest and limit disease that easily spreads through crowded trees, Kolmann said.

By discovering and identifying the species that live in certain ecosystems, researchers will be able to better lead conservation efforts to protect animals that are endangered or at risk, Kolmann said. It is particularly important for areas such as the Amazon that are under threat from habitat destruction, he added.

“We run the very real risk of losing thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of species before we know they even exist, and by proxy, not ever understanding how these species contribute to a healthy functioning ecosystem,” Kolmann said. “Inventorying what species are found where, and when, is the first step in any future conservation effort.”

India’s top court halts release of film ‘offensive’ to Muslim women and Islam

Shahana Yasmin
Fri, 14 June 2024 

Poster for the film Hamare Baarah (Newtech Media Entertainment)

The Supreme Court of India has stayed the release of the Bollywood film Hamare Baarah saying the teaser alone contains enough content that is offensive to married Muslim women and their religion.

The top court issued the stay order on Thursday after hearing a challenge to a Bombay High Court decision permitting the film to be released on 15 June.

The counsel for the filmmakers claimed that they had cut all objectionable scenes from the teaser in keeping with the high court’s order. “We saw the teaser today morning and all scenes are there,” the top court replied.

When the counsel said the stay order would result in losses for the filmmakers, the court said, “If teaser is so offensive, then what about the whole movie? Prima facie it seems you have failed since you yourself deleted the scenes from the teaser”.

“Hamare Baarah tells the story of Manzoor Ali Khan Sanjari, who, despite losing his first wife during childbirth, continues to have more children with his second wife, now pregnant with her sixth. When doctors warn that the pregnancy risks her life, Khan refuses an abortion,” reads the film’s synopsis on Indian ticketing platform BookMyShow.

“His daughter Alfiya, determined to save her stepmother, takes her father to court to demand an abortion. The film explores whether Alfiya can convince her father and the court and questions the entrenched patriarchy in their society.”

The synopsis echoes the sectarian rhetoric that prime minister Narendra Modi, his Bharatiya Janata Party and the wider Hindu nationalist ecosystem is accused of pushing – that Muslims have far more children than Hindus and, therefore, grab a bigger share of the country’s resources and welfare benefits.

In an election campaign speech in April, Modi falsely claimed that “Muslims had the first right to the wealth of the nation” under the previous government led by the Congress party.

“This means they will distribute this wealth to those who have more children, to infiltrators,” he said, warning the mostly Hindu crowd against voting for the opposition party. “Should your hardearned money be given to infiltrators?”

India’s Muslim population grew from 35.4 million in 1951 to 172 million in 2011 while the Hindu population rose from 303 million to 966 million, according to the latest census figures published in 2011.

The National Family Health Survey of 2019-21 shows that the fertility rate of Muslims has fallen more than that of Hindus. The fertility rate, the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime, dropped from 4.41 to 2.36 for Muslims between 1992 and 2021 and from 3.3 to 1.9 for Hindus.

The petition filed against Hamare Baarah in the Bombay High Court argued that the film, originally scheduled for release on 7 June, was derogatory to married Muslim women and their faith generally, and that the trailer misquoted a verse from the Quran.

It said the film’s release would violate Article 19(2) of the constitution, which allows for imposing “reasonable restrictions” in the “interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India”, as well as Article 25, which guarantees every citizen the “freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion”.

The plea asked the High Court to stop the film’s release and direct the country’s film certification body to revoke its certification.

The Central Board of Film Certification, in turn, told the court it certified the film as per procedure and after some objectionable scenes were deleted.

The court initially stayed the release of the film till 14 June and directed the board to form a review committee to watch the film and provide feedback. The board asked for time to file a detailed response, which led the high court to permit the release.

The petitioner then moved the supreme court arguing that the high court had given an “unreasoned order”. They also contested the high court’s decision asking the film board to constitute a review committee on the ground that “it is an interested party”.

The Supreme Court asked the High Court to decide on the merits of the case and granted the petitioner the freedom to object to the constitution of the review committee.

The film has already been banned in Karnataka as the state’s government feared “possibilities of communal riots”.

