It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, August 09, 2024
Steady flight of kestrels could help aerial safety soar
A new joint study by RMIT and the University of Bristol has revealed secrets to the remarkably steady flight of kestrels and could inform future drone designs and flight control strategies.
A new joint study by RMIT and the University of Bristol has revealed secrets to the remarkably steady flight of kestrels and could inform future drone designs and flight control strategies.
Making drones safer and more stable in turbulent conditions, or in cities where wind gusts from tall buildings make flying more difficult, makes applications like parcel delivery, food delivery and environmental monitoring more feasible, more often.
The study conducted in RMIT’s Industrial Wind Tunnel facility – one of the largest of its kind in Australia – is the first to precisely measure the stability of a Nankeen Kestrel’s head during hovering flight, finding movement of less than 5mm during hunting behaviour.
“Typically, aircraft use flap movements for stabilisation to achieve stability during flight,” said RMIT lead researcher Dr Abdulghani Mohamed.
“Our results acquired over several years, show birds of prey rely more on changes in surface area, which is crucial as it may be a more efficient way of achieving stable flight in fixed wing aircraft too.”
Anatomy of steady flight
Kestrels and other birds of prey are capable of keeping their heads and bodies extremely still during hunting. This specialised flight behaviour, called wind hovering, allows the birds to ‘hang’ in place under the right wind conditions without flapping. By making small adjustments to the shape of their wings and tail, they can achieve incredible steadiness.
Thanks to advancements in camera and motion capture technology, the research team was able to observe two Nankeen Kestrels, trained by Leigh Valley Hawk and Owl Sanctuary, at high resolution.
Fitted with reflective markers, the birds’ precise movements and flight control techniques during non-flapping flight were tracked in detail for the first-time.
“Previous studies involved birds casually flying through turbulence and gusts within wind tunnels; in our study we tracked a unique wind hovering flight behaviour whereby the birds are actively maintaining extreme steadiness, enabling us to study the pure control response without flapping,” said Mohamed.
By mapping these movements, the researchers gained insights that could be utilised to achieve steadier flight for fixed wing aircrafts.
“The wind hovering behaviour we observed in kestrels is the closest representation in the avian world to fixed wing aircraft,” said Mohamed.
“Our findings surrounding the changes in wing surface area could be applied to the design of morphing wings in drones, enhancing their stability and making them safer in adverse weather.”
The issue with current drones
Associate Professor of Bio-Inspired Aerodynamics at Bristol University and joint last author, Dr Shane Windsor, said the usefulness of current fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) was significantly decreased by their inability to operate in gusty wind conditions.
“UAV’s are being used in the UK to deliver post to remote islands, but their operation time is limited because of regular gusty conditions.
“Current commercial fixed wing aircraft have to be designed with one fixed geometry and optimised to operate at one flight condition.
“The advantage of morphing wings is that they could be continually optimised throughout a flight for a variety of conditions, making the aircraft much more manoeuvrable and efficient.”
Next steps
The team now aims to further their research by examining the birds under gusty and turbulent conditions, which would see further learnings in stable flight with the goal of allowing UAVs to operate more safely and more often.
While initially focused on smaller aerial vehicles, the team hopes to simplify the data collected so that it can be adapted for larger scale aircraft.
‘Steady as they hover: kinematics of kestrel wing and tail morphing during hovering flights’ published in the Journal of Experimental Biology (https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.247305) is a collaboration between Mario Martinez Groves-Raines, George Yi, Matthew Penn, Simon Watkins, Shane Windsor and Abdulghani Mohamed.
The team acknowledges Mr Martin Scuffins from the Leigh Valley Hawk and Owl Sanctuary, for supporting the project and sharing expertise and knowledge critical to the project’s success.
Hovering in a wind tunnel
A Nankeen Kestrel hovering in the RMIT University wind tunnel
Fitting sensors
Martin Scuffins from the Leigh Valley Hawk and Owl Sanctuary and RMIT's Dr Abdulghani Mohamed fitting sensors to the kestrel in RMIT's wind tunnel facility.
