Carbon markets underestimate the risks U.S. forests face from climate change

Forests can’t offset emissions as a carbon store if trees are constantly succumbing to droughts, pests and fires

University of California - Santa Barbara

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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — The world’s forests form a vast network of carbon reservoirs, keeping carbon sequestered from the atmosphere where its presence is disrupting Earth’s climate systems. Many corporate, national and sub-national climate policies rely on forests’ essential ability to store carbon, often tracked and funded through a system of “carbon credits” issued to polluting industries in exchange for protecting and restoring forests.

But if trees die — from wildfire, drought or insect infestation — large amounts of greenhouse gasses are released, exacerbating ongoing climate change. And the warming climate is accelerating this problem by making such disturbances more frequent and severe, but only in some places and not in others.

Scientists at the University of Utah and UC Santa Barbara, in collaboration with international experts, sought to determine which forests are most likely to release their stored carbon over the next 100 years, and whether current carbon-credit systems accurately account for those risks.

The results, published in Nature, show that there are places in the United States where carbon emissions from die-backs far exceed what is currently accounted for in carbon-credit systems. This is particularly true for the parched American West. Fortunately, the researchers point out ways it can be corrected.

“Getting to net zero emissions will take a portfolio of solutions,” said co-author Anna Trugman, a forest ecologist at UCSB. “But in many regions, escalating disturbance associated with climate change makes it riskier to count on forests to sequester carbon.”

“Forests are facing increasing durability risks due to climate change,” added senior author William Anderegg, a biology professor at the University of Utah. “Those risks have been underappreciated to date in multi-billion-dollar carbon markets.

“But with better science, we can set these policies up to potentially work better,” Anderegg continued. “We’re providing a potential solution as well.”

Carbon-credit programs aim to cover the risk of fire and other disturbances by using “buffer pools.” These are reserves of extra carbon credits set aside to compensate for forests that suddenly lose carbon if their trees burn or die. However, the study found these buffer pools are currently far too small for US forest projects within the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which manages one of the largest compliance carbon-credit programs in the nation. On average, they would need to be around six times larger to fully cover the expected losses over a century for the projects that have been set up so far.

The research team, which included scientists from seven other universities and organizations, used forest plot data, satellite observations and machine learning to predict where forest losses are most likely to occur. They mapped areas across the continental U.S., and calculated the risks of a carbon reversal — or carbon loss — occurring at least once in the next 100 years from wildfire, drought and insects. The maps show how risks vary across the landscape based on historical models and updated ones that account for climate change. The differences are stark.

While parts of the country remain relatively low risk, the portion of the country projected to experience a reversal expanded from 10% to 33% for wildfire; from 19% to 21% for drought; and from 23% to 25% for insects. Broad areas in Idaho, Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico show an 80% or more chance of experiencing such a carbon loss due to wildfire over the next century.

“Compared to other natural disturbances, we found that wildfire is the largest climate-sensitive risk to durability for forest nature-based climate solutions,” said co-lead author Chao Wu, now at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. “Our analysis shows for the first time what a robust, climate-informed buffer pool would look like to handle accelerating climate threats.”

Along with the maps, the Wilkes Center is releasing a set of interactive tools to help plan where and how to conduct forest management and conservation efforts with the highest chances of success.

Carbon credits are among a host of mechanisms to finance nature-based climate solutions. These strategies harness market incentives to encourage investments that keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Promoting tree growth is a great way to pull carbon and keep it locked up for decades — as long as the risk of trees dying prematurely is considered and appropriately managed.

“Nature-based climate solutions in forests aim to store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere,” Anderegg said. “Sometimes that forest carbon is claimed as a ‘carbon offset’ for fossil fuel emissions elsewhere. Somebody’s buying that credit, assuming that a ton of carbon in the trees is the same as a ton of carbon in fossil fuels that you emit to the atmosphere.”

For this system to function as a climate solution, that carbon has to remain in the trees for a long time. Projects are typically planned on a 100-year horizon in the major California program that the researchers examined. Many offset protocols assume risks are stable over time and space. In reality, risks vary widely by location and are increasing due to climate change. And this new research makes it possible for the first time to account for how risks vary through space and time.