CAMPUS GAZA PROTESTS

N.S. university approves academic amnesty for students in pro-Palestinian encampment
CBC
Fri, 14 June 2024 

The pro-Palestinian encampment on the Dalhousie University campus as seen in May. (Julie Sicot/Radio-Canada - image credit)


Dalhousie University will grant academic amnesty to students participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus.

In a motion originally proposed by the Dalhousie Student Union, the university's senate has voted to allow students to miss one class or assessment per course to participate in activities related to the encampment until the end of August.

Students must give professors at least 24-hours notice in order to attend "the event" that does not include final exams or assessments.


Dozens of tents were erected in May on Dalhousie's Studley campus, organized by the Students for the Liberation of Palestine. The organization is a coalition of students from Dalhousie, Saint Mary's, The University of King's College and NSCAD.

Organizers and participants plan to stay on campus until the university completely divests from Israel.

Mariam Knakriah, the student union president, said in a statement that the union is "proud of our achievement in securing the passage of the academic amnesty motion through the Dalhousie Senate."

Knakriah says the union also urges the university to be more proactive in listening to what the students want.

"We urgently call on Dalhousie University to listen, engage, and act in accordance with its strategic objectives of social responsibility and community engagement," Knakriah said. "It is crucial that we address the horrible crimes that force our students to sleep outdoors under harsh conditions, and we must act swiftly and decisively."

More than 37,0000 Palestinians have been killed since October, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Israel land and air attacks on Gaza followed after events on Oct. 7 when Hamas-led militants stormed the Israeli border, took 250 hostages and killed around 1,200 people, according to numbers from the Israeli government.

While the Students for the Liberation of Palestine welcomed the academic amnesty on Instagram, the group also criticized the motion that limits students to only miss one class or assessment per course. Their post specified that the "academic amnesty also does not mention why the encampment is occurring."

Calls for more academic amnesty motions

The organization also calls on King's College, Saint Mary's, NSCAD and Mount Saint Vincent University to adopt academic amnesty motions.

Ajay Parasram, an associate professor at Dalhousie and part of a group of professors who have supported the students, called the university's approval a good first step.

"What all of us want more is the university to commit to divesting — boycotting and divesting," Parasram said. "That's the stuff that's going to actually make a material difference, we think, in terms of putting pressure on the Israeli government to end its genocidal activities."

Israel has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide, saying it is attempting to protect civilians in its military operations.

Although the academic amnesty expires on Aug. 31, Students for the Liberation of Palestine vows to stay on the campus "until Dalhousie University adopts all of our demands."

These demands include the institution's complete divestment from Israel.


Pro-Palestinian encampment members reject McGill's 'laughable' latest offer

Offer is 'immaterial response' to protesters' demands, groups say

CBC
Thu, 13 June 2024 at 12:46 pm GMT-6·1-min read



Members of a pro-Palestinian encampment who have been occupying part of McGill University's downtown Montreal campus since April say the school's latest offer falls far short of what's needed to get them to leave.

Several groups involved in the encampment issued a joint statement describing the latest offer as "laughable" and an "immaterial response" to their demands.

McGill issued a new offer on Monday that included a proposal to review its investments in weapons manufacturers and grant amnesty to protesting students.

The university said it also offered to disclose more investments to include holdings below $500,000 and to support Palestinian students displaced by the war in the Gaza Strip.

Police arrest 15, use tear gas on crowd as pro-Palestinian activists occupy McGill University building

The encampment members say the administration continues to delay taking substantive action on divestment and that the university's latest offer contains no concrete plan to cut ties with Israeli institutions.

They say their demands are straightforward, beginning with the immediate reallocation of funds from investments in companies tied to Israel's military.



UK

LSE students lose first stage of legal battle over pro-Palestine encampment

Callum Parke, PA Law Reporter
Fri, 14 June 2024 at 6:53 am GMT-6·3-min read

A group of London School of Economics’ (LSE) students have lost the first stage of a legal battle over a pro-Palestine encampment set up inside a university building.

The group set up the encampment within the atrium of the ground floor of the Marshall Building in central London on May 14.

The university began legal action to remove the encampment earlier this month, seeking a court order forcing the students to disband it.

