COMMODITY FETISH

Dinosaur skeleton breaks auction record with $44.6 mn sale in New York

By

 AFP

The largest stegosaurus skeleton ever found, nicknamed Apex, sold for a record breaking $44.6 million at auction in New York on Wednesday, Sotheby’s said. 

Estimated to be 150 million years old, Apex is said to be “among the most complete skeletons ever found,” according to the auction house.

It measures 11 feet (3.3 meters) tall and 27 feet long and counts 254 fossil bone elements of an approximate total of 319.

The previous auction record of $31.8 million for a dinosaur skeleton was set in 2020 for a Tyrannosaurus Rex nicknamed “Stan.” 

Sotheby’s had expected Apex to fetch between $4 million and $6 million, but the price quickly skyrocketed as telephone bidders deluged the sale, prompting gasps and clapping in the auction room. 

After the record-breaking sale, the auctioneer asked her colleague Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s global head of science, “do you need a cigarette?”

Apex was discovered in May 2022 on the private land of paleontologist Jason Cooper. The auction house says it has collaborated with Cooper to “document the entire process, from discovery and excavation to restoration, preparation and mounting,” in order to guarantee the “highest standards and transparency.”

In 2022, Christie’s auction house had to withdraw a T-rex skeleton a few days before auction in Hong Kong, due to doubts about its authenticity.

Wednesday’s auction follows an increasing trend for the sale of dinosaur remains.

Stegosaurus skeletons are already on display around the world, but according to Sotheby’s, Apex is 30 percent larger than Sophie, the most complete stegosaurus on public display to date, which is housed in the Natural History Museum in London.

 

Iran rejects accusations implicating it in plot to kill Trump

By

 AFP

Iran on Wednesday rejected what it called “malicious” accusations by US media implicating it in a plot to kill former US president Donald Trump.

CNN reported Tuesday that US authorities received intelligence from a “human source” weeks ago on an alleged Iranian plot against the former president, prompting his protection to be boosted. Other US outlets also reported the alleged plot. 

CNN said the alleged plot was not linked to Saturday’s shooting at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania, in which the former president was wounded and a supporter killed.

The US National Security Council said it had been “tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years” after Tehran threatened revenge for the 2020 killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in neighbouring Iraq.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations called the accusations “unsubstantiated and malicious”.

Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Iran “strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack against Trump”.

He added however that Iran remains “determined to prosecute Trump over his direct role in the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani”. 

Soleimani headed the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, overseeing Iranian military operations across the Middle East.

Trump ordered his killing in a drone strike just outside Baghdad airport. 

 

Israeli settlement threatens Palestinian UNESCO village

By

 AFP

On a hillside near Palestinian landowner Olayan Olayan’s olive groves, young Israeli settlers are hammering out a new, illegal outpost in a UNESCO-protected zone. 

Olayan and his neighbours have long battled attempts to settle the land in Battir, a heritage site in the Israeli-occupied West Bank famed for its ancient stone terraces. 

Israeli construction in the West Bank has boomed since the war began in the Gaza Strip, even though all settlements in the territory are considered illegal under international law.

The new outpost on a Battir hilltop, also not approved by Israel, was served an eviction notice that Olayan’s cousin Ghassan Olayan said has not been enforced because of the Gaza war.

The outpost already has a flagpole, living quarters and a barn for sheep that roam a rocky hill covered by olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.

“I ploughed the land and planted it until it bore fruit trees,” said Olayan, who at 83 is older than the state of Israel itself. 

“Some trees were 50 years old, or even more, and suddenly the settlers came and wanted to devour the land and take it from us,” he added, his voice shaky.

– Heletz settlement –

Even more concerning to the Olayans than the encroaching outpost is the adjacent, future settlement of Heletz.

Yonatan Mizrahi of settlement watchdog Peace Now said Heletz was among five settlements “deep in Palestinian territory” approved by the Israeli government on June 27.

“It is a settlement that is going to block Battir and in many ways create tension between the neighbours,” he said.