Trugman’s lab is currently investigating which species will continue to thrive under emerging climate conditions, why this is, and what managers can do to increase the resilience of high-value ecosystems under threat.

“There is some positive news here,” Anderegg said. “Once you have the best-available science and data directly incorporated into programs and policies, you can then inform and strategically guide where new projects get developed.

“This ability to choose and really focus on forest carbon in low-risk areas is very promising,” he continued. “This can incentivize these forest activities where they’re likely to last, and then maybe steer clear of areas where forests are likely to be gone in 100 years.”

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Journal

Nature

 

Lab study reveals patterns of inheritance that defy Mendel's laws

Johns Hopkins Medicine

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Genetic information in the DNA and modifications, such as DNA methylation, define the epigenetic landscape and phenotype and show both Mendelian and non-Mendelian heredity.

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Credit: Art design by Michael Koldobskiy and Andrew Feinberg, illustration by Kate Zvorykina

Scientists have long known that the DNA code in genes is not the only way to pass genetic traits from parents to offspring. “Epigenetic” marks — chemical modifications to DNA that don’t change the DNA code itself — can also be passed down. 

Now, a new federally funded study using mice reveals that some of those marks — about 7% of them — can be inherited in ways that break the century-long understanding of the rules of inheritance explored and recorded by Gregor Mendel’s work with pea plants. The study also reveals new, unexpected examples of inheritance patterns that defy Mendel’s law — such as a naturally occurring paramutation, seen previously in plants and flies, and not in mammals.  

“Non-Mendelian patterns of inheriting epigenetics could be a faster way to acquire diverse or new traits than alterations in the genomic sequence itself, especially in response to environmental pressures,” says Andrew Feinberg, M.D., Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Whiting School of Engineering and Bloomberg School of Public Health, and co-leader of the research with colleagues at Texas A&M University. 

The new study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, was reported May 20 in Nature Genetics, as well as an accompanying Nature brief. 

The well-studied rules of genetic inheritance — known as Mendel’s Laws — cover how genetic material known as alleles sort themselves, are dominant or recessive, and in what ways they get passed down to new generations. Alleles are variations on genes that lead to a specific trait or disease state. In mammals, one allele is inherited from each parent, and either of those alleles can be dominant or recessive. 

The rules state, for example, that alleles in offspring are inherited from each parent, and the traits of dominant alleles prevail over recessive ones, which are silenced. Several previous studies have already shown that some patterns of epigenetic inheritance, such as genomic imprinting, can break the guiding principles established by the Austrian-born friar. The new study also found examples of genomic imprinting, but also other types of non-Mendelian patterns of epigenetic inheritance that surprised the scientists.  

In examples of genomic imprinting, an allele in either parent can be labeled as coming from sperm or an egg and silenced by methylation. Such imprinted alleles are passed down to offspring and are silenced not because they are recessive but based on which parent contributes the imprinted allele. The new research found imprinting examples in five additional genes. 

In addition to the new examples of genetic imprinting, results of the current study suggest that epigenetic patterns of inheritance that defy Mendel’s rules may be more frequent than described in other studies. In addition, the research team found epigenetic patterns passed down to offspring that were not present in either parent. 

For the study, researchers tracked how mice inherit a type of epigenetic change to DNA called methylation, in which chemical groups made up of carbon and hydrogen atoms are attached to the so-called promoter region of a gene, which turns it on or off. 

The scientists sampled tissue from three generations of male and female mice at 4–6 months old: 26 in the first group, 34 offspring in the second generation and 19 in the third generation.

They scoured extensive parts of the mouse genome in each tissue sample, following how the genomic sequence and 12 known inherited patterns of DNA methylation were passed down in the three generations of mice. 

Feinberg worked with co-corresponding authors David Threadgill, Ph.D., Regents professor at Texas A&M, and Kasper Hansen, Ph.D., professor of biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They worked with Johns Hopkins graduate student Adam Davidovich to develop new experimental and computational strategies to map methylation and genomic data together. 