At a hearing at Central London County Court on Friday, District Judge Kevin Moses issued an interim possession order, requiring the group to leave the premises within 24 hours once the order is served.

He said: “They are aware of the difficulties they are causing the claimants. They are aware of the difficulties they are causing to other users of the premises.”

Judge Moses said that, while the students had the right to protest, “what it does not do is give parties an unfettered right to occupy other parties’ premises with a view to protesting, particularly when they are required to leave”.

The group set up the encampment after the release of the Assets in Apartheid report by the LSE Students’ Union’s Palestine Society.

The report alleges that LSE has invested £89 million in 137 companies involved in the conflict in Gaza, fossil fuels, the arms industry, or nuclear weapons production.

Dozens of students have since been sleeping at the encampment for more than a month and had vowed to remain there until LSE met a series of demands, including divestment and democratisation of the financial decision-making process.

A further hearing will be held over the encampment’s future at a later date (Jordan Pettitt/PA)

LSE previously said it would carefully consider the report and hoped for “peaceful dialogue”.

Riccardo Calzavara, representing the university in court, said the students “stormed the building” and “barricaded” themselves in the atrium last month.

He said: “They may have had permission to enter the building, as they appear to be students, but they did not have permission to enter the building in order to encamp on part of it, nor have they ever had permission to remain there.”

Mr Calzavara said in written submissions that the encampment posed an “intolerable fire risk” and caused “considerable cost, and disruption, to the claimant and other users of the Marshall Building”.

He added that LSE did not seek to evict the students because of their protest, but “because they have taken over a building of ours unlawfully”.

He also acknowledged that while there was “nothing to prevent” the students from returning to the building once the court order expired, they could not “occupy it to the exclusion of others”.

A demonstration was held outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday (Callum Parke/PA)

Daniel Grutters, representing three of the students, said members of the encampment were willing to make any necessary adjustments to the camp in response to safety concerns, “but for leaving”, and were not blocking other people from accessing the building.

He said: “This, in its essence, is an attempt by all of the defendants to educate the LSE about its implicity in what it calls crimes against humanity, genocide and apartheid.”

He continued: “To the extent that the claimant is relying on health and safety risks, the defendants are willing to comply with any and all health and safety adjustments and recommendations made.”

He added: “Seeking to remove them, only to allow them to re-enter but for spending the night, is not a decision that is maintainable.”

A further hearing in the case will be held at a later date.




Gaza campus protests: two human rights law experts write new principles for universities

David Mead, Professor of UK Human Rights Law, University of East Anglia 

and Jeff King, Professor of Law, UCL

Thu, 13 June 2024 

A student encampment in Durham. Framalicious/Shutterstock

Israel’s assault on Gaza, following Hamas’ attack in October 2023, has become the subject of international legal proceedings and mass protest. Over the past eight months, university students have set up encampments at dozens of universities in Europe and North America. In most cases, they are protesting their university’s financial ties to Israeli companies and universities.

Universities have long been considered “hotbeds” of protest. Research has found a correlation between the number of universities in an area and higher overall levels of protest activity, suggesting that they are indeed fertile ground for activism.

Free speech and academic freedom are a key part of how universities operate. But they also have to deliver education and protect students and staff from harassment. The balance can be delicate.

University leaders have struggled with how to respond to the latest round of protests. Some, like at Trinity College Dublin, have agreed to protesters’ demands to divest from Israeli companies. Protesters at the University of Cambridge agreed to move after university leaders said they would negotiate.

In May, the University of Birmingham issued a notice to quit to protesting students, indicating they had trespassed and threatening to call the police. Days later, 16 Oxford students were arrested under public order legislation after entering and seeking to occupy the vice chancellor’s office.

US universities have taken a more aggressive approach, calling for police intervention to clear encampments. More than 2,100 arrests have been made, and police have employed militarised tactics, including the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and other violent techniques to break up protests.

These were unacceptably disproportionate responses to what was mostly peaceful protest. Many suppose that such scenes would not happen in the UK. But in fact, UK law gives police incredibly potent powers to deal with public protest, with recent legislation being the most extreme.