New research from the University of Adelaide has shown that glossy black-cockatoos prefer to feed from trees growing in acidic soils.
Glossy black-cockatoos are seed-eating birds that feed almost exclusively on the cones of drooping sheoak trees. However, counterintuitively, they select trees that grow on the poorest soils found on ancient sedimentary rocks.
“Sheoak trees are three times more likely to be used as feeding trees if they are growing on non-limestone sedimentary rocks,” says Dr Gay Crowley, from the University of Adelaide’s School of Social Sciences.
Dr Crowley compared 6,543 feeding records with 23,484 sheoak records from New South Wales to make this discovery. She found that soil type has a direct influence on the way glossy black-cockatoos use the environment by comparing glossy black-cockatoo feeding records with soils and rocks on Kangaroo Island.
“Sheoaks gain their nutrition through fungal associations, rather than from the soil, and their associated fungi thrive on poor soils,” says Dr Crowley, whose research was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
“Many iconic Australian animals, such as bilbies, potoroos, bettongs and bandicoots, feed directly on soil fungi – including native truffles. The same pathways are likely to be responsible for their distribution in the environment.”
Glossy black-cockatoos are one of Australia’s five species of black-cockatoos and can be found across eastern Australia as well as on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. The species is listed as endangered in South Australia, and as vulnerable throughout the rest of its distribution.
To ensure the long-term survival of species that depend on soil fungi, especially the glossy black-cockatoo, Dr Crowley says conservation efforts need to consider the value of habitats on poor soils.
“Conservation efforts often prioritise the richest, most fertile parts of the landscape. This is because many rare animals, such as greater gliders and powerful owls, are most abundant in forests growing on rich soils derived from basalt or limestone,” says Dr Crowley.
“However, many other animals, such as potoroos, bandicoots, and glossy black-cockatoos may be best protected by preserving habitats on infertile soils.”
Credit: Material provided by the author of the paper, Julien Tailleur
A crowd or a flock of birds have different characteristics from those of atoms in a material, but when it comes to collective movement, the differences matter less than we might think. We can try to predict the behavior of humans, birds, or cells based on the same principles we use for particles. This is the finding of a new study published in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, JSTAT, conducted by an international team that includes the collaboration of MIT in Boston and CNRS in France. The study, based on the physics of materials, simulated the conditions that cause a sudden shift from a disordered state to a coordinated one in "self-propelled agents" (like biological ones).
“In a way, birds are flying atoms,” explains Julien Tailleur, from MIT Biophysics, one of the authors of the research. “It may sound strange, but indeed, one of our main findings was that the way a walking crowd moves, or a flock of birds in flight, shares many similarities with the physical systems of particles.”
As Tailleur explains, in the field of collective movement studies, it has been assumed that there is a qualitative difference between particles (atoms and molecules) and biological elements (cells, but also entire organisms in groups). It was especially believed that the transition from one type of movement to another (for example, from chaos to an orderly flow, known as a phase transition) was completely different.
The crucial difference for physicists in this case has to do with the concept of distance. Particles moving in a space with many other particles influence each other primarily based on their mutual distance. For biological elements, however, the absolute distance is less important. “Take a pigeon flying in a flock: what matters to it are not so much all the closest pigeons, but those it can see.” In fact, according to the literature, among those it can see, it can only keep track of a finite number, due to its cognitive limits. The pigeon, in the physicists' jargon, is in a “topological relationship” with other pigeons: two birds could be at quite a large physical distance, but if they are in the same visible space, they are in mutual contact and influence each other.
It was long believed that this type of difference led to a completely different scenario for the emergence of collective motion “Our study, however, suggests that this is not a crucial difference,” continues Tailleur.