In all, the researchers found 522 instances — about 7% of epigenetic inheritance patterns — in which methylation was inherited on non-sex chromosomes in a variety of ways that broke Mendel’s laws.

Some 54 of those instances represented rare or “emergent” types of epigenetic inheritance not present in either parent. For example, a cross between two mice with no methylation on the same allele, which should have resulted in a mouse that inherited no methylation on the allele, could instead result in a mouse with methylation on both alleles. “The methylation seemingly appeared out of nowhere,” says Feinberg. 

The scientists also found another rare type of inheritance called paramutation in a gene called Capn11, which encodes a calcium-dependent gene that regulates normal sperm development. Alterations in the human version of the gene cause infertility and problems with sperm. 

Paramutation occurs when methylation in one allele leads to methylation in another allele. The paramutation was located in an area of the gene associated with a repetitive element of a type known to be influenced by environmental exposure. “It’s almost like the methylation is transferred to another allele,” says Feinberg. He notes that epigenetic influences on the genome have been tied to environmental pressures such as environmental stress, trauma and diet. 

“This work may convince scientists to integrate both genomics and epigenomics more often for a complete understanding of how traits that produce disease and healthy states are inherited,” says Hansen. 

For their studies of the mouse genome, the research team used genomic sequencing involving “long-reads” of DNA segments that are between 10,000 pairs of chemical DNA letters up to more than a million chemical base pairs. Long-read sequencing is more labor-intensive, but it is better than short-read sequencing at identifying variations among alleles, as well as methylation spots that can be far away from the bulk of a gene. 

Feinberg says they plan to study epigenetic inheritance patterns using human genomic data, as well. That work may provide more insights for tracking non-Mendelian patterns of epigenetic inheritance that can inform clinical geneticists looking for patterns of disease in families. It may also help scientists study how environmental factors, such as diet, influence epigenetic inheritance patterns.

Other scientists who authored the study are Danila Cuomo and Alexandra Naron from Texas A&M University; Hang Su and Leonard McMillan from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Sandeep Kambhampati, Qingqing Gong and Rakel Tryggvadottir from Johns Hopkins. 

Funding for the research was provided by the National Institutes of Health (DP1DK119129, R35GM149323, RM1HG008529, R01DK130333), the National Science Foundation and a Texas A&M Health Science Center Seedling Grant. 

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Journal

Nature Genetics

Germany’s Merz says wouldn’t advise young people to move to US


By AFP
May 15, 2026


German Chancellor Friedrich Merz cited a worsening 'social climate' in America - Copyright POOL/AFP Matthias Schrader

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday he would not advise young people in his country to move to the United States for study or work, in the latest sign of cooling ties between Berlin and Washington.

Last month Merz had a high-profile spat with US President Donald Trump after the chancellor said Iran was “humiliating” Washington at the negotiating table.

Following the comment, Trump — who suggested Merz was doing a “terrible” job as leader — abruptly announced that the United States would pull 5,000 troops from bases in Germany.

At a gathering of German Catholics in the southern city of Wuerzburg on Friday, Merz garnered applause after saying: “I would not recommend to my children today that they go to the US to get an education and to work.”

He cited “the social climate that has suddenly developed” in the United States and said that “even the best educated in America have great difficulty in finding a job”.

Merz has traditionally been a transatlanticist in the mould of most centrist German politicians but the relationship with the US has become increasingly strained under Trump’s administration.

“I am a great admirer of America’s, but right now my admiration is not increasing,” he said, to laughter from the audience.

Even before the row over Iran, Merz had said that a cultural “rift” has opened between the United States and Europe due to the culture wars embraced by Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

The Trump administration has charged that Europe faces a “civilisational decline”, and has courted far-right parties on the continent.

Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO member Denmark, and his cutting back of support to Ukraine have also frayed ties between the US and its traditional European allies.

Mercedes Benz mulls diversification into defence


By AFP
May 16, 2026


US tariffs had an impact of hundreds of millions of euros on Mercedes-Benz - Copyright AFP/File STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN

The CEO of German automaking giant Mercedes-Benz has said he has not ruled out entering the defence industry.