Heletz and the outpost sit inside the UNESCO protection zone for Battir, one of four listed heritage sites in the West Bank.

The UNESCO classification means the village can get technical, legal, and monetary assistance to preserve sites deemed in danger.

In Battir, children splash in the Roman-era fountain that waters the terraces where tomatoes, corn, aubergines and olive trees grow.

The 2,000-year-old dry stone walls supporting the landscape earned the village its cultural inscription in 2014. But the classification has done little to prevent seizures of the surrounding farmland.

Battir’s inhabitants have beaten in court at least three previous Israeli settlement outpost attempts.

But Ghassan Olayan fears the war since the Hamas attacks of October 7 on Israel will make the new, government-approved Heletz more likely to become reality.

– Preventing statehood –

According to Olayan, Heletz is intended to link Jerusalem to Gush Etzion, a cluster of settlements deeper in the West Bank.

If that is achieved, Battir and the nearby Palestinian villages would be cut off from Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank, a process they fear will fragment a future Palestinian state.

“There will be no (territorial) continuity,” said Olayan, leaving only what some observers describe as an archipelago of Palestinian sovereignty.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, openly states that preventing Palestinian statehood is the objective.

“We will continue to develop the settlements in order to maintain Israel’s security and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he wrote on the X social media platform after the five latest settlements were approved in June.

In recent months, Israeli forces have blocked a road to Battir, nearly doubling the time it takes to reach Jerusalem just 10 kilometres (six miles) north.

When asked about the new outpost in Battir, an Israeli security official acknowledged that “an Israeli farm had been established without proper authorisation”.

The official told AFP “the possibility of authorising the farm will be weighed” as the development of Heletz gets under way.

Battir residents “raised several claims that the land belongs to them” but have “not presented documentation to support their position”, according to the official.

Olayan said documents from Ottoman times prove Battir inhabitants’ ownership of the land.

A UNESCO spokesperson said the UN cultural agency’s world heritage committee had been told about “reports of illegal constructions” and that Battir would be discussed at a session in late July.

Olayan fears that sleepy Battir, with its collective life centred around the Roman fountain’s irrigation system allotting each family a specific time slot to irrigate their crops, faces a difficult future.

“Battir is a peaceful village and the settlement will only bring trouble,” he said.

 

Climate talks host urges rich nations to break stalemate

By

 AFP

The host of this year’s UN climate summit on Wednesday urged governments to start compromising to break a deadlock over how to help poorer countries tackle global warming.

This November’s COP29 summit in gas-rich Azerbaijan is meant to produce a global agreement on how much rich nations should pay developing countries for climate assistance, but talks have stalled.

While poorer nations are the least responsible for carbon emissions, they suffer the most from a warming planet.

Developing countries need massive investments in energy systems to cut their own carbon footprints and money to strengthen defences against the effects of global warming.

But a diplomatic meeting in Bonn last month ended in stalemate. Countries were unable to advance on an issue that has eroded trust at climate talks for years.

In a letter to the roughly 200 nations that have signed up to UN climate accords, COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev lamented the absence of “necessary progress”.

Time was running out, he warned.

“We clearly need a rapid increase in the pace of our work,” wrote Babayev, a government minister and former executive at Azerbaijan’s national oil company.

“Time lost is lives, livelihoods and the planet lost,” he added.

“We call on all parties to increase the pace of their work and move on from their early negotiating positions.”

‘Supercharge’ efforts

Babayev’s appeal comes in the hottest year on record and as extreme heatwaves, floods and wildfires batter communities around the globe.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell, whose own homeland of Grenada was devastated by hurricane Beryl earlier this month, urged countries to put the fight against global warming back on the political agenda.

“Rather than just counting the costs of climate carnage, all governments must supercharge efforts to prevent them,” said Stiell.

He was speaking during a visit to the island of Carriacou, where his grandmother’s house was among many destroyed.

“Standing here, it’s impossible not to recognise the vital importance of delivering climate finance,” he added.