“Obviously, if we wanted to analyze the behavior of a real bird, there are tons of other complexities that are not included in our model. Our field follows an advice attributed to Einstein, namely that if you want to understand a phenomenon, you have to make it ‘as simple as possible, but not simpler’. Not the simplest possible, but the one that removes all complexity that is not relevant to the problem. In the specific case of our study, this means that the difference that is real and exists - between physical distance and topological relationship - does not alter the nature of the transition to collective motion.”
The model used by Tailleur and colleagues is inspired by the behavior of ferromagnetic materials. These materials have - as the name suggests - magnetic properties. At high temperature or low density, the spins (simplifying: the direction of the magnetic moment associated with electrons) are oriented randomly due to the large thermal fluctuations and are therefore disorderly. However, at low temperatures and high density, the interactions between the spins dominate the fluctuations and a global orientation of the spins emerges (imagining them as many aligned small compass needles).
Another finding is that in the model used, stratified flows form within the larger group, which is akin to what we also observe in reality: it is rare for a mass of people to move all together in one direction; rather, we see within it the motion of finite groups, distinguishable flows that follow slightly different trajectories.
These statistical models, based on the physics of particles, can therefore also help us understand biological collective movement, concludes Tailleur. “The road towards understanding collective motion as we see it in biology—and using it to design new materials—is still long, but we are making progress!”
In a model of self-propelled particles aligning with their topological neighbors, one observes the formation of traveling bands (in green), typical of discontinuous transitions. The particle colors encode their orientations.
Credit
Material provided by the author of the paper, Julien Tailleur
Distance Vs Topological relations + traveling bands
Credit
Material provided by the author of the paper, Julien Tailleur
Fluctuation-Induced First Order Transition to Collective Motion
Article Publication Date
8-Aug-2024
Sugar-sweetened beverage intake increasing globally among children and teens
Study estimates at least 10% of youth worldwide consume more than 7 servings of sugary drinks weekly
Tufts University
A new global analysis of the dietary habits of children and adolescents from 185 countries revealed that youth, on average, consumed nearly 23% more sugar-sweetened beverages in 2018 compared to 1990. Overall, intakes were similar in boys and girls, but higher in teens, urban residents, and children of parents with lower levels of education. Researchers from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University published the findings Aug. 7 in TheBMJ.
The study drew from the Global Dietary Database, a large comprehensive compilation of what people around the world eat or drink, to generate the first global estimates and trends of sugar-sweetened beverage intake in youth. These were defined as soda, juice drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, and home-sweetened fruit drinks such as aguas frescas with added sugars and containing more than 50 kcal per 1 cup serving. Incorporating data from over 1,200 surveys from 1990 through 2018 in a large model, the research team found that youth (defined as those ages 3 to 19 years) were drinking more and had nearly twice the overall intake of adults.
The research team’s definition of sugary drinks excluded 100% fruit juices, non-caloric artificially sweetened drinks, and sweetened milks.
Sugar-sweetened beverage intake among young people varied dramatically by world region, averaging 3.6 servings per week globally and ranging from 1.3 servings per week in South Asia to 9.1 in Latin America and the Caribbean. The researchers found that children and teens in 56 countries, representing 238 million young people or 10% of the global youth population, averaged 7 or more servings per week.
“Sugary beverages increase weight gain and risk of obesity, so even though kids don’t often develop diabetes or cardiovascular disease when they are young, there could be significant impacts later in life,” said first author Laura Lara-Castor, a recent graduate of the Friedman School and now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington. “This study highlights the need for targeted education and policy interventions to change behavior early on and prevent the adverse outcomes associated with sugar-sweetened beverage intake in childhood.”
Among the world’s most populous nations, those with the highest sugary drink intakes by youth in 2018 included Mexico (10.1 servings per week), followed by Uganda (6.9), Pakistan (6.4), South Africa (6.2), and the United States (6.2). Looking at trends from 1990 to 2018, the region with the largest increase in consumption among youth was Sub-Saharan Africa, in which average weekly servings grew 106% to 2.17 servings per week, an acceleration that requires attention, say the researchers.