“The world has become more unpredictable, and I think it is quite clear that Europe needs to strengthen its defence capabilities,” CEO Ola Kaellenius said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday.

“If we are able to play a positive role in this area, we would be ready to do so,” said Kaellenius, a German-Swedish national.

His remarks come amid Germany beefing up its military capacity in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The German defence industry has locked onto that trend, as illustrated by the rise of arms maker Rheinmetall in recent years, with the group recently pushing into the naval and dronemaking spheres.

In contrast, German automakers, such as Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, are battling crises, caught between tariffs and bitter Chinese competition.

In late March, the CEO of fellow German auto giant, Volkswagen, Oliver Blume, said he was “in contact” with defence companies, particularly those involved in missile defence, to convert a German factory to produce military transport equipment.

According to the Financial Times, discussions are under way with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the company that designed Israel’s Iron Dome.

Asked by AFP to comment on Kaellenius’s interview, a Mercedes-Benz spokesperson said the firm “has for many years been supplying chassis to specialised firms which equip and market them under their own responsibility and under their own brand for military applications”.

“Our activities in the security and defence sector constitute a strategic development focus that we will continue to actively pursue, in collaboration with our partners,” the spokesperson added.

In his Wall Street Journal interview, Kaellenius did not go into details on what kind of products Mercedes-Benz might manufacture.

He predicted that defence-related business would represent only a “minor part of Mercedes-Benz’s operations” compared with auto and van manufacture.

But he added defence could be “a rapidly growing niche that could also contribute to the group’s financial results.”

UN General Assembly to take up climate change ‘obligations’ resolution


By AFP
May 17, 2026


The tiny Pacific island nation of Vanuatu has taken the lead in pressing for climate change accountability - Copyright AFP JORGE GUERRERO

Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS

The UN General Assembly on Wednesday will weigh a draft resolution underlining states’ obligations to combat climate change, a long-awaited move that has been scaled back under pressure from major greenhouse gas emitters.

In 2024, the small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu spearheaded the General Assembly’s request for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the responsibility of states to fulfill their climate commitments.

The world’s top court last year ruled that states were obliged to tackle climate change under international law, and failing to do so would pave the way for “reparations” to vulnerable countries.

The decision exceeded climate advocates’ expectations, and Vanuatu in January proposed a new draft resolution to implement the ICJ ruling, which is non-binding but can be drawn on by courts around the world.

“For Vanuatu and for many climate-vulnerable states, this is ultimately about survival, but it is also about something wider: whether multilateralism can still respond to reality with unity,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate minister and a proponent of the cause for several years.

But the text was altered significantly after negotiations among states, with climate change taking a back seat to national security or industrial interests in many countries.

The resolution welcomes the ICJ opinion “as an authoritative contribution to the clarification of existing international law” and calls on states to “comply with their respective obligations” to protect the global climate.

It also emphasizes the measures needed to keep global warming limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, particularly “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” in keeping with a goal adopted by nearly 200 countries during a global climate meeting in Dubai in 2023.

However, the creation of an “International Register of Damage” to compile evidence of “damage, loss or injury attributable to climate change” has vanished from the current text, an initial draft of which was viewed by AFP.



– ‘Perseverance’ –



The register idea sparked backlash from the United States, China, the European Union, Japan and multiple oil-producing nations that argued it went beyond the ICJ opinion, diplomatic sources told AFP.

The countries most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions also regularly oppose any mechanism that could require them to pay reparations to nations at greatest risk of devastating impacts from climate change.

Vanuatu insists that the resolution avoids this.

“Let me also be clear about what the resolution does not do. It does not create new legal obligations. It does not adjudicate disputes. It does not attribute responsibility to any state,” Regenvanu said, describing the text as “a careful and balanced response to the Court’s guidance.”

Despite the watered-down draft, the resolution is unlikely to be adopted by the consensus seen in 2024, according to diplomatic sources, who expect at least one state to call for a vote on the matter.

Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said the current version of the resolution was “still a strong text, and it really matters that it passes.”