Read more: Policing bill is now law: how your right to protest has changed

The disjointed response to protest so far may owe something to the mess of complex and novel legislation and case law. The political context also raises questions about the law and policy on harassment and discrimination, especially as it relates to the question of antisemitism.

This is why we, as scholars of constitutional law and protest, have set out our views on how these protests should be handled. Both of us have worked in advisory capacity with parliamentary select committees dealing with constitutional and human rights questions. One of us (Jeff) chaired a university academic board working group on the definition of antisemitism, while David is (in his co-author’s view) the leading scholar on protest law.

We have drafted a detailed set of principles setting out what we believe are fair terms for universities and students alike. These take into account existing law and policy, and ultimately aim to prevent harmful escalation without inhibiting the freedom of peaceful assembly.
The principles

While the extended and detailed account can be read here, what follows is a high-level summary. The principles mostly detail relevant law, but in some cases also express our view of university best practice requires.

Students have the right to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly and association, under Articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR). UK public universities are required to respect and secure those rights under the Human Rights Act 1998. These laws protect a freedom of peaceful protest even if it is disruptive or even offensive to some.


The freedom of expression and peaceful assembly extends to student occupations of buildings and other university spaces. This can even include lengthy ones that breach domestic law.


Calls for boycott and divestment from companies implicated in human rights abuses is a common and protected form of civil rights advocacy, and is not in itself antisemitic.


Human rights law recognises that the right to protest may be restricted where it is necessary in a democratic society. A university has rights as a landowner, and contractual obligations to maintain its core educational functions, including fulfilment of the right to education under the ECHR.


A tent encampment aimed at protesting a university’s investment programme (and which limits noise and other disruptions from unduly interrupting revision, teaching, examining and other core educational functions) would fall within the sphere of protected speech and assembly. Universities must accommodate them.


On the other hand, universities and their students are not legally required to withstand a permanent and seriously disruptive occupation that brings campus life and activities to a halt. Protests that directly obstruct teaching and examining (for example, occupying a lecture theatre in the middle of teaching) to a major extent can be subject to legitimate restriction.

Students have the right to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly and association under the European convention on human rights. Joe Kuis/Shutterstock

Protesters can also, in some grave situations, be liable to criminal prosecution. For example, by using threatening or abusive language, or inciting racial or religious hatred, aggravated trespass or failure to comply with police directions.


Universities can restrict disruptive protesting to students and staff, and ask uninvited persons to leave. However, they should not exclude guests invited there for political discussion only.


The use of criminal law against students (for example, by calling the police) has grave consequences and will normally be a disproportionate act of escalation. UK statute and case law relating to the application of criminal law to public protest stands a significant chance of being found to violate the ECHR. Universities should not call the police where civil remedies (such as possession) are a suitable alternative.


Universities have a moral duty to ensure that campus is free of harassment and racism as defined under the Equality Act 2010, and that it is safe for all members of the university (and non-members legitimately present on campus).


Universities should record and investigate any complaints about harassment or discrimination arising within or from encampments. However, complaints alone are not a sound basis for policy. To amount to discrimination under equality law, complaints must be assessed and determined on an objective basis.


Protesters should recognise the role of self-restraint and self-vigilance in respect of the university’s educational mandate and duty to prevent harassment.
What we want to see

In publishing these principles, we hope to clarify a university’s powers to act, and students’ rights to protest peacefully (but disruptively) within the bounds of human rights law.

We hope universities will recognise and respect these principles. And we hope that protesters might gain a better understanding of when the law is and is not on their side – and where sympathies may fray.

But we also underline here that the law is only part of the picture. Whether or not a university can act is not the same as whether it should. Above all, it is crucial to remember that universities are unique, educational communities where political disagreement should be nourished, not quelled.

Just as we, as academics, enjoy statutory protection of our academic freedom, we should expect universities to show tolerance toward students as they navigate the sometimes treacherous foothills of participatory democracy.

This piece has been updated to say that Trinity College Dublin, not University College Dublin, agreed to protesters’ demands to divest from Israeli companies.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Jeff King has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust. He is a member of University and College Union and is currently Director of Research of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.