In recent years, many governments worldwide have been implementing measures such as soda taxes and restrictions on the sale of sugary drinks in schools to promote healthy dietary habits. These efforts are new and also face strong opposing forces such as aggressive industry marketing and the globalization of the food sector.
“Our findings should raise alarm bells in nearly every nation worldwide,” said senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School. “The intakes and trends we’re seeing pose a significant threat to public health, one we can and must address for the future of a healthier population.”
Research reported in this article was supported by the Gates Foundation, the American Heart Association, and the National Council for Science and Technology in Mexico. Complete information on authors, methodology, limitations, and conflicts of interest is available in the published paper. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.
Former President Donald Trump recounted a story to reporters on Thursday about being involved in a helicopter emergency landing with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
Asked by a reporter about Vice President Kamala Harris’ previous relationship with Brown and whether it helped her career trajectory, Trump said he knew Brown “very well” and told a story about the alleged helicopter incident.
“I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing,” Trump told reporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for his first news conference since the Democratic ticket was announced.
“This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was, he was a little concerned. So I know him, I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years,” Trump continued.
Brown, however, rejected Trump’s account as “obviously wrong” during a phone call later Thursday with CNN, saying: “I’ve never been in a helicopter with him in my life.”
“He is trying his best to get some way to degrade Kamala,” the former mayor also said of Trump and his Democratic rival for the presidency. “There is no reason why her name ought to be mentioned anywhere near his lies, period.”
Asked about Brown’s rebuttal of the former president’s narrative, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung only responded, “Slick Willie!”
The New York Times reported Thursday that the former president apparently confused Willie Brown with former California Gov. Jerry Brown, with whom he toured wildfire damage by helicopter in November 2018.
A spokesperson for Jerry Brown told the Times that “there was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who also toured the wildfires in 2018 as governor-elect, said of Trump’s account, “I call complete B.S.,” according to the Times.
“I was on a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t go down,” Newsom told the Times, saying that Trump repeatedly brought up the possibility of crashing.
Right-wing media figures have before denigrated Harris as a “mistress” for her previous relationship with Brown – despite it having occurred after Brown was separated from his wife and was not a secret – among other attacks.
Trump during Thursday’s news conference claimed Willie Brown was “not a fan” of Harris and that he had told him “terrible things” about her.
Asked about those claims, Brown told CNN: “No. Why would I? Give me a break, please.”
CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.
Willie Brown says Trump claims of helicopter trip, Kamala Harris confessions are false
Sandra McDonald Thu, August 8, 2024 Donald Trump and Willie Brown appear in an episode of the sitcom "Suddenly Susan" in 1997. Brown has denied some recent claims by the former president. (NBC / Universal via Getty Images)
Former President Trump said that he and Willie Brown almost crashed in a helicopter and that the former San Francisco mayor told him "terrible things" about Trump's Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.
False and false, Brown says.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, conducted a meandering 65-minute news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday where he insulted Harris, reasserted false and misleading claims and talked about the U.S. in apocalyptic terms.
He also related the tale of being in a helicopter and facing danger with Brown.
"Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought, maybe this is the end," Trump said.
"We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing," he said. "This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie, he was — he was a little concerned. So I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven't seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about [Kamala Harris]."
Brown says Trump's claims are untrue.
“I’ve never done business with Donald Trump, let’s start with that,” Brown told Bay Area TV station KRON. “And secondly, I don’t think I’d want to ride on the same helicopter with him.”
He also denied demeaning Harris to Trump.
“It's just as accurate as all of the other components of what you're asking me about,” Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle. “No, not accurate at all.”
Willie Brown told KRON he “could not envision thinking of Kamala Harris in any negative way. She’s a good friend a long time ago, absolutely beautiful woman, smart as all hell, very successful, electorally speaking.”
Brown dated Harris in the 1990s at the beginning of her career in San Francisco. The connection drew backlash against Harris from critics who said she gained politically from the relationship.