“This text represents perseverance in the pursuit of climate justice, even in the face of enormous political pressure,” she told AFP.

Climate advocates hope that the concept of a damage registry can be brought to the table in the future via the UN secretary-general, as the draft resolution calls on the UN chief to submit a report the General Assembly “containing ways to advance compliance with all obligations” from the ICJ ruling.

Ikea to cut 850 jobs at parent company

ByAFP
May 18, 2026


Ikea image: — © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Brandon Bell

Inter Ikea Group, the holding company that oversees Ikea, announced Monday that it was cutting 850 jobs, saying its organisation with 27,700 employees overall had grown too “complex”.

The group, which owns the Ikea brand name and manages the retailer’s product range as well as sourcing, said the cuts were needed to simplify its structure.

“Despite many positive achievements, Inter Ikea Group has grown a bit too complex and too fragmented in a retail environment that requires simplicity and speed,” Henrik Elm, chief financial officer of Inter Ikea Group, said in a statement.

Going forward the group plans to focus on three goals: “Increase sales growth, significantly reduce prices, and boost visitation across customer meeting points.”

Of the 850 staff positions being cut, around 300 will be in Sweden “based on current plans,” Inter Ikea said, adding that the “final impact” would be confirmed as the process progressed.

In November, Inter Ikea reported a 32 percent drop in annual profit for its 2024-2025 financial year as it lowered prices to boost sales and faced higher costs due to US tariffs.

Sales for its year ending in August fell by one percent to 44.6 billion euros ($51.9 billion), but sales volume increased by 2.6 percent and the number of store visitors rose by 1.9 percent.

Ingka Group, which owns most Ikea franchises and employs 166,000 people in 37 countries, announced in March that it also was restructuring to simplify its organisation, and said up to 800 positions could be cut.

India’s strategic $9 bn megaport plan for pristine island


By AFP
May 18, 2026


Local residents sit o Old Shastri Nagaram Beach on the outskirts of Campbell Bay on Great Nicobar Island - Copyright AFP Shubham KOUL

Bhuvan BAGGA

On a remote island in the Andaman Sea, bulldozers are tearing into pristine forests that are home to one of Earth’s most isolated people — part of India’s ambition for a $9 billion megaport, airport and city.

Designed to rival China’s investments around the Indian Ocean, New Delhi’s colossal project will be built on Great Nicobar Island, a site offering a naval presence far closer to Southeast Asia than India’s mainland.

Authorities promise sweeping economic transformation at the entrance to one of the world’s busiest waterways — the Strait of Malacca, through which up to 30 percent of global trade passes.

But secretive military moves are also afoot, with plans for upgraded or new runways for both military and civilian use.

“The Great Nicobar Island Project, which is of strategic, defence and national importance, transforms the region into a major hub of maritime and air connectivity in the Indian Ocean region,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in September.

Access to parts of Great Nicobar requires special permits, particularly for any contact with Indigenous groups.

Roads, bridges and docks will be built on the island, opening it up for port activity and tourism, and serving expanded military installations.

But the project, nearly 3,000 kilometres (1,860 miles) from New Delhi, has also sparked opposition from residents and environmentalists.

Roughly 95 percent of the 910 square kilometre (351 square mile) island, encircled by lagoons and coral reefs, is biologically under-explored forest rich in unique species.

Nearly a fifth of the land will be cleared for the project.

Rights group Survival International warned that the island’s Indigenous groups face “genocide in the name of ‘mega-development'”.

Totalling around 1,200 people, these include the Nicobarese as well as the Shompen, hunter-gatherers who shun contact with outsiders, who Survival describes as “one of the most isolated peoples on Earth.”

– Strategic –

The government insists it has met all “green” requirements and has pledged to protect Great Nicobar’s peoples, communities, as well as its unique flora and fauna, by establishing protected zones.

India’s environmental court has said that it did “not find any good ground to interfere” with the plans.

“We have also noted… the area is located in China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy which is sought to be countered by Indian authorities under India’s ‘Act East’ policy,” the court added.