Wealthy nations have been under pressure to commit to new financing targets that go well beyond the $100 billion a year they promised in 2009.

Developing nations excluding China will need about $2.4 trillion a year in climate investment by 2030, according to an expert assessment commissioned by the UN. 

That is nearly 25 times more than the present levels.

But nations are nowhere near agreeing on a dollar aid figure, with talks bogged down over who should pay, what form the money should take, and who should receive it.

Informal talks

Under a 1992 climate accord, only a small handful of the wealthiest industrialised nations at the time were obligated to pay climate finance.

Some want the pool of contributors widened, most notably to include China, which is today vastly wealthier than 30 years ago, and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

But this has been a non-starter for developing nations, who have accused wealthy countries of trying to shirk their responsibility.

To break the ice, Azerbaijan will host the negotiating teams for an informal two-day retreat starting July 26.

They have named two experienced diplomats — Dan Jorgensen of Denmark and Yasmine Fouad of Egypt — to help the parties make headway.

Babayev said the impasse would “not be solved by negotiators alone”, calling for political leadership on the sidelines to help move discussions toward consensus. 

 

At Republican National Convention, climate change at bottom of pile

By

 AFP

Climate change is little more than an afterthought for attendees at the Republican National Convention, who are gathered this week to crown Donald Trump as their party’s nominee for this November’s election.

“I don’t believe all that,” said Jack Prendergast, from New York, who believes that human activity does just as much harm to the planet as “when a volcano goes off.”

“Trump is going to drill pipelines and we’ll become the leading supplier of energy in the world, in the gas and the oil,” Prendergast told AFP.

And the former president has promised as much — adopting the slogan “drill, baby, drill” to sum up his fossil fuel-friendly approach.

Trump, who withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord during his first term, on Monday appointed a fellow climate skeptic as his running mate: Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.

The 39-year-old, who would become Trump’s vice president if they are elected, has previously accused Democrats of stirring up fears about climate change for political gain.

The two men will run on a 5,000-word Republican platform adopted on Monday by the party’s delegates which makes no mention of plans for climate change or renewable energy.

Instead, it promises to end “green” policies it deems “socialist,” and says the United States will become the world’s number one oil and natural gas producer — a position it already holds, according to official data.

Trump himself has said he is opposed to wind power — a widely-touted alternative to fossil fuels — as he is convinced it “kills all the birds.”

– ‘Bright future’ –

Climate groups such as the Sunrise Movement have criticized the Republican platform, saying the party “has made it clear that they’re happy to make the climate crisis worse.”

But for Stephen Perkins of the American Conservation Coalition — perhaps the only booth at the Republican convention focused on preserving the planet — you have to take Trump’s comments with “a grain of salt.”

“I think that some of his comments are meant to be more entertaining than policy positions,” said the 29-year-old, wearing a striped blue polo shirt.

His organization is hoping to show what a “conservative approach to environmental policy and climate policy look like,” which he thinks could entice younger voters. 

But he concedes it’s a “slow process,” with older Republicans averse to agreeing to action on climate change.

According to a Yale survey published on Tuesday, more than two-thirds of Americans do believe in the existence of climate change.

However, that does not necessarily translate into support for Democratic President Joe Biden, who has pushed through several initiatives to combat global warming during his time in office.

Perkins instead believes Biden is at the mercy of a “radical sect” of progressives “that doesn’t engage in nuance.” His convention stand shows the word “destruction” alongside images of left-wing environmental activists throwing soup at a work of art.

If he had it his way, he would show that “we have a bright future ahead” despite the challenges of climate change, instead of “the doom and gloom.”

 

Boeing workers to vote on authorization of potential strike

By

 AFP

Tens of thousands of Boeing hourly workers have been called Wednesday for a vote in Seattle expected to authorize a potential labor strike if ongoing contract negotiations stumble.

“What can you do to get a good contract?” International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Local 751 asks on its website. “Attend strike sanction vote on July 17th!”