David Mead is a member of the University and College Union, and Liberty's Policy Council. He has previously received funding from the Article 11 Trust

THE GHOUL OF BAKHMUT

No, Yevgeny Prigozhin Didn’t Suddenly Come Back From the Dead

Allison Quinn
Thu, June 13, 2024 

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty Images

Nearly a year has passed since Russia’s notorious mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a fiery plane crash widely seen as a Kremlin-sanctioned hit, but “sightings” of the dead warlord keep making waves.

The latest, circulated by Wagner-linked social media channels earlier this week, centered on a blurry photograph of a middle-aged white man spotted wearing jeans and a blue button-up shirt in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, where Russian mercenaries have long had a foothold.

“Witnesses inform that in Africa they supposedly saw Prigozhin! He was supposedly present to lay flowers for Dmitry Utkin,” one pro-Wagner Telegram channel declared. Attached was a 22-second video from a ceremony marking the 54th birthday of Utkin, the neo-Nazi commander from whom the group got its name who was killed alongside Prigozhin in the crash in Russia’s Tver region last August. Members of the republic’s armed forces could be seen lining up to lay flowers at a monument while a man vaguely matching Prigozhin’s description stood in the background.

“In Africa while flowers were laid [for Utkin], they noticed a person resembling Yevgeny Prigozhin,” another Wagner-linked channel claimed.

The video reignited wild rumors that the ex-convict turned mercenary boss had somehow staged his own death, with Wagner fanatics celebrating the supposed proof of life.

“Yevgeny Viktorovich, stop giving yourself away,” one commentator quipped. Another proclaimed that “Prigozhin is still alive, I’m sure of it.”

The latest supposed sighting came just a few weeks after a similar video circulated in late May, this time from the Republic of Chad, with apparently the same stocky-looking man described as possibly being Prigozhin back from the dead due to his “manner, gestures, gait and overall appearance.” Conveniently, his face is either blurred or never fully within view of the camera.

Relatives of Wagner mercenaries, likewise, have run rampant with speculation that Prigozhin is still alive in private chats. In one recent exchange in a Telegram group for Wagner families, a woman said Prigozhin’s death came after she’d prayed to God for him to be “punished” for using prison inmates as cannon fodder. But some who responded corrected her, suggesting it was unwise to believe he was really dead: “We’ll see who is right and who is not. If Prigozhin is alive or not.”

The U.S. Felon Succeeding Putin’s Notorious ‘Chef’

“I think he’s alive, it’s just a matter of time when he’ll resurface,” another woman wrote.

Russia’s handling of the investigation into the crash that killed both Prigozhin and Utkin has not helped matters. The Kremlin refused to allow an international probe into the disaster on board the Brazilian-made Embraer jet when Brazil’s aircraft investigation authority offered one last year. Vladimir Putin then claimed Russian investigators had found grenade fragments in the bodies of the dead passengers, and perhaps to further muddy the waters, lamented that toxicology tests had not been done to check those on board for the presence of drugs or alcohol.

Russian investigators have not revealed their final conclusions, if they are in fact attempting to make any. In the interim, Wagner has been able to capitalize on the mystery surrounding Prigozhin’s final moments.

And perhaps that’s the point.

“In part, there is a genuine sense of loss amongst the ‘turbo-patriots’ who hung onto Prigozhin’s coattails, and an eagerness to believe he could still be around. But there is also the cynical pursuit of clicks by outlets which monetize themselves through engagement; there is still considerable interest in everything to do with Prigozhin, amongst both those who revere and those who despise him,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security issues and author of a new book about Prigozhin, Downfall, co-written with Russian-American journalist Anna Arutunyan.

“Keeping the myth alive is good business!” Galeotti told The Daily Beast.

Sean McFate, an expert on mercenaries and professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said it’s possible Prigozhin’s trolls are “spreading rumors and/or some of his mercenaries are.”

“If Prigozhin is alive, I doubt he would be hanging out in Africa. More likely on a yacht somewhere,” McFate said. “It’s hard to know for sure about Prigozhin’s death since the Kremlin prevented third parties from confirming it.”