Beijing has long been accused of seeking to develop facilities around the Indian Ocean — a so-called “string of pearls” — to counter India’s rise and secure its own economic interests.

Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav has said that the project “poses no threat to the island’s tribal groups, does not come in the way of any species, and does not jeopardise the eco-sensitivity of the region”.

The first $4 billion phase on Great Nicobar — construction of a port at Galathea Bay and airport at Campbell Bay — should be completed within three years, according to the archipelago’s governor, former navy admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi.

Once finished, the container port will handle more than 20 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), making it one of India’s three largest ports.

“In the long run, it may well be competing to become the container handling hub in the entire Indo-Pacific region,” Joshi said, rivalling Singapore and Malaysia’s Port Klang.

The megaport may be the showpiece, but the new infrastructure on the southern tip of the 836-island archipelago is only part of a grand plan for the chain, stretching 800 kilometres (500 miles).

Government development plans envision the expansion of existing naval and air facilities across the islands.

Joshi has said two new airports will be built — in the archipelago’s capital Sri Vijayapuram and on Great Nicobar — and older runways expanded to three-kilometre strips, capable of handling heavy-lift cargo aeroplanes.

“All of them will be dual-use runways, used by military and for commercial flights,” Joshi said in February.

One already upgraded runway, on Car Nicobar island, was inaugurated in January by India’s Chief of Defence Staff, Anil Chauhan.

Beyond the runways, the military aspect of the project remains largely secret.

Yet the island’s strategic position has not escaped notice over the centuries, from India’s medieval Cholas to the British, all of whom stationed warships there, just 175 kilometres (110 miles) from Indonesia.

“Great Nicobar Island is like India’s unsinkable aircraft carrier,” said Nitin Gokhale, a New Delhi-based security expert.

“The fact that everyone, including the Chinese, can see our ability to keep a close watch, creates a new paradigm for us.”

– ‘Nonsense’ –

But environmentalists view the plans with dread.

Manish Chandi has been one of the few to regularly visit the small villages of the Nicobarese, which are off-limits except with special permission.

“I just don’t understand the rationale for the project,” Chandi said, noting that there was no clarity about how huge investments can be recovered economically.

Plans extend beyond the port to include a gas-solar power plant, hotels, and a town across 161 square kilometres — multiple times larger than the archipelago’s capital.

The island’s population is projected to grow, from 9,000 people today to 336,000 by 2055.

Tourism projections anticipate 98,000 visitors by 2029, and more than one million by 2055.

The government has promised to compensate for the swathes of trees cut down by planting seedlings in Haryana — a northern state next to New Delhi.

“It is all nonsense,” Chandi added. “We are removing crocodiles from their natural habitat, and saying we are going to conserve them.”

– ‘Duty’ –

Some islanders warn that the isolated Indigenous populations’ millennia-old culture risks being bulldozed away.

“If we lose control of these lands, our culture too will be lost,” said the Nicobarese’s most senior leader, 54-year-old Barnabas Manju.

The Indians who arrived from the mainland are also sceptical.

The first families from outside the islands only settled in 1969, encouraged by the government who feared losing control of the sparsely populated territory.

Sharda Devi, 55, a settler’s daughter, recalls the first arrivals “toiling in some of the harshest conditions” to carve plantations out of the tangled forests.

She initially welcomed the project, before realising the airport would encroach on her land.

“The government is going to take back 11 acres (4.5 hectares) alloted to my father, without offering us another suitable plot of land or even proper compensation,” she said.

Her neighbour, 71-year-old Kusum Mishra, who arrived 50 years ago, also dismissed the “petty compensation” offered, complaining that “they are uprooting us and destroying our lives.”

– ‘See the world’ –

Around 400 kilometres away, change is already starting to ripple through the archipelago’s island of Little Andaman, which Joshi has said will see the “next developmental thrust” after Great Nicobar.

Raja, one of just 143 surviving members of the En-iregale, or “perfect person” in their language, describes a life on Little Andaman where his people still fish in bountiful coral reefs or hunt wild boar in the areas of forest still protected by their millennia-old stewardship.