The local represents nearly 32,000 people in the Seattle, Washington, region, with about 30,000 at Boeing plants in nearby Renton, where the US aerospace giant’s 737 is assembled, and in Everett, where the 777 is put together. A strike would freeze activity at both factories.

The two sides in March began talks on a new contract to replace an agreement that has been in place for 16 years. The contract expires at midnight on September 12.

Wednesday’s vote comes before union members see a proposed contract. A second vote would be required on September 12 to strike if members reject the contract.

Boeing described Wednesday’s vote as a “procedural” step that does not definitely mean a strike will occur.

“We remain confident we can reach a deal that balances the needs of our employees and the business realities we face as a company,” Boeing said in a statement.

Local 751 president Jon Holden has demanded a “substantial” salary hike of at least 40 percent, as well as provisions for health care, retirement and job security.

Holden has called a hefty wage hike imperative after workers only received nominal cost-of-living support over the last eight years despite “massive inflation.”

At a Senate hearing last month, Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun said workers “will definitely get a raise.”

The union is also seeking assurances from Boeing that it will build its next new aircraft — expected around 2035 — in the Seattle region.

Holden has said certainty on the next jet being manufactured in the Pacific Northwest amounts to “job security for the next 50 years.”

– Show of solidarity –

The IAM said talks have been largely moribund in recent weeks. The union hopes for a commanding turnout on Wednesday to send a strong message to Boeing.

The event will be held at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, the stadium for the Seattle Mariners baseball team, which holds up to 48,000 people. The IAM also plans Wednesday a parade of some 800 motorcycles. 

“The purpose is to show Boeing your solidarity,” the IAM says on the local’s website.

“The factory will be quiet,” the local said, adding it was sending a “message to take our proposals seriously and a reminder of what it would be like if our members choose to reject a substandard offer and vote to strike in September.”

Boeing said it would allow employees to leave work early or arrive late to provide “reasonable” travel time on Wednesday.

“We respect and support the right of our employees to take part in the July 17 vote,” Boeing said. “Partial time away from work will be excused and not counted for attendance purposes.”

The IAM says the early strike authorization vote will also provide legal notice to union officials to be prepared to administer strike pay to workers if a stoppage is called.

Striking workers are entitled to $250 in weekly pay starting the third week of a strike.

The IAM has also sought at least one seat on Boeing’s board of directors, but that demand is considered more of a longshot.

Besides the Washington workers, the IAM’s W24 district, which represents 1,200 Boeing workers in Oregon, will also vote Wednesday.

In light of Boeing’s current travails, the union wants to be able to bargain on any changes to quality management that could affect the production system.

“We never proposed those things in the past but it’s our reputation, it’s our jobs, it’s our livelihoods,” Holden said.

 

Croatia journalists slam ‘life-threatening attack’ on colleague

By

 AFP

The Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) on Wednesday slammed what it called a life-threatening attack on an award-winning journalist and demanded a swift response from the authorities. 

Melita Vrsaljko, a fact-check journalist and a documentary filmmaker, said she was attacked twice by relatives of a local elected official after filming an illegal dump.

In a statement, the HND called the authorities to “respond promptly, sharply and unequivocally to the life-threatening attack”.

It is a “drastic warning on the working conditions of journalists and all media workers… exposed daily to numerous verbal and even physical attacks”, it added.

Vrsaljko said in a post on Facebook that she was physically attacked by a man on Monday while walking by his land where an illegal dump was emerging.

She was accompanied by a cameraman.

Vrsaljko, who works for Faktograf.hr, posted a short video of the man attacking her to her Instagram page.

She also claimed that the man’s daughter burst into her home on Tuesday and attacked her.

The woman was hitting and choking Vrsaljko as she was trying to take away her mobile phone to delete the footage of her father, the journalist said.

Vrsaljko eventually managed to push away the attacker and call the police who filed charges against the attacker.

Meanwhile, the culture and media ministry strongly condemned the incident.

The ministry “condemns any form of insults and threats, any violation of rights and jeopardising the safety of journalists”, it said in a statement.