Brown did not immediately respond to The Times' request for comment Thursday evening.
Trump did take a helicopter ride in 2018 — with a different Brown. He accompanied then-Gov. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom, California's governor-elect, to survey the devastation from the Camp fire in the town of Paradise. There was no news at the time of an emergency landing — though alighting amid the devastation was probably not "pleasant."
Chile’s biggest industrial group Empresas Copec SA is exploring options to expand in green hydrogen and copper mining as the clean-energy transition boosts demand.
The fuel-to-forestry conglomerate controlled by Chile’s Angelini family is “analyzing the possibility of carrying out larger projects” in hydrogen after focusing on small initiatives to date, Strategy and Development Manager Jorge Ferrando said.
Empresas Copec, which still gets most of its profit from fossil fuels and wood products, is stepping up its foray into renewable energy and alternative fuels. Without commenting on specific projects, Ferrando said it may make sense to bring in partners for green hydrogen production to share investments and add capabilities.
Electrification is also boosting prospects for copper, despite the wiring metal’s sharp pullback from record-high prices reached earlier this year. Empresas Copec has an indirect stake in the Mina Justa copper mine in Peru and “would love to be able to repeat it with another similar project,” he said.
“This is a global industry, so we have a comprehensive look at projects and we are always studying new opportunities, both locally and in other competitive geographies,” Ferrando said in written responses to Bloomberg questions.
In the meantime, Mina Justa is preparing to make a decision on whether to proceed with a $400 million underground project.
(By James Attwood and Valentina Fuentes)
Yukon premier says he won’t halt mining on First Nation but will pause new projects
Ore material at the mine site that has moved towards Dublin Gulch valley. Photo: Yukon Government
Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai said his government isn’t prepared to halt all mining activity on the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun’s (FNNND) traditional territory – though it is willing to grant some of the First Nation’s requests.
In late June, Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold mine experienced a heap leach failure allowing cyanide to be released into the surrounding environment.
On July 3, the First Nation released a statement demanding the government stop all exploration and mining activities in its traditional territory.
In a statement released Aug. 5, Pillai said he responded to Chief Dawna Hope four weeks later on July 31.
“The scope and nature of FNNND’s request to halt all exploration and mining activities on their Traditional Territory has significant legal and economic consequences,” he said.
“The Yukon government is not prepared to halt all existing, permitted mineral development activities in FNNND’s Traditional Territory.”
The statement notes mining companies’ ability to operate in the territory is protected under federal and territorial legislation, as well as the Umbrella Final Agreement (UFA).
The UFA sets provisions for individual First Nations’ with Final Agreements.
“Acting on the request from FNNND to stop all exploration and mining activities on FNNND Traditional Territory would require the Government of Yukon to take actions not contemplated in the statutes born of the Umbrella Final Agreement, such as the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act (YESAA) or the Waters Act,” he said.
Pillai said the statues ensure mining activity in the territory is conducted in a way that considers environmental protection, socio-economic impacts, and Aboriginal and treaty rights.
“The consequences of (halting mining activity) would be significant, with serious and far-reaching consequences for all Yukoners,” he said.
Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai says halting all mining activity on the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun’s traditional territory would have serious consequences for the territory. Photo: Council of the Federation
The government open to other requests
However, Pillai said his government was open to FNNND’s request to halt the staking of new mineral claims.
It proposed applying a prohibition of entry on new staking claims in areas of cultural and environmental importance “where mining would be an incompatible activity.”
Pillai also said the government has agreed to pause existing consultation processes and not commence new consultations within FNNND’s traditional territory for two months. The pause would not include decisions made on applications that FNNND has already been consulted on and are almost closed.
Pillai said the government has further committed to not licensing another heap leach facility in the territory until an independent review board on the incident is formed.
Southwest section of the heap leach facility collapse. Photo: Yukon Government
Dead fish found downstream
The government put out a separate release Tuesday stating Victoria Gold employees discovered dead fish in Haggart Creek downstream of the mine on Aug. 2.