“We don’t need anything from the government — or anyone,” he told AFP, stressing that “we have everything”.

Past forced contact with outsiders brought trauma, including disease outbreaks that devastated Indigenous populations lacking immunity.

Many of Raja’s community, more widely known as the Onge, still live in near isolation in neat thatched homes on stilts in coastal forests.

But contact is growing rapidly today, even if outsiders are barred from entering Indigenous territory, with members curious about the wider world — and the modern comforts it can offer.

Authorities, treading a delicate line in managing an increasing number of visitors, began last year to recruit more than 500 young men from communities across the archipelago as police “homeguards”.

“They are sons of the soil,” said HGS Dhaliwal, police chief of the archipelago.

Raja, along with his friend Jhaj, was among the first five men from their community recruited.

Jhaj, who speaks some Hindi, which he learnt in a government school around their settlement, has become a keen volleyball player.

Weeks after completing his training, he made a major drug seizure, after finding a seven-kilogramme (15-pound) methamphetamine stash, hidden by traffickers who ply the Andaman Sea south from Myanmar.

“These developments point to better things on the horizon,” Ashish Biswas, 54, who works for a government-backed society, Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti (AAJVS), which mediates between locals and outsiders.

“I see so many of them in our local school wanting to study and improve, to follow Jhaj and Raja’s inspiration.”

Raja said that his salary was attracting other young members of his community, interested in the world beyond their island.

“They now know that if they wear the uniform, they too will get to travel outside the village and see other places,” Raja said.
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India’s Adani to pay $275 mn settlement to US over alleged Iran sanctions violations


ByAFP
May 18, 2026


Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), part of Gautam Adani's sprawling multinational conglomerate of companies, will pay the settlement amount over allegations it imported Iranian LPG - Copyright AFP Shammi MEHRA

One of Indian billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani’s companies will pay the United States $275 million to settle a probe into whether it violated Washington’s sanctions against Iran, the US Treasury said in a statement on Monday.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the agreement had been reached with Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), part of the magnate’s sprawling multinational conglomerate of companies.

“AEL agreed to settle its potential civil liability for 32 apparent violations of OFAC’s Iran sanctions,” the Treasury said, pointing to AEL’s purchases of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) shipments between November 2023 and June 2025.

Monday’s announcement came days after Adani agreed to pay a separate $18 million settlement in a US civil court case linked to corruption, without admitting guilt, according to one of his other companies.

In that case, Adani was accused of having participated in an estimated $250 million scheme to bribe Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts.

Monday’s US settlement announcement said AEL had cooperated with OFAC’s probe and agreed to additional nonmonetary remedial measures to strengthen compliance with US sanctions.

The probe focused on LPG imports arranged through a Dubai-based supplier that claimed to be exporting Omani and Iraqi gas, OFAC said.

“Red flags should have put AEL on notice that the LPG actually originated from Iran,” the statement said.

The Adani Group is one of India’s largest business empires, operating businesses ranging from ports and power plants to cement factories and media houses.

Gautam Adani, one of India’s richest men, has been rocked in recent years by corporate fraud allegations and a stock crash.

Adani is a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hails from the leader’s home state of Gujarat.

India is the world’s second-largest buyer of LPG, and the fourth-largest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), much of which is sourced through the Middle East.

Ex-Google man takes reins at under-fire BBC


ByAFP
May 18, 2026


New BBC director general Matt Brittin arrives at the BBC's central London headquarters - Copyright AFP Brook Mitchell

A former Google executive took over as the BBC’s new director-general on Monday amid proposed job cuts and a $10-billion lawsuit brought by US President Donald Trump, arguing that the world now “needs the BBC more than ever”.

Matt Brittin, 57, who has no broadcasting or journalism experience, starts the job against a background of drastic shifts in the media landscape.

The British-born executive was for over a decade president of Google’s Europe, Middle East and Africa division, which earns around a third of its revenue. He previously worked as a consultant for McKinsey.

Arriving at the BBC’s central London headquarters for his first day in charge, he was greeted by a handful of placard-waving protesters from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).