Both Faktograf.hr and the European Fact-Checking Standard Network (EFCSN) have also condemned the attack. 

According to Croatia’s law, an attack against a journalist is punishable with up to five years in prison.

 

Ex-WSJ reporter says fired over role in Hong Kong press union

By

 Newsdesk-AFP

A former Wall Street Journal reporter said Wednesday the newspaper had fired her after she took up a role heading a Hong Kong press union and advocating for media freedom in the SAR.

Selina Cheng, who covered China’s electric vehicle market, said she was sacked less than a month after she was elected head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA).

“I am appalled that the first press conference I am giving as HKJA’s new chair is to announce that I was fired for taking up this position in a press union,” she told reporters.

Cheng said she was told by her supervisor that employees “should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong”.

A spokesperson for Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, confirmed that personnel changes had been made, but declined to comment on Cheng’s case.

The Journal “continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world”, the spokesperson said.

“It is obvious to me that the fear and unease the press in Hong Kong have been facing for years now has equally affected the Journal’s management, even though they are far away on different continents,” Cheng said.

The Journal said in May it would move its Asia headquarters from Hong Kong to Singapore.

US right takes aim at women Secret Service agents who protected Trump

4 MALE AGENTS  

ONE FEMALE AGENT 

(WHO COVERED TRUMP WITH HER BODY)

By

 AFP

As questions swirl over how a would-be assassin managed to get anywhere near Donald Trump, some conservatives are blaming the Secret Service for hiring the women agents who threw themselves into the line of fire to protect the former president.

Women are too short, too weak — and in some cases, too overweight — to protect someone like Trump, according to people on the US political right who accused the Secret Service of “woke” hiring practices they say nearly got the former president killed.

Several women can be seen among the black-suited, sunglass-clad agents racing to shield Trump with their bodies as the gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, before hustling him from the stage and into a waiting car and safety.

But they, along with their boss Kimberly Cheatle — only the second-ever woman director of the federal agency tasked with protecting presidents current, former and would-be — are now caught in the intense scrutiny over the nearly catastrophic attack.

“There should not be any women in the Secret Service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women,” right-wing activist Matt Walsh wrote on X, in one typical post.

“I can’t imagine that a DEI hire from @pepsi would be a bad choice as the head of the Secret Service. #sarcasm,” tweeted Republican congressman Tim Burchett.

Burchett was referring to Cheatle’s previous job as director of global security for Pepsi — a post she held for several years before returning to the Secret Service, where she had previously spent nearly three decades.

With the phrase DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — he was invoking one of the most popular conservative fronts in the culture wars: the so-called “wokeification” of the workplace as employers strive to diversify their hiring practices beyond white men.

The first women were sworn in as Secret Service agents in 1971. CBS News reported last year that the agency aims to have 30 percent women recruits by 2030.

“I’m very conscious … of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle told CBS at the time. 

The wildly popular conservative Libs of TikTok account cited that interview in a post also blaming hiring practices for the Trump shooting that has received more than 10 million views on X.

“The results of DEI. DEI got someone killed,” it read.

– ‘Secret Service A-team’ –

Diverse hiring practices accelerated in 2020 after the George Floyd killing forced America into a new reckoning over racism and inclusivity.

But they have seen a growing backlash from conservatives in recent months who complain they unfairly disadvantage white workers in general, and white men in particular.

None other than Ohio Senator J.D. Vance — Trump’s newly-announced running mate — has spearheaded a recent bill to do away with such efforts.

“DEI is racism, plain and simple. It’s time to outlaw it nationwide, starting with the federal government,” he tweeted last month as the bill was introduced.

Such practices at the Secret Service faced scrutiny as recently as May, when Congress launched an investigation after a female agent in Vice President Kamala Harris’s detail reportedly got into an altercation with colleagues.

The incident raised concerns about this agent’s hiring, Kentucky Republican James Comer said in a letter to Cheatle — specifically, whether staff shortages “had led the agency to lower once stricter standards as a part of a diversity, equity and inclusion effort.”