The company has since stopped discharging water from the mine water treatment plant and fish were collected for future testing.
No additional dead fish have been found.
The release said activities other than fishing that result in the death of fish are prohibited under the federal Fisheries Act. It also noted the department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is aware of the incident and has ordered mitigation measures for Victoria Gold.
Over the weekend it instructed the company to construct fish barriers in various areas along Haggart creek upstream and downstream of the discharge location.
The territory’s department of environment is collecting daily water samples from locations along Haggart creek and downstream of the mine. It said results will be made public once available.
Representatives for FNNND said the First Nation will be speaking with media later this week.
E3 Lithium to construct demonstration facility Alberta
Staff Writer | August 8, 2024 | E3 Lithium’s field pilot plant site in Alberta.(Image courtesy of E3 Lithium.)
E3 Lithium (TSXV: ETMC) has announced plans to construct a fully integrated demonstration facility in Alberta with the goal of producing battery-grade lithium carbonate from brines located within the Leduc reservoir.
E3 Lithium owns the Clearwater project, located in Canada’s oil patch between Red Deer and Calgary, where it is testing a direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology to extract naturally occurring lithium from oilfield brines.
Traditionally, oil drillers have disposed of the brine by pumping it back into the ground. However, the increasing demand for lithium from electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers has transformed this once-waste brine into a valuable resource.
Instead of concentrating lithium by evaporating brine in large pools, DLE pulls the brine directly into a processing plant, where it undergoes a series of chemical processes to separate the lithium before being injected back underground.
This process produces a lithium carbonate in a matter of hours, compared to the 18-month average it currently takes using evaporative ponds, and without the need to transport concentrates to a separate facility.
“The Demo project is an important step towards progressing the Clearwater project, providing samples to potential strategic partners and an overall advancement for lithium assets on a commercial scale in Alberta,” CEO Chris Doornbos said in a news release.
The Clearwater project is expected to generate 20,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide annually over a 20-year life, according to a 2020 preliminary economic assessment.
Shares of E3 Lithium rose 1% by 10:40 a.m. in Toronto Thursday EDT. The lithium developer has a market capitalization of C$75 million ($54 million).
US Strategic Metals tapped for $400 million EXIM Bank loan
Staff Writer | August 8, 2024 | Credit: US Strategic Metals US Strategic Metals (USSM) has been tapped by the Export-Import Bank of the United States for a loan package worth $400 million with a term of 15 years to support the development of its mining and metallurgical project in Missouri.
Established in 2018, USSM (formerly Missouri Cobalt) currently recycles essential metals from lithium-ion batteries and processes third party concentrates at its metallurgical plant.
The company also plans to mine what it considers to be the largest cobalt reserve in North America. It holds an 18-year mineral supply of cobalt (plus nickel and copper) on a 7.3-square-kilometre site, known as the Madison mine project.
The Madison project hosts an existing private mine that operated from 1844 to 1961. In 2003, the US Environmental Protection Agency designated the area as a Superfund site due to the erosion of tailings and initiated clean-up efforts. As part of its acquisition in 2018, USSM partnered with local government and the EPA to execute a five-year clean-up plan.
In 2020, the geologic and block models were updated to survey mine reserves, including a pre-feasibility study on a well-drilled resource that is estimated to hold 72 million lb. of recoverable cobalt, 105 million lb. of nickel and 103 million lb. of copper.
The EXIM loan, in combination with existing equity and credit facilities, would provide funding for substantially all of the anticipated construction and development capital required to complete the project, USSM said in a press release.
Following USSM’s formal application for debt funding, EXIM Bank will begin their formal due diligence process and conduct the required comprehensive underwriting to determine the appropriate terms and conditions of the loan.