The BBC is set to cut up to 2,000 jobs amid financial pressures and a challenging media landscape – Copyright AFP/File Susannah Ireland

The corporation has said it is looking to axe up to 2,000 jobs as it tries to reduce costs by 10 percent over the next three years.

Brittin told reporters he was “honoured” and “humbled” to be taking on the role.

But he warned that “tough choices are unavoidable as we make savings”, in a note to staff.

“We must be where audiences are, and experiment more bravely: test ideas, learn quickly and back what works,” he added.

Brittin replaces Tim Davie, who had held the BBC post since 2020. He resigned in November over the Trump lawsuit.

– Reinvention –

Trump launched his legal action over a documentary that included an edited clip of a speech he made ahead of the US Capitol riot in January 2021. The edit made it appear he explicitly urged supporters to attack the seat of Congress.

The BBC said in March it had formally asked a US federal court in Florida to dismiss the lawsuit.

Brittin also faces the politically sensitive task of renegotiating the BBC’s Royal Charter that outlines the corporation’s governance. Its current charter will end next year.

A sizeable proportion of the BBC’s income comes from the licence fee, which is payable by all UK households with a television, or whose occupants watch live screening online.

But the BBC lost more than £1.1 billion in revenues last year as fewer homes felt the need to apply for one, a parliamentary committee report said in November.

The Trump lawsuit is the latest scandal to hit the corporation.

Earlier in 2025 it was forced to issue several apologies for “serious flaws” in the making of another documentary entitled “Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone”, broadcast last February.

In October it accepted a sanction from the UK media watchdog for what was deemed a “materially misleading” programme, whose child narrator was later revealed to be the son of Hamas’s former deputy agriculture minister.

Brittin said the BBC had “proved throughout its history how quickly it can reinvent itself to serve the needs of audiences”.

“We need, collectively, to call on that sense of urgency now. That means moving with velocity and clarity,” he added in his note to staff.

New York art auctions roar back with blockbuster sales


ByAFP
May 19, 2026


Mark Rothko's 'Brown and Blacks in Reds' was among the pieces recently put up for auction in New York - Copyright AFP TIMOTHY A. CLARY

Raphaëlle PELTIER

With record prices for Jackson Pollock, Constantin Brancusi and Mark Rothko, New York’s spring auctions are soaring, confirming a trend that began in late 2025: blockbuster sales are back.

According to an AFP database, 12 works have already sold for more than $30 million this May in the city, including two that exceeded $100 million.

That’s a reversal following a slump in sales leading up to 2025, which experts attributed to global economic uncertainty and a lack of high-value works on the market.

“We’re really in a trend reversal,” Thierry Ehrmann, head of art market information firm Artprice, told AFP.

A Jackson Pollock painting on Monday became the fourth most expensive work ever sold at auction when it was bought at Christie’s in New York.

With its black drips of paint accented by touches of red on a huge canvas spanning over three meters (nine feet), Pollock’s “Number 7A, 1948” sold for $181.2 million.

The previous record for American painter Pollock was $61.2 million, set in 2021.

Also on Monday, a bronze head cast by the French-Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi reached $107.6 million — compared with $71.2 million for his previous record in 2018.



– Market shift –



The first signs of a spending surge date back to late 2025.

Sixteen works sold for more than $30 million that year, all in New York, with two records at Sotheby’s.

Bought for $236.4 million, “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt became the second most expensive work ever sold at auction.

And “The Dream (The Bed),” a self‑portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was acquired for $54.7 million — making it the priciest painting by a woman.

Market analysts note that many of these works come from prestigious private collections released onto the market in single blocks, which increases their appeal to major collectors.

Ehrmann, of Artprice, said there has also been a shift in the demographic of buyers.

“It’s no longer a market for the ultra‑rich,” he said, with younger people aged around 35 pursuing auctions, often drawn from the tech world and the global south.

And more buyers are women, Ehrmann said, which can benefit female artists.

The auction record for the American painter Alice Neel was broken on Monday at Christie’s, with $5.7 million for “Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia).”

The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the “Salvator Mundi,” (Savior of the World), a Renaissance work attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for $450 million in 2017.
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