The Secret Service did not immediately respond to questions from AFP.

But in response to the Comer letter, spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told US media that Secret Service employees “are held to the highest professional standards… at no time has the agency lowered these standards.”

Cheatle has shrugged off calls for her resignation since the shooting, and the agency has agreed to cooperate with an independent review ordered by President Joe Biden. 

Comer has also announced that Cheatle will appear before a congressional panel on July 22 for a hearing on the assassination attempt.

Biden — in whose detail Cheatle served when he was vice president — told NBC News on Monday that he feels “safe with the Secret Service,” though he agreed it was an “open question” whether they should have anticipated the shooting.

When Trump made his first public appearance after the shooting, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, he appeared to be surrounded by an all-male Secret Service detail.

“Now THIS is how you protect a President,” posted conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley on X.

“Trump gets the Secret Service A-team now.”

Climate change risk stirs oil market

By

 AFP

From forest fires to hurricanes and other natural disasters: climate change risk is increasingly influencing oil prices, just as the world is struggling to shift away from high-polluting fossil fuels.

Hurricane Beryl became the latest weather phenomenon to jangle market nerves, boosting crude prices as it passed through Texas earlier this month.

Texas accounts for some 42 percent of total US crude oil production, according to Energy Information Administration data. It also possesses the largest number of crude oil refineries among US states.

“Almost half of the total US petroleum refining capacity is located along the Gulf, with Texas accounting for one-third of total US refining capacity,” Exinity analyst Han Tan told AFP.

And industry experts fear Beryl could herald a “super charged” hurricane season this year, according to Tan.

The World Meteorological Organization has warned that Beryl’s early formation and swift intensification could foreshadow similarly severe storms in the future.

Earlier this year meanwhile, oil market sentiment was jarred in May as forest fires broke out in Canada.

Traders took flight as out-of-control wildfires threatened to spread to the crude-producing hub of Fort McMurray, the nation’s largest oil sands mining facility.

– ‘More visible and more extreme’ –

Traders, more used to pricing in geopolitical turmoil, are now also weighing up the risks arising from the climate crisis.

“Climate change and its effect is a major source of risk in the oil markets, and I expect that that risk will only increase in the coming years as the effects of climate change become more visible and extreme,” Rystad Energy analyst Jorge Leon told AFP.

“Geopolitical risk is –- at least partly -– manageable by different actors. For example, international diplomacy could prevent a war.

“However, climate risk is less manageable in the short and medium run. In the long run, you can manage it by trying to reduce emissions,” he added.

At the same time, climate disruption is also having an increasingly visible impact on the operations of oil and gas companies, which are frequently slammed by environmentalists over their role in global warming.

“Climate change has been and will be affecting production,” summarised Tamas Varga, analyst at PVM Oil Associates.

He added that it also impacted refinery utilisation rates because “hot weather leads to malfunctioning” of the facilities.

Many European refineries were designed in the 1960s and 1970s to withstand colder rather than warmer temperatures, according to Tan.

Fossil fuels — coal, gas and oil — are responsible for over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to estimates from the United Nations.

At the COP28 UN climate conference in Dubai last December, almost 200 countries agreed to a call for a transition away from fossil fuels and a tripling of renewable energy capacity this decade. 

However, the text crucially stopped short of a direct call for phasing out fossil fuels, while there were major concessions to the oil and gas industry and producer countries.

– ‘Economics can’t find solution’ –

Analysts argue that the oil market participants are simply focused on generating profit rather than saving the environment.

That throws the onus onto the world’s politicians and regulators, they add.

“Investors can’t be rationally expected to reverse the phenomenon when they try to maximise profits,” SwissQuote analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya told AFP.

“Unless financial costs of climate damages outweigh the financial benefits, the economics can’t find the solution to the climate problem.”

“So, the ball is in politicians’ hands. Only concrete, sharp and worldwide regulatory changes with meaningful financial impact/incentives… could shift capital toward clean and sustainable energies.”