By the end of 2023, USSM has obtained nearly $500 million in funding and commitments, the most recent being a $230 million financing from affiliates of Appian Capital Advisory LLP. Past funding commitments include $120 million from HPS Investment Partners and $50 million from offtake and sourcing partner Glencore.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
UAE suspends 32 gold refineries in money-laundering crackdown
The United Arab Emirates temporarily suspended activities at 32 gold refineries as part of an effort to curb money laundering.
The government is “intensifying inspection campaigns” at plants as it cracks down on financial crimes, according to a statement from the Ministry of Economy. The shuttered facilities — which represent about 5% of the UAE’s gold sector — will be halted until Oct. 24.
Officials determined that the plants committed a total of 256 violations, including not taking the necessary steps to identify risks, and not examining customer and transaction databases against names on terrorism watchlists.
The UAE is cleaning up its gold sector as part of a broader effort to rehabilitate its financial reputation, following concerns that it was turning a blind eye to money laundering and gold smuggling.
A report by development organization Swissaid in May estimated that two-thirds of the gold imported into the UAE from Africa in 2022 was smuggled, with much of it then re-exported to other countries. Switzerland, the world’s gold refining hub, has previously expressed concern about illicit bullion being shipped from the UAE.
Gold smuggling is an age-old practice, but it’s become all the more lucrative as the price of bullion has soared to record highs this year. Prices peaked at $2,483.73 an ounce in mid-July, supported by central bank buying, surging demand in China, geopolitical tensions and expectations of US monetary easing.
(By Jacob Reid)
Many Greek Ports Are Inadequate Says Masters Group Calling for Investments
Greek ports require investments and maintenance says masters' association (PEPEN)
Many of Greece's ports are inadequate and sometimes even dangerous according to the trade association representing Greek merchant marine masters. They are calling for increased attention and investment into the ports saying that some of the problems are simple neglect while others will require significant investments.
The Panhellenic Union of Merchant Marine Masters (PEPEN) submitted its annual report to the Ministry of Shipping and Island Policy at the end of July. The report details the group says, “The daily problems faced and recorded by the masters in all the ports of Greece.” The report is based on the observations submitted by masters who are members of the association.
It is not the first time the group has called for greater investment in the ports. They regularly also submit letters to the local port authorities citing issues. PEPEN also responds on behalf of its members to a broad range of issues and when the port authorities raise questions.
The Greek government says it recognizes some of the challenges and announced plans for a major investment program. They plan to spend more than $350 million at more than 50 ports.
Experts said the problems are longstanding and in part stem from the financial crisis Greece experienced in the 2010s. Ports have faced years of neglect as well as lacking investments to keep pace with growth in shipping and the demands of newer, larger vessels.
The 2024 annual report details the problems at each port. They cite a broad range of infrastructure concerns as well as problems with policing and control of the maritime traffic. The media highlights the problems become especially acute at this time of the year when Greece is experiencing peak tourism. Interisland ferries and vessels sailing from the mainland to the Aegean islands are filled with summer tourists.
PEPEN says its members in some cases “have to thread a needle,” to dock and maneuver their vessels. The complaints include ports that have silted up over the years meaning they no longer have adequate depth restricting maneuvering. They also cite the lack of controls over recreational boats and especially large yachts, which they said moor near the entrance to ports creating navigational challenges for commercial shipping.
Some of the issues are due to the number of ships trying to access some of the ports while others are infrastructure ranging from lack of lighting to inadequate park areas for cars, and passenger terminals that do not have adequate, if any, waiting areas for passengers before boarding the vessels.
The problems they said are not limited to the large ports and they contend smaller ports have been especially neglected. Even in a midsized port such as Kea, they are calling for lengthening the pier and improving the turning basin.
The report cites examples of piers that are crumbling and lighthouses and signal lights that need to be replaced or simply lack a working lightbulb.
PEPEN highlights a long list of problems calling for actions by the government to improve the ports. They said some of the issues are critical for safety and must be addressed immediately while recognizing that some issues require more time for planning and investment.
